Auditing with Signals

This paper is a first step in the analysis of the use of signals of taxpayer's incomes by tax audit authorities. In a very simple model, we consider the design of the audit strategy when the tax authority can commit to it and has free access to a signal correlated with the taxpayer's true income. We discuss the optimal enforcement policy and compare it with the optimal one when only self-reported income is considered. Our main result is that the well-known regressive bias of revenue-maximizing audit rules may be convert in a progressive one when signals are used.

The Ontology of Art: What Can We Learn from Borges’s "Menard"?

The question I want to analyze in this paper can be summarized as follows: what is the nature of works of art? This question can be divided into two separate ones: (1) what differential feature separate objects which are works of art from other objects which we usually do not consider as such?, and (2) to what kind of ontological category do works of art belong to? The recent discussions around this second topic are usually framed by the more traditional ontological discussion about universals. Thus, in order to answer the second question, philosophers generally use the distinction between universal-particular or type-token. But nobody would say that every universal (if she is universalist) or every particular (if particularist) is a work of art. Because works of art should have "something more". But what is this "something more"? In this paper I will try to answer these questions inspired by the ideas J.L. Borges developed in the short story: "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote."Fil: Perez, Diana Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; Argentin

Dividends and Weighted Values in Games with Externalities

We consider cooperative environments with externalities (games in partition function form) and provide a recursive definition of dividends for each coalition and any partition of the players it belongs to. We show that with this definition and equal sharing of these dividends the averaged sum of dividends for each player, over all the coalitions that contain the player, coincides with the corresponding average value of the player. We then construct weighted Shapley values by departing from equal division of dividends and finally, for each such value, provide a bidding mechanism implementing it.

Genomic instability may be a signal of human embryonic stem cell differentiation

Embryonic stem (ES) cells have the ability to maintain pluripotency and self-renewal during in vitro maintenance, which is a key to their clinical applications. ES cells are a model in developmental biology studies due to their potential to differentiate in vitro. Understanding critical pathways of pluripotency, self-renewal, and differentiation during early embryonic development is important for the evaluation of the therapeutic potential of ES cells because of their ability for tumor transformation due to genetic and epigenetic instability acquired during in vitro culture maintenance. Single tandem repeats are sequences of DNA that have been implicated in the deregulation of gene expression in different human conditions. Understanding the origin of repetitive sequence instability and functions in the genome allow characterization of early genomic instability signals in ES cell pluripotency, differentiation, and tumor transformation pathways. The hypothesis of this study was that genetic stability, in repetitive sequences, located near embryonic developmental genes is responsible for pluripotency, self-renewal, differentiation, and chromatin assembly and could be a signal for adaptation, differentiation, or transformation of ES cells in vitro. Our result showed instability in specific repetitive sequences which increased during ES cell passages and embryoid body differentiation in vitro. ES cells displayed significant mean frequencies of genomic instability in repetitive regions that lead to ES cells pluripotency, self-renewal maintenance, or cell lineage specialization. The present study reports potentially biomarkers for identifying accumulation of genomic instability in specific genes that may contributes to adaptation of ES cells and could be the switch that initiates early ES cell lineage commitment in vitro. Determining genetic and epigenetic modifications, including single tandem repeat instability, gene expression changes, and chromatin modifications, is essential for elucidating possible molecular mechanisms of genomic instability and determining novel molecular characterization for diagnostic purposes to ensure ES cell stability and integrity that could potentially lead to use of ES cell derivatives that could then be a safe source needed for regenerative medicine application

A Defense of Moderate Language Pluralism in Scholarly Production in the Humanities

In this paper we argue in favor of a moderate language plurilingualism in scholarly production in the humanities. We start by proposing some desiderata that a good policy regarding language use in the humanities should meet. We then survey institutional/policy options regarding the use of languages in the humanities and argue that different versions of monolingualism fall short of satisfying the desiderata. As a result, we consider different alternatives supporting plurilingualism and we defend that one of the options, that we call Moderate Language Pluralism or Moderate Plurilingualism, does better than the others vis-à-vis the desiderata. Finally, we suggest some policies that would help to implement Moderate Plurilingualism.Fil: Perez, Diana Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas. - Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas; ArgentinaFil: Sabatés, Marcelo. Columbia College; Estados Unido

Novel achromatic single reflection quarter-wave retarder: design and measurement

In this work, we present an achromatic quarter-wave retarder whose design is based upon the reflection properties of an isotropic-anisotropic interface. In theory, it is possible to obtain a π/2 phase shift by means of a total internal reflection at an isotropic-isotropic interface. However, in order to achieve such a phase shift, it is necessary to use a medium with a particularly high refractive index. We have previously shown that these phase shifts can be achieved by means of a total internal reflection in an isotropic-uniaxial interface, which allows the use of smaller refractive index media. By means of this property, we designed, built, and characterized a novel quarter-wave retarder that makes it possible to obtain circularly polarized light from a linear polarization state. We developed some guidelines that allowed us to obtain a device of competitive performance, low cost, and manageable manufacture.Fil: Veiras, Francisco Ezequiel. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Raffa, G.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Física; ArgentinaFil: Caré, D.. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Física; ArgentinaFil: Perez, Liliana Ines. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Garea, María Teresa. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Física; Argentin

