Athenea Engineering sciences journal

Modeling and simulation through system dynamics of the interaction between academic load, teacher well-being and educational quality in universities

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of this study was to analyze, through system dynamics, the interaction among academic workload, faculty well-being, and educational quality under different university management scenarios. An external computational simulation dataset published in Zenodo was used, comprising 520,000 records generated from 1,000 paired Monte Carlo parameterizations, five scenarios, and 104 simulation weeks. Baseline conditions, administrative workload reduction, teaching workload reduction, institutional support, and a combined intervention were compared. Results showed that reducing work demands decreased faculty strain and improved simulated well-being and educational quality. The combined intervention produced the most favorable overall behavior, whereas institutional support alone generated compensatory effects due to the additional time costs incorporated into the model. Sensitivity analysis confirmed the relevance of teaching workload, institutional pressure, and recovery capacity. The findings represent exclusively the behavior of the computational model and should not be interpreted as empirical evidence from real universities or faculty members

Mathematical Modeling and Prediction of Heatwaves Using Time Series and Satellite Data

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Urban heatwaves require methods capable of capturing seasonality, persistence, and extreme temperature events. A retrospective modeling framework was developed for Guayaquil using reanalysis-based air temperature, oceanic anomalies, and satellite-derived land surface temperature. Temporal dynamics were represented using dynamic harmonic regression with autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) errors and compared against a persistence baseline through independent chronological validation. A probabilistic forecasting approach and an alternative heatwave definition were also evaluated. Temporal modeling reduced the forecasting error for ERA5-Land maximum temperature relative to the naive baseline, whereas oceanic anomalies provided only marginal improvements for maximum temperature and degraded minimum temperature predictions. Probabilistic forecasting improved heatwave event detection, although it also increased the frequency of false alarms. MODIS observations revealed greater nighttime land surface temperature anomalies during events meeting the more stringent heatwave criterion. These findings explicitly distinguish temperature forecasting accuracy, extreme event detection, and complementary satellite-based evidence.

Mathematical Modeling of Educational Technology Adoption by University Faculty Using Differential Equations and Scenario Simulation

Ana Rosario Miaury-Vilca, Jorge Rolando Paredes Rondon, David Frank Molina Nunez — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 22:00:31 +0000

This study analyzed educational technology adoption dynamics among university faculty using a four-state compartmental model formulated with ordinary differential equations and computational simulation. Six institutional scenarios were examined over 36 months using reproducible EduAdopt-4D research resources. Deterministic solutions were compared with computationally generated trajectories and 960 Monte Carlo replications; parameter sensitivity and numerical convergence analyses were also performed. At month 36, estimated adoption reached 66.29\% under the integrated intervention scenario, compared with 54.52\% in the baseline scenario and 43.71\% under digital overload. The analyses highlighted the influence of fatigue and recovery mechanisms on sustained adoption. The findings indicate that the proposed approach enables quantitative exploration of faculty technology-adoption transitions and comparison of institutional strategies under explicit assumptions. It offers a reproducible framework for subsequent applications and calibration studies in university settings.

Synchronization and Energy Transfer in Coupled Oscillators: Influence of Coupling, Damping, and Frequency

Thu, 05 Nov 2026 21:32:00 +0000

Coupled oscillators provide a simple framework for examining how interaction and dissipation modify collective dynamics and energy redistribution. This work jointly analyzes synchronization and energy transfer in two damped linear oscillators with close natural frequencies. A dimensionless model was formulated and a parametric sweep of coupling, damping, and frequency detuning was performed, including validation against analytical limits and an independent numerical solution. The results show that stronger coupling and near-resonant conditions favor energy transfer, whereas damping limits it. Nevertheless, high phase coherence does not necessarily imply efficient energy transfer. The separation between these behaviors shows that coupled systems should be characterized using complementary indicators and provides a reproducible basis for extensions to electrical, nonlinear, and vibrational systems.

Non-stationary modeling of extreme precipitation using extreme value theory and meteorological data

Mon, 09 Nov 2026 00:39:03 +0000

Extreme precipitation estimation commonly assumes stationarity, although climate variabili-ty can modify its temporal distribution. This study assessed nonstationarity in annual maxima of daily precipitation across three climatic regions of Ecuador using extreme-value models. Hourly ERA5-Land series were processed, the Relative Oceanic Niño Index was incorporated as a covariate, and stationa-ry and nonstationary formulations were compared through maximum likelihood, information criteria, likelihood-ratio tests, and parametric bootstrap. Guayaquil showed joint dependence on time and El Niño-Southern Oscillation variability; Puyo exhibited a temporal signal sensitive to the precipitation product; Quito remained compatible with stationarity. A CHIRPS robustness analysis showed that evidence of change is not spatially uniform and should be interpreted together with uncertainty associated with gridded precipitation products.