Water nationalization: network access, quality, and health outcomes

In the case of natural monopolies there tends to be a trade-off between a higher quality of output provided by private firms, and a better access for poor consumers provided by public firms. This is partly the reflection of differences in objectives by private and public firms. The former tend to be product-driven, whereas the latter tend to base decisions on political agendas (Chong and Lopez de Silanes, 2005). The objective of this paper is to explore the impact on network access, water quality, and health outcomes of Uruguay's nationalization of water services. An important advantage of focusing on nationalization rather than privatization is that it avoids selection bias due to cherry-picking by firms or governments at the time of privatization. Indeed, nationalization in Uruguay affected all previously privatized firms, as water was declared "part of the public domain". Results suggest that the change in ownership led to an increase in the sanitation rate, as well as improvements in water quality. It was also accompanied by a decline in water-related child mortality, although this latter effect tends not to be statistically significant across specifications.minimum wage, wage inequality, IV, semiparametric estimation

ACCESSING KNOWLEDGE IN A DISCONTINUOUS WORLD. A BRIEF COMMENT FROM SOUTHERN CHILE

Drawing on my ethnographic experience with rural Mapuche people, in this paper I attempt a twofold comment regarding the topic of ‘Accessing knowledge’. This comment firstly, problematizes our own understanding of what can be loosely labelled as ‘the world’; and, secondly, challenges the social emphasis of our notion of knowledge, which eventually is what permits its institutionalisation and thus its restriction. Finally, this discussion will lead us to the debate concerning the relationship between ontology and epistemology, which, as I argue, should be solved through an always-contingent ethnographic solution

Modular Battery Charge Controller

A new approach to masterless, distributed, digital-charge control for batteries requiring charge control has been developed and implemented. This approach is required in battery chemistries that need cell-level charge control for safety and is characterized by the use of one controller per cell, resulting in redundant sensors for critical components, such as voltage, temperature, and current. The charge controllers in a given battery interact in a masterless fashion for the purpose of cell balancing, charge control, and state-of-charge estimation. This makes the battery system invariably fault-tolerant. The solution to the single-fault failure, due to the use of a single charge controller (CC), was solved by implementing one CC per cell and linking them via an isolated communication bus [e.g., controller area network (CAN)] in a masterless fashion so that the failure of one or more CCs will not impact the remaining functional CCs. Each micro-controller-based CC digitizes the cell voltage (V(sub cell)), two cell temperatures, and the voltage across the switch (V); the latter variable is used in conjunction with V(sub cell) to estimate the bypass current for a given bypass resistor. Furthermore, CC1 digitizes the battery current (I1) and battery voltage (V(sub batt) and CC5 digitizes a second battery current (I2). As a result, redundant readings are taken for temperature, battery current, and battery voltage through the summation of the individual cell voltages given that each CC knows the voltage of the other cells. For the purpose of cell balancing, each CC periodically and independently transmits its cell voltage and stores the received cell voltage of the other cells in an array. The position in the array depends on the identifier (ID) of the transmitting CC. After eight cell voltage receptions, the array is checked to see if one or more cells did not transmit. If one or more transmissions are missing, the missing cell(s) is (are) eliminated from cell-balancing calculations. The cell-balancing algorithm is based on the error between the cell s voltage and the other cells and is categorized into four zones of operation. The algorithm is executed every second and, if cell balancing is activated, the error variable is set to a negative low value. The largest error between the cell and the other cells is found and the zone of operation determined. If the error is zero or negative, then the cell is at the lowest voltage and no balancing action is needed. If the error is less than a predetermined negative value, a Cell Bad Flag is set. If the error is positive, then cell balancing is needed, but a hysteretic zone is added to prevent the bypass circuit from triggering repeatedly near zero error. This approach keeps the cells within a predetermined voltage range

DISEÑO DE DISPOSITIVOS PEDAGÓGICOS E IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE ESTRATEGIAS VINCULADAS A COMPETENCIAS GENERICAS DE INGRESO PARA LA SOCIALIZACIÓN ACADÉMICA DE INGRESANTES

Debido al proceso de reindustrialización que atraviesa la Argentina, el país requiere de mayor cantidad de ingenieros que los que egresan actualmente. En ese sentido para atender a esta necesidad se creó el PEFI (Plan Estratégico para la Formación de Ingenieros) dependiente de la Secretaría de Políticas Universitarias del Ministerio de Educación. El PEFI pretende colocar a la Argentina entre los países con mayor cantidad de graduados en Ingenierías de Latinoamérica, y para ello propone generar un profesional recibido cada cuatro mil habitantes. Esto equivale a 10 mil graduados por año, solamente en ingenierías. Para llevar a cabo esta tarea propone trabajar en tres grandes ejes: Proyecto para la mejora de indicadores académicos, aporte de la universidad al desarrollo territorial sostenible e internacionalización de la ingeniería argentina. En consonancia con el primer eje y dentro del marco del Plan Estratégico llevado adelante por la Dirección de Tutorías y Políticas de Retención perteneciente a la Secretaría Académica de la Facultad Regional Buenos Aires - Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, se desarrolló un plan de mejoras que contempla el diseño de dispositivos pedagógicos para atender a la alfabetización académica de ingresantes partiendo de la definición de ciertos indicadores vinculados a este aspecto, que son evaluados para establecer un diagnóstico y realizar intervenciones estratégicas ajustadas a la demanda de la población. En el presente trabajo, se expondrá el diseño y la implementación de estrategias tendientes a favorecer el trabajo basado en competencias genéricas de ingreso de los estudiantes, con el objeto de mejorar el acompañamiento en la socialización académica de los mismos y colaborar así con propósito del PEFI de alentar la permanencia y terminalidad de graduados de ingeniería. A los fines de esta publicación, se presentarán las etapas de diseño e implementación y una muestra de los indicadores construidos hasta el momento

Mental perceptions of urban space: using underground maps as utopian cartographies for the city of Green Bay (WI, USA)

Underground maps have become an iconic image that has transcended the function for which they were created. Their multiple visual and spatial possibilities include functioning as a cartography that simplifies and organises the perception we have of a territory. A study of the geography of perception is presented based on underground plans of the city of Green Bay prepared for the analysis (WI, USA). The methodological and educational possibilities of this utopian cartography are explored for its use as a mental map. A group of citizens’ knowledge and perception of the city they reside in is analysed through a synthetic cartography

Programming in CUDA for Kepler and Maxwell Architecture

Since the first version of CUDA was launch, many improvements were made in GPU computing. Every new CUDA version included important novel features, turning this architecture more and more closely related to a typical parallel High Performance Language. This tutorial will present the GPU architecture and CUDA principles, trying to conceptualize novel features included by NVIDIA, such as dynamics parallelism, unified memory and concurrent kernels. This text also includes some optimization remarks for CUDA programs