DETERMINANTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF FOREIGN IN DEBTEDNESS IN COLOMBIAN FIRMS

During the nineties the performance of many emerging economies was linked to their access to foreign capital and its impact on the real exchange rate. Colombia was not an exception, as it experienced a sharp boom and bust cycle during the period. Although a number of studies have attempted to explain the recent underperformance of the Colombian economy, few attempts have been made at analyzing firm-level data. In this paper, we rely on information for a large sample of firms during 1995-2001 (nearly 8000 firms on average) and examine the determinants of foreign indebtedness as well as the effects on firm performance of holding dollar debt amid changes in the real exchange rate (i.e. the so called balance sheet effect"). While size is the most robust determinant of dollar indebtedness, matching seems to take place, to the extent that firms in more open sectors and exporting firms have higher shares of dollar debt. In spite of the limited amount of dollar indebtedness of Colombian firms in general, our estimations suggest there is a negative balance sheet effect on firms´ performance (i.e. on profitability). On the other hand, the interaction of dollar indebtedness with the real exchange rate is generally not significant in our investment regressions."Colombia

Mergers and Acquisitions in the Colombian Financial Sector (Impact on Efficiency 1990-2005)

Colombia has witnessed a renewed interest in merging and acquiring financial institutions during 2003-2005. These have been “complementary mergers” that seek to exploit economies scale and scope. This process contrasts favorably with those mergers & acquisitions that occurred during the mid-1990s, which involved mainly “twin institutions” that lacked potential for gaining multiproduct efficiency. This document analyzes the need to remove some of the regulatory constraints that obstruct further exploitation of such economies of scale-scope and quantifies the “cost efficiencies” shown by the Colombian banking sector (1994-2005). At the aggregate level, we found (absolute) banking efficiency to be around 63%, a similar value to those found in related studies post-crisis. This implies that banks operating in Colombia have been able to recover their efficiency levels during postcrisis 2003-2005, except for mortgage institutions. We highlight regulatory barriers that could be removed to help the banking system move closer to the optimal production frontier.Financial Institutions, Mergers and Acquisitions

Prosodic independence of affixes in Brazilian Portuguese: an experimental approach

We argue that Brazilian Portuguese (BP) affixes can be divided in (at least) two groups according to their prosodic behavior: true affixes are prosodically integrated to the base, while compositional affixes are considered independent prosodic words. Aiming to find empirical evidence to sustain this distintion, we investigate two questions: (i) Can we find acoustic patterns in derived words to differentiate true and compositional affixes? (ii) Are there psycholinguistic evidence to sustain that these two groups are accessed differently in our lexicon?. In order to answer these questions, we developed two experimental paradigms. The first one is an acoustic analysis which compares duration in syllables and V-V units of derived words. In this experiment, syllables showed increase in duration towards the stressed position for all conditions, while V-V units seem to differentiate the two types of morphological formations. The second one is an eye tracking experiment with lexical decision task to describe fixations, saccades and level of accuracy in derived words and nonce words. Our main results show that compositional words presented longer total time of fixation in the eye tracking analysis and longer and less accurate answers in the lexical decision task, what sustains the hypothesis that the two categories behave differently

Colonization dynamics of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in Ilex paraguariensis crops: Seasonality and influence of management practices

The yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis St. Hill.) is a native species from subtropical regions of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are symbiotically associated with 82% of the vegetable species including crops of economic importance. The aim of the present study was to determine the association of yerba mate with AMF growing in natural and crop conditions, and to evaluate the influence of tillage practices and seasonality on root colonization. We selected five situations ranging from old systems to recent implementations with different agricultural managements and intensity of tillage, as reference native trees were analyzed. Root samples of yerba mate were extracted in winter and summer during the years 2013–2014. The percentage of root colonization was determined. Significantly higher values of colonization were found in native trees. Regarding seasonality, significantly higher values on the total mycorrhizal colonization were observed in winter. Organic matter and nitrogen were the soil factors that showed significant correlation with the percentage of colonization. This work confirms the association of I. paraguariensis with AMF, showing that yerba mate is a host species under both crop and natural conditions. Even though crop management of yerba mate is compatible with the symbiosis, it affects the colonization negatively.Fil: Velázquez, María Silvana. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Botánica Spegazzini; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Juan Carlos, Fabisik. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Abarca, Camila Lucía. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Botánica Spegazzini; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Allegrucci, Natalia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Botánica Spegazzini; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Cabello, Marta Noemí. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Botánica Spegazzini; Argentin

Reflexiones en torno a los obstáculos presentes en la enseñanza y aprendizaje del álgebra

