¿Aumenta el acercamiento del Estado al ciudadano la confianza en las instituciones públicas? El caso peruano de la plataforma Tambos en zonas rurales

Una preocupación importante en los países en desarrollo es la disparidad entre las zonas urbanas y rurales. La falta de acceso a la salud, la educación y otros servicios presenta un tema preocupante para la población rural. Lugares donde el acceso es complejo y tienen menos incentivos para que el sector privado invierta en servicios puestos el gobierno como actor principal en la prestación de servicios a estas poblaciones. El gobierno peruano creó el programa nacional TAMBO para reducir la brecha en el acceso a servicios esenciales para la población pobre. Este trabajo busca medir cómo el acceso a un programa social como TAMBO puede afectar la confianza en las instituciones públicas. El estudio explota información georreferenciada de TAMBOS y ubicación del hogar para medir su efecto sobre la confianza en las instituciones públicas: municipio provincial, municipio distrital, gobierno regional, RENIEC, y el Ministerio de Educación. Usando un Diff-in-Diff escalonado propuesto por Callaway y Sant'Anna (2021) para el periodo 2008-2019, el estudio encuentra un efecto negativo en la confianza. Las instituciones más afectadas son las municipalidades provinciales y distritales. Los resultados son robustos después de un tipo diferente de Diff-in-Diff escalonada, estudio de eventos y prueba de falsificación.A significant concern in developing countries is the disparity between urban and rural areas. The lack of access to health, education, and other services presents a worrying issue for the rural population. Places where access is complex and have less incentive for the private sector to invest in services put the government as the principal actor in providing services to these populations. The Peruvian government created the TAMBO national program to reduce the gap in access to essential services for the poor population. This paper seeks to measure how access to a social program such as TAMBO can affect trust in public institutions. The study exploits georeferenced information of TAMBOS's and household's location to measure its effect on trust in public institutions: provincial municipality, district municipality, regional government, National Registry of Identification and Civil Status, and the Ministry of Education. Using a staggered Diff-in-Diff proposed by Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) from 2008-2019, the study finds a negative effect on trust. The most affected institutions are the Provincial and District municipalities. The study provides evidence of a heterogeneous effect of the gender of the head of the household. It also shows that households with women as head are more likely to project the strongest reduction in trust. The results are robust after a different type of staggered Diff-in-Diff, event study, and falsification test.Reino Unido. Winner of Chancellor’s International and EU Scholarship and Business School’s International Masters Award at University of Sussex (2021

The Last Coastal Jaguars of Ecuador: Ecology, Conservation and Management Implications

Ecuador is one of the top countries with the highest biodiversity indexes in the planet. Among the mammal species inhabiting tropical forests along Ecuador’s coast, wild cats such as ocelots (Leopardus pardalis), jaguarundis (Puma yagouaroundi), cougars (Puma concolor) and jaguars (Panthera onca) are a key group of carnivores deserving critical consideration because these species are facing several anthropogenic threats and conservation challenges. Of particularly attention is the critically endangered subspecies of jaguar (Panthera onca centralis) from the Ecuadorian coast. Despite this species is the largest cat in Ecuador’s coastal tropical forests and demanding large territories to survive, little is known about its population and conservation status. In most forests along Ecuador’s coast, habitat loss due to deforestation and fragmentation, poaching of prey and illegal hunting threaten the survival of jaguars and questions linger about its ecology and population health. Based on recent field observations using transects and deployment of camera traps, as well as surveys conducted with the local community in and around Cerro Blanco Protected Forest and surrounding areas of the Cordillera Chongón-Colonche Mountain Range, we advance the state of the ecological knowledge of coastal jaguar populations with conservation implications of its threatened habitat and long-term survival in Ecuador

Sticky grains do not change the universality class of isotropic sandpiles

We revisit the sandpile model with ``sticky'' grains introduced by Mohanty and Dhar [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 89}, 104303 (2002)] whose scaling properties were claimed to be in the universality class of directed percolation for both isotropic and directed models. Simulations in the so-called fixed-energy ensemble show that this conclusion is not valid for isotropic sandpiles and that this model shares the same critical properties of other stochastic sandpiles, such as the Manna model. %as expected from the existence of an extra %conservation-law, absent in directed percolation. These results are strengthened by the analysis of the Langevin equations proposed by the same authors to account for this problem which we show to converge, upon coarse-graining, to the well-established set of Langevin equations for the Manna class. Therefore, the presence of a conservation law keeps isotropic sandpiles, with or without stickiness, away from the directed percolation class.Comment: 4 pages. 3 Figures. Subm. to PR

Perfluorinated Chemicals in Sediments, Lichens, and Seabirds from the Antarctic Peninsula — Environmental Assessment and Management Perspectives

