The Incidence of Land Use Regulations

I study the welfare consequences of land use regulations for low- and high-skilled workers within a city. I use detailed geographic data for Cook County and Chicago in 2015-2016, together with a spatial quantitative model with two types of workers and real estate developers who face regulations. For identification, I use the 1923 Zoning Ordinance, which was the first comprehensive ordinance in Chicago. I find that an increase of 10 percentage points in the share of residential zoning in a block group, relative to block groups with more commercial zoning, leads to a 1.7% increase in housing prices, a 2.6% decrease in wages and a higher concentration of high-skilled residents. Welfare changes can be decomposed into changes in housing prices, sorting, wages and land rents. Results suggest that more mixed-use zoning and looser floor-to- area limits lead to welfare improvements, especially for low-skilled residents, and to a reduction in welfare inequality

Quality of Communications Infrastructure, Local Structural Transformation, and Inequality

We analyze the causal impact of improvements in the quality of communication infrastructure on the structural transformation of US counties. Our treatment is the quality of communication infrastructure in a county, measured by the average Internet speed offered to businesses. We use as an instrumental variable the spatial structure of ARPANET, a network funded by the Department of Defense that is considered the precursor of the Internet, and whose location we determine using historical government documents. We show that faster Internet stimulates short-run growth and increases the shares of employment and GDP in high-skilled services, while negatively affecting sectors such as retail, accommodation, and food services. Two mechanisms explain our results. First, input-output linkages since industries that buy more ICT inputs increase their weight on the local economy. Second, a rise in high-skilled workers in ICTintensive occupations, which is consistent with the Rybczynski theorem of the Hecksher-OhlinVanek model and with the presence of capital-skill complementarities. Lastly, we find that better Internet increases earnings inequality within U.S. counties. Such finding has implications for Internet subsidies across the country

Fuzzy Logic in the System Architecture of Educational Processes Analysis

In our work we analyze a set of economic factors, that impacts on student’s decision of educational path change. Taking into account such factors as the expected salary after graduation, educational costs, set of government exams and the amount of educational paths in the university, we estimate the possibility for each student to optimize his educational path. To describe the behavior of a rational individual and to estimate the optimal and preferred educational paths in this conditions we use the classical economic theory, the classical theory of economic behavior, the methodology of increasing efficiency of the human capital and the institutional economic theory. To estimate the possibility for each student to change his educational path we developed an approach, that is based on the fuzzy logic model of Mamdani type. According to this approach, the possibility of educational path change for a student is calculated on the panel data on the amount of perspective directions of student’s graduation and educational paths, on the possibility of budget support of the graduation, on the expected salary level after graduation

Análisis de los procesos de urbanización político- militares de las FARC - EP en el período 2000-2010

En un esfuerzo por comprender la faceta urbana del conflicto armado entre las FARC y el Estado, esta monografía intenta explicar los procesos de urbanización llevados a cabo por dicho actor insurgente, precisamente, en el período donde la arremetida militar del Estado es de mayor envergadura en el campo. Se utiliza la teoría de guerra popular prolongada para situar al conflicto dentro de un espectro académico que permita, a su vez, establecer relaciones que expliquen en la práctica las particularidades de la urbanización de la guerra entre los dos actores estudiados.In an effort to understand the urban side of the armed conflict between the FARC and the state, this work attempts to explain the complex processes carried out by that insurgent actor, precisely in the period where the military onslaught of the state is larger in the rural areas. Theory of protracted people's war is used to place the conflict within an academic spectrum to allow, in turn, build relationships that explains the peculiarities of the development of the war between these two actors

Computational search for UV radiation resistance strategies in Deinococcus swuensis isolated from Paramo ecosystems

Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is widely known as deleterious for many organisms since it can cause damage to biomolecules either directly or indirectly via the formation of reactive oxygen species. The goal of this study was to analyze the capacity of high-mountain Espeletia hartwegiana plant phyllosphere microorganisms to survive UVR and to identify genes related to resistance strategies. A strain of Deinococcus swuensis showed a high survival rate of up to 60% after UVR treatment at 800J/m2 and was used for differential expression analysis using RNA-seq after exposing cells to 400J/m2 of UVR (with \u3e95% survival rate). Differentially expressed genes were identified using the R-Bioconductor package NOISeq and compared with other reported resistance strategies reported for this genus. Genes identified as being overexpressed included transcriptional regulators and genes involved in protection against damage by UVR. Non-coding (nc)RNAs were also differentially expressed, some of which have not been previously implicated. This study characterized the immediate radiation response of D. swuensis and indicates the involvement of ncRNAs in the adaptation to extreme environmental conditions

A Model Study of the Global Emissions of Terpenoid Volatile Organic Compounds from Terrestrial Vegetation in the Last Millennium

This thesis is a global study of the changes in the plant emissions of the dominant Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (BVOC) in the last millennium resulting from changing environmental conditions, largely induced by humans. BVOC emitted by vegetation have multiple impacts on atmospheric chemistry and physics, for instance changes in BVOC emissions significantly change the concentrations of aerosol in continental regions, affect ozone formation and change the oxidizing capacity of the troposphere. These processes are relevant from a climate change and air quality perspectives. The variability of global fluxes of isoprene, monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes (terpenoid BVOC) over the last millennium is evaluated using the Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN). The model is driven with meteorology input data from an Earth System Model, CO2 atmospheric concentrations estimated from ice samples and model reconstructions of the global changes of vegetation. The results show that global isoprene emissions have decreased 7.3%, monoterpene emissions have increased 9.8% and sesquiterpene emissions have increased 15.1% during the period 1950-1990 as compared to 1000-1800. The results suggest that the variation of isoprene emissions is governed by land-use changes, while monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes variations are dominated by temperature. Regional changes on the isoprene, monoterpene and sesquiterpene emission distribution are larger than global changes in many locations and could have had a significant impact on the chemistry and aerosol dynamic processes in the atmosphere in the last millennium. This thesis lays a basis for a future quantification of the effect on atmospheric chemistry cycles and the organic aerosol yield from biogenic organic precursors

La incorporación de la perspectiva de género en las decisiones judiciales sobre violencia contra la mujer en Colombia : una garantía de protección del derecho de las mujeres a una vida libre de violencias

Las mujeres en Colombia tienen derecho a una vida libre de violencias. Si bien el Estado colombiano ha realizado esfuerzos significativos para proteger a las mujeres víctimas de violencia de todo tipo (física, verbal, sexual, psicológica, patrimonial y/o económica) con la integración de normas de derecho internacional al orden interno; no es menos cierto que, las decisiones de sus agentes, llámese autoridades administrativas y/o judiciales, reproducen estereotipos de género, perpetúan la violencia y discriminación hacia las mujeres en nuestros días. El presente artículo tratará de demostrar que aún persisten decisiones judiciales que no incorporan la perspectiva de género como garantía de eliminación de todo acto de agresión contra las mujeres.Women in Colombia have the right to a life free of violence. Although the Colombian State has made significant efforts to protect women victims of violence of all kinds (physical, verbal, sexual, psychological, patrimonial and / or economic) with the integration of international law norms into the internal order; It is no less true that the decisions of its agents, be they administrative and / or judicial authorities, reproduce gender stereotypes, perpetuate violence and discrimination against women today. This article will try to show that there are still judicial decisions that do not incorporate the gender perspective as a guarantee of elimination of all acts of aggression against women.Magíster en Derecho de Estado con énfasis en Gobierno y Desarrollo de las Entidades TerritorialesMaestrí