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In this work, a novel approach for generating rescheduling knowledge which can be used in real-time for handling unforeseen events without extra deliberation is presented. For generating such control knowledge, the rescheduling task is modelled and solved as a closed-loop control problem by resorting to the integration of a schedule state simulator with a rescheduling agent that can learn successful schedule repairing policies directly from a variety of simulated transitions between schedule states, using as input readily available schedule color-rich Gantt chart images, and negligible prior knowledge. The generated knowledge is stored in a deep Q-network, which can be used as a computational tool in a closed-loop rescheduling control way that select repair actions to make progress towards a goal schedule state, without requiring to compute the rescheduling problem solution every time a disruptive event occurs and safely generalize control knowledge to unseen schedule states. Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa

Abstract: Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), an important environmental pollutant, is produced as the result of incomplete combustion of organic materials in many industries and food cooking process. It has been purposed that BaP induces hepatotoxicity through oxidative stress and apoptosis. Several studies have shown that melatonin can protect against chemical-induced apoptosis through autophagy pathway. In this study, we assessed the modulating effect of melatonin, a well-known antioxidant, on BaP-induced hepatotoxicity through induction of autophagy. Thirty male mice were treated daily for 28 consecutive days. BaP (75 mg/kg; oral gavage) and melatonin (10 and 20 mg/kg, i.p.) were administered to mice. The liver histopathology and the levels of apoptosis and autophagy proteins as well as the expression of miR-34a were determined. The BaP exposure induced severe liver histological injury and markedly enhanced AST, ALT and MDA level. Also, apoptosis proteins and hepatic miR-34a expression increased. However, the level of Sirt1 and autophagy markers such as LC3 II/I ratio and Beclin-1 reduced. The co-administration of melatonin reversed all changes caused by BaP. In summary, melatonin appears to be effective in BaP-induced hepatotoxicity maybe through the miR-34a/Sirt1/autophagy molecular pathway.

Abstract: Oxidative stress induced by the oxidative pathway dysregulation following ischemia/reperfusion has been proposed as an important cause of neuronal death and brain damage. The proteins of the thioredoxin (Trx) family are crucial mediators of protein function regulating the intracellular hydrogen peroxide levels and redoxsensitive post-translational protein changes. This study evaluates the long-term effects of common carotid artery ligation-induced ischemia/reperfusion on the protein expression and distribution of fourteen members of the Trx family and related proteins (Grx1, Grx2, Grx3, Grx5, Prx1, Prx2, Prx3, Prx4, Prx5, Prx6, Trx1, Trx2, TrxR1, TrxR2) in the most hypoxia susceptible rat brain areas, namely, cerebellum, corpus striatum, and the hippocampus. The thioredoxin proteins displayed a complex, cell-type, and tissue-specific expression pattern following ischemia/reperfusion.

Abstract: The Universal Child Allowance (AUH) is an Argentine cash transfer programme that conditions payment to parents on the fulfilment of health and education conditions for their children. While the impact of the AUH on education is well known, its effects on health have been less explored. This paper assesses the direct effect of the programme on children attending routine medical exams and receiving scheduled vaccinations, the health conditions of the programme, along with indirect health-related outcomes to explore the wider potential effects on child health. Using microdata from the Argentine Social Debt Survey (EDSA), a quasi-experimental design is implemented to determine the average treatment effect on AUH recipients. The AUH is found to have no effect on the behaviours on which it is conditioned or on dental visits, but it does increase food security. The paper discusses the implications of these findings for the design and implementation of programme conditionalities.

This paper proposes to apply pre-trained Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) for the early detection of two common grapevine diseases: peronospora and o´ıdio. These diseases present similar symptoms and are of great viticultural importance. Our objective is to train a CNN using transfer learning techniques to accurately detect the presence of early symptoms of the diseases under study. To achieve that, we’ll design a pipeline that starts with data acquisition in the field and finalizes with the early disease identification, including class definition, labeling, image preprocessing and training process of the CNN, employing edge computing-based service computing paradigm to overcome some inherent problems of traditional mobile cloud computing paradigm. Facultad de Informática

Garlic is a relevant crop worldwide, with more than 1.6 M hectares and a production of 30 M tons. In Argentina the crop is located in the western part of the country, in the provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. The vast majority of the local production is exported, generating an average income of 150 M USD. Garlic stakeholders and growers constitute a dynamic sector which constantly demands new tools to improve their efficiency, in a cost-effective manner. In this regard, previous experiments have evaluated the use of remote sensing to estimate garlic growth variables, particularly associated to irrigation and nutrition practices and weather conditions. However, the correlation with pest/disease outbreaks are scarce and often related to controlled conditions environments. White rot (WR), caused by the soilborne fungus Stromatinia cepivora, is an increasing threaten to garlic crops worldwide. Reports mention that WR causes 50% of yield reduction and sometimes can lead to complete loss. Once present in a field, the fungus produces resistance structures called sclerotia that remain in the soil for long periods of time, infecting any Allium crop for many years after that. Hence, the early detection of the presence of WR is essential for the sustainability of the garlic production in the region. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the usefulness of multispectral images for the estimation of production variables and crop health in garlic. Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa

