La situación económica del Magreb

Tras los éxitos iniciales en materia de estabilización macroeconómica, el Magreb lleva desde la década de 1980 intentando implantar un proceso de reformas económicas y administrativas con el objetivo de liberalizar su sistema económico. Pero este proceso es lento y, en ocasiones, los obstáculos políticos y sociales lo paralizan. El objeto de este trabajo es ofrecer un análisis económico de la región magrebí, de su situación económica y del estado de las reformas, así como de las perspectivas económicas a medio plazo de la región. Nos referiremos en la medida de lo posible al Magreb en general, salvo cuando se lleva a cabo un análisis a nivel de país debido a las particularidades del mismo. El trabajo se estructura como sigue: en primer término, se analiza el elemento geográfico como factor unificador; en segundo término, se lleva a cabo un análisis de los principales aspectos económicos, como el crecimiento y los indicadores sociales, las estrategias de desarrollo, las políticas macroeconómicas o el sector exterior; sigue, en tercer término, un análisis de las reformas económicas, básicamente la liberalización exterior e interior, la privatización, las reformas fiscales y de la administración o la reforma del sector financiero. Finalmente, en el último apartado se esbozan una serie de perspectivas a medio plazo y se destaca que la ventana de oportunidad para llevar a cabo las reformas económicas es estrecha y que resulta urgente acelerarlas si no se quiere poner en entredicho la credibilidad del proceso y la sostenibilidad de la estabilización macroeconómica y de los Acuerdos de Asociación con la UE

Las percepciones de amenazas y de seguridad entre Europa y el mundo árabe

La Unión Europea ha declarado 2005 año del Mediterráneo, por ser el décimo aniversario del llamado proceso de Barcelona, la política de la Unión Europea frente a los países de la cuenca sur del Mediterráneo. Es la primera vez que la UE incluye aspectos no solo económicos sino también de seguridad, de política y temas humanitarios y sociales en su política para la región. Este artículo analiza uno de los aspectos más esenciales de la seguridad en el Mediterráneo: las percepciones de amenaza. Se  argumenta que su identificación se vincula estrechamente con una serie de factores subjetivos y que una de las principales diferencias en las percepciones de amenaza reside en los diferentes grados de desarrollo, tanto económicos como políticos, que existen entre ambas orillas del Mediterráneo. Aplicando este concepto de seguridad se estudian las amenazas que se percibe a cada lado de la cuenca mediterránea. Una vez determinadas las amenazas y los riesgos, se examina la viabilidad, es decir, de las amenazas enumeradas. Se concluye que ella es muy baja y, debe explicarse por las considerables diferencias entre ambas orillas, diferencias que en la última parte del trabajo se atribuyen a la dicotomía entre "nosotros" y "ellos"

Los tres mediterráneos un enfoque comparado

Los geógrafos distinguen tres mares cerrados en los que la interacción positiva y negativa entre los pueblos costeros ha sido intensa a lo largo de su historia. Se les conoce como los tres Mediterráneos y cada uno de ellos está asentado en un continente (mar de China, mar Caribe, mar Mediterráneo). La estructura del sistema económico que conforman es muy similar, pudiéndose hablar de una estructura centro-periferia. Su climatología, estructura económica, política y geográfica, cultura e historia presentan marcadas diferencias. El trabajo trata de responder al porqué de estas diferencias. El trabajo compara las macromagnitudes más importantes de los tres mares: población, migraciones, flujos de comercio, etcétera, en un intento de explicar las diferentes dinámicas del desarrollo económico en estos tres espacios geográfico

Southern Mediterranean development through trade, Foreign Direct Investment and migration

