Currency Boards and Productivity Growth

The paper studies the ways an economy working under a currency board could adjust when capital inflows stop suddenly. Six alternative solutions to restore the economic equilibrium are available when the sudden stop comes: a recession could push the prices of non-tradable goods down, a devaluation of the exchange rate could drive the prices of traded goods up, an increase in the international terms of trade could work in the same way the devaluation does, an increase in domestic savings could replace external savings, a recession could reduce the rate at which the economy creates new jobs or an increase in total factor productivity could validate the set of relative prices that ruled before the stop. The first three alternatives are short-run solutions (they require variables to adapt to new values of the parameters) while the rest could be addressed as structural solutions (they require parameters to change to keep variables at their original equilibrium levels). Solow`s neoclassical growth model (Solow,R. 1956) is used to analyze and evaluate each one of the six alternative solutions suggested. The model can easily accommodate supply side effects including total factor productivity growth which play a key rôle in this problem. The analysis of the changes in the values of parameters required for an 'structural adjustment' is made using elasticities to compare different steady-states. The results stress how important is for a safe currency board operation to encourage 'structural reforms' to favor total factor productivity improvements.currency board; growth; productivity growth; fixed exchange rate; stabilization; inflation; hyperinflation

Between latinamerican postmodernism and polytheists irruptions

Promediada la década de 1980, en la Argentina de la "primavera" democrática, las lecturas y los usos de las propuestas del filósofo francés Michel Foucault se despliegan en el campo político e intelectual anunciando la extraordinaria difusión de los años siguientes. Por ejemplo, entre los temas de la gubernamentalidad, la ética, la constitución de subjetividades, un Foucault en relación con la práctica política puede encontrarse en la emergencia de los nuevos movimientos sociales así como en los debates en torno a la posmodernidad. Se verifica entonces el ingreso de las palabras clave y las citas foucaultianas ya con fuerza y sistematicidad en las ciencias sociales y las humanidades, en los medios de comunicación y en prácticas concretas. Este artículo se propone exponer y analizar algunos de esos usos que se diseminan y tensan en aquellos años entre el posmodernismo y las nuevas formas de la política emancipatoria.In the Argentina of the democratic “spring” during the mid 1980s, readings and uses of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s proposals were spread within the political and intellectual fields announcing the extraordinary diffusion that would start in the following years. For example, among the topics of governmentality, ethics, and the constitution of subjectivities, a Foucault related to the political practice can be found in the emergent new social movements as well as in the debates concerning postmodernism. We can observe in those years how Foucault’s keywords and quotations are strongly and consistently used in the social sciences and humanities, mass media and specific practices. This article describes and analyzes some of those uses that spread among the postmodernism and the new forms of emancipatory politicsFil: Canavese, Mariana. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura de Izquierda en Argentina; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentin

Automatic generation of high speed elliptic curve cryptography code

Apparently, trust is a rare commodity when power, money or life itself are at stake. History is full of examples. Julius Caesar did not trust his generals, so that: ``If he had anything confidential to say, he wrote it in cipher, that is, by so changing the order of the letters of the alphabet, that not a word could be made out. If anyone wishes to decipher these, and get at their meaning, he must substitute the fourth letter of the alphabet, namely D, for A, and so with the others.'' And so the history of cryptography began moving its first steps. Nowadays, encryption has decayed from being an emperor's prerogative and became a daily life operation. Cryptography is pervasive, ubiquitous and, the best of all, completely transparent to the unaware user. Each time we buy something on the Internet we use it. Each time we search something on Google we use it. Everything without (almost) realizing that it silently protects our privacy and our secrets. Encryption is a very interesting instrument in the "toolbox of security" because it has very few side effects, at least on the user side. A particularly important one is the intrinsic slow down that its use imposes in the communications. High speed cryptography is very important for the Internet, where busy servers proliferate. Being faster is a double advantage: more throughput and less server overhead. In this context, however, the public key algorithms starts with a big handicap. They have very bad performances if compared to their symmetric counterparts. Due to this reason their use is often reduced to the essential operations, most notably key exchanges and digital signatures. The high speed public key cryptography challenge is a very practical topic with serious repercussions in our technocentric world. Using weak algorithms with a reduced key length to increase the performances of a system can lead to catastrophic results. In 1985, Miller and Koblitz independently proposed to use the group of rational points of an elliptic curve over a finite field to create an asymmetric algorithm. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is based on a problem known as the ECDLP (Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithm Problem) and offers several advantages with respect to other more traditional encryption systems such as RSA and DSA. The main benefit is that it requires smaller keys to provide the same security level since breaking the ECDLP is much harder. In addition, a good ECC implementation can be very efficient both in time and memory consumption, thus being a good candidate for performing high speed public key cryptography. Moreover, some elliptic curve based techniques are known to be extremely resilient to quantum computing attacks, such as the SIDH (Supersingular Isogeny Diffie-Hellman). Traditional elliptic curve cryptography implementations are optimized by hand taking into account the mathematical properties of the underlying algebraic structures, the target machine architecture and the compiler facilities. This process is time consuming, requires a high degree of expertise and, ultimately, error prone. This dissertation' ultimate goal is to automatize the whole optimization process of cryptographic code, with a special focus on ECC. The framework presented in this thesis is able to produce high speed cryptographic code by automatically choosing the best algorithms and applying a number of code-improving techniques inspired by the compiler theory. Its central component is a flexible and powerful compiler able to translate an algorithm written in a high level language and produce a highly optimized C code for a particular algebraic structure and hardware platform. The system is generic enough to accommodate a wide array of number theory related algorithms, however this document focuses only on optimizing primitives based on elliptic curves defined over binary fields

