Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

El uso de proyecciones es indispensable en los procesos de mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático, los cuales son la base para crear resiliencia. Sin embargo, el acceso a estos productos científicos es escaso en Latinoamérica. Por otro lado, los estudios existentes carecen de una resolución apropiada para analizar regiones pequeñas, pero de alta vulnerabilidad climática, como lo son las cuencas hidrográficas. Este caso de estudio se enfoca en la cuenca del río La Villa, ubicada en el arco seco de Panamá, la cual es considerada una de las cuencas de mayor prioridad para la adaptación al cambio climático de Panamá.  Se realizaron proyecciones de cuatro modelos climáticos sometidos a reducción de escala.  Estos utilizan como base las Trayectorias de Concentración Representativas (RCP), presentados en el Quinto Informe de Evaluación del Panel Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre Cambio Climático (IPCC). La diferencia entre las condiciones climáticas actuales y las proyectadas por los modelos, conocidas como anomalías climáticas, arrojaron que para los años 2050 y 2070, la precipitación en la zona aumentará en promedio anual.  Por su parte, las temperaturas máximas y mínimas incrementarán en promedio de 1-2 °C, y cerca de los 4°C hacia el final del siglo XXI. Con estos resultados observamos que el uso de proyecciones climáticas reducidas a menor escala en los escenarios RCP, es viable para determinar los efectos del cambio climático sobre regiones pequeñas.

En la actualidad la sociedad está enfocada en la mitigación del daño ambiental basado en la integración de energía renovable y vehículos eléctricos en las redes eléctricas. Energías limpias como energía solar y eólica en la generación de electricidad están destinadas a reemplazar los derivados de combustible fósil, mientras que los vehículos eléctricos substituyen a los vehículos de combustión interna. En este contexto, el presente proyecto propone un análisis a una red eléctrica real georreferenciada considerando los principales retos que involucran la conexión de cargas no lineales al sistema eléctrico. El modelo utiliza información georreferenciada de los usuarios y la red eléctrica existente, donde corrientes desbalanceadas consumidas por los usuarios son evaluadas basado en modelos de carga para clientes residenciales y comerciales. El impacto debido a la inclusión de vehículos eléctricos es desarrollado en el software PowerFactory mediante análisis de flujos de potencia, análisis de amónicos y desbalance de voltajes.

Design of photovoltaic solar farms presents a technical uncertainty in the search for an optimal solution (profitability/cost) to implement in a given project. The benefits in the selection of a system of centralized or distributed investors vary according to the technological disposition of each country. Additionally, recent technological developments may present incompatibility with traditional technologies, that is, the choice of an inverter technology would require the use of the full range of products of a certain company. Therefore, selecting characteristics for the design (technology in centralized or distributed inverters, capacity of each 330 Wp or 390 Wp solar panel) must consider an integral solution that includes, among others, the impacts: technical (reliability, electrical losses, regulation , voltage level, etc); economic (equipment prices, levelized costs - LCOE, energy purchase contracts, maintenance); logistics (import times, transport of equipment, telecommunications and electrical infrastructure need, equipment import price, price of selected technologies); regulatory (technical requirements of each country). This paper presents the lessons learned during the design of a 20 MW Solar Park located in Panama.

The impact caused by human activities makes coastal areas vulnerable areas. This is why the need arises to develop a risk and vulnerability index. The objective of the research is to determine a risk and vulnerability index based on the physicochemical and microbiological quality of the marine-coastal surface waters and socio-economic factors using the coastal city of Portobelo, province of Colon as a case study. The methodology was divided into 3 parts: determination of a coastal marine water quality index, the analysis of threats and vulnerabilities and the presentation of the risk and vulnerability index. As a result, it was obtained that the Marine Water Quality Index was represented by 71.71, a good quality to regulate. Vulnerabilities were determined, physical with a value of 2.0, moderate to low; 2.7, low to moderate educational; socioeconomic from 3.6, moderate to high; and environmental of 3.7, moderate to high. A Risk and Vulnerability index of 3.0 was obtained, considered moderate. The Risk and Vulnerability Index represents a tool that can be considered to determine a value that defines the degree of risk, threat and vulnerability that a coastal community is exposed to and can implement mitigation and awareness measures to the population to prevent threats are of a greater impact, causing major disasters and avoiding the contamination of resources.

The Network functions virtualization (NFV) emerges as one of the most promising technology for the management of the next Internet generation. In recent years, computer and communication systems have considerably evolved influencing the development of network infrastructures in terms of scalability, programmability and dynamic management. The number of connected devices grows exponentially with the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and a plethora of online applications. The research community has focused its efforts on optimizing network administration with implementation and configuration techniques improving the network performance. With the evolution of new emerging technologies, appears the Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the Virtualization of Network Functions (NFV), which allow a flexible, dynamic and adaptable management to optimize network resources. In an IoT environment, we developed a virtual network architecture, which provides a test platform that allows us to evaluate the orchestration of a distributed SDN controller, obtaining a scalable and flexible management. This research work aims to enhance the large-scale traffic engineering, with a distributed approach including the load-balanced management of controller nodes, allowing dynamic and flexible management. The experimental results show a good performance of the developed testbed platform.