Antarctica is one of the last frontiers of the planet to be investigated for the environmental transport and accumulation of persistent organic pollutants. Perfluorinated contaminants (PFCs) are a group of widely used anthropogenic substances, representing a significant risk to wildlife and humans due to their high biomagnification potential and toxicity risks, especially in food webs of the northern hemisphere and Arctic. Because the assessment of PFCs in the Antarctic continent is scarce, questions linger about the long-range transport and bioaccumulation capacity of PFCs in Antarctic food webs. To better understand the global environmental fate of PFCs, sediment, lichen (Usnea aurantiaco-atra), and seabird samples (southern giant petrel, Macronectes giganteus; gentoo penguin, Pygoscelis papua) were collected around the Antarctic Peninsula in 2009. PFC analytes were analyzed by LC/MS/MS, revealing the detection of PFHpA in seabirds’ feather and fecal samples, and PFHxS in lichens. PFBA and PFPeA were detected in 80% and 60% of the lichens, and PFTA in 60% of sediment samples. While oceanic currents and atmospheric transport of PFCs may explain the ubiquitous nature of these contaminants in the Antarctic Peninsula, military bases and research stations established there may also be contributing as secondary sources of PFCs in the Antarctic ecosystem

Persistent Organic Pollutants and Mercury in Genetically Identified Inner Estuary Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Residents of the Guayaquil Gulf, Ecuador: Ecotoxicological Science in Support of Pollutant Management and Cetacean Conservation

The bottlenose dolphin is one of the most common cetaceans found in the coastal waters, estuaries, and mangroves of Ecuador. However, its population size is gradually declining in the Gulf of Guayaquil, and anthropogenic factors including habitat degradation, uncontrolled dolphin watching, dredging activities, increasing maritime traffic, underwater noise, bycatch, and marine pollution have been implicated in their decline. Very little is known about contamination by persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and mercury in bottlenose dolphins from the Pacific coast of South America. To address this research gap, the first assessment of total mercury (THg) and POPs, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), in free-ranging bottlenose dolphins in mangroves (El Morro Mangrove Wildlife Refuge) of the Gulf of Guayaquil, was conducted in Ecuador in 2018. Dolphin samples (i.e., skin and blubber; n = 9), were obtained using dart biopsy field methods for contaminant analysis. POP concentrations ranged from 0.56 to 13.0 mg/kg in lipid weight, while THg ranged from 1.92 to 3.63 mg/kg in dry weight. The predominant POPs were OCPs (50% of ΣPOP), followed by PCBs (46%) and PBDEs (6.0%); particularly, p,p′-DDE, the main DDT metabolite and a potent anti-androgenic, accounting for 42% of ΣPOP, ranging from 0.12 to ∼7.0 mg/kg lw, followed by PCB 153 (8.0%) and PCB 180 (5.0%). PBDE 47 accounted for 2.0% of ΣPOP. While the POP concentrations are lower than those found in dolphins from many other regions of the world, some of the THg concentrations are within the concentration range found in dolphins from the southeastern coast of the United States. The ecotoxicological risk assessment showed that some of the sampled dolphins are exposed to immunotoxic and endocrine disruption effects by POPs and mercury. The low genetic diversity of this distinctive dolphin population, likely exhibiting genetic isolation and a unique evolutionary heritage, could be lost if the population continues to decline in the face of anthropogenic threats, including chemical pollution. Our finding shows that bottlenose dolphins in coastal Ecuador are exposed to environmental contaminants and can be used as sentinel species for ecosystem health to monitor pollution in the region and to support ecotoxicological risk assessment and regional pollutant management

Una nueva pieza de artilleria de galeras del siglo XVI: el esmeril bastardo «matacapitanes»

This work is aimed at the analysis of an unknown piece of maritime artillery dated at the second half of the XVIth century. This piece, out of any inventory record, was located within one of the Archive-Museum chambers in the Don Álvaro Bazán Palace at El Viso del Marqués, Ciudad Real province, central Spain. The specimen is a <i>bastard esmeril</i> here so-called «matacapitanes» («killer of captains») because it seems precisely designed to be used against the bullet-proof armour of enemy officers. By means of manuscripts and impressed documents, an approach and discussion on the typology and classification of the XVIth century´s maritime artillery is also presented.<br><br>Trabajo de investigación que presenta y analiza una pieza desconocida de artillería naval de la segunda mitad del siglo XVI, localizada sin inventariar en una de las salas del Archivo-Museo «Don Álvaro de Bazán» del Palacio de El Viso del Marqués en Ciudad Real (España). Se trata de un <i>esmeril bastardo</i> que hemos bautizado como «matacapitanes », por ser un modelo diseñado para optimizar su empleo contra los oficiales enemigos protegidos con armaduras a prueba de balas de arcabuz. Además, se realiza una aproximación al estudio de la tipología y clasificación de la artillería naval del siglo XVI a través de los documentos, tanto manuscritos como impresos, de esa época

Capitulo 2. Ciencias Naturales y Ciencias Básicas, Ingeniería y Tecnología

La diseminación de la Levitación Magnética, a pesar de lo antiguo de su tecnología, ha sido limitada. Debido a sus inconvenientes prácticos de implementación, su uso es bastante restringido, comparado con otras tecnologías (SCMaglev japonés, Transrapid alemán, o productos comerciales para ocio y entretenimiento). Con el boom de las tecnologías limpias y amigables con el medio ambiente y en concordancia con los objetivos del milenio, es pertinente plantearse el objetivo de optimizar el proceso de Levitación Magnética para generar un aprovechamiento de las ventajas de esta tecnología a nivel mecánico, eléctrico, y ambiental.  Actualmente la UNAD adelanta un proyecto de investigación cuyo objetivo es generar un modelo físico matemático de levitación magnética para aplicaciones en ingeniería. De este proyecto se ha derivado una primera revisión sistemática de los principios físicos y los modelos vigentes en Levitación Magnética