La elección popular indirecta de altos funcionarios del Estado en Venezuela y su violación por el Estado autoritario: el golpe de Estado de diciembre de 2014 dado con las inconstitucionales designaciones de los titulares de las ramas del Poder Público

Este estudio analiza el régimen constitucional establecido en Venezuela para la elección indirecta de los titulares de los Poderes Judicial, Electoral y Ciudadano por la Asamblea Nacional, actuando como cuerpo elector, con una mayoría calificada de votos de las 2/3 partes de sus miembros, y su violación por la Asamblea nacional y por el Tribunal Supremo en diciembre de 2014, con lo cual dieron un golpe de Estado

An Extraordinary Example of Photokarren in a Sandstone Cave, Cueva Charles Brewer, Chimantá Plateau, Venezuela: Biogeomorphology on a Small Scale

A distinctive suite of small-scale erosional forms that are oriented towards the light occur close to the entrance of Cueva Charles Brewer, a large cave in a sandstone tepui, in SE Venezuela. These are the third example of photokarren ever studied in the world, the other two being from Borneo and Ireland. They are the only photokarren ever described from sandstone, and the only example from a non-carbonate environment. The host rock is a poorly-lithified unit of the Precambrian quartz arenite of the Roraima Supergroup. The forms are all oriented towards the light at 30° regardless of rock surface orientation. The primary (negative) erosional form is the tube. Coalescence of tubes results in the positive remnant forms of rods, pinnacles, and cones. The final stage is a bumpy, wavy surface of degraded cones. The size of the features varies with erosion rate, and details of the form vary with development stage. The main population averages 4.4 cm in depth, with 55% of the surface eroded. This is divided into 10% tubes, 70% rods, 10% cones, 5% linear valley and 5% wavy lowland. The micro-ecosystem includes many bacteria, diatoms, red algae, green algae, liverworts, and oribatid mites, but, surprisingly, no cyanobacteria. The presence of a surface biofilm inside the forms but not on the remnant rock surface and, in the non-degraded forms, the direct relationship of biomass with depth suggests that biological activity is the dominant control on development. In addition, direct bacterial corrosion was noted. These same features occur to varying extents in the photokarren of Borneo and Ireland, and the model for development that we present provides a unifying theory for all photokarren. (This study also includes the first published petrographic analysis of uppermost unit of the Mataui Formation)

Do nuclear DNA and dental nonmetric data produce similar reconstructions of regional population history? An example from modern coastal Kenya

This study investigates whether variants in dental morphology and nuclear DNA provide similar patterns of intergroup affinity among regional populations using biological distance (biodistance) estimates. Many biodistance studies of archaeological populations use skeletal variants in lieu of ancient DNA, based on the widely accepted assumption of a strong correlation between phenetic- and genetic-based affinities. Within studies of dental morphology, this assumption has been well supported by research on a global scale but remains unconfirmed at a more geographically restricted scale. Paired genetic (42 microsatellite loci) and dental (nine crown morphology traits) data were collected from 295 individuals among four contemporary Kenyan populations, two of which are known ethnically as “Swahili” and two as “Taita;” all have welldocumented population histories. The results indicate that biodistances based on genetic data are correlated with those obtained from dental morphology. Specifically, both distance matrices indicate that the closest affinities are between population samples within each ethnic group. Both also identify greater divergence among samples from the different ethnic groups. However, for this particular study the genetic data may provide finer resolution at detecting overall among-population relationships

Democracia Participativa, Decentralizacion Politica y Regimen Municipal

RESUMENEl autor analiza el concepto de democracia participativa en el contexto de la descentralizacion politica y de la municipalizacion. La democracia participativa no se puede planear como sustituto de la democracia representativa. Esta se puede perfeccionar con la inclusion de mecanismos de democracia directa (referendos) pero estos no pueden sustituir la representacion. la verdadera posibilidad de participacion politica solo puede darse a nivel de los municipios o gobiernos locales, cuando estan colocados cerca del ciudadano como consecuencia de procesos de descentralizacion. Por ello, para que la democracia llegue a ser participativa, hay que descentralizar el poder, revalorizando el regimen local y el pequeño municipio rural. En definitiva, no habiendo autocracias descentralizadas, solo las democracias se descentralizan.ABSTRACTThe author study the concept of participatory democracy in the context of the process of political decentralization and municipalization. Participatory democracy cannot be a substitute of representative democracy. Representation can be improved by means of direct democracy mechanisms, such as the referendums, but these cannot substitute representative democracy. The real possibility for a political participation is at the local (municipal) level of goverments, when they are located near the citizen, as a consequence of a political decentralization process. That is why, for a democracy to by a participatory one, it is necessary to decentralize power, giving new value to local governments and to the small rural ones. In the end, only democracies can be, no decentralized autocracies exists