The course was held in two days in the city of Vicuña and at the University of La Serena.

As part of the actions carried out by the Institutional Improvement Plan for Pedagogies and together with the Directorate of Linkage with the Environment and Extension (DIVEULS), a new version of the course on the Japanese Model for teaching Mathematics was carried out.

On this occasion, teachers from educational establishments in the Vicuña commune participated, who were able to delve deeper into this Japanese method that has more than 140 years of tradition, and that seeks to teach mathematics through the active thinking of the students and the use of materials. didactic.

“In Chile we are not used to investing the entire class to work on a single problem or giving time for students to solve it on their own. We are very anxious and we expect the student to discover things quickly. The Japanese model teaches us to put our patience into practice. I believe that the group with which we have worked on this day has managed to understand, from this new perspective, what the student needs to discover,” said the Director of Linkage with the ULS Environment and Extension, Dr. Catalina Cvitanic, who gave the course.

One of the characteristics that this methodology includes is the collaborative participation of teachers, a space known as Class Study that brings them together to constructively discuss the activities carried out in the classroom. Therefore, on the final day, the teachers worked in groups where they were given the mission of generating a Class Plan and presenting it to the other participants, with the purpose of giving their opinion on the different strategies for its implementation.

For teacher Myriam Ángel, who works at the Joaquín Vicuña School, the course showed her another way of teaching mathematics. “I have learned that the most important thing is that students learn through challenges and look for ways to solve problems. I will implement this methodology in my enumeration classes,” she noted. For his part, professional Piero Riveros, who works with high school students at the Liceo Carlos Roberto Mondaca in Vicuña, stated that the method could be applied in collaboration with the School Integration Program (PIE) of the schools. “By implementing summation and problem solving in a didactic manner, we can help those students who are part of the PIE and who have more difficulties learning. The way in which the content is passed is very entertaining for children, they can learn mathematics through games and through these classes it is possible to achieve that,” he emphasized.

The course ended successfully and it is expected to continue replicating it with teachers from other communities, in order to contribute to the changes that the FIP ULS1501 Institutional Improvement Plan aims to generate.

Source: PMI FIP ULS1501 Press

Initiative, developed by the ULS Faculty of Engineering, provides university orientation and academic tutoring to first-year students of the different careers attached to the macro-unit.

Offering support to students in the areas of academic, professional and personal development, enhancing their skills within a climate of commitment, respect and teamwork, is the objective of the Mentoring Program developed by the Faculty of Engineering of the University of La Serena. (FIULS) and that last Monday, December 18, celebrated eight years of life in a ceremony led by the ULS Rector, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés, and FIULS Dean, Dr. Mario Durán.

Said program, created in 2009 as an initiative of Industrial Civil Engineering students and which two years later was extended to the rest of the careers, seeks integration and academic success through the support that mentors, students of higher courses, provide. to the first year in order to reduce the high dropout rates thanks to the advice, friendship and constructive example provided to the apprentice student.

In this regard, the Rector of the ULS, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés, appreciated the work carried out by the Mentoring team and by the Faculty of Engineering itself, which in his opinion has developed "great work of which as a University we should feel proud, since which is aimed at students who really need support", while highlighting the "commitment of the young people who participate in the program, their enthusiasm and human warmth, which make this initiative an excellent idea".

Meanwhile, the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Dr. Mario Durán, highlighted the success shown during these eight years by this initiative and congratulated all those who make up or have made up the Mentoring team, which is renewed every time a member arrives. to the last year of his degree and leaves his place for new students to take his place and form a new team, which during 2018 will include ing. Paulina González as academic coordinator.

It should be noted that first-year students participate in activities so that they get to know students from previous generations of their career, with the purpose of getting feedback on their experience, such as Marathons and Workshops with which they reinforce and resolve doubts about subjects through Leveling classes and review of content, which are held on Saturdays, and enhance their soft skills through leadership, creativity and teamwork courses.

With an office located on the second floor of FIULS, on the Ignacio Domeyko Campus, the Mentoring team seeks for the aforementioned program to be recognized as a source of university guidance and high-level academic tutoring and a symbol of excellence for students, homework of high dedication and that for Eduardo Campos, a student who leaves the coordination of the same, constituted “a super pleasant experience. They were four incredible years of which I take with me the best memories”.

The same opinion is held by Rocío Eyzaguirre, a student of the Industrial Civil Engineering degree, who said she felt "very excited to see how the boys, whom I met when they joined the team, have grown today, so I am proud to see them so great and I hope they know how to continue with this program so that it continues to develop over time and continues to be as great and beneficial as it has been up to now”, wishing the Mentoring 2018 team much success.

