Planning Canada: A Case Study Approach

Book review by Pablo Mendez of Planning Canada: A Case Study Approach, Ren Thomas Editor

Suburban Planet. Making the World Urban from the Outside In

Book Review by Pablo Mendez of Suburban Planet: Making the World Urban from the Outside In written by Roger Keil

La estructura tributaria del Paraguay: presión fiscal baja, inestable y sesgada hacia impruestos indirectos sobre el consumo

Metadados do trabalho de conclusão de curso: La estructura tributaria del Paraguay: presión fiscal baja, inestable y sesgada hacia impruestos indirectos sobre el consumo, pela/o discente: Juan Pablo Mendez Orue, sob orientação: Rodrigo Luiz Medeiros da Silva do Centro de Economia e Sociedade, curso de Ciências Econômicas - Economia, Integração e Desenvolvimento da Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana (UNILA), no Repositório Institucional da Unila (RI-UNILA).La estructura tributaria del Paraguay: presión fiscal baja, inestable y sesgada hacia impruestos indirectos sobre el consum

DIAN-TU ARGENTINA. A great human story of a small group of people

Alzheimer’s disease is, by far the first, cause of dementia and the more frequent neurodegenerative disease. Considered as a result of multifactorial causes, aging is the main risk factor for the classical form of the disease and because of global aging, a very significant increase in the prevalence is expected in the upcoming decades, especially in countries in development. Several drugs with different targets have been tried so far and, still with no success. Frenzied efforts seeking a new disease-modifying drug are constantly being pursued and innovative models of the clinical trials have emerged. The DIAN initiative studies individuals with known mutations in the deterministic genes of the disease. Autosomal Dominantly Alzheimer Disease (ADAD) showed to be a more predictable model in terms of whom and when will get the disease. This allows testing novel therapeutics agents by choosing the drug according to the biological moment of the disease. But ADAD is also a uniquely human story full of courage and hope. The DIAN trial has started in Argentina and a new anti-tau age has begun as well.La enfermedad de Alzheimer es por mucho, la primera causa de demencia y la enfermedad neurodegenerativa más frecuente. Considerada como resultado de causas multifactoriales, el envejecimiento sigue siendo el principal factor de riesgo en su  forma clásica y debido al envejecimiento global, se espera un aumento muy significativo de la prevalencia en las próximas décadas, especialmente en los países en desarrollo. Hasta ahora se han probado numerosos fármacos con diferentes dianas aunque aún sin éxito. Constantemente se realizan descomunales estudios en busca de un nuevo fármaco que logre modificar el destino de la enfermedad y así han surgido innovadores modelos de ensayos clínicos. La iniciativa DIAN estudia individuos con mutaciones conocidas en los genes determinantes de la enfermedad. La enfermedad de Alzheimer autosómica dominante (ADAD) demostró ser un modelo más predecible en términos de quién y cuándo contraerá la enfermedad. Esto permite probar nuevos agentes terapéuticos eligiendo el fármaco según el momento biológico de la enfermedad. Pero ADAD es también una historia muy humana llena de coraje y esperanza. El ensayo DIAN ha comenzado en Argentina y también ha comenzado una nueva era anti-tau

Landing at Home: Insights on Immigration and Metropolitan Housing Markets from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada

This paper examines the housing conditions, needs and trajectories of recent new- comers to Canada, by focusing on the first few months of their adjustment process. Until now, most research in this field has been unable to provide a comprehensive description of this early stage of settlement. Employing individual survey data from the first wave of Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC), we draw a portrait of immigrant and refugee residential out- comes as observed six months after arrival. In particular, we highlight five novel insights, centered around the rapidity with which newcomers in general enter the housing market, but also around the appreciable variability of outcomes in tenure status, class of entry, metropolitan area of settlement, and assessment by newcom- ers of their situation in the housing market. We conclude with a discussion of the significance of these variegated findings for the settlement experience of recently arrived immigrants and refugees and, more broadly, for social policy in the areas of housing and newcomer integration

Coordination and regulation in crisis management. Response of the health sector to disasters. The case of the 2017 earthquake in Mexico City

The present article analyzes actions carried out by different organizations of the Mexican public health sector to manage the crisis caused by an earthquake in Mexico City. The investigation is focused on the way in which coordination and regulation instruments were used by the health care system in the city affected the legitimacy and ability of the government to cope with the crisis. Our approach assumes that the political and administrative infrastructure has affected decision-making processes in public health care organizations, as well as the types and characteristics of organizations in charge of managing crises. The article uses a case study narrative, and the analysis was mainly based on semi-structured interviews with health sector officials from all organizational levels and in the review of public documents, regulatory instruments such as local and federal laws and internal regulations on the functioning of Mexican health care sector organizations. Different types of coordination and regulation associated with different epistemic communities were observed, as well as the existence of formal protocols and instruments for crises management, which nevertheless operate in fragmented and complex systems

Age-at-arrival differences in home-ownership attainment among immigrants and their foreign-born offspring in Canada

