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Nowadays, an extra consumption of electric energy in the Colombian houses is generated due to electric or electronic elements plugged into the electric network. This fact produces a cost overrun in the user’s electricity bills. To reduce this extra cost, and also with a plus of reducing greenhouse gas emission, a monitoring system for the consumption of electric energy in a household will be designed and implemented to make electricity users realize how much money and energy is being wasted due to the unnecessary electric elements plugged into the network. This paper aims to show a monitoring system that allows the client to supervise the consumption of some appliances inside his/her home, remotely. It is also considered the HMI to be able to log in, choose the intervals of data and generate reports and graphics. The monitoring system is based on the integration of several technologies that are already used and implemented in houses and buildings, such as: measuring and treatment of data electronically using microcontrollers, Wi-Fi technology and dynamic graphic interface (website).

The methodology consists of several tasks, starting from documentation of the variables, instrumentation and methods for getting to the solution; the first part of the methodology focuses on selecting the electric and/or electronic elements to be monitored, so the instrumentation is able to monitor. Then, the power stage was implemented in this stage to measure signals from the sensors while sensing the electric nodes are adjusted, so does the transmission and reception. In the third stage, the design information system was implemented; this is where the received data from the sensors are stored and managed for further organization and visualization. Activities included the following: Analysis of the model of use cases: Identification of actors and actions that are involved in the system. Server selection: Study of the different server to manage the database. Design of the database: The variables, tables, fields, profiles are determined for managing the information. Connection between sensors and database: Correct data transmission and managing to the database from the sensors. Finally, the system is validated in a rural house for a month.

The monitoring system satisfies the main objective of making a tracing of the behavior of some appliances inside a house, showing graphically the instant current generated while connected, the cumulated energy consumed and the cost in Colombian pesos of the energy consumed so far, in real time.

The monitoring system requires the correct functioning of the sensors connected to each household appliance in the home.

The main approach in the monitoring platform is the real-time measurement of energy consumption by nodes (in each appliance) that allows the user to control the money. The innovative impact of the project will be based on the use of hardware and information systems in the measurement of electrical consumption.

This research has a direct impact on the economic aspects of the low-income population by allowing them to manage their energy consumption through the proposed system.

The main approach in the monitoring platform is the real-time measurement of energy consumption by nodes (in each appliance) that allows the user to control the money.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why tourists continue to visit troubled and often violent nations, even when there is perceived risk. Tourism and terrorism reflect very different philosophies, but there are also some disturbing commonalities. Both need modern technology to be effective, both rely heavily on media management and both require the manipulation of perceptions and attitudes.

The paper uses historical evidence to examine the rise and fall in world travel and tourism demand related to acts of terrorism.

The paper observes that the Caribbean experienced a 13.5 percent decline in US visitors after the 9/11 terrorist attack in the USA and this led to the temporary loss of an estimated 365,000 jobs.

The paper considers the fact that Jamaica suffers the equivalent of one 9/11 incident each week in terms of the percentage of the population killed by organized crime and gangs. It concludes that crime does not have the same effect as terrorism in terms of deterring tourists and that tourists demonstrate a willingness to visit countries where security risks are significantly higher than in their home country.

The paper compares and contrasts the experience of 9/11 in New York with two bombings in Buenos Aires, and shows the remarkable extent to which even the experience of something as shocking as a terrorist attack is mediated through cultural values.

Tourism is sensitive to many factors related to security, such as terrorism and armed conflict. This scenario can be considered for Colombia and its National Natural Parks. The signing of the peace agreement with the revolutionary armed forces (FARC-EP) of Colombia that would end the armed conflict in 2016 offers economic possibilities for the country where tourism represents an important option, especially in natural areas where the government has regained control. This has had an impact on the sustained growth of tourism demand. The objective of this study is to determine the sensitivity of the tourism market in Colombia and natural parks and its relationship with the evolutionary dynamics of tourism, in a context of armed conflict. Variables related to visitors and the armed conflict were associated by autoregressive vectors, Pearson correlation test and Granger causality. A correlation of −0.5474 was found for the accumulated period from 1995 to 2018. It was also determined that the number of victims of the armed conflict is the Granger cause of the number of visitors to natural parks. The study concludes that the sensitivity of tourism in natural parks in Colombia is a consequence of State policy for the partial termination of the internal armed conflict.

The present paper uses Twitter to analyze the current state of the worldwide, Spanish-language, independent publishing market. The main purposes are to determine whether certain Latin American Spanish-language independent publishers function as gatekeepers of world literature and to analyze the geopolitical structure of this global market, addressing both the Europe-America dialectic and neocolonial practices.

After selecting the sample of publishers, the authors conducted a search for their Twitter profiles and located 131; they then downloaded data from the corresponding Twitter APIs. Finally, they applied social network analysis to study the presence of and interaction between the sample of independent publishers on this social media.

The results provide data-based evidence supporting the hypothesis of some literary critics who suggest that in Latin America, certain publishers act as gatekeepers to the mainstream book market. Therefore, Twitter could be considered a valid source of information to address the independent book market in Spanish. By extension, this approach could be applied to other cultural industries in which small and medium-sized agents develop a digital presence in social media.

This paper combines social network analysis and literary criticism to provide new evidence about the Spanish-language book market. It helps validate the aforementioned hypothesis proposed by literary critics and opens up new paths along which to pursue an interpretative, comparative analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the literacy practices of the families and communities of first-generation college students in Latin America, and how community and family literacies can inform the understanding of first-generation college students’ identity and cultural values.

This transnational ethnography was conducted in local communities around three public universities in Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica. Participants included nine fist-generation college students and more than 50 people in their families and communities (i.e. relatives, parents and friends). Data gathering occurred at the university outside the formal space of the classroom, at home, and in the community. Data were interpreted through the lens of the community cultural wealth framework.

The author found that first-generation college students and their families and communities engaged in rich literacy practices that have been overlooked in policy, research, and media. It is argued that the concept literacy capital is necessary to acknowledge the critical literacy practices communities engage in. Literacy capital was manifested in these communities to preserve cultural traditions, to sponsor literacy practices and to question and resist unjust sociopolitical circumstances.

The findings of this study should inform a culturally sustaining pedagogy of academic literacies in higher education. Beyond asset-based approaches to academic literacies in Latin America, critical perspectives to academic literacies teaching and learning are needed that acknowledge the Latin American complexities.

These findings are significant because they unveiled how people in local communities were informed about the sociopolitical dynamics at the national and international scale that affected or even threatened their local culture, and how they used their literacy capital to react critically to those situations.