Militares y Estado en Ecuador : ¿construcción militar y desmantelamiento civil? (Dossier).

Este artículo trata sobre los esfuerzos de algunos gobiernos militares por construir un Estado que responda a los intereses de la nación y no a los intereses privados de una minoría, esfuerzos que han encontrado límites en los enraizados patrones de dominación socio-política del Ecuador. El artículo comienza con una descripción de las diferencias entre la llamada “Revolución Juliana”, y las propuestas planteadas en enero de 2000, durante el derrocamiento de Jamil Mahuad

Reacciones al mercado: pequeños agricultores en la economía reformada de Nicaragua, Cuba, Rusia y China.

Reacciones al mercado examina los impactos de las políticas económicas de liberalización en la agricultura durante las transiciones del socialismo hacia una mayor o exclusiva dependencia en el mercado, desde aproximadamente 1990 hasta la actualidad. Los estudios de caso sobre Nicaragua y Cuba están basados en trabajo de campo, incluyendo entrevistas en cuatro comunidades de cada país. Los análisis de las transformaciones en Rusia y China son extraídos de fuentes secundarias. La inspiración teórica con respecto a los impactos del mercado es proporcionado por Karl Polanyi en su ya clásica obra “The Great Transformation” (la gran transformación) en Inglaterra. Además, Lenin y la literatura Marxista sobre la des-campesinización orientan a la autora en su análisis sobre la creación o destrucción de pequeñas economías agrícolas/campesinas en el curso de la expansión del mercado capitalista en el campo. Enríquez usa los términos de agricultor y campesino indistintamente, con base en sus situaciones económicas (si no culturales) comunes en el mundo contemporáne

Las elites agrarias en la sociedad latinoamericana: concentración de la tierra y poder político

El presente artículo es una panorámica de los impactos del ejercicio de poder por las elites agrarias en las sociedades latinoamericanas. Las estructuras básicas del poder político y económico han permanecido estables desde la colonización, por lo que las elites rurales latinoamericanas, junto con sus “parientes” urbanos y sus aliados internacionales, han logrado bloquear reformas fundamentales y necesarias de redistribución de la tierra y de otros bienes rurales, hasta el día de hoy. Inicialmente, el ensayo enfatiza las continuidades del poder de las clases terratenientes y las consecuencias de su dominación. En un segundo momento, responde a la pregunta de por qué son importantes los procesos rurales y agrarios en América Latina, la región más urbanizada del mundo. Enseguida se resumen algunas investigaciones sobre élites terratenientes y compara América Latina con el sud este asiático, destacando las razones para el apoyo que los EEUU prestaron a las reformas agrarias profundas y comprehensivas en Japón, Korea del Sur, y Taiwán después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Estas reformas profundas e igualitarias jugaron un rol crítico en sentar las bases para el desarrollo nacional y la diversificación industrial que experimentaron estos países asiáticos en contraste con lo que pasó en América Latin

Finnish upper secondary school students' experiences with online courses

Funding: This work was supported by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Grant for Developing Teacher Education, 2017). Acknowledgements: The authors are grateful to students and teachers of Digiclasses for participating in the study, and to anonymous reviewers for excellent comments.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Phenotype Harmonization in the GLIDE2 Oral Health Genomics Consortium

Genetic risk factors play important roles in the etiology of oral, dental, and craniofacial diseases. Identifying the relevant risk loci and understanding their molecular biology could highlight new prevention and management avenues. Our current understanding of oral health genomics suggests that dental caries and periodontitis are polygenic diseases, and very large sample sizes and informative phenotypic measures are required to discover signals and adequately map associations across the human genome. In this article, we introduce the second wave of the Gene-Lifestyle Interactions and Dental Endpoints consortium (GLIDE2) and discuss relevant data analytics challenges, opportunities, and applications. In this phase, the consortium comprises a diverse, multiethnic sample of over 700,000 participants from 21 studies contributing clinical data on dental caries experience and periodontitis. We outline the methodological challenges of combining data from heterogeneous populations, as well as the data reduction problem in resolving detailed clinical examination records into tractable phenotypes, and describe a strategy that addresses this. Specifically, we propose a 3-tiered phenotyping approach aimed at leveraging both the large sample size in the consortium and the detailed clinical information available in some studies, wherein binary, severity-encompassing, and "precision," data-driven clinical traits are employed. As an illustration of the use of data-driven traits across multiple cohorts, we present an application of dental caries experience data harmonization in 8 participating studies (N = 55,143) using previously developed permanent dentition tooth surface-level dental caries pattern traits. We demonstrate that these clinical patterns are transferable across multiple cohorts, have similar relative contributions within each study, and thus are prime targets for genetic interrogation in the expanded and diverse multiethnic sample of GLIDE2. We anticipate that results from GLIDE2 will decisively advance the knowledge base of mechanisms at play in oral, dental, and craniofacial health and disease and further catalyze international collaboration and data and resource sharing in genomics research.Peer reviewe

Hundreds of variants clustered in genomic loci and biological pathways affect human height

