The Automatic External Cardioverter-Defibrillator

In-hospital cardiac arrest remains a major problem but new technologies allowing fully automatic external defibrillation are available. These technologies allow the concept of “external therapeutic monitoring” of lethal arrhythmias. Since early defibrillation improves outcome by decreasing morbidity and mortality, the use of this device should improve the outcome of in-hospital cardiac arrest victims. Furthermore, the use of these devices could allow safe monitoring and treatment of patients at risk of cardiac arrest who not necessarily must be in conventional monitoring units (Intensive or Coronary Care Units) saving costs with a more meaningful use of resources. The capability to provide early defibrillation within any patient-care areas should be considered as an obligation (“standard of care”) of the modern hospital

The Cult of Theoi: Economic Uncertainty and Religion

Sacrifices to deities occur in nearly all known religions. In this paper, we report on our attempts to elicit this type of religious behaviour towards "Theoi" in the laboratory. The theory we test is that, when faced with uncertainty, individuals attempt to engage in a reciprocal contract with the source of uncertainty by sacrificing towards it. In our experiments, we create the situation whereby individuals face an uncertain economic payback due to "Theoi" and we allow participants to sacrifice towards this entity. Aggregate sacrifices amongst participants are over 30% of all takings, increase with the level of humanistic labelling of Theoi and decrease when participants share information or when the level of uncertainty is lower. The findings imply that under circumstances of high uncertainty people are willing to sacrifice large portions of their income even when this has no discernable effect on outcomes.uncertainty, religion, sacrifice, experiment

Do the Obese Really Die Younger or Do Health Expenditures Buy Them Extra Years?

A recent debate in the medical literature has arisen around the mortality effects of obesity. Whereas it has been argued that the obese die younger, the data that have become available do not immediately support this. This potentially undermines the hypothesis that modern life with its physical ease and cheap food would eventually make us die younger, and undermines the notion that economic growth comes with health warnings. We revisit this debate going over the mortality effects of obesity, using the US Health and Retirement Study. Whilst we find that obesity leads to chronic diseases that reduce length of life, we also find that the obese survive strokes and lung disease more often than the non-obese. A possible explanation is that the obese are under greater medical scrutiny, meaning that lung disease is more quickly diagnosed. This result holds when controlling for smoking and the long-term effects of obesity.obesity, longitudinal data, mortality, smoking, reverse-causality

Educational Segregation and the Gender Wage Gap for Recent College Graduates in Colombia

In this paper we show the importance of subject of degree in explaining the gender wage gap in Colombia. In order to minimize the influence of gender differences in experience, promotions, and job changes on the wage gap, we focus on college graduates who have a formal job and who have been in the labor market at most one year. Using unique, administrative datasets with detailed subjects of degree, we find that the wage gap against women is on average 11% and that 40% of it can be explained by differences in subject of degree. Using a distributional decomposition, we find an increasing gender wage gap across the distribution of wages (from 2% at the bottom to 15% at the top), although subject of degree explains a lower 30% of the gap at the top. Policies designed to reduce the gender wage gap need to address the differing gender educational choices and the factors that influence them. These policies would be more effective in reducing the gap for median wage earners.gender wage gap, subject of degree, decomposition

Are Young People's Educational Outcomes Linked to their Sense of Control?

This paper analyzes the link between young people's sense (locus) of control over their lives and their investments in education. We find that young people with a more internal locus of control have a higher probability of finishing secondary school and, conditional on completion, meeting the requirements to obtain a university entrance rank. Moreover, those with an internal locus of control who obtain a university entrance rank achieve somewhat higher rankings than do their peers who have a more external locus of control. Not surprisingly, there is a negative relationship between growing up in disadvantage and educational outcomes. However, this effect does not appear to operate indirectly by increasing the likelihood of having a more external locus of control. In particular, we find no significant relationship between family welfare history and young people's locus of control.locus of control, parental socio-economic background, education

