Effectiveness of improved cookstoves to reduce indoor air pollution in developing countries. The case of the Cassamance Natural Subregion, Western Africa

The Spanish NGO "Alianza por la Solidaridad" has installed improved cookstoves in 3000 households during 2012 and 2013 to improve energy efficiency reducing fuelwood consumption and to improve indoor air quality. The type of cookstoves were Noflaye Jeeg and Noflaye Jaboot and were installed in the Cassamance Natural Subregion covering part of Senegal, The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. The Technical University of Madrid (UPM) has conducted a field study on a sample of these households to assess the effect of improved cookstoves on kitchen air quality. Measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) and fine particle matter (PM2.5) were taken for 24-hr period before and after the installation of improved cookstoves. The 24-hr mean CO concentrations were lower than the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for Guinea-Bissau but higher for Senegal and Gambia, even after the installation of improved cookstoves. As for PM2.5 concentrations, 24-hr mean were always higher than these guidelines. However, improved cookstoves produced significant reductions on 24-hr mean CO and PM2.5 concentrations in Senegal and for mean and maximum PM2.5 concentration on Gambia. Although this variability needs to be explained by further research to determine which other factors could affect indoor air pollution, the study provided a better understanding of the problem and envisaged alternatives to be implemented in future phases of the NGO project.

Escuela infantil de cocina CookLand

El objetivo de este documento es desarrollar un plan de negocio, para analizar la viabilidad de la puesta en marcha de una nueva empresa, una escuela de cocina infantil. Inicialmente la empresa se plantea con la opción de venta de dos productos, uno que serían las propias clases de cocina, con diversas temáticas y un segundo producto, que aprovechando las instalaciones consistirá en la opción de celebrar cumpleaños o fiestas infantiles, donde los niños cocinaran su propia merienda. La escuela se abriría en el municipio de Coslada, en la comunidad de Madrid, por lo que todos los reglamentos o requerimientos legales e impuestos se analizaran dentro del prisma de dicho municipio y comunidad autónoma. El Plan de negocio analizara los siguientes aspectos: - Estrategia: creación del plan estratégico de la empresa: Análisis y selección de las estrategias (misión, visión, etc, de la empresa), estudio de competencias, etc. - Marketing: Definición de productos, canales de comunicación con los posibles clientes y desarrollo del pricing de los productos. - Financiero: Análisis del impacto financiero de la apertura y funcionamiento del proyecto.---ABSTRACT---The aim of this document is to develop a business plan to analyze the feasibility of launching a new business, a school for children kitchen. Initially the company raises two products, own cooking classes, with different themes and a second product through which the facilities for children's birthday celebration where children can take advantage cook their own snacks. The school would open in the town of Coslada, in Madrid, so that all regulations and legal requirements and fees will be analyzed within the prism of that community. The Business Plan will analyze aspects of: - Strategy: creation of the strategic plan of the company: Analysis and selection of strategies (mission, vision, etc, of the company), study skills, etc. - Marketing: Definition of products, channels of communication with potential customers and development product’s pricing. - Financial Analysis of the financial impact of the opening and operation of the project.

Self-recognition and abstraction abilities in the common chimpanzee studied with distorting mirrors.

The reactions of chimpanzees to regular mirrors and the results of the standard Gallup mark test have been well documented. In addition to using the mark test to demonstrate self-recognition in a regular mirror, we exposed six female chimpanzees to mirrors that produced distorted or multiplied self-images. Their reactions to their self-images, in terms of mirror-guided self-referenced behaviors, indicated that correct assessment of the source of the mirror image was made by each subject in each of the mirrors. Recognition of a distorted self-image implies an ability for abstraction in the subjects in that the distortion must be rationalized before self-recognition occurs. The implications of these results in terms of illuminating the relative importance of feature and contingency of movement cues to self-recognition are discussed.

El trabajo femenino en la cocina y la panadería de un hospital sevillano del Antiguo Régimen

En las economías preindustriales, el trabajo femenino estuvo presente activamente en la economía urbana, desempeñando un sinfín de actividades sobre todo domésticas en ámbitos privados e institucionales. Criadas, cocineras, panaderas y lavanderas pululaban las ciudades porque estos oficios eran principales medios de subsistencia femenina. En el ámbito institucional como los hospitales destacaron las cocineras y panaderas. Este artículo trata sobre las mujeres que trabajaron en la cocina y panadería del hospital de las Cinco Llagas de Sevilla en el Antiguo Régimen. En el proceso de la alimentación en este hospital intervinieron muchas personas, entre ellas la madre mayor, las cocineras y las panaderas.

Semantic localization in the PCL library

The semantic localization problem in robotics consists in determining the place where a robot is located by means of semantic categories. The problem is usually addressed as a supervised classification process, where input data correspond to robot perceptions while classes to semantic categories, like kitchen or corridor. In this paper we propose a framework, implemented in the PCL library, which provides a set of valuable tools to easily develop and evaluate semantic localization systems. The implementation includes the generation of 3D global descriptors following a Bag-of-Words approach. This allows the generation of fixed-dimensionality descriptors from any type of keypoint detector and feature extractor combinations. The framework has been designed, structured and implemented to be easily extended with different keypoint detectors, feature extractors as well as classification models. The proposed framework has also been used to evaluate the performance of a set of already implemented descriptors, when used as input for a specific semantic localization system. The obtained results are discussed paying special attention to the internal parameters of the BoW descriptor generation process. Moreover, we also review the combination of some keypoint detectors with different 3D descriptor generation techniques.