Background The Latin American (LA) region is still facing an ongoing epidemiological transition and shows a complex public health scenario regarding non-communicable diseases (NCDs). A healthy diet and consumption of specific food groups may decrease the risk of NCDs, however there is a lack of dietary intake data in LA countries. Objective Provide updated data on the dietary intake of key science-based selected food groups related to NCDs risk in LA countries. Design ELANS (Latin American Study of Nutrition and Health) is a multicenter cross-sectional study assessing food consumption from an urban sample between15 to 65 years old from 8 LA countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela). Two 24-HR were obtained from 9,218 individuals. The daily intake of 10 food groups related to NCDs risk (fruits; vegetables; legumes/beans; nuts and seeds; whole grains products; fish and seafood; yogurt; red meat; processed meats; sugar-sweetened beverages (ready-to-drink and homemade)) were assessed and compared to global recommendations. Results Only 7.2% of the overall sample reached WHO’s recommendation for fruits and vegetables consumption (400 grams per day). Regarding the dietary patterns related to a reduced risk of NCDs, among the overall sample legumes and fruits were the food groups with closer intake to the recommendation, although much lower than expected (13.1% and 11.5%, respectively). Less than 3.5% of the sample met the optimal consumption level of vegetables, nuts, whole grains, fish and yogurt. Largest country-dependent differences in average daily consumption were found for legumes, nuts, fish, and yogurt. Mean consumption of SSB showed large differences between countries. Conclusion Diet intake quality is deficient for nutrient-dense food groups, suggesting a higher risk for NCDs in the urban LA region in upcoming decades. These data provide relevant and up-to-date information to take urgent public health actions to improve consumption of critically foods in order to prevent NCDs. Coca Cola Company///Estados Unidos International Life Science Institute//ILSI/Argentina Hospital Infantil Sabará///Brazil Universidad de Costa Rica//UCR/Costa Rica Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile///Chile Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Colombia///Colombia Universidad Central de Venezuela//UCV/Venezuela Universidad San Francisco de Quito///Ecuador Instituto de Investigación Nutricional de Perú///Perú UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Salud::Facultad de Medicina::Escuela de Medicina

We propose and implement a methodology for data collection and analysis of Twitter discussions linked to the Argentine economy. Starting with a list of “seed users” later expanded based on following-follower relationships, we build a network of interactions and fetch their tweet timelines. Then, we use a community detection model to compress the structure of underlying relationships and a standard topic model to represent the latent issues discussed in each community. Results suggest that this strategy is able to learn a useful organization and to summarize the contents of social media exchanges of the Argentine economic tweetosphere. Potential applications could be to characterize the links between different economic sectors and to construct community-level indicators of opinions. Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa

The main goal of this work focuses on solving the problem of analyzing the data coming from Social Media and exploring the mechanisms for the extraction and representation of knowledge from all the different disciplines outside the world of information Technologies. Soft Computing and Big Data techniques are used to deal with the challenges mentioned. This paper shows a mechanism to detect hate speech in Social Media using Soft Computing and Sentiment Analysis, and it also stablishes the base of a doctoral thesis. Instituto de Investigación en Informática

The Alto Valle of Rio Negro and Neuquén is an intensive irrigated fruit producing area. The existence of a shallow water table modifies the water content in the soil profile. It is important to distinguish the effect and estimate the amount of water capillary rise in order to enhance the irrigation management and allow the crop to achieve its maximum yield and development in non-stress conditions. The aim of this trial was to quantify and associate water content of soil profile with water status of pear trees, using different methods. In a Bartlett pear orchard planted on 2003, surfaced irrigated, the following variables were measured during the 2017-2018 growing season: soil water content at three depths (0.20 m, 0.40 m, 0.60 m) and water table level (WTL). Additionally, soil profile and texture class were described. Evapotranspiration (ETm) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) were calculated with data of the automatic weather station. Stomata conductance (Gs) was measured with a leaf porometer in three different moments of the growing season. Moisture stress index (MSI) was calculated from all Sentinel 2A images available for the season. The capillary water input into the root zone from a shallow water table is evident in the continuous records of sensors. This phenomenon keeps soil water content within the readily available water range. The Gs measures showed that the crop water status was appropriate and that values were high compared to those referred to deciduous trees. The MSI values obtained were between the limits of a well-irrigated crop. These results agree with the non-restrictive condition observed in the soil water balance. Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa