In this article -the result of a research work sponsored by Universidad del Cauca- several environmental actions from rural coffee-coca growing communities are assessed in Miranda, Cauca. For this purpose, a participative rural evaluation and an econometric analysis were conducted through multivariate regression models estimated through the White’s Robust Ordinary Least Squares. Results show that, in relation to use and control of water and soil in both cultivations, water supply actions for agriculture mostly depend on isolation actions of water springs and handling of plant and organic areas in the soil. Tree exploitation actions mostly depend on reforestation actions and connections between forested areas at the farm. Coffee-coca growing countrymen’s practices are more sustainable than those of coffee growing countrymen who do not grow coca at all.

Due to the renewable nature of water, this resource has been treated and managed as if it were unlimited; however, increase the indiscriminate use has brought with it a rapid deterioration in quality; so as predicting water quality has a very important role for many socio-economic sectors that depend on the use of the precious liquid. In this study, a systematic literature mapping was performed about water quality prediction using computational intelligence techniques, including those used to calibrate predictive models in order to improve accuracy. Based on research questions formulated in the systematic mapping, a gap is identified oriented to creation of an adaptive mechanism for predicting water quality that can be applied in different water uses without raised the accuracy of the predictions is affected.

Due to the agricultural practices in Spain, 13% of the entire territory has been declared as vulnerable to nitrate-polluted water. In order to mitigate the environmental impact caused by nitrogen, a hybrid system of artificial wetlands has been engineered thanks to the European project known as LIFE REAGRITECH. The prototype has been thought as a compact, modular, and portable system, automated and operated in a remote manner. Monitoring of the system will result in valuable knowledge for public management, farmers, researchers, and universities, and it will provide useful information intended to improve the decision-making process as a way of preserving water resources and environment. Project REAGRITECH offers significant future perspectives in the field of agriculture in Europe and in Colombia as well.

The research calculates the rolling process conditions in a 3-roll bending machine. Initially, structure and mechanical properties of the highstrength steel to be processed are determined in an experimental manner. Then, equations that allow determining the relationship between thickness and width of the steel to be bent are established, taking into consideration strength features of the bending machine. Finally, some graphs that help achieving an efficient and adequate processing of the steel are presented, choosing width/height and strength required for the plate forming, according to its thickness. The information obtained will allow having a number of welding joints needed to obtain final height/length of the component, from the design process of a part to be formed.

With the purpose of conducting a technological renewal of the systems that support the energy market management in Colombia, a new model of requirements addressing in detail the modeling of processes, together with software specifications, has been developed. The new model provides relevant guidelines to use GMPN and UML standards and is supported by the company’s experience in market management processes. This article shows the results found after applying the new model of requirements intended to gain knowledge on market management process, formal representation of processes, improvement of traceability between system specifications and the process, and standardization of the understanding of processes by several stakeholders involved. This article further exhibits the results from the application of the model based on the technological renewal within the COLCIENCIAS technological research project “CNBT 833559938649, a System for Electric Energy Market Management in Colombia, Phase I.”

Crops of sugar cane are one of the main economic activities in Colombia. Hence, this kind of crops is essential for the agricultural development of the country. Additionally, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are currently used and implemented throughout the entire life of the crop. Therefore, ICTs are important at the time of defining PA-based systems, capable of increasing crop efficiency and optimizing use of economic resources as fertilizers, water, and pesticides, among other functions. This article presents a review about the PA-based information systems applicable to sugar cane crops and making emphasis on technologies used, data management, and their architectures. Besides, the article makes a proposal of authors: a AP-based three-layer integral information system capable of facilitating optimization in different life stages of the sugar cane. This article concludes by describing the future work and the implementation of the system proposed.

Large volume of data is growing because the organizations are continuously capturing the collective amount of data for better decision-making process. The most fundamental challenge is to explore the large volumes of data and extract useful knowledge for future actions through knowledge discovery tasks, nevertheless many data has poor quality. We presented a systematic review of the data quality issues in knowledge discovery tasks and a case study applied to agricultural disease named coffee rust.

