To understand the effects of specific elements that may enhance or detract residents’ well-being, it is important to explore the relationships between auditory and visual factors, based on people’s sensory experiences. Although residential environments provide natural experimental conditions to observe these relationships, the complexity of measuring sensory perceptions and their subsequent interpretation constitutes a challenge. This study aims to identify the influence of socio-demographics and residential location characteristics on three latent variables: noise-Sensitivity, sound-Pleasantness, and visual-Liveability in a Latin American city. The methodology is replicable and relies on a digital survey that displays environments in 360-format video and uses sound immersion techniques; it was applied to a sample of household heads in Quito, Ecuador. Based on an efficient experimental design, we selected different residential environments according to acoustic-visual attributes and the proximity to residential, commercial, and recreational land uses. Structural Equation Models (SEM) were estimated using mediating variables. Our results reveal the influence of noise-Sensitivity on sound-Pleasantness and, indirectly, on visual-Liveability. Further analysis shows that the impact of sound and visual perception changes with different socio-demographics and residential location characteristics.

This study presents a comprehensive thermo-economic evaluation of a pumped thermal energy storage (PTES) system based on a supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO₂) recompression Brayton cycle (RBC). A multiparametric analysis was conducted through systematic parameterization of key design variables, including mass fractions directed to the recompressor during charging and to the high-pressure turbine during discharging, as well as compressor inlet pressure and temperature and turbine inlet temperature. Performance optimization focused on two main indicators: round-trip efficiency (${\eta }_{RT}$) and levelized cost of storage (LCOS), enabling identification of trade-offs between thermodynamic and economic performance. Results show that minimizing LCOS yields 148.72 $/MWh with an ${\eta }_{RT}$ of 57.1%, whereas maximizing efficiency achieves 61.5% at an LCOS of 158.4 $/MWh. Exergy destruction analysis highlights the strategic role of the main compressor and thermal storage tanks in overall irreversibility distribution. These findings confirm the technical feasibility of the s-CO₂ recompression Brayton cycle as a competitive solution for long-duration thermal energy storage.

O objetivo do estudo é analisar a disposição a caminhar dos usuários para obter um serviço com maior frequência. Dados best-worst, preferência declarada (PD) e atitudinais foram coletados em Porto Alegre e estimados modelos híbridos de escolha discreta simultâneos. Os modelos permitiram a combinação dos modelos clássicos de escolha discreta com equações estruturais. O estudo contribui em: quantificação do trade off entre estes atributos, inclusão de características atitudinais e urbanas, contexto do estudo e nova abordagem metodológica através da utilização de best-worst para seleção de atributos da pesquisa PD. Os resultados mostraram que os usuários estão dispostos a caminhar 520m para reduzir 10 minutos o tempo de espera, 375m para reduzir a lotação do veículo 50%, 98m para aumentar o número de policiais em 1 unidade e 100m para incrementar a qualidade do pavimento das calçadas. Os usuários estão dispostos a esperar 7,2 minutos para reduzir a lotação do veículo em 50%.

Acoustic quality is one of the aspects that contribute to the heritage of cultural and religious spaces. It is increasingly common to find scientific literature detailing the sound characteristics of places of worship, especially those with cultural and historical interests. This article presents a comprehensive acoustic characterization of three colonial heritage churches in Quito. It examines the relationship between objective and subjective parameters that influence the valuation of a space or sound environment. To analyze this relationship, the study employs Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to evaluate three latent variables using perceptual acoustic indicators. Results from SEM showed statistically confirmed pathways between sociodemographic variables and latent perceptual constructs, which supports the notion that acoustic quality is not entirely captured by more classical measures of intelligibility or clarity.

El sector del transporte aéreo en Colombia ha logrado posicionarse como el tercer país con mayor incremento de operaciones en terminales aéreas en América Latina y el Caribe. Este crecimiento se ha dado gracias a la dinamización del sector y a la firma de acuerdos internacionales para la liberación del espacio aéreo comercial, lo que ha permitido una mayor oferta de vuelos con nuevos operadores aéreos. Para lograr un crecimiento sostenible del sector aeroportuario, es fundamental contar con una planificación que permita identificar los requerimientos de modernización y creación de nuevas terminales aéreas, basándose en la estimación de las cantidades de pasajeros para evitar la subutilización de los aeropuertos. En este contexto, este trabajo se enfoca en desarrollar un modelo de pronóstico predictivo de corto plazo que permita determinar la cantidad de pasajeros en vuelos nacionales en Colombia. Para ello, se utiliza el enfoque del modelo SARIMA en la serie de tiempo de pasajeros disponible en períodos mensuales, según los registros mensuales de la cantidad de pasajeros de vuelos nacionales con frecuencias regulares registrados por Aerocivil entre 2005 y 2020. Se encontró que el modelo SARIMA (0,1,0) × (0,1,0)12 para la serie de tiempo de pasajeros en vuelos internacionales fue el más apropiado, con una estimación del RMSEA del 3.1%. Este modelo de pronóstico predictivo de corto plazo presenta un alto rendimiento sobre los resultados calculados y puede ser utilizado como una herramienta válida y de soporte para la toma de decisiones en la planificación operativa. En el futuro, se recomienda considerar parámetros del mercado del transporte aéreo que podrían integrarse al modelo para caracterizar de mejor manera ciertas variaciones atípicas encontradas.