Resumen La industria del calzado está conformada por diversos tipos de productos y es un renglón importante de la economía en Colombia. Los productos de calzado orientadas a mejorar la seguridad y la salud en el trabajo deben cumplir con altos estándares de calidad y su producción es costosa. La producción de suelas termoplásticas para calzado es compleja y es necesario evaluar diferentes fases del proceso que se puedan mejorar y posteriormente aplicar políticas que contribuyan al mejoramiento de estos puntos críticos. Para esta investigación se analizaron las principales variables asociadas a la elaboración de suelas termoplásticas, se identificó dónde estaban ubicados los cuellos de botella y se proponen un conjunto de escenarios de solución, los cuales permiten una reducción en los costos del proceso y en el tiempo de elaboración de productos.

Abstract The footwear industry is made up of various types of products and is an important economy line in Colombia. Footwear products aimed at improving occupational safety and health must meet high quality standards and are expensive to produce. The thermoplastic soles production for footwear is complex and it is necessary to evaluate different phases of the process that can be improved and subsequently apply policies that contribute to the improvement of these critical points. For this research, the main variables associated with the elaboration of thermoplastic soles were analyzed, where the bottlenecks were located and a set of solution scenarios are proposed, which allow a reduction in production cost and time.

Abstract The objective of this work was to evaluate the mechanical properties of porous alumina ceramics, using the rice husk as a porogenic element. The rice husk was milled and graded in two granulometry, <65 μm and 65-150 μm, and added in a high purity calcined alumina in the proportion of 5, 15 and 30 wt%. The samples were pressed by uniaxial pressing and sintered at 1450 ºC for 1 h. Sintered density, total porosity, Young’s modulus, modulus of rupture, and compressive strength were evaluated. Samples were also prepared without the addition of rice husk (RH) in order to compare the properties. Porous ceramics with total porosity ranging from 24% to 54% were produced, and with the composition of 5% RH 65-150 μm, a high porosity value was obtained for a lower loss in mechanical properties.

A Leishmania donovani-complex specific DNA probe was usedto confirm the widespread dissemination of amastigotes in apparently normal skinof dogs with canine visceral leishmaniasis. When Lutzomyia longipalpis were fed on abnormal skin of five naturally infected dogs 57 of 163 (35 per cent) fliesbecame infected: four of 65 flies (6 per cent) became infected when fed on apparently normal skin. The bite of a single sandfly that had fed seven days previouslyon a naturally infected dog transmitted the infection to a young dog from a non-endemic area. Within 22 days a lesion had developed at the site of the infectivebite (inner ear): 98 days after infection organisms had not disseminated throughout the skin, bone marrow, spleen or liver and the animal was still serologically negative by indirect immunofluorescence and dot-enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. When fed Lu. longipalpis were captured from a kennel with a sick dog known to be infected, 33 out of 49 (67 per cent) of flies contained promastigotes. In contrast only two infections were detected among more than 200 sandflies captured in houses. These observations confirm the ease of transmissibility of L.chagasi from dog to sandfly to dog in Teresina. It is likely that canine VL is the major source of human VL by the transmission route dog-sandfly-human. the Lmet2 DNA probe was a useful epidemiological tool for detecting L. chagasi in sandflies.