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Salar de Ascotán is a high-altitude arsenic-rich salt flat exposed to high ultraviolet radiation in the Atacama Desert, Chile. It hosts unique endemic flora and fauna and is an essential habitat for migratory birds, making it an important site for conservation and protection. However, there is limited information on the resident microbiota's diversity, genomic features, metabolic potential, and molecular mechanisms that enable it to thrive in this extreme environment. We used long- and short-read metagenomics to investigate the microbial communities in Ascotán's water, sediment, and soil. Bacteria predominated, mainly Pseudomonadota, Acidobacteriota, and Bacteroidota, with a remarkable diversity of archaea in the soil. Following hybrid assembly, we recovered high-quality bacterial (101) and archaeal (6) metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), including representatives of two putative novel families of Patescibacteria and Pseudomonadota and two novel orders from the archaeal classes Halobacteriota and Thermoplasmata. We found different metabolic capabilities across distinct lineages and a widespread presence of genes related to stress response, DNA repair, and resistance to arsenic and other metals. These results highlight the remarkable diversity and taxonomic novelty of the Salar de Ascotán microbiota and its rich functional repertoire, making it able to resist different harsh conditions. The highly complete MAGs described here could serve future studies and bioprospection efforts focused on salt flat extremophiles, and contribute to enriching databases with microbial genome data from underrepresented regions of our planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article presents the technology of biphasic thermosiphons as an efficient and rational alternative for energy use. Chile has experienced a significant increase in energy consumption in recent years, so the 2020 Energy Efficiency Action Plan proposes measures to increase energy efficiency in different economic sectors of the country. Biphasic thermosiphons are devices capable of transferring large amounts of heat with small temperature gradients and are used in various applications, from bakery ovens to thermal control systems in nuclear reactors. This technology can be applied in the building, industrial, and mining sectors, providing a passive alternative for cooling and heating, and allowing for heat recovery in the industry and the implementation of cogeneration systems. The Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tarapacá has established the Biphasic Thermosiphon Laboratory to develop new equipment assisted by this technology and solve energy problems in the northern region of the country. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Academia: Revista Latinoamericana de Administración is the property of Emerald Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article shows how the Did Matching Methodology as an impact evaluation tool can be applied to a specific exportation public policy instrument, called Export Marketing Assistance (EMA). The article presents a study in which 59 export firms of the Araucanía region in Chile were analyzed. The results show a positive relationship between export performance and exportation public policy instrument used. However, this relationship is not statistically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The World Health Organization recently defined the criteria for constructing birth weight curves using population based data., Aim: To construct a national curve of weight, size and ponderal index at birth for Chile, following the criteria suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) expert committee report from 1995., Material and Methods: A national database from the Chilean Istitute for Statistics was used. All alive singleton deliveries during tbe period from 1993 to 2000 were included. A birth weight curve for the total population as well as for size and ponderal index at birth was construted, including percentile distribution, mean and standard deviation of values for gestational age. Stratification by sex was performed., Results: A total of 2,049,446 singleton deliveries were analyzed. The 10 percentiles (raw data) for birth weight throughout gestation from 22 to 42 weeks were: 470, 520, 560, 630, 660, 749, 810, 926, 1,031, 1,160, 1,320, 1,480, 1,680, 1,920, 2,190, 2,500, 2, 750, 2,910, 3,010, 3,080 and 3,090 g, respectively., Conclusions: A national birth weight for Chilean population (a predominant Hispanic population) was constructed. There are not differences between this curve and the standard proposed by WHO (population from California, USA) suggesting that under comparable perinatal indices, ethnicity is not a relevant factor deterimining birth weight.