The emergence of new interaction alternatives can result in increasingly interesting videogames; this is the case of the interaction with the mobile phone, especially NFC technology. However, there is not a model to get to know the types of videogames that would be more appropriate to be developed with NFC. Therefore, this article provides a review of several sources to determine current state of videogames with NFC for future reference of content generators and entrepreneurs in the field of videogames; as a contribution, there is a review of several commercial, bibliographic sources and applications shops to generate current state and a scheme of potential videogames with which NFC could interact by determining categories of the most appropriate videogames to be developed with such a technology and proposing some features that can be implemented with the NFC.

Health systems around the world are currently facing a challenge to fight the tremendous growth of non-transmissible chronic diseases (NTCD), especially cardiovascular diseases. These diseases can be prevented if adoption of healthy habits and lifestyles are adopted by people, specifically by increasing their physical activity and having a healthy nutrition. The objective of this article is to describe the modeling process of a contextaware system with the purpose of supporting interventions to promote physical activity and healthy nutrition, duly adjusted to the characteristics of the user’s context. The main results of this article are: a) a classification model of health context and a context adaptability and personalization process model; b) a proposal of a context model for a context-aware system, which supports the promotion of physical activity and healthy nutrition; c) a reference architecture and a prototype of the system developed on such architecture, which consists of a mobile application supported by NFC and GPS technologies; and d) an evaluation of the solution usability.

This article is an extension of the research results presented on the Workshop on Information and Communication Technologies Applied to Agriculture (TIC-@GRO 2015). This time, details are provided about the way the mobile information system has been developed for seed production processes at gene banks. Processes conducted before in seed production are described, including the way such processes demanded a need for managing information in a reasonable, organized, updated, and accurate manner. The development of a mobile computation system is described as an indispensable element for a mobile information system which integrates elements of software, hardware, mobile devices, human resources, management, and information control; this results in characteristics of a documentation system for gene banks.

Currently, rural technological development has emerged as a response to the need for improving production efficiency in the fields, especially in agricultural countries such as Colombia due to aspects such as demographic growth and economic globalization; the use of a subsoiler is the first activity performed, intended to loosen soil as a way of reducing its resistance and allowing the spread of plant roots and flow of water. Hence, any type of abnormal circumstances in the development of this activity results in delays in future works or decrease of crop efficiency. This article shows the results of a technological research, focused on mechatronic adequacy of a subsoiler implement addressed under a structured design procedure that assures technological adaptations by assuring the operation of a control instrumented system with response to overloading

In Cuba, powder detergent production is carried out by a single factory. This work research was intended to evaluate the powder detergent production process from a simulation process. For this purpose, the HYSYS v. 3.2 chemical process simulator was employed and definition of properties of hypothetical components that are nor part of the pure components database was required. Results of the basic case showed inefficiencies of the process operation, the most important being during the neutralization stage and the drying gas heating stage. Results of Study Case 2 show that it is possible to reduce pH of the neutral paste to 15.34% when compared to the basic case, for a production of 848 kg neutral paste per hour, without affecting the percentage of the active ingredient. Additionally, a decreased consumption of liquefied gas of 1,500 L/d implies increased profit in the amount of $ 227,301 per year, compared to the basic case.

The requirements elicitation uses several techniques to capture information relevant to the shaping of software requirements. However, the effectiveness of these techniques depends on the context in which this occurs. This article aims to analyze the empirical evidence of the influence of these contextual attributes. For this, a systematic and non-systematic review of the literature was conducted to determine which are these attributes and perform a test of the theoretical and empirical studies related. The result of this analysis showed that almost half of contextual attributes has not been studied empirically, which means a low coordination between theory and empiricism. Also, for only a third of the attributes consistent evidence of their influence was found. This study helps to guide future empirical research on requirements elicitation pointing put possible experimental factors to consider.