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"Arias, Omar"
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Geographic Information Systems (GISs) Based on WebGIS Architecture: Bibliometric Analysis of the Current Status and Research Trends
Geographic information systems (GISs) based on WebGIS architectures have transformed geospatial data visualization and analysis, offering rapid access to critical information and enhancing decision making across sectors. This study conducted a bibliometric review of 358 publications using the Web of Science database. The analysis utilized tools, such as Bibliometrix (version R 4.3.0) and Biblioshiny (version 1.7.5), to study authors, journals, keywords, and collaborative networks in the field of information systems. This study identified two relevant clusters in the literature: (1) voluntary geographic information (VGI) and crowdsourcing, focusing on web integration for collaborative mapping through contributions from non-professionals and (2) GIS management for decision making, highlighting web-based architectures, open sources, and service-based approaches for storing, processing, monitoring, and sharing geo-referenced information. The journals, authors, and geographical distribution of the most important publications were identified. China, Italy, the United States, Germany, and India have excelled in the application of geospatial technologies in areas such as the environment, risk, sustainable development, and renewable energy. These results demonstrate the impact of web-based GISs on forest conservation, climate change, risk management, urban planning, education, public health, and disaster management. Future research should integrate AI, mobile applications, and geospatial data security in areas aligned with sustainable development goals (SDGs) and other global agendas.
Journal Article
Challenges to capture the big five personality traits in non-WEIRD populations
Can personality traits be measured and interpreted reliably across the world? While the use of Big Five personality measures is increasingly common across social sciences, their validity outside of western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) populations is unclear. Adopting a comprehensive psychometric approach to analyze 29 face-to-face surveys from 94,751 respondents in 23 low- and middle-income countries, we show that commonly used personality questions generally fail to measure the intended personality traits and show low validity. These findings contrast with the much higher validity of these measures attained in internet surveys of 198,356 self-selected respondents from the same countries. We discuss how systematic response patterns, enumerator interactions, and low education levels can collectively distort personality measures when assessed in large-scale surveys. Our results highlight the risk of misinterpreting Big Five survey data and provide a warning against naïve interpretations of personality traits without evidence of their validity.
Paper
Remote sensing in an index-based insurance design for hedging economic impacts on rice cultivation
Rice production in Ecuador is steadily affected by extreme climatic events that make it difficult for farmers to cope with production risk, threatening rural livelihoods and food security in the country. Developing agricultural insurance is a policy option that has gained traction in the last decade. Index-based agricultural insurance has become a promising alternative that allows insurance companies to ascertain and quantify losses without verifying a catastrophic event in situ, lowering operative costs and easing implementation. But its development can be hindered by basis risk, which occurs when real losses in farms do not fit accurately with the selected index. Avoiding basis risk requires assessing the variability within the insurance application area and considering it for representative index selection. In this context, we have designed an index-based insurance (IBI) that uses a vegetation index (normalized difference vegetation index – NDVI) as an indicator of drought and flood impact on rice in the canton of Babahoyo (Ecuador). Babahoyo was divided in two agro-ecological homogeneous zones (AHZs) to account for variability, and two NDVI threshold values were defined to consider, first, the event impact on crops (physiological threshold) and, second, its impact on the gross margin (economic threshold). This design allows us to set up accurate insurance premiums and compensation that fit the particular conditions of each AHZ, reducing basis risk.
Journal Article
The skills balancing act in Sub-Saharan Africa : investing in skills for productivity, inclusivity, and adaptability
Sub-Saharan Africa has the youngest population of any region of the world, and that growing working-age population represents a major opportunity to reduce poverty and increase shared prosperity. But the region's workforce is the least skilled in the world, constraining economic prospects. Despite economic growth, declining poverty, and investments in skills-building, too many students in too many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are not acquiring the foundational skills they need to thrive and prosper in an increasingly competitive global economy. This report examines the balancing act that individuals and countries face in making productive investments in both a wide range of skills – cognitive, socio-emotional, and technical – and a wide range of groups – young children through working adults – so that Sub-Saharan Africa will thrive.
eBook
Enhanced seedling growth by 3‐n‐pentadecylphenolethanolamide is mediated by fatty acid amide hydrolases in upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.)
Fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) is a conserved amidase that is known to modulate the levels of endogenous N‐acylethanolamines (NAEs) in both plants and animals. The activity of FAAH is enhanced in vitro by synthetic phenoxyacylethanolamides resulting in greater hydrolysis of NAEs. Previously, 3‐n‐pentadecylphenolethanolamide (PDP‐EA) was shown to exert positive effects on the development of Arabidopsis seedlings by enhancing Arabidopsis FAAH (AtFAAH) activity. However, there is little information regarding FAAH activity and the impact of PDP‐EA in the development of seedlings of other plant species. Here, we examined the effects of PDP‐EA on growth of upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L. cv Coker 312) seedlings including two lines of transgenic seedlings overexpressing AtFAAH. Independent transgenic events showed accelerated true‐leaf emergence compared with non‐transgenic controls. Exogenous applications of PDP‐EA led to increases in overall seedling growth in AtFAAH transgenic lines. These enhanced‐growth phenotypes coincided with elevated FAAH activities toward NAEs and NAE oxylipins. Conversely, the endogenous contents of NAEs and NAE‐oxylipin species, especially linoleoylethanolamide and 9‐hydroxy linoleoylethanolamide, were lower in PDP‐EA treated seedlings than in controls. Further, transcripts for endogenous cotton FAAH genes were increased following PDP‐EA exposure. Collectively, our data corroborate that the enhancement of FAAH enzyme activity by PDP‐EA stimulates NAE‐hydrolysis and that this results in enhanced growth in seedlings of a perennial crop species, extending the role of NAE metabolism in seedling development beyond the model annual plant species, Arabidopsis thaliana.
