Integrated logistics development in Colombia: A commitment to strengthening the first-mile logistics in isolated territories

Al día de hoy se desconocen estudios que den cuenta del desarrollo de la ergonomía en Colombia, así como del estado actual de las tendencias y las temáticas más relevantes abordadas en esta área del conocimiento, motivo por el cual no es posible establecer el grado de desarrollo de la disciplina a nivel local. Atendiendo a esta necesidad, el presente artículo muestra los resultados de la revisión documental de la producción investigativa generada en Colombia en el área de ergonomía entre los años de 1990 y 2010. Para efectos de este estudio se identificaron los grupos de investigación colombianos que declaran líneas de trabajo en ergonomía a través de la revisión de la base de datos de COLCIENCIAS. Además, se consultó la producción investigativa local registrada en artículos científicos en las bases de datos: EBSCO, PROQUEST, PUBMED, SCIELO, REDALYC y E-REVISTA. Producto de esta búsqueda se recopilaron 33 artículos producidos en Colombia que abordan temáticas relacionadas con la ergonomía. Los estudios fueron clasificados teniendo en cuenta los tres dominios de especialización propuestos por la International Ergonomics Association (IEA) en el año 2000: Ergonomía Física, Ergonomía Cognitiva y Ergonomía Organizacional. Posteriormente se determinó el tipo de estudio de cada una de las investigaciones analizadas, para lo cual se propusieron dos categorías: investigación básica e investigación aplicada. Como resultado de esta revisión documental se evidencia que la mayoría de los artículos analizados se encuentra clasificada bajo el dominio de especialización de ergonomía física (17 de 33) y que el tipo de estudio más común es la investigación aplicada (22 de 33).

Canadian financial institutions played an important role in the development of financial markets within Colombia’s urban centers. Specifically, insurance companies such as Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and Life Assurance Company of Canada were crucial in the expansion of the insurance business across the Caribbean coast, while Royal Bank of Canada contributed to the development of personal banking operations throughout the nation. This paper looks at the experience of Canadian financial companies in Colombia from the late 1800s to the beginning of World War II. It highlights the competitive nature of international financial business and the role of business leaders, policy, and governments in efforts to secure market shares in emerging nations such as Colombia. This historical research also contributes to a better understanding of the bilateral relations between Colombia and Canada, and the ways in which capitalism expanded across the western hemisphere.

Colombia's forests, covering over half the country's land, are crucial ecosystems facing significant threats from multiple drivers, including infrastructure expansion, agricultural development, and illegal activities. This complex deforestation issue is deeply intertwined with Colombia's socio-political landscape, particularly influenced by its history of armed conflict and the recent peace agreement with FARC guerrillas in 2016. The complexity of the interconnected drivers makes developing effective forest protection strategies challenging, highlighting the intricate relationship between Colombia's political history, economic development, and environmental conservation. In this study, we conducted a systematic literature review examining the complex interplay between forest degradation, socio-political dynamics, and economic development in Colombia before and after the peace agreement. The review incorporated perspectives from environmental and social study disciplines, inspecting top-down and bottom-up scaling approaches to analyze the multifaceted scenarios that emerged during this period.Our literature review on armed conflict and deforestation in Colombia reveals a growing interest from environmental and social sciences in understanding the impacts that the Colombian civil conflict and the 2016 peace agreement have had on the environment. Since the peace agreement, there has been a notable rise in research on this topic. We found that in environmental sciences, top-down analyses are more frequently employed, while in social sciences bottom-up methods are preferred. Interestingly, the number of interdisciplinary studies combining both methods is increasing. Multiple methodologies confirm that deforestation increased after the peace agreement, especially in the Andes and Amazon regions, but also in the Chocó and Llanos biogeographical regions. The power vacuum left by the guerrilla, not filled by governmental institutions, is widely acknowledged as a key source of important drivers of uncontrolled forest loss, such as land grabbing and illegal cattle ranching. External factors such as international demand for gold and illegal drugs continue to fuel deforestation and social conflict, with international aid programs to local farmers often proving ineffective. Although Colombia's situation may appear unique, the complex interplay of social, economic, political, and environmental factors offers valuable insights for understanding similar global dynamics in other conflict-prone regions.