Mesoporous materials for drug delivery and theranostics

Mesoporous materials, especially those made of silica or silicon, are capturing great interest in the field of nanomedicine [...]

Indización, rezagos fiscales e inflación

This paper analyzes the dynamics of a model in which prices have inertia and, at the same time, inflation depends also on the fiscal deficit.

Therapeutic Efficacy and Immunological Response of CCL5 Antagonists in Models of Contact Skin Reaction

Skin-infiltrating T-cells play a predominant role in allergic and inflammatory skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis and allergic contact dermatitis. These T-cells are attracted by several chemotactic factors including the chemokine CCL5/RANTES, a CC chemokine inducing both the migration and activation of specific leukocyte subsets. CCL5 has been found to be associated with various cell-mediated hypersensitive disorders such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and irritant contact dermatitis. We have used two antagonists, the first, Met-CCL5, a dual CCR1/CCR5 antagonist and the second, a variant in which GAG binding is abrogated, 44AANA47-CCL5, which acts as a dominant negative inhibitor of CCL5. The antagonists were tested in two models of contact skin reaction. The first, irritant contact dermatitis (ICD) is a pathological non-specific inflammatory skin condition arising from the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines by keratinocytes in response to haptens, usually chemicals. The second, contact hypersensitivity (CHS) is a T-cell dependent model, mimicking in part the T-cell-mediated skin diseases such as psoriasis. In both models, the CCL5 antagonists showed therapeutic efficacy by reducing swelling by 50% as well as the reduction of soluble mediators in homogenates derived from challenged ears. These results demonstrate that blocking the receptor or the ligand are both effective strategies to inhibit skin inflammation

Public space inbetween asphyxia and resistance: Foucault’s uses during the dictatorship in Argentina

Este artículo tiene como objetivo principal reconstruir históricamente y analizar algunas de las formas de circulación, lectura e interpretación de textos de Michel Foucault en Argentina entre fines de la década de 1970 y principios de los ´80. Nos detenemos especialmente en las apropiaciones de las elaboraciones foucaultianas que se manifestaron entonces en las ciencias sociales, en debates académicos y en producciones relacionadas con problemáticas locales, bajo la hipótesis de que es posible divisar la vitalidad de un espacio público subterráneo que subsistió aun en las peores condiciones de opresión. Tomar algunos de estos casos nos permite explorar usos estratégicos en el ámbito político-intelectual que ampliaban los márgenes de un espacio público sofocado.Embora as primeiras leituras e apropriações de textos de Michel Foucault na Argentina datam de fimes do 1950, nos interessa aqui de me debruçar sobre algumas das formas de movimento, leitura, interpretação e apropriação de elaborações foucaultianaa trabalhando sob as condições impostas pelo última ditadura militar da Argentina. Esta proposta te, então, como principal objetivo reconstruir historicamente e analisar algumas dessas dotações que, entre final de 1970 e início dos anos 80, foram observados nas ciências sociais nos debates acadêmicos e questões relacionadas à produção local sob a hipótese de que é possível ver a vitalidade de um espaço público subterrâneo que sobreviveu até mesmo nas piores condições de opressão. Tomar alguns destes casos nos permitirá explorar usos estratégicos nos âmbitos políticos e intelectuais que expandiram as margens do espaço público sufocado.Fil: Canavese, Mariana. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Departamento de Historia; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin