Education, Corruption and the Natural Resource Curse

The empirical evidence on the determinants of growth across countries has found that growth is lower when natural resources are abundant, corruption widespread and educational attainment low. An extensive literature has examined the way in which these three variables can impact growth, but has tended to address them separately. In this paper we argue that corruption and education are interrelated and that both crucially depend on a country’s endowment of natural resources. The key element is the fact that resources affect the relative returns to investing in human and in political capital, and, through these investments, output levels and growth. In this context, inequality plays a key role both as a determinant of the possible equilibria of the economy and as an outcome of the growth process.natural resources, corruption, human capital, growth, inequality

Políticas ambientales-forestales y capital social femenino mazahua

El objetivo del artículo es conocer cómo se incluyó el concepto de capital social y la perspectiva de género en el diseño de las políticas ambientales forestales del gobierno de Vicente Fox en México y cómo operaron sus mecanismos de ejecución en contextos locales. La hipótesis es que dicha inclusión corresponde más a intereses mundiales y nacionales que a necesidades y realidades locales. Se recurre a la etnografía institucional para analizar la reproducción de prácticas discursivas sobre la inclusión de la perspectiva de género en las políticas ambientales, y cómo se crean necesidades de intervención institucional para resolver problemas formulados en ámbitos globales. Se presenta como ejemplo el movimiento de mujeres mazahuas en dos comunidades con áreas boscosas de la zona mazahua del Estado de México

Determination of traces of radionuclides by hyphenated techniques coupled to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)

En aquest treball es fa una revisió dels aspectes més innovadors de la determinació de traces de radionúclids en el medi ambient i de la separació d'actínids i dels productes de fissió en mostres nuclears mitjançant tècniques com ara la injecció en flux (FI) / anàlisi per injecció seqüencial (SIA) i la cromatografia acoblades a l'espectrometria de masses mitjançant plasma induït per alta freqüència.An overview is given of the current state of the art for the determination of radionuclide traces in the environment and the separation of fission products and actinides in nuclear samples by techniques like flow-injection (FI)/sequential injection analysis (SIA) and chromatography hyphenated to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS)

Severe resistant hypocalcemia in multiple myeloma after zoledronic acid administration: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Hypercalcemia is one of the most common metabolic abnormalities encountered in any form of malignancy. Hypocalcemia, however, is a rare manifestation, especially in cancers with bone involvement. Here we present a case of hypocalcemia in a patient with multiple myeloma that was refractory to treatment. CASE PRESENTATION: A 73-year-old African American woman recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma, presented with a 2-day history of fever, vomiting and hypocalcemia. Ten days prior to admission she received zoledronic acid, Velcade(®) (bortezomib), Revlimid(®) (lenalidomide) and dexamethasone. Treatment was started with intravenous antibiotics and calcium gluconate boluses. After 24 hours of treatment her calcium level became undetectable (<5mg/dL). Continuous intravenous calcium gluconate infusions in addition to boluses were started. She remained persistently hypocalcemic and eventually developed tonic–clonic seizures. Vitamin D levels were found to be low and intravenous paricalcitol was initiated, which improved her calcium level. CONCLUSIONS: Underlying vitamin D deficiency can precipitate severe hypocalcemia in patients with multiple myeloma receiving bisphosphonates. This warrants baseline screening for vitamin D deficiency in these patients

Multidimensional evaluation of teaching strategies adopted in the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper proposes a multidimensional social open model to evaluate the teaching strategies adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing the decisions made by teachers by a group of teachers acting as evaluators. Based on the analysis of previous studies on teaching, this study aims to propose a formal model for the evaluation of teaching strategies in four dimensions: sustainability, usability, accessibility, and creativity. The use of information technologies to measure teaching strategies can bring decisive advantages. This work has been inspired by social rating systems of social networks to propose a measurement system in which a potential large number of evaluators with different levels assess the strategies. In addition, the proposal also includes the evaluation of the evaluators' own work, assigning confidence levels that are based on their experience but also on their evaluations. In this way, we have a social measurement system, in the sense that participation is open to a large number of evaluators. A large community of teacher evaluators will increase the objectivity of the measurement. The outcome of the system will be a characterization of the teaching strategies that will allow to decide in the future which ones should be adopted according to the needs of each one.Open Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Nature

Dianas quirúrgicas en el tratamiento de enfermedades psiquiátricas. Desde el movimiento a las emociones

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for psychiatric disorders refractory to conventional treatments are currently been performed based in the knowledgment obtained in the motor disorder surgery and mainly in Parkinson´s disease. Depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette syndrome, all of them are cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical pathological process involved in the limbic loop of the basal ganglia. This review describes the different targets in these pathological neuro-psychiatric disorders. For OCD there are currently two targets, ventral striatum (VS) Accumbens nucleus (Nacc) and the subthalamic nucleus (STN). In refractory depression the subgenual area (25 Brodmann area) and VS/Nacc. For Tourette syndrome the ventralis oralis internus and centromedianum/ parafascicularis of the thalamus (Voi and CM/Pf) and the internal part of the globus pallidus (GPi). Currently there are no specific surgical target for each pathological disorder because clinical results reported are very similar after stimulation surgery. In other point, a selected surgical target also may improve different pathologies

Efficient Microwave-Assisted Extraction of Nitrites from Cured Meat and Their Voltammetric Detection at Chemically Modified Electrodes Based on Hexamethyl-p-Terphenyl Poly(methylatedbenzimidazolium) Incorporating Nitrogen-Doped Graphite Nanoplatelets

We describe a fast and reliable procedure for the efficient extraction of nitrites in cured meat using microwave-assisted heat and report their in situ determination via voltammetry using an anion-exchanger ionene, hexamethyl-p-terphenyl poly(benzimidazolium) (HMT-PMBI), and nitrogen-doped graphite nanoplatelets (NGNPs). Cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry were utilized to evaluate the concentration of the redox mediator within the film and apparent diffusion coefficient. To investigate the suitability of the composite material for sensing applications, HMT-PMBI/NGNPs were tested for their detection of nitrite in bacon samples without the need of any pretreatments or dilutions. HMT-PMBI/NGNP coated electrodes showed enhanced sensitivity in the detection of nitrite ions in bacon with a limit of detection (LoD) of 0.64 µM, sensitivity 0.52 µA µM−1 cm−2, and operating in a linear range between 1–300 μM. The results highlight that the determination of nitrites in cured meat using microwave extraction is in good agreement with standard procedures such as the ISO 2918 and the AOAC International 973.31 methods