The Impact of ICT on Health Promotion: A Randomized Experiment with Diabetic Patients

This paper summarizes randomized experiment to study the effects of an Internetbased intervention on type 2 diabetes patients in Montevideo, Uruguay. The intervention consisted of a specially designed website and an electronic social network where participants were able to navigate freely, download materials, and interact with other diabetics and with specialists. No significant impact was found on participants` knowledge, behavior, or health outcomes. It was also found that only a minority of patients logged on to the website, and most were only reached by email and mobile text (SMS). Participation in the website is correlated with patients` characteristics, such as gender, marital status, and education.Randomized trial, Diabetes, Public health, Uruguay

Horizontal Inequity in Access to Health Care in Four South American Cities

This paper analyzes and compares socioeconomic inequalities in the use of healthcare services by the elderly in four South-American cities: Buenos Aires, Santiago, Montevideo and San Pablo. We use data from SABE, a survey on Health, Well-being and Aging administered in 2000. After having accounted for socioeconomic inequalities in healthcare needs, we find socioeconomic inequities favoring the rich in the use of preventive services (mammograms, pap tests, breast examinations, and prostate exams) in all of the studied cities. We also find inequities in the likelihood of having a medical visit in Santiago and Montevideo, and in some measures of quality of access in Santiago, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires. Santiago depicts the highest inequities in medical visits and Uruguay the worse indicators in mammograms and pap scans tests. For all cities, inequities in preventive services at least double inequities in other services. We do not find evidence of a trade-off between levels of access and equity in access to healthcare services. The decomposition of healthcare inequalities suggests that inequities within each health system are more important than between systems.inequalities, healthcare, medical visit, preventive services

Educational STEM Project Based on Programming

Abstract[Abstract] We propose a sequence of activities to be programmed to improve the learning of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Secondary Education. This proposal consists on generate and transform images and figures programming in Octave. This enables the students to use basic and iterative instructions to construct a complex program, understand and structure problems, logic reformulation of problems, design of systematic processes for the resolution, generalization and comparison of solutions. Initial analyses of the implementation of the activities will be presented

Modified Laplace transformation method and its application to the anharmonic oscillator

We apply a recently proposed approximation method to the evaluation of non-Gaussian integral and anharmonic oscillator. The method makes use of the truncated perturbation series by recasting it via the modified Laplace integral representation. The modification of the Laplace transformation is such that the upper limit of integration is cut off and an extra term is added for the compensation. For the non-Gaussian integral, we find that the perturbation series can give accurate result and the obtained approximation converges to the exact result in the $N \to \infty$ limit ($N$ denotes the order of perturbation expansion). In the case of anharmonic oscillator, we show that several order result yields good approximation of the ground state energy over the entire parameter space. The large order aspect is also investigated for the anharmonic oscillator.Comment: 26 pages including tables, Late

The Impact of ICT on Adolescents' Perceptions and Consumption of Substances

This paper reports the results of a three-month randomized controlled trial to estimate the impact of an Internet and mobile telephone short message service (SMS) intervention on adolescents’ information about substances and rates of consumption. A low percentage of participants logged on to the Web platform, but most participants were reached through e-mails and SMS. It is found that the intervention was able to affect awareness that certain substances are drugs, but no significant changes in consumption habits were found.Randomized trial, Drugs, Smoking, Alcohol

Aspectos discursivos de la construcción de la hegemonía

Gramsci realizó importantes aportes para vincular algunas cuestiones del lenguaje y la hegemonía. Sin embargo, no llegó a construir una teoría que sistemáticamente analizase el modo en el cuál los procesos discursivos participan en la construcción de la hegemonía. Recientemente, una reformulación de la teoría la hegemonía realizada por Laclau conceptualizó el problema en términos de cadenas de significantes que alcanzan grados parciales de fijación en torno a ciertos significantes vacíos. Además Laclau ha revalorizado el papel de las figuras retóricas en la construcción de la hegemonía. Sin embargo, sus formulaciones teóricas se han mantenido a un nivel abstracto. Y la tradición laclausiana no se ha articulado con el Análisis Crítico del Discurso. En este artículo se conectan estas contribuciones junto con las formulaciones de Voloshinov y Bajtín sobre el lenguaje, pensando la dominación hegemónica como un proceso esencialmente dialógico. Finalmente, las figuras retóricas son integradas en un esquema más general acerca de la construcción de las cadenas equivalenciales en la lucha por las significaciones

