What is the impact of international remittances on poverty and inequality in Latin America ?

Workers'remittances have become a major source of income for developing countries. However, little is still known about their impact on poverty and inequality. Using a large cross-country panel dataset, the authors find that remittances in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have increased growth and reduced inequality and poverty. These results are robust to the use of different instruments that attempt to correct for the potential endogeneity of remittances. Household survey-based estimates for 10 LAC countries confirm that remittances have negative albeit relatively small inequality and poverty-reducing effects, even after imputations for the potential home earnings of migrants.Population Policies,Remittances,Inequality,Achieving Shared Growth,Poverty Impact Evaluation

Evaluating land administration systems: a comparative method with an application to Peru and Honduras

This article develops a methodology for the evaluation of land administration systems. We propose a set of quantitative and qualitative indicators with benchmarks for each one of them that signal possible venues to improve the administration’s structure and budgetary/management arrangements, in order to bring about the following goals: (1) to contribute to public sector financing through taxes; (2) to encourage the productive and sustainable use of land, and (3) to facilitate access to land for low-income citizens. This methodology was applied to the cases of Honduras and Peru in order to refine our draft evaluation indicators, while evaluating the systems of both countries. Here we present the final refined indicators and benchmarks, and the conclusions from both case studies.land administration systems; cadastre; evaluation; performance indicators

Micro-evolution in grasshoppers mediated by polymorphic Robertsonian translocations

This review focuses on grasshoppers that are polymorphic for Robertsonian translocations because in these organisms the clarity of meiotic figures allows the study of both chiasma distribution and the orientation of trivalents and multivalents in metaphase I. Only five species of such grasshoppers were found in the literature, and all of them were from the New World: Oedaleonotus enigma (Scudder) (Orthoptera: Acrididae), Leptysma argentina Bruner, Dichroplus pratensis Bruner, Sinipta dalmani Stål, and Cornops aquaticum Bruner. A general feature of these species (except O. enigma) is that fusion carriers suffer a marked reduction of proximal and interstitial (with respect to the centromere) chiasma frequency; this fact, along with the reduction in the number of linkage groups with the consequent loss of independent segregation, produces a marked decrease of recombination in fusion carriers. This reduction in recombination has led to the conclusion that Robertsonian polymorphic grasshopper species share some properties with inversion polymorphic species of Drosophila, such as the central-marginal pattern (marginal populations are monomorphic, central populations are highly polymorphic). This pattern might be present in D. pratensis, which is certainly the most complex Robertsonian polymorphism system in the present study. However, L. argentina and C. aquaticum do not display this pattern. This issue is open to further research. Since C. aquaticum is soon to be released in South Africa as a biological control, the latitudinal pattern found in South America may repeat there. This experiment’s outcome is open and deserves to be followed.Fil: Colombo, Pablo Cesar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Ecología, Genética y Evolución de Buenos Aires; Argentina; Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución. Laboratorio de Genética; Argentina

Taking Social TV Beyond Chatting: How The TV Viewer Adds Value To The Network

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in a contemporary iTV research area: social and networked TV. In our approach, instead of considering research sub-topics that build upon particular disciplinary threads (e.g., usability, personalization, multimedia annotations), we take a multidisciplinary approach that builds upon findings in media studies, human-computer interaction and multimedia systems. Moreover, we downplay the importance of chatting over a distance in favor of non-verbal communication modalities. In contrast, we focus on Social TV practices and highlight the role of each viewer as a node that adds value to the TV network. Finally, we provide directions for further research in neglected topics, such as supporting collocated viewing, and sharing the TV experience in a seamless way

A customizable open-source framework for measuring and equalizing e2e delays in shared video watching

[EN] Low-latency and media sync are essential requirements to enable interactive multi-party services, such as Social TV. In this work, we present an open-source and customizable framework that allows measuring end-to-end (e2e) video delays and provides support for different types of media sync, including Inter-Destination Media Sync (IDMS). This framework can be used by researchers to investigate the suitability of different techniques for optimizing the system performance in terms of e2e delays and media sync.This work has been funded, partially, by UPV under its R&D Support Program in PAID-01-10 Project and by CWI under EU/FP7 REVERIE Project (ICT-2011-7-287723).Montagud, M.; Boronat, F.; Cesar, P. (2014). A customizable open-source framework for measuring and equalizing e2e delays in shared video watching. ACM. 95-96. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1032656S959