Proyectos

Consolidar y fortalecer una nueva red de nodos de innovación social que promueva la inclusión socio laboral en personas con alguna discapacidad, personas mayores, mujeres y personas en situación de vulnerabilidad enfocada en los sectores económicos priorizados en la Estrategia de Desarrollo Regional 2011-2020 (EDRE) y de innovación, priorizando el sector turístico, y agroalimentario y la puesta en valor de la identidad cultural.

Consolidar y fortalecer una nueva red de nodos de innovación social que promueva la inclusión socio laboral en personas con alguna discapacidad, personas mayores, mujeres y personas en situación de vulnerabilidad enfocada en los sectores económicos priorizados en la Estrategia de Desarrollo Regional 2011-2020 (EDRE) y de innovación, priorizando el sector turístico, y agroalimentario y la puesta en valor de la identidad cultural.

In modern agriculture the production of fresh vegetables requires the use of pesticides to control pest and diseases during the vegetation period as pre- or post-harvest treatment. However, the improper use of pesticides due to overuse, harvesting before the Pre-Harvest Interval (PHI), can lead a high number of pesticides residues increasing the exposure and impacts on human health. Different scientific evidences and official data from the national surveillance shown that pesticides in Chile are not enough regulated and monitored for their import, registration, agricultural and domestic use. In addition, scientific papers have shown serious concerns due to presence of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) in highly consumed fresh vegetables in Chile from farmers, food street markets and supermarkets mainly in the Metropolitan Region. Currently pesticide residues represent a national concern due to serious transgression of Chilean Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) and number and concentrations of HHPs. The HHPs are acknowledged to present high levels of acute or chronic hazards to human health and environment under the criteria of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemical (GHS), and the international agreements or conventions (Rotterdam, Stockholm or Paris). There is a relevant need to support and provide to official authorities with novel and high-quality information of mitigation strategies for reducing the presence of HHPs residues in food. Also, the methodologies to obtain processing factors and to evaluate risk assessment are necessary for modify the current regulation to restrict or ban the authorization of HHPs in Chile. On another hand, non-thermal technologies for reducing pesticide residues appears as a suitable strategy to reduce the presence of pesticide residues in fresh food. Therefore, the main objective is to study the effect of nonthermal technologies on highly hazardous pesticides residues on fresh vegetables including their associated processing factors and risk assessment according the Maximum Residue Levels of pesticides in Chile. Two specific aims have been proposed; to determine the effects of non-thermal technologies on highly hazardous pesticides in fresh vegetables and their corresponding processing factors and maximum residue levels; to evaluate health risk assessment of highly hazardous pesticides according the processing factors and maximum residue levels. The method of extraction will be "quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe" QuEChERS for HHPs multiresidues according to the guideline SANTE 2017 provided by European Commission. The quantification for HHPs residues in leafy vegetables (lettuce and chard) and solanaceous vegetables (tomatoes and peppers) will be using Liquid and Gas Chromatography (HPLC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS) based on the guideline SANTE 2017 provided by European Commission. Different parameters will be validated such as %RSD, uncertainty, limit of detection and quantification (LOD, LOQ). During the fourth year of project each season vegetables will be cultivated under good agricultural practices (GAP) in the Experimental Field Talagante at Universidad de Las Americas (UDLA). Twenty HHPs will be used for their high presence and transgression of the Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) of Chile at the National Surveillance of Agricultural and Livestock Services (SAG) reported in the last five years. The applications will be set up at the field rate (FR) proposed in the labelling of the products and doble field rate (2FR) to emulate the overuse of pesticides by farmers with the purpose to have high levels of HHPs for the non-thermal technologies. The vegetables will be transported under refrigerated conditions (-4ºC) to the Laboratory of Chemistry at UDLA. The non-thermal technologies were selected for their novelty and promising results for reducing pesticides residues: Cold Plasma, UV light, ultrasound and ozone (O3) will be used at two concentrations each one by three replicates for each treatment/vegetable. Controls with or without HHPs will be used to compare. After use non-thermal technologies, the processing factors will be determinate for each vegetable/HHPs/non-thermal technology. The risk assessment will be evaluated through the estimated daily intake (EDI), the Hazard quotient (HQ) and the chronic hazard index (cHI) for each HHPs. The pesticide residue intake models will be setup using data by the average body of Chileans, age, gender, and a mixture of data from the model PRIMo V 3.1 which is used by the European Food safety Authority (EFSA). The results of this project should be used to increase the knowledge of non-thermal technologies to decrease the serious levels of HHps in the most consumed fresh vegetables of Chile, reduce the number of transgressions of the Chilean MRLs, and decrease the hazard of HHPs to human health. Likewise, to support the decision-making process of national authorities for the restriction or ban of Highly Hazardous Pesticides.