Construction project management requires various knowledge, skills, techniques, and applications. Therefore, project management (PM) degree programs have to equip future project engineers and managers accordingly. However, literature has provided limited understanding about how extensive these knowledge areas (KAs) have been offered in these degree programs. The goal of this paper is to explore to what extent different KAs are taught in PM Master’s degree programs with emphasis in the construction industry. A survey was conducted with respondents who were academic staff responsible for these programs. Most of these programs under the current study were at institutions located in the U.K. and the U.S.A. Six KAs that had high percentage (50% or more) of construction programs offering more than ten teaching hours were time management and risk management (65%), procurement management, sustainability, and legal and ethical aspects (55%), and cost management (50%). In terms of relative teaching priority within a program, time management, risk management, sustainability, and cost management were frequently the top focus in these programs. Project scope, quality, and stakeholder management had the least teaching priorities among the PM KAs. While relative teaching priorities of many KAs were anticipated, the lowest teaching hours and priorities of project scope and quality management, and occupational safety and health were not expected as they were identified as major competencies for construction graduates.

Integrated cardiothoracic surgery: Developing a successful residency application

This chapter presents an overview of Sudanese economy and the trend and status of ICT in Sudan. Section 2.2 explains some stylised facts along with other strategic problems confronting economic development in Sudan that, it explains that Sudan’s economy has been characterised by low GDP per capita income, presence of high rates of poverty, unemployment and inequalities in resources sharing. Section 2.3 explains the trend and status of core ICT indicators in Sudan. We show that in the recent years, Sudan has shown growing telecommunication networks and Internet services and the diffusion of ICT in Sudan has increased significantly. We explain that recent indicators from International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 2014 show the trend of core ICT indicators and illustrate that despite recent slowdown in terms of fixed telephone, the recent average growth rate of the total online population, Internet, fixed (wired)-broadband and mobile-cellular subscribers in Sudan during the period 2000–2013 has been significant. ITU 2014 data for 2000–2013 indicates that in Sudan the growth rate of mobile-cellular telephone (1,039.71) is faster than Internet (755.67), fixed (wired)-broadband (59) and fixed telephone (−0.04) respectively. We show that the status of ICT indicators in Sudan in 2013 can be explained by regional and international standards compared to Arab countries and world regions respectively. We find that ITU 2014 data for 2000–2013 indicates that by regional and international standards the rapid increase in ICT indicators in Sudan that appear from the increasing use of Internet and mobile-cellular telephone and the increasing proportion of households with Internet and proportion of households with computer are above that of Africa but below Arab region and World region, whereas the use of fixed-telephone in Sudan is less than Africa, Arab region and World region. This implies that by regional and international standards, ICT indicators in Sudan are below compared to Arab countries and World regions. Our findings indicate that the reported increasing trend of mobile and Internet usage at the aggregate macro level in Sudan seems consistent with the observed increasing trend at the regional and international levels. We find evidences in support of the incidence of the global digital divide between Sudan and the World countries, developed countries and developing countries that appear from ICT Development Index (IDI), access sub-index, use sub-index and skills sub-index over the period (2011–2012). Our results indicate that the reported digital gap in core ICT indicators at the aggregate macro level in Sudan compared to world regions seems consistent with the observed development gap in social, economic, human development and education indicators in Sudan compared to world regions.

Trade agreements between central and peripheral countries or regional groups with very different commercial and productive specializations have been in place for several decades now, since they were first promoted in the 1990s, initially by the US government and later by the European Union (EU). This resulted in the promotion of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in the first case, and Association Agreements (AAs) in the second, turning different individual economies or Latin American regional groups into preferential partners in these agreements, in the latter based on a model with certain specific differentiating features.This chapter analyses the main characteristics and consequences of the Trade Agreement signed in 2012 between the EU and Colombia, as well as its future prospects in the current context. We inquire to what extent the agreement is consistent with the rest of the EU's cooperation policies, where in recent years support for peacebuilding has gained great weight from a comprehensive perspective in order to end the root factors that generate conflict and promote lasting peace and development in Colombia.

