This master thesis is an attempt to contribute to the understanding of urban water systems through the use of the urban metabolism (UM) framework. By developing steady-state models with STAN, a software used for material flow analysis (MFA), the urban water flows are quantified and analyzed as they enter the system boundary and are transformed by anthropogenic processes. Such a model has been applied to a specific urban water system in the town of Palomino, Colombia, to research the main barriers and opportunities for a sustainable urban water system. The area under study corresponds to a system boundary of 4.83 km2, and the analysis was performed for the year 2015. A detailed examination of Palomino’s water system was established based on primary data collection through survey processes, mapping, and semi-structured interviews. Based on the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the water system, a conceptual urban water metabolism (UWM) model was created to identify the critical flows of the water system through a monthly (31-day) analysis based on fourteen scenarios, each including four variables: Touristic season, Hours without electricity per month, Percentage of water losses due to pipelines leaks, and Percentage of water losses due to user’s behavior. Subsequently, a definition of sustainable urban water management system (SUWMS) was generated based on a literature review and an industrial ecology perspective, wherein the system is analyzed using a holistic, system thinking approach. Guided by the SUWMS definition and the local conditions of Palomino’s urban water system, various sustainable water technologies and initiatives are introduced as a set of potential solutions to shift the current water system towards a SUWMS. Finally, the potential of the sustainable water supply technique of rainwater harvesting to influence the current UWM of Palomino was assessed by identifying changes in the UWM for three key years: 1969, a year of extreme rainfall; 1997, a year of El Niño phenomenon characterized by extreme drought, and 1987, a year of ‘standard’ precipitation. The analysis was based on a critical scenario with the highest water losses and water demand. The rainwater harvesting collection capacity was determined by a storage capacity of 2000 L per household, while taking into account water consumption (water demand) per household between rain events on a monthly basis analysis. This condition implied that, even though the analysis was based on steady-state modeling, a semi-dynamic analysis was performed based on the variations of the stored rainwater volume (?V) between the time intervals determined by the rain events per month (?t).

Ucronía (Uchronia en inglés) es un neologismo derivado de la palabra utopía. Aquí la noción de lugar (topos) es remplazada por la noción del tiempo (chronos). Este término también esta relacionado con las nociones de narración paralela o alternativa de las historias; es la estrategia que uso para revisar el tiempo, en un intento de re-presentar el pasado y promulgar el futuro, Esta aproximación me permite simultáneamente revisar las etapas de la niñez, la adolescencia, la adultez, y la vejez dentro de la “realidad” de la condición humana y de la misma manera, proyectar las fases de la vida dentro de la condición de las naciones tras la alborada de la globalización. Estas diferentes etapas están basadas paralelamente en cuatro países distintos: Colombia, Alemania Occidental, Yugoslavia y Emiratos Árabes Unidos (lo que fue el Grupo D del Mundial de fútbol Italia ’90. Cada etapa trata a una nación en un momento de transición al mismo tiempo que es explorada la experiencia personal e individual de la crisis. Con esto doy una mirada a la identidad individual y a la cultura como un espacio de juego y auto-diseño. Es un ejercicio en el cual me convierto en “el otro” al tiempo que exploro un estado de crisis resultante de las políticas neoliberales y sus inherentes inequidades. Ucronía es entonces, una desviación ficcional de los eventos históricos y su conexión con la utopía debe mantenerse presente. En su marco teórico Uchronia es la oportunidad de volver a un punto en el tiempo en donde una sociedad transformada o ideal parece estar al alcance. Por medio de un movimiento hipotético en el tiempo y para realizar las posibilidades de un “nuevo hombre” que existió en un momento crucial: El año 1990.