The talent management is an area of knowledge that is responsible for training, developing and retaining an individual in an organization for their progress, through the effective use of tools and information technologies. The condition of talent that can be granted to a subject goes in correspondence with the union of four main aspects: capacities, commitment, aptitudes and results. A software project is composed of a group of specialists who have certain conditions in different disciplines associated with software development. The need to maintain stability in this project team is essential to ensure a prosperous and sustainable economic future. To guarantee adequate work in each of the disciplines of a software project, the current trend is the description of processes that propose good practices, since the present purpose of society is to achieve the computerization of all its processes. Talent management can be considered as one of the processes of a software project that should be carried out consistently. The objective of this research is to develop a process for the management of talent in a software project, applying good practices proposed by a new model of talent management based on the book of Roberto Luna. The validity of the process was verified with the application of the Iadov method, from which high satisfaction and positive criteria are obtained from its use.

Panama experiences sustained economic growth in the last 10 years. This results in some potential problems, such as the accumulation of wastewater biosolids (WWB) and they are disposed in landfills. For example, until 2014, approximately 75946 tons of WWB were deposited in the main Landfill in Panama. This situation generates great pressure on waste management and environmental management. In this sense, our research was based on the study of anaerobic digestivity of WWB using the Oxitop system, in order to estimate the kinetics and potential generation of biogas for its possible use. The characterization of WWB studied from various economic activities indicates their viability to use them, given their low concentrations of pollutants and their high content of organic matter. Digestivity tests indicate that the biogas production ranges were between 9.6 and 41.56 mL CH4 /g SV.  These values are low compared to those reported in the literature and would not have the capacity to sustain an electricity generation activity; however, is possible to take advantage of theses biosolids if are mixed with other organic substrates to improve biogas production yields.

Urban heat island effect is defined as the temperature difference in an urban area compared to its surroundings. These can be caused by high electrical consumption, excessive use of cars, infrastructures design and planning and type of materials used, and the decrease of the green area. Due to its presence in different cities of the world and analyzed with relevant studies, it is decided to conduct a study on the main roads of Panama City. It is proposed to investigate the existence of heat islands and their possible causes, due to their unplanned urban development. Four study areas are delimited to collect temperature data with a thermo hygrometer at a time of 8:00 am, 2:00 pm and 8:00 pm in the transition season, rainy and dry. Consequently, isothermal maps were prepared using the EBK method. As a result, differences in maximum and minimum temperatures of 9° C for the morning period, 8.1° C for the afternoon and 2.4° C for the night for the transition season were obtained; values ​​of 10.5° C for the morning, 8.1° C for the afternoon and 3.3 ° C for the night in the rainy season; and finally the dry season with 7.8° C for the morning, 9° C for the evening and 2.6° C for the night. Heat islands are confirmed and their relationship with tall buildings, car use, the use of asphalt as material for the streets, and environmental factors such as rain, clouds and winds promote the generation of them.

The present work determines the optimal location of virtual generation plants analyzing the steady state behavior of the system, the virtual generation plant combines a wide variety of distributed energy resources and operates them as a unified system. The optimal location of virtual generation plants will be identified to improve the nodal voltage profile of the power system based on optimal flows of direct current power with economic and environmental constraints. The electrical system analysis is carried out by means of optimal direct current power flows based on mixed integer linear programming, respecting economic, the chargeability of the transmission lines, the handling of the demands, the overload level, the angular deviation and the voltage profile. A literary review of virtual generation plants is carried out, which has a series of competitive advantages such as the use of renewable technologies and high energy efficiency. It also has information for the development of the optimal direct current flow.

Los edificios históricos constituyen parte fundamental del patrimonio cultural tangible de la sociedad actual. El cumplimiento de las exigencias de ahorro energético para mitigar el cambio climático, sin embargo, puede verse limitado aquí debido a las características propias de estos edificios. Además, en el caso de las construcciones históricas, los principios de diseño bioclimático aplicados por los arquitectos, desde principios del siglo XX hasta la actualidad, pueden haber perdido efectividad. Ello ocurre, a veces, por las modificaciones en proyecto o por efectos del desarrollo urbanístico. En este estudio se analizan estos dos aspectos en un determinado edificio histórico ubicado en Sevilla: la Casa Duclós de José Luis Sert. Este presenta modificaciones en la cubierta, cuando se compara la proyectada y la construida. Asimismo, su entorno urbano se ha transformado desde que la Casa fue edificada. Para el análisis expuesto en este artículo, se realizaron simulaciones energéticas utilizando datos climáticos correspondientes al periodo 2000-2019. Los resultados muestran la influencia que tuvieron las modificaciones de la cubierta proyectada y la expansión urbanística en el rendimiento energético del edificio, con respecto a la concepción original del inmueble.