El desarrollo del razonamiento algebraico es un aspecto que mucho se ha investigado, pues existe una gran cantidad de autores que afirman que las dificultades en el paso del pensamiento aritmético al pensamiento algebraico persisten, a pesar de las múltiples reflexiones que se han publicado para resolver el problema. El objetivo de este informe es entonces, pre- sentar de manera sintetizada en cuatro categorías las principales problemáticas que existen en relación con la enseñanza y aprendizaje del álgebra y realizar reflexiones en torno a ellas. La primera dificultad que se expone es el uso de la letra en el álgebra escolar, pues el significado del símbolo literal, como afirma Küchemann (1978), puede variar según como se use en contexto, por ejemplo, 2a es una expresión donde la letra puede ser una etiqueta, es decir, a=anillos, a=arañas u otras interpretaciones que se alejan de una expresión en el campo algebraico. Así mismo, también identificó el símbolo como un objeto a ignorar, a evaluar, incógnita, número generalizado y variable. La transición de la aritmética al álgebra es en sí misma también una problemática, pues en términos de Gallardo y Rojano (1988), en este proceso se presenta un corte didáctico entre el pensamiento aritmético y el algebraico que se caracteriza como una ruptura entre los dos tipos de pensamiento, ya que se debe romper con conceptos y hábitos del pensamiento aritmético pero al mismo tiempo se debe extender las nociones y acciones asignada a los objetos aritméticos a un nuevo universo de objetos que incluye a los algebraicos, por ejemplo, para el caso de las ecuaciones es necesario dejar el hábito de buscar siempre una solución numérica al lado derecho de la misma, y pensar el signo igual como indicador de equivalencia y no como un signo que indica resultado. A pesar de ello, es importante también extrapolar del campo aritmético al campo algebraico las operaciones y propiedades que en el primero se utilizan. La formación y significación de las expresiones algebraicas, se concibe como una gran dificultad en el proceso del aprendizaje del álgebra, ya que existe un rechazo a una expresión como respuesta y a las expresiones que no se encuentran igualadas a un concepto porque çarecen de significado". Además, se observa también la dificultad de la concatenación, en álgebra entendida como multiplicación, ya que los estudiantes la entienden como valor posicional. Por último y de mayor preocupación en la enseñanza se encuentra la dificultad en la manipulación de las expresiones algebraicas, pues esta situación pone de manifiesto otro problema como lo es la interpretación del signo igual, ya que los estudiantes no tienen presente la doble direccionalidad del mismo y no dan cuenta de que en "la simplificación de expresiones algebraicas toda expresión intermedia y la final, simplificada, han de ser equivalentes"(Castro, 2012) En la resolución de ecuaciones, de manera similar al anterior problema, Castro (2012), Filloy & Kieran (1989), concuerdan en que los problemas relacionados con la solución de las ecuaciones apuntan principalmente al significado que dan los estudiantes al signo igual y al procedimiento que siguen según sus concepciones (métodos formales o intuitivos). Desde una perspectiva cognitiva como la que ofrece Duval, el problema en este aspecto radica en que en la situación de pasar un problema en lenguaje natural a lenguaje algebraico existen sintagmas (definidos como expresiones alfanuméricas que representan relaciones entre magnitudes) cuyas diferentes formaciones dependen de la incógnita escogida y su relación con otros elementos, mientras en la situación de tratamiento de las ecuaciones tales sintagmas se rompen ya que aquí son tomados como objetos que se relacionan según las propiedades de la aritmética

Probiotic Bacteria as an Healthy Alternative for Fish Aquaculture

One of the problems of the aquaculture industry is the presence of pathogenic microorganisms whose proliferation is enhanced when the healthy quality of the culture systems do not meet comply with physical-chemical-biological parameters. In order to improve these problems, less aggressive alternatives to the environment have been sought. This is why probiotic bacteria are proposed as an alternative to the same systems where they will be applied, since they generate greater interest in not presenting a threat to the ecosystem, favor survival, improve the immune system of organisms and have antibacterial properties against pathogenic bacteria. This chapter reviews current research related to the search for marine probiotics for application in the aquaculture industry. Additionally, we deliver results from our work related to the research and application of probiotics. The reported studies demonstrate the positive effects of marine bacteria for their aquaculture application. The evidences found in our work allow us to conclude that larval survival is favored by the application of probiotics in the use of vectors such as rotifers, artemia and biofilms. However, depending on the species of interest, it is necessary to study the market for the biotechnological application of probiotics, to evaluate the feasibility of its production on a larger scale and its commercial feasibility

Educação para todos e sucesso de cada um: do Relatório Warnock à Declaração de Salamanca

Em 1977 um documento da Unesco descrevia a evolução da humanidade na sua relação com «os deficientes» em cinco estádios: filantrópico, de assistência pública, dos direitos fundamentais, da igualdade de oportunidade e do direito à integração. Em 1978 o Relatório Warnock propõe que se substitua o paradigma médico pelo educativo, de forma a garantir sucesso e plena integração em escolas regulares, sendo objectivo da educação apoiar todas as crianças a superar as suas dificuldades. Em 1994 a Declaração de Salamanca «incita todos os governos a conceder a maior prioridade, através das medidas de política e orçamentais, ao desenvolvimento dos seus sistemas educativos, de modo a que possam incluir todas as crianças, independentemente das diferenças ou dificuldades individuais ». Aborda-se o desenvolvimento do sistema educativo português à luz destes documentos

Design Of a Strategic Planning for The Company MetalProffice S.A.S in Cartagena-Colombia

The following research work proposes the creation and implementation of a strategic planning for the company Metal Proffice S.A.S. For which a methodology was used that allowed to collect integral information of the company, with the help of tools it was possible to obtain an internal and external diagnosis of the company and thus be able to identify the shortcomings where it should be reinforced. In addition, it was possible to propose the objectives and strategic plans that would commit all the company's stakeholders to consolidate those activities that would provide a better competitive position and a significant improvement in the production areas. Finally, certain recommendations are given for the owners of the company so that they can have a long-term vision of the benefits of the project