La gobernabilidad controamericana en los noventa. Consideraciones sobre las posibilidades democráticas en la postguerra

El ensayo discute las posibilidades de construir la vida democrática en sociedades que salen de la guerra y la violencia, con rencores, pobreza e intolerancia. Con las causas que la provocaron, agravadas ahora. Tal es la situación de Guatemala, El Salvador y Nicaragua, afectadas por una guerra civil en la década de los ochenta. Señala las condiciones para alcanzar la única gobernabilidad deseada, la democrática, basada en la legitimidad y la eficiencia de las cohortes gobernantes; se apoya en un concepto de sociedad civil que destaca el valor de la participación de los intereses privados, animados por un sentido social en sus múltiples formas, dispuestos a la vida pública y política. El ensayo termina con dos ejemplos de ingobernabilidad en Nicaragua y Guatemala.The article discusses the situation of Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador once the internal or external wars in these countries are almost finished. Generalized political violence may be about to disappear but the social, economic and political conditions produce that stable democracy is still more a goal than a reality. According to the argument, transitions to democracy are not finished since governability will be hard to achieve. Efficiency and legitimacy are two basic challenges that Central American polities must achieve to talk about consolidated democracy

Capítulo 4 - Los enfoques de investigación en los estudios organizacionales

Abordar procesos de investigación, desde el campo de los estudios organizacionales, representa un reto para quienes incursionan en esta área, donde resulta indispensable adentrarse en el estudio de los postulados teóricos que subyacen a las teorías administrativas y las teorías organizacionales que dan paso a su inicio, desde una perspectiva multidisciplinaria que intenta comprender los fenómenos, las realidades sociales locales, de una forma mucho más integral

Capítulo 2 - El neoinstitucionalismo sociológico como referente para los estudios organizacionales

Desde la década de los setenta del siglo pasado se viene construyendo una nueva propuesta teórica para el abordaje de los fenómenos sociales denominada “neoinstitucionalismo” o “nuevo institucionalismo”. Esta agrupa al reciente conjunto de reflexiones que se interesan por determinar el rol que tienen las instituciones en la vida social. Es notorio entonces que en las distintas áreas del saber social se ha renovado el interés por las instituciones y, en consecuencia, se identifican distintos enfoques del neoinstitucionalismo, tales como el económico, el histórico, el jurídico o normativo, el politológico y el sociológico

Optimising models for prediction of tropospheric scintillation on satellite links

A phenomenon that also causes impairment in the received signal strength of the RF signal in satellite links operating at frequencies above 10 GHz, especially in those systems that operate at higher frequencies with small fade margins, is the tropospheric scintillation that occurs in the lower layer of the troposphere. In order to estimate the intensity, i.e. the variance between the scintillation amplitude fluctuations, there are several models in the literature, whose accuracy depends on the locality in which the models are implemented. In this Letter, new models are developed for the prediction of tropospheric scintillation that adjusts to localities in Spain, specifically Madrid city, based on measurements of the aforementioned phenomenon reported from Spain and the bios-inspired technique Cuckoo Search (CS). The results obtained, evaluated in terms of the root mean square error, were totally satisfactory, being the most outstanding cases the improved versions of the Ortgies-T, Statistical Temperature and Humidity 2 and Statistical Temperature and Refractivity 2 models

Longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis with AQP4 antibodies revealing ovarian teratoma.

