Tekhné

14

Authors: María López-Echeverría

This work used a documentary search to explain the importance of education for sustainable development (EDS) in the university, besides that educational innovation that promotes values is the means to achieve it, and presents some successful examples. In the last decades of the twentieth century, the sustainable development (DS) arose which allows meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own. This perspective requires an educational proposal that contributes to the new course of humanity. For the above, ESD is an urgent need for humanity, only then it can design and implement the programs that promote the lifelong training to contribute to the development of all the dimensions of the human being. In that sense, universities have a great responsibility, and an extraordinary opportunity to contribute with the technical and professional training that this challenge demands. Thus, all missionary activities of the universities: teaching, research, public and community services, and consultancy services, must be oriented to DS. For this it is fundamental that the learning experiences are innovative, assume the values as transversal axis, and adopt the curricular sustainability, according to the institutional context. In that order of ideas, the Andrés Bello Catholic University has implemented structural and curricular innovations to adapt to this demand of today's society.

17

Authors: Heriberto Echezuría

Sustainable exploitation of guadua forests in some south American countries has allowed the production of high quality materials for constructing housing. In Asian counties bamboo exploitation has demonstrated being a solid industry which allows developing rentable employment sources. Similarly, the sustainable exploitation of bamboo has a double benefit to families dedicated to its production by supplying housing as well as a living economy with improving income. The housing deficit existing nowadays in Venezuela is increasing with no signs to reducing it in the mid or long term. However, yielding and productivity values for housing construction using bamboo has been found to be highly efficient to produce living solutions at low cost. It requires, nevertheless, influencing the culture of the population to accept such housing and that the government increase public and private investment to increase commercial availability of bamboo construction produce to make its application massive. Consequently, it can be said that it is highly possible to initiate a sustainably exploitation plan for bamboo forests with different industrial applications, including low cost housing for low income population sectors. The robustness of the bamboo production chain becomes an excellent advantage to initiate some of them which require low investment to ensure the economy of the families which dedicate to such production.

33

Authors: Beatriz E. Soledad-Rodríguez

The development of new technologies and technological innovations, promote research to know the level of contamination of water and soil, through rapid and efficient analysis to reduce levels of toxic substances, and thus contribute to sustainable development. Solid phase extraction (SPE) is a preparative analysis technique used to "clean" the sample prior to the quantification and / or concentration of the analyte. The term is due to the fact that the support material used is a solid through which a liquid or a gas passes. The analytes are absorbed in the support and then eluted according to their different affinities between the absorbent material and the mobile phase used. The Molecularly Imprinted Polymers (MIPs) possess selective molecular recognition properties because the recognition sites within the polymer matrix are complementary to the molecule under analysis in the form and position of the functional groups. They are highly sensitive and possess high selectivity and affinity for the analyte. The molecular printing technique is based on the preparation of a highly crosslinked polymer around an analyte used as a template molecule, initially contacting a suitable monomer and the analyte in order to form a pre-polymerization complex, which is then added the crosslinker, the initiator and the solvent (porogen) with which the polymerization is carried out. Once the polymer is obtained, the template molecule is extracted, releasing the specific recognition sites. Solid phase extraction based on molecularly imprinted polymers is a technique frequently used for the analysis of environmental, food and bioanalytical samples, and is termed MISPE (Molecularly Imprinted Solid Phase Extraction). The analysis of a specific compound in complex mixtures often requires several pre-treatment steps. If the substance to be analyzed is present in low concentration, it must be concentrated in order to detect it by standard analytical techniques. In addition, if it is a complex sample of similar compounds, a step that involves cleaning it is necessary. This paper presents a review of the molecular printing process and its applications in combination with solid phase extraction, to be used as an alternative for the pre-concentration of samples of environmental contaminants.