Since the launch of the Barcelona Process in 1995 and later the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, economic relationship between the European Union (EU) and Southern Mediterranean has grown tremendously. Trade volume, in terms of absolute value, between the EU and Southern Mediterranean has grown to an unprecedented height. Although the value has increased, foreign direct investment (FDI) from the EU to Southern Mediterranean remains low. South-to-North migration has also undoubtedly increased given the fact that it has become one of the priority concerns of the EU. Development has taken place through these economic exchanges. However, economic development growth rate remains considerably low compared to that of Latin America and Southeast Asia. This paper discusses about the economic development dynamic of Southern Mediterranean in comparison with that of Latin America and Southeast Asia through economic indicators, economic openness and trade, FDI and migration flows and structures. It also discusses about the challenges faced by Southern Mediterranean and how the economic crisis in the EU may affect their economic relationship.Since the launch of the Barcelona Process in 1995 and later the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, economic relationship between the European Union (EU) and Southern Mediterranean has grown tremendously. Trade volume, in terms of absolute value, between the EU and Southern Mediterranean has grown to an unprecedented height. Although the value has increased, foreign direct investment (FDI) from the EU to Southern Mediterranean remains low. South-to-North migration has also undoubtedly increased given the fact that it has become one of the priority concerns of the EU. Development has taken place through these economic exchanges. However, economic development growth rate remains considerably low compared to that of Latin America and Southeast Asia. This paper discusses about the economic development dynamic of Southern Mediterranean in comparison with that of Latin America and Southeast Asia through economic indicators, economic openness and trade, FDI and migration flows and structures. It also discusses about the challenges faced by Southern Mediterranean and how the economic crisis in the EU may affect their economic relationship

Reversibly switchable fluorescence microscopy with enhanced resolution and image contrast

Confocal microscopy with optical sectioning has revolutionized biological studies by providing sharper images than conventional optical microscopy. Here, we introduce a fluorescence imaging method with enhanced resolution and imaging contrast, which can be implemented using a commercial confocal microscope setup. This approach, called the reversibly switchable photo-imprint microscopy (rsPIM), is based on the switching dynamics of reversibly switchable fluorophores. When the fluorophores are switched from the bright (ON) state to the dark (OFF) state, their switching rate carries the information about the local excitation light intensity. In rsPIM, a polynomial function is used to fit the fluorescence signal decay during the transition. The extracted high-order coefficient highlights the signal contribution from the center of the excitation volume, and thus sharpens the resolution in all dimensions. In particular, out-of-focus signals are greatly blocked for large targets, and thus the image contrast is considerably enhanced. Notably, since the fluorophores can be cycled between the ON and OFF states, the whole imaging process can be repeated. RsPIM imaging with enhanced image contrast was demonstrated in both fixed and live cells using a reversibly switchable synthetic dye and a genetically encoded red fluorescent protein. Since rsPIM does not require the modification of commercial microscope systems, it may provide a simple and cost-effective solution for subdiffraction imaging of live cells

Generalizing post-stroke prognoses from research data to clinical data

Around a third of stroke survivors suffer from acquired language disorders (aphasia), but current medicine cannot predict whether or when they might recover. Prognostic research in this area increasingly draws on datasets associating structural brain imaging data with outcome scores for ever-larger samples of stroke patients. The aim is to learn brain-behaviour trends from these data, and generalize those trends to predict outcomes for new patients. The practical significance of this work depends on the expected breadth of that generalization. Here, we show that these models can generalize across countries and native languages (from British patients tested in English to Chilean patients tested in Spanish), across neuroimaging technology (from MRI to CT), and from scans collected months or years after stroke for research purposes, to scans collected days or weeks after stroke for clinical purposes

Universal imprinting of chirality with chiral light by employing plasmonic metastructures

Chirality, either of light or matter, has proved to be very practical in biosensing and nanophotonics. However, the fundamental understanding of its temporal dynamics still needs to be discovered. A realistic setup for this are the so-called metastructures, since they are optically active and are built massively, hence rendering an immediate potential candidate. Here we propose and study the electromagnetic-optical mechanism leading to chiral optical imprinting on metastructures. Induced photothermal responses create anisotropic permittivity modulations, different for left or right circularly polarized light, leading to temporal-dependent chiral imprinting of hot-spots, namely imprinting of chirality. The above effect has not been observed yet, but it is within reach of modern experimental approaches. The proposed nonlinear chiroptical effect is general and should appear in any anisotropic material; however, we need to design a particular geometry for this effect to be strong. These new chiral time-dependent metastructures may lead to a plethora of applications.Comment: Main (29 pages, 6 figures) and supplemental (46 pages, 35 figures