Paraneoplastic myelitis is a rare inflammatory disorder most frequently associated with solid tumors or lymphoproliferative disorders. Patients often harbor onconeuronal antibodies and their prognosis is usually poor. Here we report a 42-year old woman with longitudinally extensive transverse myelitis and aquaporin-4 (AQP4) antibodies that led to the diagnosis of ovarian teratoma. After tumor removal and immune therapy (including corticosteroids, plasma exchange, intravenous immunoglobulins and rituximab) the patient progressively improved achieving complete recovery. Histological study of the teratoma demonstrated neural tissue containing AQP4 expressing cells and intense inflammatory infiltrates, providing evidence for a possible paraneoplastic link between both disorders

Large-scale evaluation of shotgun triacylglycerol profiling for the fast detection of olive oil adulteration

Fast and effective analytical screening tools providing new suitable authenticity markers and applicable to a large number of samples are required to efficiently control the global olive oil (OO) production, and allow the rapid detection of low levels of adulterants even with fatty acid composition similar to OO. The present study aims to develop authentication models for the comprehensive detection of illegal blends of OO with adulterants including different types of high linoleic (HL) and high oleic (HO) vegetable oils at low concentrations (2–10%) based on shotgun triacylglycerol (TAG) profile obtained by Flow Injection Analysis-Heated Electrospray Ionisation-High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (FIA-HESI-HRMS) at a large-scale experimental design. The sample set covers a large natural variability of both OO and adulterants, resulting in more than one thousand samples analysed. A combined PLS-DA binary modelling based on shotgun TAG profiling proved to be a fit for purpose screening tool in terms of efficiency and applicability. The external validation resulted in the correct classification of the 86.8% of the adulterated samples (diagnostic sensitivity = 0.87), and the 81.1% of the genuine samples (diagnostic specificity = 0.81), with an 85.1% overall correct classification (efficiency = 0.85)

Towards an eco-friendly coffee rust control : compilation of natural alternatives from a nutritional and antifungal perspective

Hemileia vastatrix (HV) is the pathogen responsible for the coffee leaf rust (CLR) disease that has spread globally. CLR causes losses of up to a billion dollars annually and affects all types of crops regardless of their production regime (organic or inorganic). Additionally, smallholders produce approximately 80% of coffee in developing countries. The condition causes losses of up to a billion dollars annually. It affects all types of crops regardless of their production regime (organic or inorganic). Approximately 80% of coffee is produced by smallholders in developing countries. Until the 90s, shaded-production systems and native varieties were encouraged; however, the rapid spread of CLR has forced farmers to migrate towards inorganic schemes, mainly due to a lack of knowledge about natural alternatives to pesticides that can be implemented to control HV. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to compile the currently existing options, emphasizing two key factors that guarantee efficient rust control: selective fungicidal activity against HV and the nutrition of coffee crops. Thus, by comprehending how these natural compounds (such as plant, bacteria, fungi, animals, or algae metabolites) impact coffee rust proliferation. Furthermore, since a various range of biochar effects contributes to the control of foliar fungal pathogens through modification of root exudates, soil properties, and nutrient availability, which influence the growth of antagonist microorganisms, we present a review of the pathogen-suppressive effects of biochar, and new control strategies suitable for organic schemes can be developed.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Associations between whole peripheral blood fatty acids and DNA methylation in humans

Fatty acids (FA) modify DNA methylation in vitro, but limited information is available on whether corresponding associations exist in vivo and reflect any short-term effect of the diet. Associations between global DNA methylation and FAs were sought in blood from lactating infants (LI; n = 49) and adult males (AMM; n = 12) equally distributed across the three conventional BMI classes. AMM provided multiple samples at 2-hour intervals during 8 hours after either a single Western diet-representative meal (post-prandial samples) or no meal (fasting samples). Lipid/glucose profile, HDAC4 promoter and PDK4 5'UTR methylation were determined in AMM. Multiple regression analysis revealed that global (in LI) and both global and PDK4-specific DNA methylation (in AMM) were positively associated with eicosapentaenoic and arachidonic acid. HDAC4 methylation was inversely associated with arachidonic acid post-prandially in AMM. Global DNA methylation did not show any defined within-day pattern that would suggest a short-term response to the diet. Nonetheless, global DNA methylation was higher in normal weight subjects both post-prandially and in fasting and coincided with higher polyunsaturated relative to monounsaturated and saturated FAs. We show for the first time strong associations of DNA methylation with specific FAs in two human cohorts of distinct age, diet and postnatal development stage