La incidencia de la política de la competencia comunitaria sobre la cohesión económica y social

El estudio de las ayudas regionales a empresas se enmarca en el ámbito de dos políticas comunes de la Unión Europea: la política regional y la política de la competencia. Ello implica la intersección y, en ocasiones, el conflicto entre ambas políticas. Por otra parte, existen otros tipos de ayudas estatales que también tienen una repercusión regional. En este artículo se analiza la incidencia que la aplicación de la normativa comunitaria sobre competencia puede tener en el logro del objetivo último de la política regional europea, esto es, la cohesión económica y socia

Process tracing and public policies: the case of the Spinning Development Program in Ecuador

El process tracing en las políticas públicas permite rastrear casos identificando las variables indirectas que afectan a la variable directa. En este artículo se analiza el estudio de caso del Programa Hilando el Desarrollo (PHD) en Ecuador entre los años 2007-2016. Para ello se realiza un análisis de los procesos de compras públicas inclusivas en Sudamérica, así como en el Ecuador y se examina la categorización de los instrumentos de política pública en el modelo NATO (instrumentos de nodalidad, autoridad, tesoro y organización) vinculándolos con los principios de la política sectorial para la Economía Popular y Solidaria. Para dar respuesta a la hipótesis planteada se utiliza el rastreo de procesos de política pública concluyendo que las variables explicativas identificadas ocasionaron inferencia causal en el programa de políticas públicas analizado.Process tracing in public policies allows the tracking of cases and the identification of the indirect variables that affect the direct variable. This article analyzes the case study of the Spinning Development Program (SDP) in Ecuador between 2007-2016. To this end, an analysis was carried out of inclusive public procurement processes in Ecuador; the categorization of public policy instruments in the NATO model (instruments of nodality, authority, treasury and organization) was also examined, linking these to the principles of sectoral policy for the social and solidarity economy. In response to the hypothesis, the tracking of public policy processes was used, concluding that the explanatory variables identified led to a causal inference in the public policy program analyzed

Social network analysis for personalized characterization and risk assessment of alcohol use disorders in adolescents using semantic technologies

[EN] Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a major concern for public health organizations worldwide, especially as regards the adolescent population. The consumption of alcohol in adolescents is known to be influenced by seeing friends and even parents drinking alcohol. Building on this fact, a number of studies into alcohol consumption among adolescents have made use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques to study the different social networks (peers, friends, family, etc.) with whom the adolescent is involved. These kinds of studies need an initial phase of data gathering by means of questionnaires and a subsequent analysis phase using the SNA techniques. The process involves a number of manual data handling stages that are time consuming and error-prone. The use of knowledge engineering techniques (including the construction of a domain ontology) to represent the information, allows the automation of all the activities, from the initial data collection to the results of the SNA study. This paper shows how a knowledge model is constructed, and compares the results obtained using the traditional method with this, fully automated model, detailing the main advantages of the latter. In the case of the SNA analysis, the validity of the results obtained with the knowledge engineering approach are compared to those obtained manually using the UCINET, Cytoscape, Pajek and Gephi to test the accuracy of the knowledge model.S

A semantic social network analysis tool for sensitivity analysis and what-If scenario testing in alcohol consumption studies

15 páginasSocial Network Analysis (SNA) is a set of techniques developed in the field of social and behavioral sciences research, in order to characterize and study the social relationships that are established among a set of individuals. When building a social network for performing an SNA analysis, an initial process of data gathering is achieved in order to extract the characteristics of the individuals and their relationships. This is usually done by completing a questionnaire containing different types of questions that will be later used to obtain the SNA measures needed to perform the study. There are, then, a great number of different possible network-generating questions and also many possibilities for mapping the responses to the corresponding characteristics and relationships. Many variations may be introduced into these questions (the way they are posed, the weights given to each of the responses, etc.) that may have an effect on the resulting networks. All these different variations are difficult to achieve manually, because the process is time-consuming and error-prone. The tool described in this paper uses semantic knowledge representation techniques in order to facilitate this kind of sensitivity studies. The base of the tool is a conceptual structure, called “ontology” that is able to represent the different concepts and their definitions. The tool is compared to other similar ones, and the advantages of the approach are highlighted, giving some particular examples from an ongoing SNA study about alcohol consumption habits in adolescents.S

Foetal periventricular leucomatacia as the main lesion in abortions duri::g tho acute phase of ovine toxoplasmosis