Arqueología y Paleontología del antiguo Lago de Tagua Tagua

En la formación de profesores, se esperaría que el futuro profesorado modele fenómenos sociales y naturales analizando e interpretando datos mediante el uso de estadística y probabilidades. En el ámbito escolar, se espera que los estudiantes sean capaces de construir una versión simplificada de un sistema presente en la realidad, para luego expresarlo de forma matemática. Sin embargo, en nuestra Escuela de Educación, los cursos de probabilidades han sido categorizados como críticos debido al bajo desempeño registrado por nuestros estudiantes. Este proyecto busca diseñar, implementar y evaluar un taller de modelación matemática utilizando probabilidades y estadística dirigido a estudiantes de pregrado. Investigaciones previas han propuesto metodologías para identificar y analizar escenarios clave durante el desarrollo de un juego de mesa (denominado Camel Up) que ayudan a los estudiantes a mejorar sus aprendizajes de los conceptos principales de los cursos de probabilidades y estadística. En este proyecto, adaptaremos la metodología mencionada para identificar y analizar escenarios claves de este juego de mesa con el fin de enseñar el ciclo de modelación matemático en un contexto de probabilidades, estadística y simulaciones computacionales. Los análisis de estos escenarios serán registrados en un libro que será el material central del taller, mientras que las simulaciones computacionales serán registradas en formato de video. Este taller será implementado invitando a estudiantes de pregrado de la Universidad de O’Higgins para luego evaluarlo mediante un focus group que nos permita obtener las valoraciones y opiniones de las participantes acerca de la utilidad del taller como herramienta para introducir el ciclo de modelación matemática.

La alfabetización en retroalimentación es un campo cada vez más explorado por la importancia que posee. Sin embargo, aunque hay iniciativas que promueven la escritura académica y su retroalimentación en la formación universitaria, se presta menos atención a cómo los estudiantes incorporan los comentarios de retroalimentación en futuras tareas. El propósito de este proyecto es examinar cómo estudiantes de Pedagogía en Educación Básica de una universidad chilena asimilan la retroalimentación al resolver un Aprendizaje Basado en Problemas (ABP). Se explora la escritura de un Informe de resolución de problemas (IRP) como forma de comunicar los aprendizajes del ABP, pues implica desarrollar habilidades como la indagación, la formulación de preguntas de investigación, el análisis crítico de fuentes y el trabajo colaborativo. A partir de una intervención didáctica en la elaboración de IRP se analizan comentarios de los profesores para determinar si se centran solo en la retroalimentación (feedback) o también ofrecen orientación futura (feedforward). Asimismo, se abordan las percepciones de los estudiantes con respecto a la formación recibida.

