Is justice blind? An examination of disparities in homicide sentencing in Colombia, 1980-2000

Evidence has repeatedly shown that disparities in crime sentences can be attributed to certain variables considered outside the legal dimensions of the case. The majority of research that investigates factors that contribute to such disparities has primarily focused on crimes of varying severities adjudicated in the U.S. court system. We expand research on this topic by focusing on disparities in homicide sentences using data from over 9000 homicide cases tried in Colombia from 1980 - 2000. We specifically explore whether judges use substantive rationality when deciding the length of the offender´s sentence and if the sentence should be above the legal minimum set for the severity of the crime according to the criminal code under which it is adjudicated. Results reveal that disparities in homicida sentences can be attributed to extra-legal variables such as: the city in which the homicide trial took place, where the body of the victim was retrieved, and whether the defendant was identified by an ID parade. However, we also find evidence that suggests that legal variables such as the defendant´s previous criminal record and the aggravating circumstances of the case engender greater differences in sentence outcomes than non-legal variables previously mentioned. Explanations and policy implications are discussed.Sentence Disparities, Homicide, Colombian Criminal Law

Sergio Chejfec: trayectorias de una escritura. Ensayos críticos

Revista Landa, v. 4, n. 1 (2015

LA DEMANDA POR COMBUSTIBLE Y EL IMPACTO DE LA CONTAMINACIÓN AL INTERIOR DE LOS HOGARES SOBRE LA SALUD: EL CASO DE GUATEMALA

El consumo de leña para la preparación de alimentos es aún común en algunos países en desarrollo. La exposición a la contaminación dentro de los hogares, causada por la quema de este combustible en estufas sin sistemas de ventilación adecuados, aumenta la probabilidad de adquirir enfermedades respiratorias agudas. En este trabajo, se construye un modelo de decisión de hogares que permite observar como los hogares deciden de manera simultánea el combustible a utilizar, el estado de salud de los miembros del hogar y las medidas defensivas que pueden adoptar. El modelo corrobora la hipótesis planteada: el consumo de leña tiene efectos nocivos sobre la salud; la utilización de tecnologías apropiadas para evacuar gases contaminantes puede prevenir la incidencia de infecciones respiratorias; la pobreza es el principal determinante del consumo de leña y la desnutrición aumenta la probabilidad de adquirir enfermedades respiratorias. Las chimeneas son una buena política para prevenir estas enfermedades. Sin embargo, si en el hogar hay problemas de desnutrición, la política debe estar enfocada a la reducción de este problema antes que instalar chimeneas.Función de producción de salud

IMPUNIDAD PENAL: MITOS Y REALIDADES

El tema de la impunidad se ha manejado tradicionalmente en Colombia a través de cifras que provienen de encuestas de percepción que sugieren niveles de impunidad del orden del 90% a 99%. Estas cifras son mitos pues como se mostrará en este documento, hoy por hoy es casi imposible saber cual es la verdadera magnitud de este fenómeno, de ahí que sean mitos. Además son cifras peligrosas, por que en últimas generan más impunidad dado que alejan a las personas de acudir a la justicia y colaborar con ella. Finalmente, confunden diferentes tipos de impunidades, algunas de ellas que no dependen del sistema penal. Si se analizan los estudios sobre impunidad realizados por expertos en las últimas dos décadas se observa que dependiendo de la metodología utilizada esta oscila entre 32% y 99%. Dada la gran varianza de impunidades este documento busca precisar de que impunidades se esta hablando y partir de las estadísticas oficiales crear indicadores sobre la impunidad que es responsabilidad de la justicia penal. Para ello proponemos una metodología clara para la Fiscalía y los juzgados que busca unificar criterios de lo que debe entenderse por impunidad penal y así mejorar el entendimiento de este fenómeno de manera que se puedan tomar medidas y crear políticas que ataquen las verdaderas causas de este fenómeno.Justicia penal

El arte de aprender a caer

It was a Thursday afternoon on June 7, 2020, nearing 5 o'clock when I entered the coffee shop. The moment I sat down, I started to think about how I had reached that exact moment. It had been seven months since I had failed the urology residency entrance exam, which took place on December 5, 2019. I had dedicated years of preparation to this test, strenuous months of studying, leaving behind other aspects of my life. When I received the result, I felt like I was free falling...Era un martes casual, 7 de junio de 2020, cuando entré al café. Al sentarme, comencé a pensar en cómo había llegado a ese momento. Hacía 7 meses que mi vida había sufrido un gran golpe, un punto de inflexión, después de haber perdido el examen de ingreso a la residencia de urología. El 5 de diciembre de 2019 tuvo lugar la prueba, para la cual había dedicado años de preparación desde el inicio de mi carrera, meses intensivos de estudio, dejando completamente de lado otras esferas de mi vida. Al recibir los resultados negativos, sentí que la tierra se derrumbaba bajo mis pies, me sentí en caída libre..