Babylon'13: periodismo sin periodismo

Artículo para la sección Tribuna de adComunica

A Regional Economic Policy for Colombia

This paper proposes a framework for a regional economic policy in Colombia. The regional characteristics and disparities of the country are studied, and regional disparities are shown to be both significant and persistent over time. This calls for a policy initiative to promote the development of the poorer regions of the country. The studyhere draws lessons from other cases of the regional economic policy, and proposes a framework based on the regional policy initiative that is currently being implemented in Brazil.Economía regional, política regional, disparidades, convergencia

New drug trafficking armed groups in Colombia and the applicability of International Humanitarian Law

Colombian’s new drug trafficking groups show us a violent scenario that must be carefully analyze. The level of violence and deathly consequences that can be attributable to them must make us pay attention of the law that is applicable to them and to the Colombian armed forces when they are acting against those groups. In Colombia, the government and authorities have admitted an easy position, establishing that these new groups –calledBACRIM- are simply gangs or common delinquency, while they in many occasions act as something else. Accordingly, the purpose on this paper is to analyze the particular case of one of these groups in relation to the applicability of International Humanitarian Law rules of non-international armed conflicts, seeking to contribute to the discussion about which regulatory framework is applicable to this phenomenon

Transforming food systems under a changing climate in Latin America: A climate policy review

Agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate change, but at the same time, it is the main contributor to climate change Governments have recognized that facing climate change is essential to address a sustainable development pathway, but so far little progress has been achieved Thus there is a need for rapid and transformative actions that tackle climate change impacts while achieving sustainable rural development Nevertheless, the way current policies are addressing actions towards transformative actions is unclear concerning sustainable pathways of food systems in the face of climate change. In this sense, this paper reviews current climate change-related policies of Latin American countries to identify whether they address transformational actions in the agricultural sector or food systems in relation to climate change Research questions include which countries state in their policies transformative actions? Are Latin American national policies in line with their international commitments? In order to answer these questions we used different methods of text analysis applied to the policy framework of Latin American countries to assess the integration level of eight components that Campbell et al 2018 propose in the theory of change to drive the transformation of food systems under climate chang

Acomodación fonética durante las interacciones conversacionales: una visión general

During conversational interactions such as tutoring, instruction-giving tasks, verbal negotiations, or just talking with friends, interlocutors’ behaviors experience a series of changes due to the characteristics of their counterpart and to the interaction itself. These changes are pervasively present in every social interaction, and most of them occur in the sounds and rhythms of our speech, which is known as acoustic-prosodic accommodation, or simply phonetic accommodation. The consequences, linguistic and social constraints, and underlying cognitive mechanisms of phonetic accommodation have been studied for at least 50 years, due to the importance of the phenomenon to several disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, and sociology. Based on the analysis and synthesis of the existing empirical research literature, in this paper we present a structured and comprehensive review of the qualities, functions, onto- and phylogenetic development, and modalities of phonetic accommodation.Durante las interacciones conversacionales como dar una tutoría, dar instrucciones, las negociaciones verbales, o simplemente hablar con amigos, los comportamientos de las personas experimentan una serie de cambios debido a las características de su interlocutor y a la interacción en sí. Estos cambios están presentes en cada interacción social, y la mayoría de ellos ocurre en los sonidos y ritmos del habla, lo cual se conoce como acomodación acústico-prosódica, o simplemente acomodación fonética. Las consecuencias, las limitaciones lingüísticas y sociales, y los mecanismos cognitivos subyacentes a la acomodación fonética se han estudiado durante al menos 50 años, debido a la importancia del fenómeno para varias disciplinas como la lingüística, la psicología, y la sociología. A partir del análisis y síntesis de la literatura de investigación empírica existente, en este artículo presentamos una revisión estructurada y exhaustiva de las cualidades, funciones, desarrollo onto- y filogenético, y modalidades de la acomodación fonética