Balanza de pagos y crecimiento económico restringido : una comparación entre la economía argentina y mexicana

En las últimas cinco décadas la senda de crecimiento de México y Argentina viene a mostrar rasgos estructurales comunes: por un lado, ambos países registraron un crecimiento relativamente rápido antes de la crisis de la deuda en los ochenta a la par que, durante los noventa, intensas crisis económicas truncaron el crecimiento de este periodo; por otro lado, estas economías han mostrado especializaciones internacionales claramente disímiles aún cuando comparten una dinámica en su restricción de balanza de pagos similar. Este trabajo tiene por objetivo comparar las dinámicas de crecimiento de la economía mexicana y argentina en el periodo 1968-2003. Para ello, se utiliza el marco analítico del modelo de la restricción de balanza de pagos y, en particular, una versión de la popular Ley de Thirlwall (1979). Los resultados muestran la utilidad del modelo de restricción de balanza de pagos para explicar las dinámicas de crecimiento y las recientes crisis de ambos países. ____________________________________________Mexican and Argentine economic growth have shown common features in the last five decades. On one hand, both countries have shown a rapid economic growth before debt crises in the eighties; after those years, growth rate dropped and intense crises occurred (Mexico 199 -95 and Argentine 2002). On the other hand, both economies have shown very different international patterns of specialization but both face up similar balance of payments restrictions on growth. The aim of this paper is to compare the economic growth dynamic in Mexico and Argentine in the 1968-2003 period. In so doing, we use the balance of payments constraint model, labelled Thirlwall´s Law. We demonstrate the existence of a long-run relationship among economic growth, exports and terms of trade in the Mexican economy. We compare these estimations with those for Argentine economy adressed by Fugarolas and Matesanz (2007). Our results show that the balance of payments constrained model is useful to explain the dynamics of economic growth and the recent crises in both countries

StreetQR Project. Device for Information Assistance in Streets and Places of Interest

En este trabajo se expone un ejemplo de transferencia de conocimiento desde la universidad hacia la sociedad, dentro del campo de la Inteligencia Artificial, con vista a obtener un encadenamiento productivo universidad-empresa. Así, se describe el proyecto StreetQR, cuyo objetivo es implementar el dispositivo de dicho nombre en el campus de la Universidad de Málaga, y que está actualmente en desarrollo. El StreetQR es un dispositivo de asistencia informativa para placas de calle y lugares de interés, que permite tres funciones: informar de manera situacional a los ciudadanos que están en una ciudad, captar información del flujo vehicular y peatonal de dicha ciudad, y alertar a la población en caso de situaciones especiales. En el trabajo se explica el dispositivo y su funcionamiento, así como el marco institucional que ha ofrecido la Universidad de Málaga para poder pasar de una patente a un proyecto que tiene por objetivo obtener un prototipo funcional del dispositivo en el campus universitario. También se expondrá el estado actual de desarrollo del proyecto.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

On the monitoring of surface displacement in connection with volcano reactivation in Tenerife, Canary Islands, using space techniques

Geodetic volcano monitoring in Tenerife has mainly focused on the Las Cañadas Caldera, where a geodetic micronetwork and a levelling profile are located. A sensitivity test of this geodetic network showed that it should be extended to cover the whole island for volcano monitoring purposes. Furthermore, InSAR allowed detecting two unexpected movements that were beyond the scope of the traditional geodetic network. These two facts prompted us to design and observe a GPS network covering the whole of Tenerife that was monitored in August 2000. The results obtained were accurate to one centimetre, and confirm one of the deformations, although they were not definitive enough to confirm the second one. Furthermore, new cases of possible subsidence have been detected in areas where InSAR could not be used to measure deformation due to low coherence. A first modelling attempt has been made using a very simple model and its results seem to indicate that the deformation observed and the groundwater level variation in the island may be related. Future observations will be necessary for further validation and to study the time evolution of the displacements, carry out interpretation work using different types of data (gravity, gases, etc) and develop models that represent the island more closely. The results obtained are important because they might affect the geodetic volcano monitoring on the island, which will only be really useful if it is capable of distinguishing between displacements that might be linked to volcanic activity and those produced by other causes. One important result in this work is that a new geodetic monitoring system based on two complementary techniques, InSAR and GPS, has been set up on Tenerife island. This the first time that the whole surface of any of the volcanic Canary Islands has been covered with a single network for this purpose. This research has displayed the need for further similar studies in the Canary Islands, at least on the islands which pose a greater risk of volcanic reactivation, such as Lanzarote and La Palma, where InSAR techniques have been used already

Energy dependency at the urban scale and its social consequences

Spatial planning & energy. Young planners workshop. Final reports - conclusion

Factors related to attitudes toward organ donation after death in the immigrant population in Spain

