Coinciding with the passage of the aircraft, the validation of the remotely detected data was carried out through a Terrain Group, whose members made measurements and took samples of soil and vegetation in various types of agricultural fields.

For the second consecutive year, the UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission, a NASA air vehicle that has a polarimetric L-band radar sensor, flew over a large part of the Coquimbo Region with the purpose of making soil moisture measurements. by radar remote sensing. An international cooperation project was incorporated this year to the four fields measured in 2013 (Juan Soldado, Callegari, La Alpina and Las Cardas). and from the University of La Serena, through the head of the Central Laboratory for Analysis and Applied Research of the state campus, Mg. Héctor Maureira, who added to the analysis the vineyards of Tamaya and Tabalí (Province of Limarí) with the objective of creating a Water Management Model for the cultivation of the vine, using satellite data, which will provide a decision-making tool for managing the irrigation, through maps of Evapotranspiration, Temperature and Humidity of Soil and Vegetation, and Water Stress.

It is expected that through the use of satellite information it will be possible to increase yield and quality related to key parameters such as: yield per hectare, sugar content and bunch density. "All of the above can be achieved through the information generated by maps, which will make it possible to adopt an efficient irrigation strategy, knowing when and how much water to use," said Maureira, who maintained that the model could also be expanded to other crops or natural plant covers of our region, currently exposed to a long period of drought.

For the validation of the data remotely detected by the radar, the support of a Field Group made up of more than 70 people was required, which, coinciding with the passage of the aircraft, made measurements and took samples of soil and vegetation in the fields. aforementioned agriculture.

''Soil samples were taken to measure humidity and also samples of biomass, that is, of vegetables. To these is added the measurement of the roughness of the terrain and the temperature, which are elements that serve to correct the radar images,'' explained the ULS researcher, Héctor Maureira, adding that this sampling was in charge of of students and professionals from the University of La Serena, the Catholic University of the North, the Mayor University, the Oterra Natural Resources Study Center and the Santo Tomas Institute and Technical Training Center, after lining up and marking points of the Chilean Army (Regiment No. 21 Coquimbo) and the Chilean Navy (Maritime Government of Coquimbo). While personnel from the Investigative Police of Chile (Metropolitan Region), carried out the georeferencing of the sampling points, "in order to achieve absolute precision of the point in which the sample is taken, which is compared with the information that generates the plane," said the expert. 

The field work had the collaboration of these institutions and the University of Chile - Ceza Arid Zones Study Center, the Ministry of Public Works, Agrícola Callegari Ltda., Agrícola La Alpina Ltda., Viña Tabalí SA and Viña Tamaya SA In addition, This mission was sponsored by the Compañía Minera del Pacífico. 

According to what was indicated by the person in charge of the NASA-UAVSAR Mission in the Coquimbo Region, Héctor Maureira, it is expected that the results of the samples and the information obtained by the plane will be ready by the end of July.

The NASA-UAVSAR mission constitutes a test of the sensors that is being carried out through various places on Earth to validate those that will be incorporated into the SMAP (Soil Moisture Activ Passiv) satellite that will be launched on November 5, 2014. with which periodic measurements of soil humidity of the entire planet will be obtained, serving as a basic input for the creation of humidity and drought models, which will allow us to understand, together with other data, the climatological processes suffered by the region

The activity included the participation of the Rector of the ULS, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés, and the guest speaker Mg. Lic. Ricardo Marcelo Coca, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the National University of San Juan, Argentina. 

With the participation of the new students of the Master's Degree ''Leadership, Strategic Management and Communication in Organizations'', the welcome ceremony for this postgraduate program was held, which is being taught in its 5th version after several years of successful results.

The activity had as a special guest, the dean of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of the National University of San Juan Argentina, Ricardo Marcelo Coca, who in his presentation addressed the importance of the generation of knowledge and technological scientific development, are linked to social development. In this regard, Dean Coca emphasized that "it is very relevant that the issue of business is not disconnected from ethics and the development of people and in this regard we have social commitments that require us to be more responsible every day."

On the occasion, the director of the Master's Degree, Dr. Luperfina Rojas, pointed out that this program ''allows us to provide an alternative for continuity of studies for our graduates; It is a transversal master's degree, in which we have students who are commercial engineers, psychologists, journalists, lawyers, among other professionals, which allows us to address such important topics as leadership, communication and strategic management and, as a transversal axis, ethics.' '.