This paper asks whether age at arrival matters when it comes to home-ownership attainment among immigrants, paying particular attention to householders' self-identification as a visible minority. Combining methods that were developed separately in the immigrant housing and the immigrant offspring literatures, this study shows the importance of recognising generational groups based on age at arrival, while also accounting for the interacting effects of current age (or birth cohorts) and arrival cohorts. The paper advocates a (quasi-)longitudinal approach to studying home-ownership attainment among immigrants and their foreign-born offspring. Analysis of data from the Canadian Census reveals that foreign-born householders who immigrated as adults in the 1970s and the 1980s are more likely to be home-owners than their counterparts who immigrated at a younger age when they self-identify as South Asian or White, but not always so when they self-identify as Chinese or as ‘other visible minority’. The same bifurcated pattern recurs between householders who immigrated at secondary-school age and those who were younger upon arrival. Age at arrival therefore emerges as a variable of significance to help explain differences in immigrant housing outcomes, and should be taken into account in future studies of immigrant home-ownership attainment. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Simulation of rendezvous of a man in deep space

We study here the rendezvous of an isolated man in deep space with a predetermined target (say, his parent vehicle) with the purpose of determining the main factors which influence the process. We assume that he utilizes (effectively) monocular vision as the only mean of observation, and that he is equipped with some thruster which, when necessary he can direct either along the line of sight or at right angles to it. Two simulations, by analogue and digital computer, have been devised to study this manoeuvre. The analog computer is used to represent (on an oscilloscope screen) the appearance of the target and star background during the course of the manoeuvre . Its main purpose is to obtain an insight into such a manoeuvre and to observe the strategies and performance of a real human being in such a process. The digital simulation consists of a program which formalises human behaviour in this rendezvous manoeuvre. we use it to provide a fast and ready method of obtaining a large number of simulations under different well defined circumstances. Having then a large number of simulations with different initial conditions, and with simulated operators of a wide range of ability, we analyse the relations between the different variables affecting the process (i.e. specific variables of the manoeuvre such as initial distance of the operator from the target, acceleration provided by the thruster, etc., and specific variables of the human operator such as his errors of observation, reaction time, etc.). Likewise we study their influence on the process and check the results with the ones obtained in the analog simulation. As far as this formalized treatement resembles human behaviour, we find that there is an optimum (in the sense of minimum fuel consumption) value of acceleration around 0.5 times the rendezvous distance per sec-2. Besides, it seems that the human being is more handicapped by his implementation errors (in pointing the thruster) than by his visual observation errors

Design, synthesis and characterisation of ruthenium complexes as medicinal therapeutic agents

This thesis is concerned with the design, synthesis and characterisation of a series of trans-dichloride bis-quinaldamide ruthenium (III) complexes. The anti-cancer, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties were investigated, with the lead compounds undergoing further chemical and biological mechanistic studies. Chapter 1 presents an overview of metal complexes as therapeutic agents, their interaction with DNA and project aims. Chapter 2 discusses the synthesis and characterisation of the novel quinaldamide ligands. Chapter 3 is focused on the synthesis and characterisation of the trans-dichloride ruthenium (III) complexes that displayed promising anti-cancer results. Chapter 4 discusses the biological evaluation of the ruthenium complexes under normoxia conditions. Lead compounds are analysed to a wider panel of cell lines and hypoxia conditions. Two outperforming compounds were taken for further mechanistic studies. Anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties are also discussed. Chapter 5 contains the chemical investigations (hydrolysis and hydrophobicity) of selected compounds. Chapter 6 contains experimental details and characterisation data for all the compounds described in Chapters 2 and 3. All the protocols for the studies discussed in Chapter 4, and all experimental details of Chapter 5. Chapter 7 summaries this thesis and the future work. Appendix includes a summary of the x-ray crystallographic data for the crystalline compounds found in this work

Regional inequality in multidimensional quality of employment (QoE): insights from Chile, 1996-2017

This paper uses a multi-dimensional methodology for measuring the quality of employment (QoE) across Chile's regions using household survey data from 1996 – 2017. The paper shows how much a regional perspective can add to an analysis of the QoE and how it can inform policy makers in a way that goes beyond traditional variables such as participation or unemployment rates, which are not always good indicators of labour market performance in developing countries with large informal sectors. Building on previous work that measures QoE deprivation, we use the Alkire/Foster (AF) method to construct a synthetic indicator of the quality of employment (QoE) at an individual level. We select three dimensions that must be considered as both instrumentally and intrinsically important to workers: income, job security and employment conditions. Job security is then divided into two sub-dimensions (occupational status and job tenure), as is employment conditions (social security affiliation and excessive working hours). A threshold is then established within each dimension and sub-dimension to determine whether a person is deprived or not within each dimension, before calculating composite levels of deprivation. The results generated by this index highlight important differences between Chile's regions, but also a process of convergence, which has been driven by employment regulation on minimum wages and the statutory working week in particular. National policies such as the improvement of educational standards have also contributed to this process. On the one hand, this paper illustrates the importance of public policies in labour market performance, and on the other, the index also enables policy makers to focus more precisely on the most vulnerable groups of workers in the labour market. This paper opens up important avenues for future research: once a QoE index has been developed, it can be used to track workers' employment trajectories using either panel or administrative data. This would allow policy makers to understand, whether and to what extent workers become trapped in poor quality jobs, and what active labour market policies could do to help them