The version posted must contain the text: This is the accepted version of the following article: [full citation], which has been published in final form at [Link to final article]Considering the relevance of the migratory processes in Western societies, the attitudes toward organ donation after death are analyzed bymeans of a survey applied to a representative random sample of the resident immigrant population in Spain, comprising 1202 subjects (estimated marginof error of ±2.88%, p = q, p < 0.05). Considered variables were disposition toward own organ donation, disposition toward deceased relatives donation in different situations, arguments against donation, socio-demographic indicators, religious beliefs, social integration, and information about organ donation and transplantation. Predisposition to donate varies strongly across geographical origin and religious beliefs and also shows relationships with additional socio-demographic, social integration, and informative variables. In turn, the relationship between religious beliefs and attitude toward donation varies as a function of the degreeof social integration. In Spain, the immigrant population is a heterogeneous collective that requires differential strategies to promote donation. Such strategies should be aimed at reinforcing the existing positive attitudes ofcitizens from West Europe and Latin America, and at familiarizing and informing about donation in citizens from the East, and at making specific efforts to break down the cultural and religious barriers toward donation in African citizens, with special emphasis on people of the Muslim faith

Proyecto StreetQR1* Dispositivo de asistencia informativa para placas de calle y lugares de interés

En este trabajo se expone un ejemplo de transferencia de conocimiento desde la universidad hacia la sociedad, dentro del campo de la Inteligencia Artificial, con vista a obtener un encadenamiento productivo universidad-empresa. Así, se describe el proyecto StreetQR, cuyo objetivo es implementar el dispositivo de dicho nombre en el campus de la Universidad de Málaga, y que está actualmente en desarrollo. El StreetQR es un dispositivo de asistencia informativa para placas de calle y lugares de interés, que permite tres funciones: informar de manera situacional a los ciudadanos que están en una ciudad, captar información del flujo vehicular y peatonal de dicha ciudad, y alertar a la población en caso de situaciones especiales. En el trabajo se explica el dispositivo y su funcionamiento, así como el marco institucional que ha ofrecido la Universidad de Málaga para poder pasar de una patente a un proyecto que tiene por objetivo obtener un prototipo funcional del dispositivo en el campus universitario. También se expondrá el estado actual de desarrollo del proyecto.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Myocardial commitment from human pluripotent stem cells: Rapid production of human heart grafts

Genome editing on human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) together with the development of protocols for organ decellularization opens the door to the generation of autologous bioartificial hearts. Here we sought to generate for the first time a fluorescent reporter human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line by means of Transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) to efficiently produce cardiomyocyte-like cells (CLCs) from hPSCs and repopulate decellularized human heart ventricles for heart engineering. In our hands, targeting myosin heavy chain locus (MYH6) with mCherry fluorescent reporter by TALEN technology in hESCs did not alter major pluripotent-related features, and allowed for the definition of a robust protocol for CLCs production also from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) in 14 days. hPSCs-derived CLCs (hPSCs-CLCs) were next used to recellularize acellular cardiac scaffolds. Electrophysiological responses encountered when hPSCs-CLCs were cultured on ventricular decellularized extracellular matrix (vdECM) correlated with significant increases in the levels of expression of different ion channels determinant for calcium homeostasis and heart contractile function. Overall, the approach described here allows for the rapid generation of human cardiac grafts from hPSCs, in a total of 24 days, providing a suitable platform for cardiac engineering and disease modeling in the human setting

Influence of the LILRA3 Deletion on Multiple Sclerosis Risk : Original Data and Meta-Analysis

Altres ajuts: Junta de Andalucía (JA)- Fondos Europeos de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER) (grant number CTS2704 to FM).Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative, autoimmune disease of the central nervous system. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified over hundred polymorphisms with modest individual effects in MS susceptibility and they have confirmed the main individual effect of the Major Histocompatibility Complex. Additional risk loci with immunologically relevant genes were found significantly overrepresented. Nonetheless, it is accepted that most of the genetic architecture underlying susceptibility to the disease remains to be defined. Candidate association studies of the leukocyte immunoglobulin-like receptor LILRA3 gene in MS have been repeatedly reported with inconsistent results. In an attempt to shed some light on these controversial findings, a combined analysis was performed including the previously published datasets and three newly genotyped cohorts. Both wild-type and deleted LILRA3 alleles were discriminated in a single-tube PCR amplification and the resulting products were visualized by their different electrophoretic mobilities. Overall, this meta-analysis involved 3200 MS patients and 3069 matched healthy controls and it did not evidence significant association of the LILRA3 deletion [carriers of LILRA3 deletion: p = 0.25, OR (95% CI) = 1.07 (0.95-1.19)], even after stratification by gender and the HLA-DRB1*15 : 01 risk allele