Dr. Rojas added that ''for us this process has been very important, this is the fifth generation of students who have entered and we have important challenges such as the accreditation of the program and the opportunity to teach it in Argentina at the National University of San Juan . We are happy, we have made notable progress with the graduates, which shows us that we are on the right path, given that the people who have entered have been climbing in their professional lives, that is important because it shows that from this Master's degree onwards they They manage to differentiate themselves.

With this postgraduate program, the professional acquires extensive skills to develop a strategic vision, manage it, form and lead work teams, developing effective communication skills and mastery in the development of messages that position and empower their organization. 

To do this, this graduate will have a solid theoretical base complemented with an ethical-value perspective that will allow him to act correctly in the application of the relevant processes and theories to create, maintain and optimize, from a strategic point of view, internal and external communications. of any organization, whether public or private, so that they positively impact the social and economic profitability of the organization.

Its duration is four semesters and the modality of operation is every week, on Fridays and Saturdays.

It should be noted that the activity also included the participation of the Rector of the University of La Serena, Dr. Nibaldo, Avilés Pizarro, the academic vice-rector, Dr. Jorge Catalán, the dean of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Mg. Jorge Fernández, and university authorities.

Master Talk

Within the framework of the activities carried out on the same day, during the afternoon the Master Talk ''Universities of Argentina'' was given by Dean Coca to the students of the courses of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences in the framework of the 2014 anniversary.

The activity was marked by a large attendance of authorities, academics and students, who were able to learn about the development of Higher Education in Argentina through this exhibition.

Professionals from the Fund for the Promotion of Scientific and Technological Development (FONDEF) are spread throughout the country to publicize the scope of the First FONDEF IDeA contest, aimed at scientists and researchers and whose call will open soon.

Managers, academics and researchers met in the Alejandro Cobarruvias room at the ULS, in order to learn about the scope of the call for funding applied research projects.

During the talk, the project executive and coordinator of the FONDEF health area, Alfredo Liu, explained in detail the characteristics of the contest, the objectives of the first and second stages, and fundamentally the application requirements, amounts to which they can access those who present an initiative, subsidy system, execution deadlines and financeable item, among others.

''In this stage of dissemination, our main objective is the researchers, we have resources to allocate to good projects and we hope to receive many proposals from all regions, which achieve excellent results. This also positions us as an instrument for allocating public resources for applied research in our country,'' Liu said.

It should be noted that the projects can reach an amount of 150 million pesos for execution in a period of 24 months. These could continue in a second stage, to continue scaling in the development of the technology that is expected to be obtained.

Those attending the meeting were also able to learn more about the details of the process, learning about specific aspects of the application platform through brief training.

This competitive fund requires active participation from universities, supporting initiatives and focusing their efforts on solving local problems, which is why the vice-rector of the University of La Serena, Dr. Jorge Catalán, valued the opportunity that researchers have. to know and access these resources. ''Hopefully this will be a great incentive for academics to participate in FONDEF projects, since they link scientific development with technological development and that naturally has an important impact on the community. Since we are interested, due to our declared social responsibility, in having the university contribute to the regional and national community, this is a very good way to have projects that can be sustainable and to be able to carry out initiatives that are of social benefit in the most as wide as possible,'' he said.

According to what was stated by the FONDEF executive, those who benefit receive advice and support during the execution period of the ideas, thanks to the participation of an area committee that works hand in hand with each initiative. ''We want research and infrastructure capabilities to be developed in the regions,'' Liu said.

The activity, attended by academics from various areas of knowledge, was organized by the Research Directorate of the University of La Serena and as Dr. Eduardo Notte points out, ''there are stages that the University has to go through, we have been doing a lot of development in basic research and now it is important that people apply for application projects. This is an activity that is done to encourage and inform that there are participation instances where application projects are financed with the purpose of the work teams presenting their projects, verifying how applicable they are and if they require external resources to carry them out. .

The Inaugural Class was led by the anthropologist and academic from the ULS Department of Education, Dr. Érika Zúñiga, who presented: ''The Native Peoples in the Educational Stories of the Nation''.