Journal Article
Data Mining to Evaluate the Effect of Eichhornia crassipes and Lemna minor in the Phytoremediation of Wastewater in the Canton of Milagro
The constant increase in industrialization and urbanization has led to the regular discharge of wastewater into the environment in excessive amounts, which has caused significant impacts on both human and wildlife ecosystems. The sustainable management and treatment of wastewater, whether of industrial or domestic origin, represents a crucial challenge in this century. In this study, phytoremediation was employed as a wastewater treatment strategy using two species of aquatic macrophytes: water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and duckweed (Lemna minor). The study was conducted over seven consecutive evaluation periods, with five-day intervals between each. The objective was to apply the multivariate HJ-Biplot methodology to evaluate the effects of phytoremediation of two species of aquatic microphytes on the physicochemical characteristics of wastewater from Milagro canton, Ecuador. Additionally, a microbiological analysis was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the floating macrophytes. The analysis was based on the measurement of various physicochemical parameters, such as pH, electrical conductivity (EC), dissolved oxygen (DO), oxidation–reduction potential (ORP), salinity, total dissolved solids (TDSs), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), hardness, and temperature. The results showed that the highest efficiency in pollutant removal was achieved with duckweed (Lemna minor) in five out of nine measured parameters, suggesting that this species was the most effective compared to the control sample and Eichhornia crassipes. The capacity of these macrophytes for wastewater treatment was confirmed by this study. To ensure effective water purification, timely extraction of aquatic macrophytes from water bodies is recommended. If this collection is not properly carried out, the nutrients absorbed and stored in the plant tissues may be released back into the aquatic environment due to plant decomposition.
Journal Article
Two legume fatty acid amide hydrolase isoforms with distinct preferences for microbial- and plant-derived acylamides
Fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) is a widely conserved amidase in eukaryotes, perhaps best known for inactivating
N
-acylethanolamine lipid mediators. However, FAAH enzymes hydrolyze a wide range of acylamide substrates. Analysis of FAAHs from multiple angiosperm species revealed two conserved phylogenetic groups that differed in key conserved residues in the substrate binding pocket. While the foundation group of plant FAAHs, designated FAAH1, has been studied at the structural and functional level in
Arabidopsis thaliana
, nothing is known about FAAH2 members. Here, we combined computational and biochemical approaches to compare the structural and enzymatic properties of two FAAH isoforms in the legume
Medicago truncatula
designated MtFAAH1 and MtFAAH2a. Differences in structural and physicochemical properties of the substrate binding pockets, predicted from homology modeling, molecular docking, and molecular dynamic simulation experiments, suggested that these two FAAH isoforms would exhibit differences in their amidohydrolase activity profiles. Indeed, kinetic studies of purified, recombinant MtFAAHs indicated a reciprocal preference for acylamide substrates with MtFAAH1 more efficiently utilizing long-chain acylamides, and MtFAAH2a more efficiently hydrolyzing short-chain and aromatic acylamides. This first report of the enzymatic behavior of two phylogenetically distinct plant FAAHs will provide a foundation for further investigations regarding FAAH isoforms in legumes and other plant species.
Journal Article
Back to work : growing with jobs in Europe and Central Asia
Creating more and better jobs is arguably the most critical challenge to boosting shared prosperity in ECA. This report answers two questions: How can the countries create more jobs? Should there be specific policies to help workers access those jobs?. In answering them, the report examines the role of reforms, firms, skills, incentives and barriers to work, and labor mobility through the lens of two contextual factors: the legacy of centralized planned economies and the mounting demographic pressures associated with rapid aging in some countries and soaring numbers of youth entering the workforce in others. The main findings of the report are: i) market reforms pay off in terms of jobs and productivity, although with a lag; ii) a small fraction of superstar high-growth firms, largely young, account for most of new jobs created in the region- thus, countries, especially late reformers, need to unleash the potential of high levels of latent entrepreneurship to start-up new firms; iii) skills gaps hinder employment prospects, especially of youth and older workers, due to the inadequate response of the education and training system to changes in the demand for skills; iv) employment is hindered by high implicit taxes on work for those transitioning to work from inactivity or unemployment and barriers that affect especially women, minorities, youth and older workers; and, v) low internal labor mobility prevents labor relocation to places with greater job creation potential. The report argues that to get more people back to work by growing with jobs, countries need to regain the momentum for economic and institutional reforms that existed before the crisis in order to: (i) lay the fundamentals to create jobs for all workers, by pushing reforms to create the enabling environment for existing firms to grow, become more productive, or exit the market and tap on entrepreneurship potential for new firms to emerge and succeed or fail fast and cheap; and (ii) implement policies to support workers so they are prepared to take on the new jobs being created, by having the right skills, incentives and access to work, and being ready to move to places with the highest job creation potential.
eBook
Poverty reduction and growth : virtuous and vicious circles
That raising income levels alleviates poverty, and that economic growth can be more or less effective in doing so, is well known and has received renewed attention in the search for pro-poor growth. What is less well explored is the reverse channel: that poverty may, in fact, be part of the reason for a countrys poor growth performance. This more elabborated view of the development process opens the door to the existence of vicious circles in which low growth results in high poverty and high poverty in turn results in low growth. Poverty Reduction and Growth is about the existence of these vicious circles in Latin America and the Caribbean about the ways and means to convert them into virtuous circles in which poverty reduction and high growth reinforce each other. Through its analysis of fresh data and the attention it pays to issues such as the persistent inequality in the region, the role played by various microdeterminants of income, and the potential existence of human capital underinvestment traps, this title should be a valuable contribution to the current regional debate on poverty and growth, a debate that is critical to the design of policies conducive to enhancing welfare in all is dimensions among the poor of Latin America and the Caribbean.
eBook