Abstract: As Western schooling continues to expand and reach remote communities, it is imperative to understand rural parents’ beliefs about formal education and the ways in which they can support their children’s schooling. Sociodemographic changes in rural communities have been connected to shifts in parents’ cultural values and practices (Greenfield, 2009), and parental participation in the institution of Western schooling has been identified as an important influence in these changes (Chavajay, 2006; LeVine et al, 2003; 2012, Rogoff & Chavajay, 2002; Rogoff et al., 1993). This dissertation contributes to this knowledge base by exploring both schooled and unschooled parents’ beliefs and commitments towards formal education and their participation in a book-sharing interaction in four rural Mayan communities. In the first study, I used grounded-theory methods to characterize and compare schooled and unschooled parents’ beliefs on the benefits of formal education for their children’s futures and the commitments that they make to support their children’s schooling, paying particular attention to interactions around written language. In the second study, I used cluster analysis to characterize Mayan parents’ book-sharing styles on the basis of the degree to which parents engaged their children as interlocutors in the interaction and of the type of content they emphasized, and to examine differences between schooled and unschooled parents’ book-sharing styles. Both studies were conducted with 30 parents from four Mayan communities in which Western schooling was introduced over the last decades but where there is still wide variation in parents’ schooling levels –making them ideal sites to study the influence of schooling on parental beliefs and practices. Taken together, the two studies provide evidence on cultural change and continuity, and identify parents’ participation in Western school as an important influence on parent-child interactions while also calling attention to the role of other parental experiences in shaping their beliefs and practices. Resumen: A medida que la escuela occidental continúa expandiéndose y llegando a comunidades remotas, es imperativo entender las creencias de los padres rurales acerca de la educación formal y las formas en que pueden apoyar la escolarización de sus hijos. Los cambios sociodemográficos en las comunidades rurales se han relacionado con cambios en los valores y prácticas culturales de los padres (Greenfield, 2009), y la participación de los padres en la institución de la escuela occidental ha sido identificada como una influencia importante en estos cambios (Chavajay, 2006; 2003, Rogoff y Chavajay, 2002, Rogoff et al., 1993). Esta tesis contribuye a esta base de conocimiento explorando las creencias y compromisos de los padres escolarizados y no escolarizados con respecto a la educación formal y su participación en una interacción con un libro con sus hijos en cuatro comunidades mayas rurales. En el primer estudio, utilicé métodos de teoría enraizada para caracterizar y comparar las creencias de los padres escolarizados y no escolarizados sobre los beneficios de la educación formal para el futuro de sus hijos y los compromisos que ellos hacen para apoyar la escolaridad de sus hijos, poniendo especial atención en las interacciones con el lenguaje escrito. En el segundo estudio, usé el análisis de conglomerados para caracterizar los estilos de interactuar con un libro de los padres Mayas, en base al grado en que los padres involucraron a sus hijos como interlocutores en la interacción y al tipo de contenido que enfatizaron, y para examinar las diferencias en los estilos de compartir libros entre padres escolarizados y no escolarizados. Ambos estudios se llevaron a cabo con 30 padres de cuatro comunidades Mayas en las que se introdujo la escolarización occidental en las últimas décadas, pero donde todavía hay una gran variación en los niveles de escolaridad de los padres, convirtiéndolos en sitios ideales para estudiar la influencia de la escolaridad en las creencias y prácticas de los padres. En conjunto, los dos estudios proporcionan evidencia sobre la continuidad y el cambio cultural, e identifican la participación de los padres en la escuela occidental como una influencia importante en las interacciones entre padres e hijos, a la vez que llaman la atención sobre el papel de otras experiencias parentales en la configuración de sus creencias y prácticas.

