Macroeconomic homogeneity within Mercosur: An overview

Similar business fluctuations are considered a necessary condition for the harmonization of economic policies and institutions within countries involved in an economic integration process. This paper deals with the macroeconomic performance of Mercosur countries during the last twenty five years. Its aim is threefold. First, to determine whether the economic fluctuations of Mercosur countries had a similar behavior according to their duration, intensity and timing. Second, to evaluate the reaction of the economies to demand and supply shocks; an exercise which is made only for Argentina and Brazil. Third, to study simultaneously the economic fluctuations of the four countries.

Policy harmonization in MERCOSUR

Despite its general character, the harmonization of economic policies presents two problems that need to be considered. One is the initial degree of uniformity in the behavior of the economies involved in the economic integration process. The other, the way the policies have to be implemented in the view of the whole. This paper provides a brief overview of both problems in MERCOSUR

Postural counseling represents a novel option in pain management of fibromyalgia patients

Background: Chronic pain is a key symptom in fibromyalgia (FM), and its management is still challenging for rheumatologists in daily practice. FM patients show psychological and psychiatric manifestations, going from mood and emotional disorders to depression and alexithymia that negatively impact their quality of life, limiting their daily activities. Since pharmacological strategies have a limited efficacy in FM pain, alternative or complementary non-pharmacological approaches have been introduced in the clinical management of FM. Patients and methods: This is a retrospective study on FM patients (n=52) treated with a novel integrated postural counseling (PC) rehabilitation program carried out by a counselor physiotherapist. The clinical impact of PC was evaluated by 1) a semi-structured interview using an ad hoc modified questionnaire McGill Illness Narrative Interview (MINI) 1 to obtain data on pain management by highlighting everyday experience of living with pain and 2) an FM impact questionnaire (FIQ) total score. Results: Two main structures of narrative emplotment of FM illness were recognized: 1) the cumulative life narrative structure (46.15%) and 2) the broken life (53.85%) narrative structure. Baseline FIQ score was 77.38±7.77, and it was significantly reduced after PC to 39.12±13.27 (P<0.0001). Although well-being still requires further definition as outcome in pain management, it is important for FM patients, dealing with pain-related sensations, thoughts and feelings and limiting their daily activities. In our study, 87.5% of interviewed FM patients reported an improvement in their well-being after PC. Conclusion: Our data suggest that an integrated PC program positively impacts chronic pain and fatigue based on self-management strategies. PC allows FM patients to resume their own life and regenerate their own image. Finally, we propose the introduction of the evaluation of the ability to resume daily activities as the target of rehabilitation programs in FM

Digital media infrastructures: pipes, platforms, and politics

Over the past decade, a growing body of scholarship in media studies and other cognate disciplines has focused our attention on the social, material, cultural, and political dimensions of the infrastructures that undergird and sustain media and communication networks and cultures across the world. This infrastructural turn assumes greater significance in relation to digital media and in particular, the influence that digital platforms have come to wield. Having “disrupted” many sectors of social, political, and economic life, many of the most widely used digital platforms now seem to operate as infrastructures themselves. This special issue explores how an infrastructural perspective reframes the study of digital platforms and allows us to pose questions of scale, labor, industry logics, policy and regulation, state power, cultural practices, and citizenship in relation to the routine, everyday uses of digital platforms. In this opening article, we offer a critical overview of media infrastructure studies and situate the study of digital infrastructures and platforms within broader scholarly and public debates on the history and political economy of media infrastructures. We also draw on the study of media industries and production cultures to make the case for an inter-medial and inter-sectoral approach to understanding the entanglements of digital platforms and infrastructures

Polycomb-mediated silencing in neuroendocrine prostate cancer

BACKGROUND: Neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) is a highly aggressive subtype of prostate cancer (PCa) for which the median survival remains less than a year. Current treatments are only palliative in nature, and the lack of suitable pre-clinical models has hampered previous efforts to develop novel therapeutic strategies. Addressing this need, we have recently established the first in vivo model of complete neuroendocrine transdifferentiation using patient-derived xenografts. Few genetic differences were observed between parental PCa and relapsed NEPC, suggesting that NEPC likely results from alterations that are epigenetic in nature. Thus, we sought to identify targetable epigenetic regulators whose expression was elevated in NEPC using genome-wide profiling of patient-derived xenografts and clinical samples. RESULTS: Our data indicate that multiple members of the polycomb group (PcG) family of transcriptional repressors were selectively upregulated in NEPC. Notably, CBX2 and EZH2 were consistently the most highly overexpressed epigenetic regulators across multiple datasets from clinical and xenograft tumor tissues. Given the striking upregulation of PcG genes and other transcriptional repressors, we derived a 185-gene list termed 'neuroendocrine-associated repression signature' (NEARS) by overlapping transcripts downregulated across multiple in vivo NEPC models. In line with the striking upregulation of PcG family members, NEARS was preferentially enriched with PcG target genes, suggesting a driving role for PcG silencing in NEPC. Importantly, NEARS was significantly associated with high-grade tumors, metastatic progression, and poor outcome in multiple clinical datasets, consistent with extensive literature linking PcG genes and aggressive disease progression. CONCLUSIONS: We have explored the epigenetic landscape of NEPC and provided evidence of increased PcG-mediated silencing associated with aberrant transcriptional regulation of key differentiation genes. Our results position CBX2 and EZH2 as potential therapeutic targets in NEPC, providing opportunities to explore novel strategies aimed at reversing epigenetic alterations driving this lethal disease

Absence of N-terminal acetyltransferase diversification during evolution of eukaryotic organisms

Protein N-terminal acetylation is an ancient and ubiquitous co-translational modification catalyzed by a highly conserved family of N-terminal acetyltransferases (NATs). Prokaryotes have at least 3 NATs, whereas humans have six distinct but highly conserved NATs, suggesting an increase in regulatory complexity of this modification during eukaryotic evolution. Despite this, and against our initial expectations, we determined that NAT diversification did not occur in the eukaryotes, as all six major human NATs were most likely present in the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA). Furthermore, we also observed that some NATs were actually secondarily lost during evolution of major eukaryotic lineages; therefore, the increased complexity of the higher eukaryotic proteome occurred without a concomitant diversification of NAT complexes

Computational propaganda in Brazil: social bots during elections

Computational propaganda can take the form of automated accounts (bots) spreading information, algorithmic manipulation and the spread of fake news to shape public opinion, amongst other methods. These techniques are being used in combination with the analysis and usage of large data sets of information about citizens held by corporations and governments. This form of propaganda is spreading to countries all over the world, most notably during the 2016 US presidential elections and the run-up to the UK’s referendum to leave the European Union (Brexit). This working paper examines the use of computational propaganda in Brazil, the largest country in Latin America and a critical part of the global internet. This examination takes the form of the study of three recent cases of the use of computational propaganda in Brazil: the 2014 presidential elections, the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff and the 2016 municipal elections in Rio de Janeiro. It examines the legal framework governing the internet and the electoral process online, particularly how this process relates to computational propaganda. In addition, it seeks to understand how bots are involved in multifarious economic and political themes, and in ongoing debates in the country about corruption, privatization, and social and economic reform. Through a collection and analysis of hashtags related to major investigations into corruption in politics, as well as to proposed reforms to the social support systems and protests related to them, the working paper identifies bots that are involved in these debates and how they operate. Finally, it looks at potential responses to this kind of propaganda, from legal, technical and organizational perspectives, as well as at some indications of future trends in the use of these techniques in Brazilian society and politics