Repurposing of terconazole as an anti Trypanosoma cruzi agent

Trypanosoma cruzi is the causative agent of Chagas disease, a parasitic infection endemic in Latin America. Currently there are no effective treatments for the chronic phase of the disease, when most patients are diagnosed, therefore the development of new drugs is a priority area. Several triazoles, used as fungicides, exhibit trypanocidal activity both in vitro and in vivo. The mechanism of action of such drugs, both in fungi and in T. cruzi, relies in the inhibition of ergosterol biosynthesis affecting the cell viability and growth. Among them, terconazole was the first triazole antifungal drug for human use. In this work, the trypanocidal activity of terconazole was evaluated using in vitro assays. In epimastigotes of two parasites strains from different discrete typing units (Y and Dm28c) the calculated IC50 were 25.7 μM and 21.9 μM, respectively. In trypomastigotes and amastigotes (the clinically relevant life-stages of T. cruzi) a higher drug susceptibility was observed with IC50 values of 4.6 μM and 5.9 μM, respectively. Finally, the molecular docking simulations suggest that terconazole inhibits the T. cruzi cytochrome P450 14-α-demethylase, interacting in a similar way that other triazole drugs. Drug repurposing to Chagas disease treatment is one of the recommended approach according to the criterion of international health organizations for their application in neglected diseases.Fil: Reigada, Chantal. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Martínez Sayé, Melisa Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Valera Vera, Edward Augusto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Miranda, Mariana Reneé. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Pereira, Claudio Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; Argentin

Memoria descriptiva de los sistemas de financiamiento social de vivienda : INFONAVIT y FOVIT

Proyecto Terminal (Licenciatura en Sociología) -- Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Unidad Azcapotzalco, División de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Departamento de Sociología, 1999. UAMADCSHDS. 1 archivo PDF (77 páginas)El presente trabajo tiene como objeto de investigación: la evolución socioeconómica e institucional expresada en la gestión de la demanda de la vivienda de interés social

Chagas disease treatment: From new therapeutic targets to drug discovery and repositioning

Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, currently affects millions of people worldwide although it is only endemic in America. Chagas is considered a neglected tropical disease because it afflicts the low-income and poorest populations in developing regions of the Americas, particularly in remote, rural areas where infrastructure such as adequate housing, sanitation and clinical resources are limited. In addition, governments pay scarce or no attention to this health problem.Benznidazole and nifurtimox, both discovered more than 50 years ago, are the only two drugs available to treat Chagas disease and not only present severe side effects but also are ineffective in the chronic phase of the disease when most of the patients are diagnosed. Recent efforts to develop new treatments for Chagas disease, including posaconazole repositioning and the prodrug of ravuconazole (E1224) trial, have been unsuccessful and remark the urgent need to develop new therapeutic alternatives. The scientific effort must be focused in finding simple, safe and effective drugs that directly target the parasite without harming the patients.It is known that the identification of reliable molecular targets for drug development is challenging, with high rates of failure at the stage of validating potential candidates. Thus, we propose in this Special Issue to revise different potential drug targets of the parasite T. cruzi and to explore the latest advances in drug design and drug repositioning.The first review introduces the challenges of Chagas disease and evidenced the requirement of new therapies to treat it. Egui et al. [1] focus on the immunologic profile associated with the clinical status and evolution of Chagas disease patients as wells as the effectiveness of the current treatment including different biomarkers to monitor the T. cruzi infection. In the next revisions, different metabolic pathways and proteins are explored as therapeutic targets against the parasite T. cruzi, and the final two reviews include the latest strategies to identify new potential targets.Alonso et al. [2] explore the bromodomain-containing proteins as potential targets in protozoa since some of these proteins are essential for viability and diverge from the mammalian ones, which are also approach in their review. Cordeiro [3] describes the importance of the NADPH producing enzymes in biosynthetic processes as well as in the neutralization of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. He propose them as potential targets, highlighting the role of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and the cytosolic malic enzyme.Schoijet et al. [4] propose the signal transduction pathway in trypanosomatids as a novel therapeutic target, particularly the cAMP signaling pathway. The authors shed light in phosphodiesterases (PDEs) as druggable target, because of the prominent roles they play in the life cycle and the essentiality for parasite survival. Despite they are highly conserved enzymes, authors highlight the potentiality of differential inhibition from their human orthologs and suggest the drug repositioning approach as a promising strategy to find inhibitors among the numerous drugs against human PDEs that are available in the market.Sangenito et al. [5] introduce the aspartyl peptidase inhibitors used to treat the infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a drug repositioning strategy. Co-infection of patients with HIV with other microorganisms, such as protozoan parasites, is common and the use of HIV peptidase inhibitors evidenced a decrease both in prevalence and incidence of these co-infections. Indeed, several of these inhibitors have been tested in T. cruzi showing multiple pathophysiological effects on the parasite.Talevi et al. [6] present the thiol-polyamine metabolism, a well-known and validated T. cruzi target because many of its components are absent or significantly differ from the host homologs offering interesting candidates for a rational design of selective drugs. In this review, the authors critically revise the state of the art of the thiol-polyamine metabolism deepening in the pharmacological potential of its components and, properly introducing to the different computer-aided approximations to assist systematic drug repositioning strategies. Sayé et al. [7], propose the most represented family of amino acid and derivative transporters in T. cruzi as drug targets, focalizing in proline and polyamine permeases. This family is absent in the human host and their members are responsible of the acquisition of relevant nutrients for the survival of the parasite. The review also discusses the latest advances in drug repositioning strategy applied to these transporters. Saavedra et al. [8] explore new fields in drug target development and open new interrogations about target prioritization. The authors analyse the fundamentals of Metabolic Control Analysis and kinetic modelling of metabolic pathways and apply them to the trypanothion metabolism of T. cruzi. They conclude that the enzymes with the highest pathway control are the most convenient targets for therapeutic intervention, leaving under discussion if the agreed criterion of gene essentiality is enough to guarantee a valid target. Last, Salas-Sarduy et al. [9] introduce the initiative made by public-private programs for drug discovery against Chagas disease. This strategy consists in taking advantage of the resources invested by the pharmaceutical industry in other commercial areas allowing the evaluation of libraries of millions of low-molecular weight synthetic compounds. These strategies require high-throughput screenings and setting up of robust enzymatic assays to identify and validate small molecule inhibitors, a matter as well addressed by the authors.Recognizing that Chagas disease requires urgent attention is the first step to develop new alternative treatments with less toxic effects, and this Special Issue is responding directly to this need.Fil: Miranda, Mariana Reneé. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; ArgentinaFil: Martínez Sayé, Melisa Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Médicas; Argentin

La estructura económica actual de Casanare y posibilidades futuras de crecimiento y competitividad. Tomo I

Durante los años noventa, el auge de petróleo en el Casanare provocó una serie de cambios económicos, fiscales y demográficos acelerados en este departamento. En primer lugar, el departamento ha experimentado una profunda transformación en su estructura económica, pasando de ser una economía agrícola a ser una economía dependiente del petróleo. En segundo lugar, el departamento atraviesa una difícil situación de seguridad y orden público evidenciada en un aumento en homicidios, secuestro, extorsión, ataques terroristas y ataques a la población civil.En tercer lugar, el petróleo mejoró notablemente las finanzas públicas tanto del departamento como de los municipios, gracias a las regalías transferidas. No obstante, la estructura del gasto público existente no es sostenible en el largo plazo y en caso de una disminución o agotamiento del recurso, el futuro económico del departamento es incierto. De igual forma, la explotación de los yacimientos petroleros fomentó altas tasas de crecimiento urbano y una mayor demanda de servicios públicos y de vivienda, especialmente en ciudades como Yopal, Aguazul y Tauramena. También causó flujos migratorios significativos, debido tanto al diferencial de salarios entre el sector petrolero y el resto de sectores de la economía como al auge económico que tuvo el departamento precisamente como resultado del auge petrolero.economía regional, desarrollo sostenible, recursos no renovables y desarrollo