Abstract: The World Wide Web, created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, was initially a motivation for researchers about a system that would allow the particle of physics world to share information across the Internet. Nowadays, the information era couldn’t exist if the World Wide Web had not been available for everyone and if the industry couldn’t be able to understand how to use it for developing products and services based on it. Although the World Wide Web was left open source, in general when technologies created through basic and applied research are transferred to the private sector, it occurs mainly through licensing to existing firms or new venture creation. The Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) states in its website (http://www.autm.net/autm-info/about-tech-transfer/about-technology-transfer/) that technology transfer is the process of transferring scientific findings from one organization to another with the purpose of further development and commercialization. It is also the process by which technology developed for a specific use or sector becomes applicable in a different productive environment (UNCTAD, 2014). In this sense, technology transfer appears to be a key element for economic development of all sorts and in different environments for both private and public sectors, involving two actors, the one transferring the technology and the one receiving the technology. Moreover, technology transfer has an invaluable impact crossing boundaries of nations, allowing developing countries to have access to technologies they lack, encouraging growth and setting a path towards development. This paper describes how technology transfer is currently applied around the world, and will focus on describing its barriers and enablers, which are those elements that affect the process of technology transfer, either making it a difficult task to carry causing investments to be lost and market needs unmet, or supporting it in such a way that it is carried out successfully. A project in which a research center, the private sector and academia meet to solve specific market needs is presented as an example of a technology transfer process, and both barriers and enablers are analyzed to assess these kind of projects for future improvement. Resumen: La World Wide Web (WWW), creada en 1989 por Tim Berners-Lee en la Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear, CERN, fue inicialmente una motivación para los investigadores acerca de un sistema que permitiría al mundo de la física de partículas compartir información a través de Internet. Hoy en día, la era de la información no podría existir si la World Wide Web no hubiera estado disponible para todos y si la industria no hubiera sido capaz de entender como usarla para el desarrollo de productos y servicios basados en ella. Aunque la World Wide Web fue dejada como fuente abierta, en general cuando nuevas tecnologías creadas desde la investigación básica y aplicada son transferidas al sector privado, esto ocurre mayormente a través de licenciamientos a empresas existentes o con la creación de nuevas empresas. La Asociación de Gerentes de Tecnología Universitarios de Estados Unidos (AUTM) declara en su sitio web (http://www.autm.net/autm-info/about-tech-transfer/about-technology-transfer/) que la transferencia de tecnología es el proceso de transformar descubrimientos científicos de una organización a otra con el propósito de un posterior desarrollo y comercialización. Es también el proceso por el cual tecnologías desarrolladas para un sector específico se vuelve aplicable en un entorno productivo diferente (UNCTAD, 2014). En este sentido, la transferencia de tecnología aparece como un elemento clave para el desarrollo económico de todo tipo y en diferentes entornos, tanto para el sector privado como para el público, involucrando dos actores, el que transfiere la tecnología y el que recibe la tecnología. Además, la transferencia de tecnología tiene un impacto invaluable cruzando fronteras entre países permitiendo a países en vía de desarrollo acceder a tecnologías que carecen, fomentando el crecimiento y marcando el camino hacia el desarrollo. Este documento describe cómo la transferencia de tecnología es usada hoy en día en el mundo, y se enfoca en describir sus barreras y facilitadores, que son aquellos elementos que afectan el proceso de transferencia de tecnología bien sea para hacerlo una tarea difícil de llevar a cabo causando pérdidas en inversiones y necesidades de mercado no satisfechas, o para apoyarlo en tal forma que el proceso sea llevado a cabo satisfactoriamente. Un proyecto en el cual un centro de investigación, el sector privado y la academia se unen para dar solución a necesidades específicas del mercado, es presentado como un ejemplo del proceso de transferencia de tecnología, y tanto barreras como facilitadores son analizados para evaluar este tipo de proyectos y sus mejoras en el futuro.

Political integration is an underlying challenge of peace accords, particularly in the case of Latin America. The agreements usually provide mechanisms to facilitate the transition of violent groups to the legal political parties; however, their integration, in political terms, requires the implementation of certain instruments that let the members of violent groups become citizens able to take part of the political decisions in different scenarios. The previous peace processes in El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia left three peace accords that have served as analysis model to draw the conditions for political integration of violent groups. Then, this research analyses the inclusion of those conditions into the recent signed peace accords between the National Government of Colombia and the FARC – EP.

This thesis proposes a novel window aggregate sharing approach for out-of-order stream processing. We combined together the best of two worlds: the Google dataflow model for out-of-order stream processing and the Cutty aggregate sharing strategy. To our knowledge, our solution is the only aggregate sharing strategy for out-of-order stream processing that supports sliding, tumbling and session windows. Based on the experiments with the real world dataset DEBS12 [28] and a 3% out-of-order level, our solution has 1.24 higher throughput than the current implementation in Flink. Moreover, we show that the throughput of our solution becomes higher, as the out-of-order level increases.

Colombia, as many low and middle-income countries, has been deeply influenced by the predominant linear economic model by using their extensive natural resources to create, to some extent, wealth. However, the current environmental problems and global economy deceleration are challenging the country to find new ways to growth the economy without harming the environment. The circular economy (CE) seems to be a promising model to achieve this goal by reducing the dependency on non-renewables, improving the competitiveness through innovation and ¬generating new and rewarding jobs. Thus, this paper explored the enablers that would facilitate the transition towards a CE in Colombia given its specific circumstances such as development gaps in infrastructure and a large informal sector involved in recycling. As a result, an enabling framework was proposed based on secondary data and the insights from interviewing an expert on the field. This framework was the baseline to assess the CE in Colombia and to identify the main interventions that are required to support a transition towards a more sustainable economy. This assessment was carried out through secondary data and some interviews with professionals performing in sustainable development in the country. The evaluation showed that Colombia does not have at the moment the right enabling conditions for a CE deployment. Therefore, the country presents opportunities to reinforce a CE transition in terms of political coherence and a suitable fiscal framework that promotes sustainable practices as well as a robust IT infrastructure and ICTs appropriation among the enterprises to develop business models framed within the CE principles. Moreover, it is required a safe and profitable recovery of materials discouraging the current practices of recycling. Finally, it is important to promote financing schemes and the development of design-led approaches to production among the industrial sector to foster innovation as a key building block of a CE. The findings of this dissertation provide a starting point for future research about the enablers for a CE transition in the context of low and middle-income economies.

