Inestabilidad política y caídas presidenciales en Sudamérica: causas y consecuencias

Taking the behaviour of social movements and civil society during presidential crises during the last twenty years in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador as a variable, the article analyzes how the design of political institutions impacted on the development of political crises and presidential downfall. To do so, a critical literature review is carried out, highlighting the various existing approaches, their commonalities and differences.    Tomando como variable la actuación de los movimientos sociales y de la sociedad civil en las crisis presidenciales en los últimos 20 años en Argentina, Brasil, Bolivia y Ecuador, el artículo analiza cómo la conformación de las instituciones políticas influyó directamente en el desarrollo de las crisis políticas y en la caída de presidentes. Para ello, se realiza una revisión crítica de la literatura destacando los diversos enfoques existentes, sus puntos de encuentro y divergencia.  

Three Essays on Economic and Financial Development in Latin America: Evidence from the 2000s Commodity Boom

The dynamic forces of commodity prices have become a subject of large interest due to the uprise of a commodity supercycle in the beginning of the 21st century. The main purpose of this dissertation is to assess the role of commodity shocks and international trade in Latin American financial and economic development in the last two decades. The first essay examines how commodity market structural shocks explain the variations in commodity prices. Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) results from 1997 to 2015 show that aggregate demand shocks are more evident during the recent commodity boom period and are robust to different time spans and selection of commodities. The second essay analyzes the impacts of those commodity market structural shocks on Latin American stock markets. I select stock exchange benchmark indices and individual firm stock prices to test the responses of the region’s stock markets to supply, demand and idiosyncratic shocks to commodities that correspond to the largest listed firms in Latin American stock markets. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that aggregate demand shocks play a larger role in Latin American real stock returns during the commodity boom period as compared to the pre- and post-boom periods for all commodity markets. The third essay investigates the relationship between international trade and economic growth in 14 Latin American economies from 1997 to 2014. Fixed effects panel data regressions adopting an endogenously-determined threshold estimation method examine for evidence of nonlinearity related to the increased economic volatility in the period, especially due to the 2000s commodity boom. The strong trade-growth nexus is robust to different time spans, selection of countries and controlling for the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Two-stage least squares (2SLS) regressions add robustness to results while addressing the potential endogeneity in the trade-growth relationship

Whole-Body Bilateral Teleoperation of a Redundant Aerial Manipulator

Attaching a robotic manipulator to a flying base allows for significant improvements in the reachability and versatility of manipulation tasks. In order to explore such systems while taking advantage of human capabilities in terms of perception and cognition, bilateral teleoperation arises as a reasonable solution. However, since most telemanipulation tasks require visual feedback in addition to the haptic one, real-time (task-dependent) positioning of a video camera, which is usually attached to the flying base, becomes an additional objective to be fulfilled. Since the flying base is part of the kinematic structure of the robot, if proper care is not taken, moving the video camera could undesirably disturb the end-effector motion. For that reason, the necessity of controlling the base position in the null space of the manipulation task arises. In order to provide the operator with meaningful information about the limits of the allowed motions in the null space, this paper presents a novel haptic concept called Null-Space Wall. In addition, a framework to allow stable bilateral teleoperation of both tasks is presented. Numerical simulation data confirm that the proposed framework is able to keep the system passive while allowing the operator to perform time-delayed telemanipulation and command the base to a task-dependent optimal pose.Comment: to be published in 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA

System Identification and Parameter Space Control Design for a Small Unmanned Aircraft

Initial tests in cooperative control for autonomous landings of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) on a moving car have presented promising results. However, the identification of a high-fidelity simulation model is a step of great importance towards the development of more effective model predictive control strategies, which rely on precise models to allow cooperative control of High Altitude, Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs with autonomous ground vehicles. In this context, this work aims to develop a reliable model for the Penguin BE aircraft used in cooperative landing tests at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and to design a high-performance pitch attitude controller applying the parameter space approach. The system identification procedure has been carried out by applying both, the Output Error and the Two Step methods, and a linear longitudinal model of the aircraft has been developed. Parameter Space Control has been applied to the identified model in order to suggest a set of alternative gains to the ones that are currently in use, which have been fine-tuned in flight, using the Ziegler-Nichols method, which will not be viable in the scope of stratospheric missions

IMPROVISO E CRIATIVIDADE NA GESTÃO UNIVERSITÁRIA

Trata sobre a temática do improviso e criatividade nas organizações, focando especialmente nas organizações públicas, nas Instituições Federais de Ensino Superior e seus servidores. Objetiva apresentar definições, elementos facilitadores e inibidores de processos criativos e vantagens de se inserir esses atributos nos procedimentos de gestão. Aborda o estudo de forma qualitativa, aplicado e descritiva, destacando conceitos e teorias encontrados na literatura. Enfatiza a importância de ambientes propícios à criatividade e o desenvolvimento e aprendizagem dos servidores da administração pública, salientando a necessidade do improviso nas ações laborais e tomadas de decisão. Conclui que a gestão universitária pode se beneficiar motivando e apoiando práticas que auxiliem no desenvolvimento da criatividade dos seus servidores técnicos em educação. Entretanto, os temas improviso e criatividade na gestão pública ainda estão em construção, devendo-se buscar formas a incorporá-los na cultura organizacional, tendo como meta a busca da excelência

As sombras de Laoximen (fragmento)

This photo-essay investigates the contemporary landscape of Chinese urban centers, especially regarding the presence of images in public spaces and the degradation of atmospheric visibility due to air pollution. In the series, photography is used to reflect — both in connotative and denotative sense — on the blurring of the boundaries between reality and representation in the current conjuncture of globalized capitalism.Este ensayo fotográfico investiga el paisaje contemporáneo de ciudades chinas, especialmente en lo que se refiere a la presencia de imágenes en los espacios urbanos. En la serie, la fotografía se utiliza para reflexionar —tanto en sentido connotativo como denotativo — sobre las tensiones entre realidad y representación en la coyuntura actual del capitalismo globalizado.Este ensaio fotográfico investiga a paisagem contemporânea de grandes centros urbanos chineses, especialmente no que diz respeito à presença de imagens nos espaços públicos e à degradação da visibilidade atmosférica por efeito da poluição. Na série, a fotografia é utilizada para refletir — tanto num sentido conotativo quanto denotativo — sobre o embaçamento dos limites entre realidade e representação na conjuntura atual do capitalismo globalizado