The Turns to the Left in Argentina and Uruguay: Presidential Campaigns since 2003

From the beginning of this century Argentina and Uruguay, as many Latin American countries, underwent a turn to the left. These turns to the left may be called “the Kirchner cycle” (or “K cycle”) in Argentina, after presidents Néstor Kirchner and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and the “Frente Amplio cycle” (FA, Broad Front) in Uruguay, for its leading political party. Argentina’s turn to the left ended in the presidential election of 2015 in which the Kirchnerist candidate was defeated; Uruguay’s FA cycle will run at least until the 2019 presidential election. Since Argentina and Uruguay’s turns are part of a simultaneous regional turn to the left, their respective national leaderships were not the absolute creators of each country’s “turn”. What they did was to give national shape to strong regional waves. These processes were conditioned by national circumstances, which in some respects were clearly different in each of them. Despite deep social similarities, Argentina and Uruguay have different political cultures and histories that shape their electoral campaigns. Thus, this paper probes into the similarities and differences between the two “turns” to the left focusing on their victorious presidential campaigns (2003, 2007 and 2011 in Argentina, and 2004, 2009 and 2014 in Uruguay). This analysis leads to (i) an assessment of the relative importance of historical accidents in the two cycles (high in Argentina, low in Uruguay) and of enduring and different political traditions (high in both countries); (ii) an exploration of the differing nature of the two cycles, and finally, (iii) to some implications regarding the broader, regional turn to the left. Do these stories suggest we should expect continuity or new cycles (e.g. to the right) in Latin America? Or should we rather expect the Latin American turn to the left to dissolve into diverging stories? The paper concludes that the most likely scenario is the latter, “diverging stories”.From the beginning of this century Argentina and Uruguay, as many Latin American countries, underwent a turn to the left. These turns to the left may be called “the Kirchner cycle” (or “K cycle”) in Argentina, after presidents Néstor Kirchner and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and the “Frente Amplio cycle” (FA, Broad Front) in Uruguay, for its leading political party. Argentina’s turn to the left ended in the presidential election of 2015 in which the Kirchnerist candidate was defeated; Uruguay’s FA cycle will run at least until the 2019 presidential election. Since Argentina and Uruguay’s turns are part of a simultaneous regional turn to the left, their respective national leaderships were not the absolute creators of each country’s “turn”. What they did was to give national shape to strong regional waves. These processes were conditioned by national circumstances, which in some respects were clearly different in each of them. Despite deep social similarities, Argentina and Uruguay have different political cultures and histories that shape their electoral campaigns. Thus, this paper probes into the similarities and differences between the two “turns” to the left focusing on their victorious presidential campaigns (2003, 2007 and 2011 in Argentina, and 2004, 2009 and 2014 in Uruguay). This analysis leads to (i) an assessment of the relative importance of historical accidents in the two cycles (high in Argentina, low in Uruguay) and of enduring and different political traditions (high in both countries); (ii) an exploration of the differing nature of the two cycles, and finally, (iii) to some implications regarding the broader, regional turn to the left. Do these stories suggest we should expect continuity or new cycles (e.g. to the right) in Latin America? Or should we rather expect the Latin American turn to the left to dissolve into diverging stories? The paper concludes that the most likely scenario is the latter, “diverging stories”

Buckling instability of web plastifying dampers: analytical and numerical approach

This paper describes a numerical study on the instability of a brace-type seismic damper based on the out of plane yielding of the web of wide-flange steel sections (Web Plastifying Damper, WPD)The damper is intended to be installed in a framed structure as a standard diagonal brace. Under lateral forces, the damper is subjected to high axial forces, therefore its buckling instability is a matter of concern. Several finite element models representing WPDs with different axial stiffness and various geometries of their components were developed and analyzed taking into account both material and geometrical nonlinearities. The influence of several parameters defining the WPD in the load-displacement curve was examined. Furthermore, a simplified model to predict the buckling load is proposed

Low-cost retrofitting solutions for RC frames using masonry infill panels

A large number of reinforced concrete (RC) frame structures built in earthquake-prone areas such as Haiti are vulnerable to strong ground motions. Structures in developing countries need low-cost seismic retrofit solutions to reduce their vulnerability. This paper investigates the feasibility of using masonry infill walls to reduce deformations and damage caused by strong ground motions in brittle and weak RC frames designed only for gravity loads. A numerical experiment was conducted in which several idealized prototypes representing RC frame structures of school buildings damaged during the Port-au-Prince earthquake (Haiti, 2010) were strengthened by adding elements representing masonry infill walls arranged in different configurations. Each configuration was characterized by the ratio Rm of the area of walls in the direction of the ground motion (in plan) installed in each story to the total floor area. The numerical representations of these idealized RC frame structures with different values of Rm were (hypothetically) subjected to three major earthquakes with peak ground accelerations of approximately 0.5g. The results of the non-linear dynamic response analyses were summarized in tentative relationships between Rm and four parameters commonly used to characterize the seismic response of structures: interstory drift, Park and Ang indexes of damage, and total amount of energy dissipated by the main frame. It was found that Rm=4% is a reasonable minimum design value for seismic retrofitting purposes in cases in which available resources are not sufficient to afford conventional retrofit measures

NDN, CoAP, and MQTT: A Comparative Measurement Study in the IoT

This paper takes a comprehensive view on the protocol stacks that are under debate for a future Internet of Things (IoT). It addresses the holistic question of which solution is beneficial for common IoT use cases. We deploy NDN and the two popular IP-based application protocols, CoAP and MQTT, in its different variants on a large-scale IoT testbed in single- and multi-hop scenarios. We analyze the use cases of scheduled periodic and unscheduled traffic under varying loads. Our findings indicate that (a) NDN admits the most resource-friendly deployment on nodes, and (b) shows superior robustness and resilience in multi-hop scenarios, while (c) the IP protocols operate at less overhead and higher speed in single-hop deployments. Most strikingly we find that NDN-based protocols are in significantly better flow balance than the UDP-based IP protocols and require less corrective actions

Servoacelerómetro por Balance de Fuerza

La ingeniería de instrumentos destinados a la medición eficiente de magnitudes como aceleración, velocidad y desplazamiento, integra los dominios de la Física, Matemática, Sistemas de Control, Electrónica y Mecánica. La utilización de la modelización matemática en el diseño, y su posterior validación con estudios y análisis de simulación, como así también los ensayos experimentales de laboratorio y campo, constituyen una herramienta indispensable para obtener dispositivos eficientes, lineales, repetibles y exactos. En este trabajo se presentan las bases y procedimientos que se han tenido en cuenta para diseñar un "Servoacelerómetro por Balance de Fuerza", destinado a la medición de aceleración traslacional en innumerables aplicaciones industriales, militares y de l&D. Si bien, en el mundo, se disponen de muchos métodos y tecnologías de diseño e implementación la realidad tecnológica de cada país, establece un condicionamiento a las posibilidades reales para obtener un dispositivo totalmente propio que pueda ir evolucionando a medida que nuevas tecnologías de fabricación se tornen disponibles. El instrumento que motiva este trabajo se basa en dichos objetivos, y en especificaciones que han surgido de necesidades en aplicaciones locales. Este desarrollo, se ha realizado, con el objetivo principal de mejorar las prestaciones del modelo antecesor, llamado: “Servoacelerómetro por Balance de Cupla", diseñado, construido y utilizado en CITEFA en los misiles A-S (Aire-Superficie/Martín Pescador), S-A (Superficie-Aire/Halcón) e Hilo-Guiado (Antitanque-Mathogo). El modelo desarrollado y construido en CITEFA, tenía el inconveniente (que no era grave) del acoplamiento cruzado entre ejes de sensado, y que se pretende eliminar con el modelo por balance de fuerza. Bajo el número de Proyecto 25/C088, en el Laboratorio de Investigación y Desarrollo en Automatización y Control (LIDAC), perteneciente al Departamento de Electrónica de la Universidad Tecnológica Nadonal, Facultad Regional Buenos Aires (UTN-FRBA), se han realizado tres acelerómetros traslacionales con rango de 5g, 10g y 50 g. Si bien se han diseñado varios modelos de uno y tres ejes de medición, y construido los de un eje, en este trabajo se presenta el Modelo monoaxial de 10 g (98.1 m/segA2), por considerarse representativo del Proyecto.Facultad de Ingenierí