Most common human traits and diseases have a polygenic pattern of inheritance: DNA sequence variants at many genetic loci influence the phenotype. Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have identified more than 600 variants associated with human traits, but these typically explain small fractions of phenotypic variation, raising questions about the use of further studies. Here, using 183,727 individuals, we show that hundreds of genetic variants, in at least 180 loci, influence adult height, a highly heritable and classic polygenic trait. The large number of loci reveals patterns with important implications for genetic studies of common human diseases and traits. First, the 180 loci are not random, but instead are enriched for genes that are connected in biological pathways (P = 0.016) and that underlie skeletal growth defects (P < 0.001). Second, the likely causal gene is often located near the most strongly associated variant: in 13 of 21 loci containing a known skeletal growth gene, that gene was closest to the associated variant. Third, at least 19 loci have multiple independently associated variants, suggesting that allelic heterogeneity is a frequent feature of polygenic traits, that comprehensive explorations of already-discovered loci should discover additional variants and that an appreciable fraction of associated loci may have been identified. Fourth, associated variants are enriched for likely functional effects on genes, being over-represented among variants that alter amino-acid structure of proteins and expression levels of nearby genes. Our data explain approximately 10% of the phenotypic variation in height, and we estimate that unidentified common variants of similar effect sizes would increase this figure to approximately 16% of phenotypic variation (approximately 20% of heritable variation). Although additional approaches are needed to dissect the genetic architecture of polygenic human traits fully, our findings indicate that GWA studies can identify large numbers of loci that implicate biologically relevant genes and pathways.

Gene x dietary pattern interactions in obesity : analysis of up to 68 317 adults of European ancestry

Obesity is highly heritable. Genetic variants showing robust associationswith obesity traits have been identified through genome wide association studies. We investigated whether a composite score representing healthy diet modifies associations of these variants with obesity traits. Totally, 32 body mass index (BMI)- and 14 waist-hip ratio (WHR)-associated single nucleotide polymorphismswere genotyped, and genetic risk scores (GRS) were calculated in 18 cohorts of European ancestry (n = 68 317). Diet score was calculated based on self-reported intakes of whole grains, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds (favorable) and red/processed meats, sweets, sugar-sweetened beverages and fried potatoes (unfavorable). Multivariable adjusted, linear regression within each cohort followed by inverse variance-weighted, fixed-effects meta-analysis was used to characterize: (a) associations of each GRS with BMI and BMI-adjustedWHR and (b) diet score modification of genetic associations with BMI and BMI-adjusted WHR. Nominally significant interactions (P = 0.006-0.04) were observed between the diet score and WHR-GRS (but not BMI-GRS), two WHR loci (GRB14 rs10195252; LYPLAL1 rs4846567) and two BMI loci (LRRN6C rs10968576; MTIF3 rs4771122), for the respective BMI-adjustedWHR or BMI outcomes. Although the magnitudes of these select interactions were small, our data indicated that associations between genetic predisposition and obesity traits were stronger with a healthier diet. Our findings generate interesting hypotheses; however, experimental and functional studies are needed to determine their clinical relevance.Peer reviewe

Gene × dietary pattern interactions in obesity: Analysis of up to 68 317 adults of European ancestry

Obesity is highly heritable. Genetic variants showing robust associations with obesity traits have been identified through genome-wide association studies. We investigated whether a composite score representing healthy diet modifies associations of these variants with obesity traits. Totally, 32 body mass index (BMI)- and 14 waist-hip ratio (WHR)-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms were genotyped, and genetic risk scores (GRS) were calculated in 18 cohorts of European ancestry (n = 68 317). Diet score was calculated based on self-reported intakes of whole grains, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds (favorable) and red/processed meats, sweets, sugar-sweetened beverages and fried potatoes (unfavorable). Multivariable adjusted, linear regression within each cohort followed by inverse variance-weighted, fixed-effects meta-analysis was used to characterize: (a) associations of each GR

Gene × dietary pattern interactions in obesity: analysis of up to 68 317 adults of European ancestry

Obesity is highly heritable. Genetic variants showing robust associations with obesity traits have been identified through genome-wide association studies. We investigated whether a composite score representing healthy diet modifies associations of these variants with obesity traits. Totally, 32 body mass index (BMI)- and 14 waist–hip ratio (WHR)-associated single nucleotide polymorphisms were genotyped, and genetic risk scores (GRS) were calculated in 18 cohorts of European ancestry (n = 68 317). Diet score was calculated based on self-reported intakes of whole grains, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts/seeds (favorable) and red/processed meats, sweets, sugar-sweetened beverages and fried potatoes (unfavorable). Multivariable adjusted, linear regression within each cohort followed by inverse variance-weighted, fixed-effects meta-analysis was used to characterize: (a) associations of each GRS with BMI and BMI-adjusted WHR and (b) diet score modification of genetic associations with BMI and BMI-adjusted WHR. Nominally significant interactions (P = 0.006–0.04) were observed between the diet score and WHR-GRS (but not BMI-GRS), two WHR loci (GRB14 rs10195252; LYPLAL1 rs4846567) and two BMI loci (LRRN6C rs10968576; MTIF3 rs4771122), for the respective BMI-adjusted WHR or BMI outcomes. Although the magnitudes of these select interactions were small, our data indicated that associations between genetic predisposition and obesity traits were stronger with a healthier diet. Our findings generate interesting hypotheses; however, experimental and functional studies are needed to determine their clinical relevance