Toxoplasmosis is a major opportunistic disease of immunocompromised patients. lt also represents a serious threat during pregnancy, causing severe foetal abnormalities or potentially leads to problems in childhood or later adult life

Paramphistomosis bovina en Galicia

Las paramphistomosis son infecciones producidas por trematodos de la familia Paramphistomidae Fischoeder, 1901, que incluye diferentes géneros y especies que parasitan el tracto gastrointestinal de rumiantes. Los animales se infectan al ingerir pastos contaminados con metacercarias producidas tras el enquistamiento de las fases larvarias emitidas por moluscos que actúan como hospedadores intermediarios. En Galicia, donde también se han detectado explotaciones con altas prevalencias de infección, se desconocían aspectos básicos sobre la epidemiología de estas parasitosis. En consecuencia, se ha realizado un amplio estudio en el que se han abordado muchos aspectos

Estudio comparativo de la acción analgésica del láser terapéutico de baja intensidad y el paracetamol para el dolor ocasionado por módulos separadores

Proposito. Comparar con la escala visual análoga el grado de dolor causado por la colocación de separadores ortodóncicos al utilizar el láser terapéutico y la administración de paracetamol en molares permanentes y el efecto analgésico de ambos tratamientos. Materiales y métodos. Se evaluaron 33 estudiantes voluntarios de 1er semestre de la Facultad de Odontología de la UANL. Para comparar la eficacia del paracetamol y del láser terapéutico se utilizó la escala visual análoga y se registró el grado de dolor a las 3, 6, 12, 24 y 48 horas posteriores a la colocación de módulos separadores en molares permanentes. En el grupo control se administró una dosis de paracetamol de 500mg 1 hora antes de la colocación de separadores y el grupo experimental fue tratado con láser terapéutico de baja intensidad inmediatamente después de la colocación de los separadores con una dosis de energía de 4J aplicado en 3 puntos por bucal durante 60 segundos. Por medio del análisis de ANOVA se interpretaron los resultados estadísticos. Resultados. Los pacientes que recibieron terapia con láser refirieron niveles menores de dolor en las primeras 6 horas y el paracetamol tuvo un efecto analgésico más prolongado que el láser terapéutico. En ambos grupos el pico del dolor se registró a las 24 horas. Se encontraron diferencias estadísticamente significativas en los niveles de dolor a las 3 y 24 horas en el grupo de paracetamol y del láser (P=0.000) siendo mayor en el lapso de 24 horas. Conclusión. Ambas alternativas son efectivas para controlar el dolor ocasionado por módulos separadores. Palabras clave: módulos separadores, láser terapéutico, AINES, paracetamo

The novel immunomodulator IMMUNEPOTENT CRP combined with chemotherapy agent increased the rate of immunogenic cell death and prevented melanoma growth

Abstract. Immunogenic cell death is a cell death modality that stimulates the immune system to combat cancer cells. IMMUNEPOTENT CRP (ICRP) is a mixture of substances of low molecular weight obtained from bovine spleens that exhibits in vitro cytotoxic activity on different tumor cell lines and modulates the immune response in vivo. The aim of the present study was to determine whether the cytotoxic effect of ICRP and its combination with oxaliplatin (OXP) on murine melanoma B16F10 cells was due to immunogenic cell death. The cytotoxic assay was performed using flow cytometry to detect Annexin V and propidium iodide staining, and calreticulin (CRT) exposure. Adenosine triphosphate, heat shock protein (HSP) 70, HSP90 and high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) release were identified using bioluminescence, western blot and ELISA assays, respectively. The present in vitro study demonstrated that treatments with ICRP or OXP induced cell death in a time-dependent manner, but treatment with the combination of ICRP + OXP increased the cytotoxic effect following 24 h of treatment. CRT exposure and release of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), HSP70, HSP90 and HMGB1 were induced by treatment with ICRP, and the combination of ICRP + OXP increased the exposure and release of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), while OXP treatment only induced CRT exposure, ATP and HMGB1 release. The in vivo experiments demonstrated that administration of tumor-derived DAMP-rich cell lysates derived from B16F10 cells treated with ICRP and the combination of ICRP + OXP prevented melanoma growth; however, OXP treatment did not. These results suggested that IMMUNEPOTENT CRP may be used as an agent to increase the ability of antitumor drugs to induce immunogenic cell death and prevent the growth of melanoma