In the Pentagon room of the Andrés Bello Campus, the opening ceremony of the 2014 academic year of the Interdisciplinary Master's Degree in Latin American Studies, MIEL, was held, a high-level study program from the University of La Serena, with a marked investigative focus, which from a Interdisciplinary optics aim to generate knowledge and train scientists in the space of the humanities, with a view to contributing to comprehensive sociocultural development in Latin America.

The activity, framed in the celebration of the 14th anniversary of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, included various presentations and delivery of teaching material prepared by academics from the institution.

In room 118 of the History and Geography Pedagogy program at the University of La Serena, the Seminar Workshop ''Development of Cognitive Skills and Didactic Resources for Learning History and Geography'' was recently held, which was attended by about 50 teachers of the specialty.

The director of the Department of Social Sciences of the state campus, Dr. Fabián Araya, explained that this is one of the activities of connection with the environment that the program develops annually with a network of teachers, made up mostly of graduates of the program. undergraduate degree from the University, which also allow professionals to be supported in their teaching function.

That is why the day included the conferences ''Presence of Indigenous Peoples in History Textbooks'', by Dr. Erika Zúñiga, from the ULS Department of Education, and ''Development of Cognitive Skills and their Classroom Application'' (EDUCREA materials), from Mg. Ximena Cortés, from the Department. of Cs. Social ULS and English Catholic School of La Serena.

In addition, the books ''Making a City and Citizen Participation'' and ''Learning Guides for the Development of Cognitive Skills in Geographic Education'', by the Mg. Carmen Varela, academic of the Dept. of Cs. Social ULS, and Mg. Sandra Álvarez, director of the School of Pedagogy in History and Geography of this corporation, respectively.

The Mg. Sandra Álvarez also provided detailed information to attendees regarding the 2014 accreditation process of the Pedagogy in History and Geography degree.

For his part, Mg. Juan Carlos Cura, teacher of the Department of Social Sciences and The International School, invited schools to participate in the month of July in the 2014 Youth Parliament ''For Peace and Solidarity'', an initiative promoted by said unit and the establishment with the support of Diario El Día, and whose purpose is to implement debate as a form of knowledge construction and participation, as a tool of civic education, along with promoting a space for institutionalized dialogue between middle school students. 

It is worth mentioning that the Seminar Workshop ''Development of Cognitive Skills and Didactic Resources for Learning History and Geography'' was part of the activities to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of the U. de La Serene.

On the occasion, the election of the board of directors for the 2014-2016 period was carried out, and Dr. Adelio Matamala V., dean of the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Concepción, was elected to preside over the Council.

On April 24 and 25, the First Annual Meeting of the National Council of Deans of Faculties of Natural and Exact Sciences of the CRUCH was held at the University of La Serena, chaired by the dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the ULS, Dr. Gustavo Labbé Morales, in the premises of the house of higher education.

With the participation of 16 deans of the Faculties of Sciences, and with the presence of the academic vice-rector, Dr. Jorge Catalán Ahumada, who on behalf of the rector, Dr. Nibaldo Avilés Pizarro, welcomed the deans present, the issues were addressed. topics contemplated in the program of activities, among which was analyzed: ''Impact of the Grade Ranking on university selection, case of the Faculty of Sciences, University of La Serena'', presented by Dr. Gustavo Labbé. Subsequently, a round table was held to address the topic: ''Institutionality in Higher Education, proposal of the National Council of Deans of Faculties of Natural and Exact Sciences of the CRUCH'', directed by Dr. Samuel Navarro H., past president of the Council, concluding with a manifesto that will be sent to the Minister of Education and the CRUCH. An analysis of the Statutes of the Council was also carried out, whose Legal Personality was obtained by the current board of directors, and changes were proposed to facilitate its operation. 

On Friday the 25th, meanwhile, the election of the board of directors for the 2014-2016 period was held, and Dr. Adelio Matamala V., dean of the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Concepción, was elected to preside over the Council. Finally, working groups were formed for the current period and the Second Annual Meeting of the Council was scheduled. The new president, Dr. Adelio Matamala, thanked Dr. Gustavo Labbé for his role as president in the period 2011-2014, highlighting his perseverance and drive to keep the Council in constant activity.