Sistemas de acreditação e certificação hospitalar em Portugal Continetal

Dissertação apresentada à Escola Superior Agrária do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Inovação e Qualidade na Produção Alimentar.

College commons records, 1765-1829 (inclusive)

This volume, containing chronologically arranged papers mounted and bound around 1840, provides comprehensive documentation of the College commons around the turn of the 19th century. In particular, the volume documents the role the Steward played in overseeing the Commons. The records chiefly consist of the quarter reports of the Committee assigned to review the Steward’s accounts. Other documents include lists of utensils, bills for dinners for the Corporation, Overseers, and Commencement, regulations, lists of abatements for students’ quarterly bills, and information on kitchen staff.

Letter from Levi Hedge to President John Kirkland, [ca. 1823]

Levi Hedge, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, wrote Harvard president John Kirkland requesting renovations to the house which he occupied. Hedge's house was situated on North Street (now Massachusetts Avenue). He notes that the kitchen has a leaky sink, loose and unusable shelves, and is insufficiently insulated.

First Floor, Old Harvard Hall 1667-1764, 1935

Floor plan of the first floor of Old Harvard Hall drawn by H.R. Shurtleff in 1935. Includes the hall, kitchen, buttery, and two chambers

Engravings of a plan and an exterior view of Harvard Hall drawn by Pierre Eugène du Simitière, (photographic prints, photostats, and negative photostats), [ca. 1764]

The floor plan details all three floors of Harvard Hall, including its cellars, kitchen, chapel, and library. The items in this folder were reproduced from "The Burning of Harvard Hall, 1764, and its consequences," presented by F. Apthorp Foster at the April 1911 meeting of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and published in the Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume XIV. The floor plan and exterior views were created by Pierre Eugène du Simitière in circa 1764. The original drawings are held in the Pierre Eugène du Simitière collection in the Ridgeway Branch of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Front elevation and floor plans for first and second floors, ink and wash on paper, [ca. 1812]

Drawing by Charles Bulfinch of proposed plans for University Hall which were later rejected. Includes sketches of the front exterior view of the University Hall, and separate floor plans for the ground and second floors. Bulfinch designed a ground floor with a chapel and four dining halls each holding 100 students, a second floor with a gallery in the chapel and three rooms over the dining halls for public examinations and meetings of the Corporation and Overseers; and a basement under the halls intended for a kitchen under the dining halls and recitation rooms under the chapel.

Journal of College Disorders, 1788-1797

This journal contains entries about various student "disorders" which occurred during Eliphalet Pearson’s tenure at Harvard. Daily entries describe a wide range of students’ rebellious conduct, which included: hissing at speakers in chapel, throwing snowballs and stones at College buildings and people (including tutors and then-President Joseph Willard), disrupting lectures by scraping chairs and feet, breaking windows, intoxication, moving and breaking furniture, stealing firewood, firing pistols, building bonfires, stealing supplies (food, cider and candles), throwing food and utensils during meals, stealing Bibles, wearing hats indoors, filling door locks with stones, drawing on lecture room walls with gravel, and silencing the morning chapel bell by filling it with molten pewter plates (stolen from the kitchen). There are also entries pertaining to more malicious offenses, including the drowning of a dog in a well. Several entries describe meetings of the College government to determine the appropriate punishments for each offense. Students were often fined, expelled, or suspended ("rusticated") for their unruly behavior.

Sales at auction of property of the late Caleb Gannett Esq. of Cambridge, 1818

Eleven-page handwritten list of items sold from the estate of Caleb Gannett, dated May 29, 1818. Items are arranged by house location (such as "in the kitchen") and entries consist of the item name, the purchaser, and the price. The list includes a substantial section of "books in Office sold June 3, 1818." The verso of the last page includes the note: "Account of Sales at auction of the personal estate of C. Gannett- copied from auctioneer's book."

Reports of the Committee of commons, 1800

This collection contains two handwritten committee reports that provide a brief financial overview of the Harvard College Steward's accounts for the quarters ending February 27, 1800 and May 29, 1800. The February 27th statement is dated March 4, 1800, and the May 29th statement is dated June 2, 1800.

Appropriating Bimby on the Internet: Perspectives on technology mediated meals by a virtual brand community

It was Christmas day when an intriguing news piece about a kitchen technology was published in the Wall Street Journal in 2013 (Kowsmann, 2013). Immediately after, the piece went viral in the Portuguese (social) media (TV, blogs, press). It reported an odd 'obsession' of Portuguese consumers with a pricey German-made kitchen appliance - the Bimby (Figure 7.1) - during a difficult period of 'painful budget slashing in return for an international bailout'. The news piece served to unveil the irony: how come ''Western Europe's poorest country' could afford such an expensive technology 'that outsells high-end iPads [...] and is more popular on Facebook than the country's best-known rock band?' The journalistic piece advanced explanations for this technology craze: 'But the Portuguese love gadgets and seem determined, despite hard times, to maintain their tradition of regularly getting together for dinner. In this explanatory attempt, Bimby is portrayed as an intermediary that opens up the possibility for thinking about meal practices in a particular way, in this case, linking nation and meals through ideas around commensality.