This paper will depict ICAS - Integration, Competency-based, Acumen and Soft Skills Technical Training Programs and how it cultivates an all rounded engineering community. The ultimate goal of ICAS is to put engineers through the technical leadership pipeline. The 'Integration Program' consists of new hire and graduate trainee boot camps, which are organizational specific and aligned towards the relevant project/product. The program consumes 3 months and produced very positive evaluation results: 93% application of training for work. 'Competency-based Program' continues engineers' development targeted towards Exempt level engineers. A structured, sustainable and comprehensive curricula based on the site's top 12 competency areas was developed covering more than 186 courses in depth & breadth, which are 100% available. The 'Technical Acumen Program' is for senior technical contributors: consists of talks, sharing and tutorials on roadmaps and advancements of Intel and industry technology - to provide technical employees the alignment towards Intel's technology as well as understand Intel's end-user needs. 'Technical Soft Skills Program' focuses on the soft skill portion of engineering work to complete the balanced development.

Sustainability is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Issues such as poverty, climate change and overuse of resources are of concern to a growing number of individuals, governments and organisations. As a result, companies are starting to feel the pressure to report their performance in this regard to all stakeholders. At the same time, as part of sustaining the success of a business, managers need to consider ensuring financial sustainability to meet the challenges of this environment. The stated aim of the research is to identify the effects of the implementation of the European Directive 2464/2022 on the overall sustainability of companies. In order to achieve the proposed aim, the following objectives have been formulated: Objective 1 - Contribution of the paper to the literature in the field of non-financial reporting; Objective 2 - Study of the impact of the implementation of Directive 2022/2464/EU at Member State level. The methodology used for the elaboration of this paper is the documentary analysis, which is based on a review of national and international literature on the impact of the implementation of this Directive on the sustainability of companies. The results obtained are useful for those companies that wish to implement this directive in their own activity, but also for those companies listed on the Stock Exchange, which are obliged to implement social responsibility policies in their activity.

Este estudo teve como objetivo investigar fatores associados à ansiedade e depressão em estudantes universitários. Estudo quantitativo, transversal e observacional o qual participaram 1.245 adultos universitários, de diferentes áreas do conhecimento de uma instituição de ensino superior do noroeste do Paraná. Foi utilizado um questionário elaborado pelos próprios autores com questões referentes ao sexo, idade, área do curso, e ano que estava matriculado. Como instrumento foi utilizado a Escala Hospitalar de “Anxiety and Depression” (HAD), adaptada para o âmbito educacional. A análise dos dados foi realizada pelos testes de Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Kruskal-Wallis e “U” de Mann-Whitney e Qui-quadrado (p <0,05). Os resultados evidenciaram que os estudantes com classificação provável de depressão (Md=24,3) apresentaram maior índice de massa corporal (IMC) do que os estudantes com classificação improvável (Md=23,0) e possível (Md=23,5). Verificou-se maior proporção de estudantes com provável ansiedade e depressão entre as mulheres (77,7%) e os estudantes da área de humanas e sociais (65,6%). Concluiu-se que o IMC, sexo e a área de conhecimento parecem estar associados à ansiedade e depressão em estudantes universitários.

Can behavioral treatments be enhanced by integrative neuromuscular training in the treatment of juvenile fibromyalgia?