El método “El Avión de Papel” es para los niños de Colombia y está destinado a iniciar el camino de aprendizaje o la adquisición de la lengua francesa, para principiantes, niños o los niños con discapacidad mental que se proporcionan a través de la variedad de actividades y la simplicidad de contenido para los niños.Los contenidos proporcionan una comprensión más suave y progresiva de las materias básicas para el aprendizaje de la lengua francesa. Este método proporciona objetivos de aprendizaje, con actividades motivadoras y atractivas (canciones, juegos y proyectos de arte) que desarrollan las habilidades de producción y comprensión oral, iniciando con la introducción a la escritura.El método “El Avión de Papel” tiene como objetivo facilitar el aprendizaje del francés a los niños colombianos, de manera sencilla como un avión de papel, que es fácil de construir y utilizar a cualquier persona, en cualquier lugar.

The Colombian government introduced a capacity market to promote the diversification in the energy matrix, and protect users from high prices derived from dry seasonal events. Unfortunately, the flaws in the scarcity price definition- a mechanism that activates the capacity market obligation and sets a cap price for the spot market- have resulted in a market failure. Specifically, some generation plants have been forced to be unavailable because their variable costs are significantly higher than the scarcity price. This research presents an analysis and some possible alternatives fo the definition of the scarcity price in the Colombian Electricity market. An excel-based model was developed in order to analyse and compare different scarcity price definitions under three dimensions: i) Water management resources. ii) Penalty exposure of agents. iii) Change in prices for final demand. Results suggest that the proposed change in the scarcity price definition would induce to more efficient water management resources, and a reduction in the penalty exposure of agents. Complementary actions are recommended for policy makers in order to avoid some possible side effects of the implementation of a new scarcity price definition.

This thesis introduces a financial simulation model covering two related financial domains: Mobile Payments and Retail Stores systems. The problem we address in these domains is different types of fraud. We limit ourselves to isolated cases of relatively straightforward fraud. However, in this thesis the ultimate aim is to introduce our approach towards the use of computer simulation for fraud detection and its applications in financial domains. Fraud is an important problem that impact the whole economy. Currently, there is a lack of public research into the detection of fraud. One important reason is the lack of transaction data which is often sensitive. To address this problem we present a mobile money Payment Simulator (PaySim) and Retail Store Simulator (RetSim), which allow us to generate synthetic transactional data that contains both: normal customer behaviour and fraudulent behaviour. These simulations are Multi Agent-Based Simulations (MABS) and were calibrated using real data from financial transactions. We developed agents that represent the clients and merchants in PaySim and customers and salesmen in RetSim. The normal behaviour was based on behaviour observed in data from the field, and is codified in the agents as rules of transactions and interaction between clients and merchants, or customers and salesmen. Some of these agents were intentionally designed to act fraudulently, based on observed patterns of real fraud. We introduced known signatures of fraud in our model and simulations to test and evaluate our fraud detection methods. The resulting behaviour of the agents generate a synthetic log of all transactions as a result of the simulation. This synthetic data can be used to further advance fraud detection research, without leaking sensitive information about the underlying data or breaking any non-disclose agreements. Using statistics and social network analysis (SNA) on real data we calibrated the relations between our agents and generate realistic synthetic data sets that were verified against the domain and validated statistically against the original source. We then used the simulation tools to model common fraud scenarios to ascertain exactly how effective are fraud techniques such as the simplest form of statistical threshold detection, which is perhaps the most common in use. The preliminary results show that threshold detection is effective enough at keeping fraud losses at a set level. This means that there seems to be little economic room for improved fraud detection techniques. We also implemented other applications for the simulator tools such as the set up of a triage model and the measure of cost of fraud. This showed to be an important help for managers that aim to prioritise the fraud detection and want to know how much they should invest in fraud to keep the loses below a desired limit according to different experimented and expected scenarios of fraud.