Assessment of expected damage on buildings subjected to Lorca earthquake through an energy-based seismic index method and nonlinear dynamic response analyses

The city of Lorca (Spain) was hit on May 11th, 2011, by two consecutive earth-quakes of magnitudes 4.6 and 5.2 Mw, causing casualties and important damage in buildings. Many of the damaged structures were reinforced concrete frames with wide beams. This study quantifies the expected level of damage on this structural type in the case of the Lorca earth-quake by means of a seismic index Iv that compares the energy input by the earthquake with the energy absorption/dissipation capacity of the structure. The prototype frames investigated represent structures designed in two time periods (1994–2002 and 2003–2008), in which the applicable codes were different. The influence of the masonry infill walls and the proneness of the frames to concentrate damage in a given story were further investigated through nonlinear dynamic response analyses. It is found that (1) the seismic index method predicts levels of damage that range from moderate/severe to complete collapse; this prediction is consistent with the observed damage; (2) the presence of masonry infill walls makes the structure very prone to damage concentration and reduces the overall seismic capacity of the building; and (3) a proper hierarchy of strength between beams and columns that guarantees the formation of a strong column-weak beam mechanism (as prescribed by seismic codes), as well as the adoption of counter-measures to avoid the negative interaction between non-structural infill walls and the main frame, would have reduced the level of damage from Iv=1 (collapse) to about Iv=0.5 (moderate/severe damage

Electronic and Geometric Corrugation of Periodically Rippled, Self-nanostructured Graphene Epitaxially Grown on Ru(0001)

Graphene epitaxially grown on Ru(0001) displays a remarkably ordered pattern of hills and valleys in Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) images. To which extent the observed "ripples" are structural or electronic in origin have been much disputed recently. A combination of ultrahigh resolution STM images and Helium Atom diffraction data shows that i) the graphene lattice is rotated with respect to the lattice of Ru and ii) the structural corrugation as determined from He diffraction is substantially smaller (0.015 nm) than predicted (0.15 nm) or reported from X-Ray Diffraction or Low Energy Electron Diffraction. The electronic corrugation, on the contrary, is strong enough to invert the contrast between hills and valleys above +2.6 V as new, spatially localized electronic states enter the energy window of the STM. The large electronic corrugation results in a nanostructured periodic landscape of electron and holes pockets.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Automatic granularity-aware parallelization of programs with predicates, functions, and constraints

Abstract is not availabl

Damage assessment on building structures subjected to the recent near-fault earthquake in Lorca (Spain)

The city of Lorca (Spain) was hit on May 11th 2011 by two consecutive earthquakes with 4.6 and 5.2 Mw respectively, causing casualties and important damage in buildings. Lorca is located in the south-east region of Spain and settled on the trace of the Murcia-Totana-Lorca fault. Although the magnitudes of these ground motions were not severe, the damage observed was considerable over a great amount of buildings. More than 300 of them have been demolished and many others are being retrofitted. This paper reports a field study on the damage caused by these earthquakes. The observed damage is related with the structural typology. Further, prototypes of the damaged buildings are idealized with nonlinear numerical models and their seismic behavior and proneness to damage concentration is further investigated through dynamic response analyses