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One of the most urgent socio-environmental crises facing humanity is the massive deterioration of earth's ecosystems. The scale of this process is so vast that there is talk that we are living through the sixth mass extinction of species, leaving no ecosystem worldwide unaffected. Although when thinking about these processes we tend to concentrate on land-based ecosystems, marine ecosystems are also experiencing massive degradation processes. Human-induced phenomena such as ocean warming, extensive pollution, acidification and deoxygenation, are causing ecological struggles everywhere. In parallel, the relentless extraction and ubiquitous pollution associated with industries such as fishing and aquaculture have also become a leading cause of marine environmental degradation. Given its extensive coastline and the massive scale of its fishing and aquaculture industries, Chile is very much at the center of such processes of anthropogenic marine degradation. Such decay does not only affect the nonhuman component of marine ecosystems – with some studies estimating that 2/3 of the country’s fisheries have been heavily affected – but also the human groups depending on them, especially hundreds of low-income fishing communities all over the country. The recognition of this degradation is not new, motivating since mid-1990s different kinds of public and private interventions to turn marine-based industries towards sustainability. So far, these interventions have been mostly ineffective, mainly because they have taken an incremental approach to the issue, not really challenging the roots of the systems of extractivism that allow ever-growing levels of environmental damage and injustice. The leading hypothesis of this research project is that a new kind of transition project is slowly emerging in the Chilean marine productive sector. Following the relevant literature on sustainability transitions in the fields of political ecology, science and technology studies (STS) and multispecies studies, this project will see these marine transition experiments (MTE) as aiming to enhance the sustainability of the marine productive sector through an experimental redefinition of the identities and relationships among some of its leading components. In particular, the project will focus on three components these experiments usually aim to redefine (with variable intensities): (1) its social component, towards a more nuanced understanding of the socioeconomic, political and cultural complexities involved in transition processes, (2) its epistemic component, towards a holistic approach to knowledge production and circulation, and (3) its nonhuman component, towards a commitment to respect and protect the involved nonhuman biological entities. In order to empirically explore the specific contours and challenges that such MTEs are facing in Chile this research project will engage with experiments focused on a particularly central component of marine ecologies: macroalgae. Although a key component of most marine ecosystems in the country, an ongoing boom on its extraction – that has turned Chile into one of its leading exporters worldwide – has caused massive damage to several key macroalgae ecosystems, and the multiple beings that depend on them. Reacting to this situation, in recent years a series of initiatives much closer to the MTE model have emerged on this area, projects that can be divided on two main types. First, there are MTE focused on domestication, referring to initiatives that aim at replacing the direct extraction of macroalgae from the seabed by its careful and continual cultivation and harvesting. Second, and reacting to the current model based on the export of macroalgae as raw material, there are MTE focused on potentiation, or initiatives aiming at locally processing macroalgae in order to potentiate one particular strain or process, turning it into elaborated products or components of technical processes. The general objective of this research project will be to explore using a transdisciplinary social science approach the emergence of MTEs centered in the macroalgae industry in Chile, putting a specific focus on the barriers and frictions they are currently facing and exploring novel ways to enhance their potential. In empirical terms, this exploration will be based on the development of case studies of ongoing domestication and potentiation MTEs. In each of these cases, multispecies ethnography will be mixed with action-research initiatives, so as not only to describe and analyze in a dense transdisciplinary way the issues and opportunities arising from these initiatives, but also to collaborate with multiple publics on sketching possible ways on which they could be strengthened. Selecting concrete case studies in different locations at a national level, the project will produce and disseminate highly innovative knowledge regarding the barriers and challenges faced by ongoing MTEs, with the final aim of contributing to the urgent need to move towards more sustainable productive engagements with marine ecosystems.

El objetivo general del proyecto en sus tres líneas de investigación con animales es comprobar la existencia de diferencias sexuales en tres paradigmas de condicionamiento clásico, a saber, aversión condicionada al sabor, condicionamiento del miedo y aprendizaje apetitivo. Se utilizarán estos tres paradigmas a fin de establecer si el potencial dimorfismo sexual (para el que existen algunas recientes evidencias) se refiere a mecanismos de aprendizaje o a la manifestación conductual del aprendizaje. Además de responder a esta importante pregunta de investigación, dilucidar la existencia de dimorfismo en cada uno de estos paradigmas es relevante en si mismo y tiene importantes implicaciones clínicas en lo que respecta al comportamiento alimentarios, la etiología y tratamiento de problemas de salud mental relacionados con el miedo y la ansiedad, entre otros.

Hypotheses: 1) There is a significant relationship between a) dimensions of reading motivation, b) strategies to teach reading, and c) reading performance of adolescent students. 2) Teachers whom foster reading motivation have a repertoire of teaching strategies directly associated with it. In sum, the general objective of this proposal is to analyze the relationship between reading competence, intrinsic motivation, and self-efficacy perception, and to analyze the characteristics of the didactic strategies that can promote the motivation associated with reading.