During the next year, Mentoring will be made up of students Tamara Guerra, Álvaro Campos, Sara Vargas, Carla Granger, Andrea Hidalgo, Diego Fábrega and John Romero, who expressed their new coordinator, Rodrigo Rivas, as very happy to face " a nice challenge, full of many projects to be carried out and with which we hope to continue growing as a direct benefit program for student apprentices”.                                                                                     

Source: Press Faculty of Engineering

The digital module will allow the university community to generate their requirements to the Services Directorate and monitor them.

Within the framework of the continuous technological improvement of the University of La Serena, the new "Service Support Platform" was presented to the university community, developed by the Center for Informatics and Computing (CICULS) in conjunction with the Department of Services of the house of state studies.

It is a digital module that will allow the university community to generate their requirements and follow up on them, so that the different units of the institution can open or close their requests to the Services Department.

The Director of Services, Marcos Sepúlveda, along with thanking the CICULS Directorate for the support in the construction of this modern platform, appreciated its implementation, noting that its main objective is to collect requests for services from the entire University, with the purpose of of being able to have a record, organize and follow up on requirements, “and at the same time, give a faster response.”

For his part, the Director of the Center for Informatics and Computing, Luis Andrés Moya, highlighted that the development of this platform is part of the digital transformation of the University, adding that this new support will allow the user to make the report online. and, thanks to the code it provides, follow up on the request or ask your questions.  

During the presentation of the platform, held in the Pentagon Room with the presence of managers and officials from the units that will be in charge of the requirements, the CICULS Head of Operations, Marcelo Zepeda, gave details of how this platform works, which is similar to that of Technological Support - Phoenix.ULS and which can be accessed by entering the username and password of the current institutional email. In addition, Pedro Marín, from the Dept. of Maintenance, explained to those present what a request to Services involves.

As indicated by the Director of Services, the new "Service Support Platform" (https://servicios.cic.userena.cl/) will have a white march from January 2 and in March it should be 100% implemented.

This work, which is part of the implementation of a new criminal procedural system in the trans-Andean province, is part of a mutual collaboration alliance with the University of La Serena, as part of its work on Linking with the Environment. This theoretical-practical advice has the support of the Prosecutor's Office and the Regional Defender's Office.

A delegation made up of judges, official defenders, chief prosecutors, coordinating prosecutors, general supervisors, directors of hearing management offices and court secretaries, all of them belonging to the Judicial Branch of the Province of San Juan, Argentina, are receiving these days a theoretical-practical consultancy at the University of La Serena, an institution that through its Law career, attached to the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, has generated an alliance of mutual collaboration with the Judiciary of San Juan, territory where a new criminal procedural system is in the process of being implemented.

This advice arises from the interest of the Judicial Branch of the trans-Andean province to know the Chilean experience, because in San Juan a new accusatory and oral criminal process is underway, within which it is imperative to know the experience that in In 2000 it was implemented on a pilot basis in the Coquimbo Region.

“The objective of this alliance is that the members of the Judiciary of San Juan in Argentina, at the end of the course, are able to know, understand, apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluate within their respective areas of professional and work performance, the orality as a modality of work and as a formative principle of the criminal process,” explained the Director of the Law degree at the University of La Serena, Germán Solís.
Likewise, with this advice, it is sought that the members of the Judiciary of San Juan are able to use in the hearings of the respective criminal process the principles of immediacy, speed and simplicity in their tasks as operators of the system; determine the theory of the case at the presentation hearing, according to their various roles; identify relevant, useful and duly justified evidence and apply in the final hearing the dynamics of orality as a modality of work in a criminal process, according to the assigned roles and the functions to be carried out.

Among the first activities carried out by the trans-Andean delegation in La Serena, a protocol visit was made to the Rector of the ULS, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés, who on the occasion welcomed, expressing that “we are very happy to be able to deliver, through our Law degree, advice so that a sister province like San Juan can carry out a project as important as the modernization of its judicial processes.”

For her part, the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Dr. Luperfina Rojas, emphasized that “as the University of La Serena we are making a strategic agreement to support the Judiciary of San Juan in Argentina in the process of implementing the reform in that province. This advice allows us to work together, by the month of March sign an agreement that will allow us to project this alliance permanently.”

Dean Rojas added that “this work in a medium and long-term horizon allows us mutual collaboration, where we see the academic work and the work of our and Argentina's Judiciary enhanced,” she pointed out.

The activity had the support and active participation of the Regional Prosecutor's Office, represented by the Regional Prosecutor, Adrián Vega, and the Public Criminal Defender's Office, represented by the Regional Defender, Inés Lorena Rojas.

Judiciary of San Juan

For Fabrizio Medeci, Chief Prosecutor of the Flagrancy Office of the Province of San Juan in Argentina, “it is an honor to come here, we are in the middle of the transition process, from a mixed process to an adversarial system, we believe that it is a correct decision, and since in this region you are pioneers in an adversarial system, your experience will be very valuable for us. We come here to learn and to be given and given everything that is necessary to reach a successful conclusion on our part.”

Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Court of San Juan, Javier Vera, thanked the authorities, emphasizing that “we feel honored to receive the experience of more than 15 years of work on the adversarial system that they have in Chile and to bring together the work of the judicial powers together with the University to start working, it is very important.”

Among the activities carried out by the delegation was also a protocol visit to the Mayor of the Coquimbo Region, Claudio Ibáñez, and a visit and participation in a hearing in the Guarantee Courts.

The activity took place in the offices of the Department of Architecture, where the work carried out during 2017 was shared among attendees.

An important tri-state meeting was held by the Rector of the University of La Serena, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés, with the students, academics and officials of the Department of Architecture, attached to the Faculty of Engineering.

On the occasion, the Rector delivered confirmation of the existence of financing to carry out the construction project of the new workshops for the Architecture major. The authority also specified that the progress of the project depends exclusively on the work carried out by the Department of Architecture, the unit in charge of the design and development of the initiative.

Likewise, the Rector urged the representatives of the groups that participated in the meeting to develop, in a participatory manner, the project to improve the race yards.

The opportunity also served to present the new Architecture Student Center, which in 2018 will be made up of Néstor Torres (president), Gabriela Contreras (vice president), Katty Ardiles (secretary), Francisca Rojas (Finance) and Konny Martínez (Wellbeing).

In addition, the Rector learned about some of the work carried out by the first-year students in the workshop field, through a visit to the facilities where a sample of the completion models of the field is on display.

The first multi-messenger observation of gravitational waves in which astronomers from the University of La Serena participated, was named by the prestigious magazine “PhysicsWorld” as the discovery of the year.  

History records August 17, 2017, as the date on which the understanding of the Universe would change forever.

At 12:41:06 UTC the FERMI space telescope, designed to detect high-energy emissions from the deep Universe, launched an unusual alarm. It had detected a very intense signal observable from the southern hemisphere of the world. Six minutes after the detection the alarms went off on the ground. The gravitational wave observatories LIGO in the United States and VIRGO in Italy detected a signal that, according to their data, would be caused by the collision of two neutron stars that came from the same region in the sky where the FERMI space telescope had detected the emission of high energy. Something was happening.  

At 13:21 UTC the scientists in charge of the LIGO and VIRGO observatories sent a message to their collaborators: a new gravitational wave had been detected and it was highly probable that it was caused by the collision of two neutron stars. It was the sign that was expected.

The rest is history. The international LVC/EM collaboration worked together for weeks to announce to the world two months later that the cause of a Gravitational Wave had been observed for the first time.

All of this work was recently recognized by the prestigious magazine “PhysicsWorld”, who awarded the LVC/EM collaboration with the “Scientific Discovery of the Year 2017” award. “The award is both ours and that of all the members of the collaboration,” said the researcher of the Multidisciplinary Institute of Science and Technology of the University of La Serena, Dr. José Luis Nilo Castellón, who pointed out that “the ULS is a member of LVC /EM by integrating the TOROS collaboration, with which we signed an understanding agreement. We are part of TOROS thanks to the preferential access that we have as a University to the T-80 Telescopes, located in Cerro Tololo, and FALCON, located in Cerro Mamalluca.”

The astronomer is one of the main researchers in Chile of the TOROS collaboration, who together with academics from the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the state campus, Drs. Amelia Ramírez, Héctor Cuevas and Sergio Torres were working in silence for two months due to one of the confidentiality clauses signed with LVC/EM upon joining the collaboration.

“They were two very demanding, very complex months. We couldn't fail in anything and we couldn't say anything due to the rigorous clauses in the understanding agreement that we signed with TOROS," commented Dr. Nilo Castellón, who added that "last year we had been constantly working on analysis mechanisms." , simulations, security protocols and internal communication, data transfer, weekly coordination meetings and a very long etc. Few people know but there were false alarms before this signal, many other alarms that were surprise trials. All work that sought to develop reaction techniques with the idea of ​​proceeding efficiently in the event of the eventual detection of a new gravitational wave by LVC."

“Collaborative work was fundamental,” said the professional, who is clear in pointing out that “it is an absolute change in the paradigm of scientific research. In our case, the strategic vision of Amelia Ramírez and Héctor Cuevas was combined by bringing the FALCON Telescope to Chile, the group work strategy that Sergio Torres has, since thanks only to their management it was possible for us to have access to the T80 telescope as a strategic partner in Chile, and the support of the Research and Development Department, and the Vice-Rector's Office for Research and Postgraduate Studies, who supported this project. Without these key pieces, who played it 100%, we would be watching this news from the gallery. But not. Now we also have to be part of history and from our University,” the researcher clarified.
 
More details of the publication in: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2017/dec/11/first-multimessenger-observation-of-a-neutron-star-merger-is-i-physics-world-i-2017-breakthrough-of-the-year