With the combination of a growing population, expanding globalisation and increasing economic activity, the world is facing numerous challenges including climate change, social inequality and overuse of resources and space. One of the sectors that creates problems and therefore holds the opportunity for improvement is the mobility sector. Private vehicle-based transport causes the overuse of (road) space, increased emission of greenhouse gases, congestion, and health issues. However, mobility is essential for access to health care, education, employment, social interaction, and leisure time activities, which are valuable assets requiring equal access opportunities unattainable with purely car-based transportation. Subsequently, public transport has an important role to play and could therefore be viewed as a public good, or a “Common Pool Resource (CPR)” (Elinor Ostrom) instead of a service. Users cannot be excluded from the CPR, and its overuse leads to a constraint of its functioning. Therefore, the questions are raised of who should be providing this public good, and how? In Glasgow, public transport is provided by private companies in a deregulated market environment. Citizens and experts criticise the public transport in the city as it is expensive and not accessible for everyone; neither does it connect every neighbourhood to health care, employment, and education. Glasgow has high rates of poverty, inequality, and emissions from extensive car use. The new Scottish Transport Bill provides powers to local Councils for reregulating their public transport or putting it back into public ownership. Elinor Ostrom suggests letting communities own and organise a CPR. Re-regulation, public ownership, and community ownership, as well as mixed governance forms will be examined in this paper as solutions to Glasgow’s public transport issues. The combination of scientific literature and field research in Glasgow will serve as a basis for that discussion.

INTRODUCTION Arechiga and Llarena (2003) mention that Mexico has a set of problems regarding its quality in higher education. Problems such as low flexibility in its programs, low graduation/enrollment ratio, graduate unemployment, low integration between research and teaching activities, poor career selection, unintegrated academic bodies, low creation of new knowledge, some private institutions have a low quality in their programs, and low society participation in the development of higher education, among others. In addition, bachelor degree programs in Mexico have been challenged over the years to be up-to-date with the rest of the world due to economic issues, especially for Mexican public universities. One way to address all these issues is through accreditation by external bodies recognized by the Mexican government. Arechiga and Llarena (2003) define an accreditation body as a civil organization, who's main goal is to evaluate the quality of academic programs offered by public and private higher education institutions in Mexico. Some characteristics that they must have are: being non-bias and autonomous and can work within a specific area of knowledge (Arechiga & Llarena, 2003). One of the main accreditation bodies is the Inter-institutional Committees for the Evaluation of Higher Education (CIIES), which evaluates only programs and institutions in the higher education Mexican system and sets the standards for many accreditation bodies. CIEES are formed by nine committees: Architecture, Design and y Urbanism; Agronomic Sciences; Health Sciences; Natural and Exact Sciences; Social and Management Sciences; Education and Humanities; Engineering and Technology; Management and Administration; and Diffusion and Extension of Culture. Any program that wants to be accredited must contact a committee related to its program. CIIES' tasks are to (SEP, 1991): 1. Make diagnostic evaluations about functions and tasks regarding higher education in a particular area of knowledge; 2. Grant accreditation to academic units or academic programs, to those that satisfy established criteria and quality standards; 3. Make precise diagnostics about academic projects or academic programs that request additional budgeting, based on requests from government offices that provide those resources; 4. Provide consultation for the creation of new programs and projects as well as their implantation when an institution makes such a petition. Accreditation bodies must follow general policies; demonstrate that they follow only academic criteria; and must work 1) with fairness and impartiality, 2) congruence and trustworthiness, 3) control and securing of quality, 4) responsibility and seriousness, and 5) transparency and surrender of accounts. The Informatics and Computation National Accreditation Council in Mexico (CONAIC) and the National Association of Educational Institutions in Information Technology (ANIEI) are organizations in charge of evaluating and accrediting only those information technology-related programs, which comply with their standards. These organizations define four profiles. Each profile is based on a number of units divided into eighth different areas of knowledge. A particular bachelor program's profile is dependent upon the percentages of units in each area it has. Thus, if any program wants to be accredited, it must comply with a particular profile. Table 1 (ANIEI, 2009) shows the four different profiles and its related percentage of units per area of knowledge. Table 1: Percentage per profile (Adapted from ANIEI, 2009). Area/Profile A. Information B. Computer technology engineering (IT) (SE) 1. Social environment 30% 12.5% 2. Mathematics 10% 12.5% 3. Hardware 5% 7. …