Horizontal Inequity in Access to Health Care in Four South American Cities

ResumenEl objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el grado de inequidad socioeconómica en el uso de servicios médicos de la población adulta mayor en cinco ciudades latinoamericanas (Buenos Aires, Ciudad de México, Santiago de Chile, San Pablo y Montevideo), en base a los datos de la Encuesta de Salud, Bienestar y Envejecimiento relevada entre 1999 y 2000 (SABE, OPS/OMS, 2001). El análisis imputa el ingreso equivalente del hogar a través de la utilización de las encuestas de hogares de los distintos países, y considerando una amplia serie de indicadores de acceso, calidad y uso de servicios de salud. Una vez estandarizado el uso de servicios por las necesidades de cuidados, se encuentran desigualdades socioeconómicas pro-rico en el uso de servicios preventivos en todas las ciudades, desigualdades en la realización de visitas médicas en Santiago y Montevideo, y desigualdades en la calidad de acceso a la atención en todas las ciudades salvo Montevideo. Las desigualdades socioeconómicas dentro de los sistemas de salud públicos o privados explican una mayor proporción de las desigualdades en el acceso a la atención. Nuestros resultados son informativos en el contexto de las políticas recientes destinadas a la aplicación de paquetes mínimos de servicios. AbstractThe objective of this paper is compare socioeconomic inequalities in the use of healthcare services in four South-American cities: Buenos Aires, Santiago, Montevideo, and San Pablo. We use secondary data from SABE, a survey on Health, Well-being and Aging administered in 2000 under the sponsorship of the Panamerican Health Organization, and representative of the elderly population in each of the analyzed cities. We construct concentration indices of access to and quality of healthcare services, and decompose them in socioeconomic, need, and non-need contributors. We assess the weight of each contributor to the overall index and compare indices across cities. Our results show high levels of pro-rich socioeconomic inequities in the use of preventive services in all cities, inequities in medical visits in Santiago and Montevideo, and inequities in quality of access to care in all cities but Montevideo. Socioeconomic inequality within private or public health systems explains a higher portion of inequalities in access to care than the fragmented nature of health systems. Our results are informative given recent policies aimed at enforcing minimum packages of services and given policies exclusively focused on defragmenting health systems.Desigualdad horizontal, acceso al sistema de salud, Suramérica.

Horizontal inequity in access to health care in four South American cities

This paper analyzes and compares socioeconomic inequalities in the use of healthcare services by the elderly in four South-American cities: Buenos Aires (Argentina), Santiago (Chile), Montevideo (Uruguay) and San Pablo (Brazil). We use data from SABE, a survey on Health, Well-being and Aging administered in several Latin American cities in 2000. After having accounted for socioeconomic inequalities in healthcare needs, we find socioeconomic inequities favoring the rich in the use of preventive services (mammograms, pap tests, breast examinations, and prostate exams) in all of the studied cities. We also find inequities in the likelihood of having a medical visit in Santiago and Montevideo, and in some measures of quality of access in Santiago, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires. Santiago depicts the highest inequities in medical visits and Uruguay the worse indicators in mammograms and pap scans tests. For all cities, inequities in preventive services at least double inequities in other services. We do not find evidence of a trade-off between levels of access and equity in access to healthcare services. The decomposition of healthcare inequalities suggests that inequities within each health system (public or private) are more important than between systems.inequalities, healthcare, medical visit, preventive services.

Technocracy, pseudoscience and performative compliance: the risks of privacy risk assessments. Lessons from NIST's Privacy Risk Assessment Methodology

Privacy risk assessments have been touted as an objective, principled way to encourage organizations to implement privacy-by-design. They are central to a new regulatory model of collaborative governance, as embodied by the GDPR. However, existing guidelines and methods remain vague, and there is little empirical evidence on privacy harms. In this paper we conduct a close analysis of US NIST's Privacy Risk Assessment Methodology, highlighting multiple sites of discretion that create countless opportunities for adversarial organizations to engage in performative compliance. Our analysis shows that the premises on which the success of privacy risk assessments depends do not hold, particularly in regard to organizations' incentives and regulators auditing capabilities. We highlight the limitations and pitfalls of what is essentially a utilitarian and technocratic approach, leading us to discuss alternatives and a realignment of our policy and research objectives.Comment: Working draft. A version of this paper was presented at the 16th International Conference on Computers, Privacy and Data Protection, May 24-26, 2023 in Brussels (Belgium