No abstract

The most common method used to pick up biomedical signals is through metallic electrodes coupled to the input of high-gain, low-noise amplifiers. Unfortunately, electrodes, amongst other effects, introduce an undesired contact resistance and a contact potential. The contact potential needs to be rejected since it would otherwise cause the saturation of the input stage of the amplifiers, and this is almost always obtained by inserting a simple RC high-pass filter in the input signal path. The contact resistance needs to be estimated to ensure that it does not impair correct measurements. Methods exist for estimating the contact resistance by dynamically modifying the input network configuration, but because of the presence of the input RC filter, long transients are induced any time a switch occurs between different input configurations, so that the measurement time may become unacceptably long. In this paper, we propose a new topology for a DC removal network at the input of the differential signal amplifier that results in an AC filter whose time constant can be continuously changed by means of a control voltage. As such, we can speed up the recovery from transients by setting very short time constants (during the input resistance estimation process) while maintaining the ability to obtain very low cut-in frequencies by setting a much larger time constant during actual measurements. A prototype of the system was built and tested in order to demonstrate the advantage of the approach we propose in terms of reduced measurement time.

We are all consumers. Life is only possible because of consuming. The act of consuming can be defined as the breaking down of natural or artificial structures to satisfy biological or cultural needs; is among the farthest reaching of human activities (Csikszentmihalyi 2012). Today, the act of consuming could empower consumers to adopt conscious, ethical and responsible criteria in the daily routine to improve the consumption and get a personal and collective life, more based in freedom, fair, loyal and happiness (Martínez 2005). In this way the Transformative Consumer Research (TCR) is an initiative among researches committed to studying the role that consumption plays in the major social problems of daily consumption, among them obesity, addictions, materialism, hunger, homeless, and  poverty (Ozanne, et al 2011). Inspired on TCR and the ethnoconsumer (Venkatesh 2013), the focus of this paper is an exploratory qualitative research with the main objective of showing how the Social Representation of Mexican responsible consumer is focused on shopping at small groups of local producers. The attitudes, interests and opinions will be identified in this first step through point-of-sale open interviews with responsible consumers, with local products offered in Guadalajara and Queretaro urban cities. The information gathered will be analyzed using an inductive method for defining preliminary categories, while using the analysis software Atlas Ti for mapping conceptual networks. This study aims to provide assumptions and variables for further study on transforming consumption.

This study sought to determine the academic performance and life support skills among working students enrolled in Naval State University during School Year 2016-2017. The respondents of the study were college working students enrolled in six colleges with different courses offered, the parents, teachers and employers were included. The descriptive-correlational research design was employed using a questionnaire to gather information on the respondents. Frequency, percentage and mean were used to describe the respondents’ profile, t-test was used to describe the difference between the academic performance and life support skills, and chi-square test was used to describe the relationship of the variables.  The findings of the study revealed that the biggest number of working students were in the College of Industrial, Information and Communications Technology and employed as house helpers, working with an average of 4-5 hours with a very low monthly salary, and a moderately favorable attitude towards work. Moreover, the attitude towards schooling of the working students was moderately favorable, effectiveness of the teachers moderately effective and most of them were affiliated with Youth for Christ and have low attitude towards peers. The heads of the family of the working students were only high school graduates mostly with a low monthly family income. As to the number of siblings, most of them had 3-4 siblings with their own house. Majority of the parents were skilled workers and most of the working student-respondents were living with their parents and obtained with a very good academic performance. For life support skills, most of the teacher-respondents, parents, employers and the working students perceived cognitive, socialization and affective oriented profile as satisfactory. The cognitive life support skills were significantly related to salary, the socialization-related life support skills were significantly related to nature of work, and the affective-oriented life support skills were significantly related to nature of the work and salary. The cognitive life support skills and attitude towards schooling were significantly related to academic performance, socialization-related life support skills were significantly related to academic performance, attitude towards schooling and effectiveness of teachers. Peer profile was not significantly related to cognitive socialization and affective oriented life support skills. The cognitive life support skills were significantly related to the nature of parents’ work and number of siblings. Socialization-related life support skills were significantly related to highest educational attainment of head of the family. Likewise, affective-oriented life support skills were not significantly related to family profile. Thus, the study found out that the best predictors of the level of life support skills among working students through multiple regression analysis of the variables were nature of work, attitude towards schooling and academic performance. The study recommends special attention should be paid to working students by providing them a mechanism to increase and develop their life support skills.

Los inmigrantes se observan como mercados emergentes que impactan en la escena cultural, económica, social y política debido al intercambio de experiencias que ocurre. La aculturación del consumidor se utiliza para comprender y describir la adquisición de habilidades y conocimientos relevantes para asumir o no una nueva cultura. El artículo presenta una revisión de tres modelos de aculturación de los consumidores con el objetivo de entender cómo éstos se comportan en un nuevo mercado. ABSTRACT: Immigrants are considered emerging markets that impact the cultural, economic, social and political scene, due to the exchange of experiences. Consumer Acculturation is used to understand and describe the acquisition of relevant skills and assume or deny a new culture or knowledge. This paper presents a review of three models of acculturation of consumers in order to understand how they behave in a new market.