Based on its income per capita, Colombia meets the World Bank criteria for classification as an upper middle income country, but it still has many of the earmarks of a developing country, including its high poverty rate (45%), high infant mortality (16 deaths per 1000 live births), and lower life expectancy (74 years) than most developed countries. The capital city, Bogota, contains one-fifth of Colombias population, which is typical of the urban giantism of developing countries. Colombias income inequality is acute, with the lowest decile of households receiving 0.8% of household incomes, while the highest decile receives 45%. This results in a Gini coefficient of 58 - the ninth highest in the world. The paradox is that while Colombias per-capita GDP and GNI indicate that it is an upper-middle income country, its poverty, income inequality, infant mortality rate, and other socioeconomic indicators look very much like those of a low-income country. This raises an interesting question: How can Colombia continue its development, presumably toward becoming a high-income country, while it is addressing its disproportionate poverty levels and income inequality? This paper investigates the prospects and challenges of implementing two relatively new ideas in economic development. The first is the use of Paul Romers idea of charter cities to enhance economic development in Colombia. Charter cities could be used to create more dynamic enterprise zones than now exist in Colombia. Romer advocates that countries set aside currently uninhabited city-size special reform zones to be charter cities. These cities would have a charter or constitution which specifies the governing rules - good rules (or institutions) - which would be supportive of entrepreneurial activity and a robust business climate. Charter cities could presumably be like a clean slate without all the developing-country plethora of rules and regulations that hinder development in established cities such as Cairo and Mumbai. Romer cites the example of Hong Kong as an extraordinarily successful early type of charter city which was governed by different rules for 99 years before it was ceded back to the Peoples Republic of China by Great Britain in 1997. The second type of development tool for Colombia explored in this paper is John Kasardas aerotropolis. An aerotropolis is a city built around an airport. Traditional cities sprang up around existing trade routes along navigable waterways or where road and railroads met and crossed. The twenty-first century equivalent of that, according to Kasarda, is where highways in the sky interact with productive facilities on the ground at or near airports to be part of an ever-growing global supply chain. In this paper, some possible locations for charter cities and aerotropolises in Colombia are explored and their economic impact is assessed. The paper concludes that both can assist Colombia in reducing poverty and income inequality, but with certain qualifications. It also suggests that a hybrid of the two, an aerotropolis that is also a charter city, can significantly contribute to Colombias economic development.

The consequences of health sector reforms on control of malaria were analysed using Colombia as an example. One of the most complex health sector reform programmes in Latin America took place in the 1990s; it included transferring the vertical vector-borne disease control (VBDC) programme into health systems at state and district levels. A series of studies was undertaken in 1998-2000 at the national level (Ministry of Health Study), at the state level (Departamento Study) and at the health district level (District Study) using formal and informal interviews among control staff and document analysis as data collection tools. A government-financed national training programme for VBDC staff - which included direct observation of control operations - was also used to analyse health workers' performance in the postreform period (longitudinal study). The results showed that some shortcomings of the old vertical system, such as the negative aspects of trade union activity, have not been overcome while some positive aspects of the old system, such as capacity building, operational planning and supervision have been lost. This has contributed to a decrease in control activity which, in turn, has been associated with more malaria cases. Malaria control had to be reinvented at a much larger scale than anticipated by the reformers caused by a whole series of problems: complex financing of public health interventions in the new system, massive staff reductions, the difficulty of gaining access to district and state budgets, redefining entire organizations and - in addition to the reforms - introducing alternative strategies based on insecticide-treated materials and the growth of areas of general insecurity in many parts of Colombia itself. However, positive signs in the transformed system include: the strengthening of central control staff (albeit insufficient in numbers) when transferred from the Ministry of Health to the National Institute of Health, the opportunities offered by the Basic Health Plan (PAB) for new planning initiatives and intersectoral co-operation and the integration of malaria diagnosis and treatment into the general health services (associated with a decrease of malaria mortality). The potentials of the new system have not yet been fully exploited: capacity building, communication and management skills need to be improved and it require guidance from the national level.