El imaginario tecnológico de Domingo Faustino Sarmiento: representaciones y arquetipos de América (1845-1885)

The paper explores the technical dimension of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento’s imaginary and its influence on the construction of representations concerning nature, human types, progress of nations, and scientific personalities. As we will see, the influential Argentine statesman and writer creates, from a technologistic perspective, a wide variety of images and archetypes which can be traced in different publications. The aim of this paper is then to present these different types of symbolic features as a result of his technological attitude and to expose them according to a division that comprises four categories: the first one is devoted to images of an hostile nature; the second one examines the human archetypes he considers; the third one deals with the model nations (in particular, as a result of his trip to the United States), and the fourth one focuses on the treatment of scientists and engineers as heroes and agents of progress.El artículo examina la dimensión técnica del imaginario de Domingo Faustino Sarmiento y su influencia en la construcción de representaciones sobre la naturaleza, los tipos humanos, el progreso de las naciones, la educación y los personajes científicos. Como se verá, el influyente estadista argentino crea desde una mirada tecnologista una amplia variedad de imágenes y arquetipos que pueden reconocerse en diversas obras. El propósito del trabajo es pues la presentación de estos símbolos como un resultado de su actitud tecnológica y su exposición siguiendo una división que comprende cuatro categorías: la primera dedicada a las imágenes de una naturaleza hostil; la segunda a los arquetipos humanos; la tercera a las naciones modelo (en especial, como resultado de su viaje a Estados Unidos) y la cuarta al tratamiento de la figura del científico y del tecnólogo como héroes y agentes del progreso

Cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors from 1980 to 2010: a comparative risk assessment

Background High blood pressure, blood glucose, serum cholesterol, and BMI are risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and some of these factors also increase the risk of chronic kidney disease and diabetes. We estimated mortality from cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes that was attributable to these four cardiometabolic risk factors for all countries and regions from 1980 to 2010. Methods We used data for exposure to risk factors by country, age group, and sex from pooled analyses of populationbased health surveys. We obtained relative risks for the eff ects of risk factors on cause-specifi c mortality from metaanalyses of large prospective studies. We calculated the population attributable fractions for- each risk factor alone, and for the combination of all risk factors, accounting for multicausality and for mediation of the eff ects of BMI by the other three risks. We calculated attributable deaths by multiplying the cause-specifi c population attributable fractions by the number of disease-specifi c deaths. We obtained cause-specifi c mortality from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study. We propagated the uncertainties of all the inputs to the fi nal estimates. Findings In 2010, high blood pressure was the leading risk factor for deaths due to cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes in every region, causing more than 40% of worldwide deaths from these diseases; high BMI and glucose were each responsible for about 15% of deaths, and high cholesterol for more than 10%. After accounting for multicausality, 63% (10\ub78 million deaths, 95% CI 10\ub71\u201311\ub75) of deaths from these diseases in 2010 were attributable to the combined eff ect of these four metabolic risk factors, compared with 67% (7\ub71 million deaths, 6\ub76\u20137\ub76) in 1980. The mortality burden of high BMI and glucose nearly doubled from 1980 to 2010. At the country level, age-standardised death rates from these diseases attributable to the combined eff ects of these four risk factors surpassed 925 deaths per 100 000 for men in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, but were less than 130 deaths per 100 000 for women and less than 200 for men in some high-income countries including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and Spain. Interpretation The salient features of the cardiometabolic disease and risk factor epidemic at the beginning of the 21st century are high blood pressure and an increasing eff ect of obesity and diabetes. The mortality burden of cardiometabolic risk factors has shifted from high-income to low-income and middle-income countries. Lowering cardiometabolic risks through dietary, behavioural, and pharmacological interventions should be a part of the globalresponse to non-communicable diseases

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1.

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field

KCu₇P₃: A Two-Dimensional Noncentrosymmetric Metallic Pnictide

We report a 2D material, KCu7P3, with a noncentrosymmetric structure (trigonal space group P31m, a = 6.9637(2) Å, c = 24.1338 (10) Å), which forms both from a molten potassium polyphosphide flux and from the elements. This phase consists of infinite [Cu7P3]− layers with hexagonal P sheets separated by K+ ions. The structure of the layers is unique but related to both Cu3P and the CaCu4P2 structure-types. Single-crystal refinement reveals extensive disorder within the Cu3P-like slabs. KCu7P3 is paramagnetic and exhibits a room temperature resistivity of ∼335 μΩ cm with a metal-like temperature dependence. The metallic character is supported by density functional theory electronic structure calculations. Hall and Seebeck effect measurements yield p-type behavior with a hole mobility of ∼15 cm2 V–1 s–1 at 300 K and a carrier concentration on the order of 1021 cm–3. KCu7P3 is chemically stable in ambient conditions, as well as in aqueous neutral and acidic solutions

Visualizing the out-of-plane electronic dispersions in an intercalated transition metal dichalcogenide

Layered transition metal dichalcogenides have a rich phase diagram and they feature two-dimensionality in numerous physical properties. Co1/3NbS2 is one of the newest members of this family where Co atoms are intercalated into the van der Waals gaps between NbS2 layers. We study the three-dimensional electronic band structure of Co1/3NbS2 using both surface and bulk sensitive angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We show that the electronic bands do not fit into the rigid band shift picture after the Co intercalation. Instead, Co1/3NbS2 displays a different orbital character near the Fermi level compared to the pristine NbS2 compound and has a clear band dispersion in the kz direction despite its layered structure. Our photoemission study demonstrates the out-of-plane electronic correlations introduced by the Co intercalation, thus offering a different perspective on this compound. Finally, we propose how Fermi level tuning could lead to exotic phases such as spin density wave instability