Deformations of Cylindrical and Conical Beams Transmitted through a Uniaxial Crystal Parallel-Plane Plate

Una de las herramientas más usadas en la óptica es el trazado de rayos ya que es la herramienta fundamental para el diseño de todo instrumento óptico. En este trabajo se analizan las sucesivas deformaciones que un haz cilíndrico (modelo a primer orden de un haz colimado) y un haz cónico (modelo a primer orden de un haz divergente o convergente), que inciden normalmente sobre una placa planoparalela de cristal uniaxial, sufren a medida que van atravesando las distintas interfaces. Esto se hace siguiendo el camino de cada rayo incidente sobre la primera interfaz. El trazado de rayos para los rayos ordinarios es igual al trazado de rayos en medios isótropos. El trazado de rayos extraordinario, en cambio, presenta más dificultad ya que los rayos no están contenidos en el plano de incidencia y no coinciden con las normales a los frentes de onda. Se analizan también la pérdida de simetría de revolución de los haces y la formación de las sucesivas imágenes.One of the most used tools in optics is ray tracing,due to the fact that is a fundamental tool for optic instruments design. In this work we analyze the successive deformations that both cylindrical (first order approximation of a collimated beam) and conical (first order approximation of a converging or divergent beam) beams suffer when they impinge normal to a uniaxial crystal plane-parallel plate and go through the different interfaces. This is accomplished by following the path of each incident ray on the first interface. The ray tracing for the ordinary beam is the same as in isotropic media, but the extraordinary beam ray tracing is more difficult, for these rays are no longer contained in the incidence plane and their directions are different from those of the corresponding normals to the wavefront. We also analyze the loss of revolution symmetry of the beams and the image formation.Fil: Veiras, Francisco Ezequiel. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Perez, Liliana Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Tecnologías y Ciencias de la Ingeniería "Hilario Fernández Long"; Argentin

Latinoamérica: la música y las ideas

¿Cómo se volvió “latinoamericana” la música? El libro de Pablo Palomino no solo le da historicidad a esta categoría, sino que advierte sobre los sentidos que adquirió en distintos tiempos y las disputas políticas por su significación y apropiación.  De acuerdo a Palomino, en la mirada de la música como expresión del pueblo que se extendió a partir de los años treinta, las identidades nacionales y latinoamericana no se opusieron, sino que crecieron juntas. Su lectura es una invitación a desandar el camino de lo dado, a pensar menos ingenuamente y de manera no esencialista el adjetivo “latinoamericano” para pensar la música y la cultura

Extracellular Vesicles Loaded miRNAs as Potential Modulators Shared Between Glioblastoma, and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the deadliest brain tumor. Its poor prognosis is due to cell heterogeneity, invasiveness, and high vascularization that impede an efficient therapeutic approach. In the past few years, several molecular links connecting GBM to neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs) were identified at preclinical and clinical level. In particular, giving the increasing critical role that epigenetic alterations play in both GBM and NDDs, we deeply analyzed the role of miRNAs, small non-coding RNAs acting epigenetic modulators in several key biological processes. Specific miRNAs, transported by extracellular vesicles (EVs), act as intercellular communication signals in both diseases. In this way, miRNA-loaded EVs modulate GBM tumorigenesis, as they spread oncogenic signaling within brain parenchyma, and control the aggregation of neurotoxic protein (Tau, Aβ-amyloid peptide, and α-synuclein) in NDDs. In this review, we highlight the most promising miRNAs linking GBM and NDDs playing a significant pathogenic role in both diseases.Fil: Thomas, Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Florio, Tullio. Università degli Studi di Genova; ItaliaFil: Perez Castro, Carolina Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; Argentin

Mirror Neurons: A Case Study of the Neuroscience-Philosophy Relationship

El descubrimiento del sistema de neuronas espejo, que acaeció hace 25 años, fue considerado por algunos autores como prueba definitiva de la superioridad de una teoría filosófica (la Teoría de la Simulación) por sobre otra (la Teoría de la Teoría). Sin emba go, esta pretensión de haber encontrado una respuesta definitiva al problema filosófico de la comprensión de las otras mentes a partir de datos neurocientíficos dista mucho de ser aceptable. En este trabajo mostraré que existe una multiplicidad de interpretaciones posibles relativas al rol de las neuronas espejo, y que una de las más plausibles parece congruente con la perspectiva de segunda persona (Pérez y Gomila 2021). La conclusión que busco extraer de este caso de estudio es que no hay caminos directos desde la neurociencia a la solución de (al menos algunos) problemas filosóficos.The discovery of the mirror neuron system, which occurred 25 years ago, was considered by some authors as a definitive proof of the superiority of one philosophical theory (the Simulation Theory) over another (the Theory of Theory). However, the claim to have found a definitive answer to the philosophical problem of understanding other minds from neuroscientific data is far from acceptable. In this work I will show that there is a multiplicity of possible interpretations regarding the role of mirror neurons, and that one of the most plausible seems consistent with the second-person perspective (Pérez and Gomila 2021). The conclusion I seek to draw from this case study is that there are no direct paths from neuroscience to the solution of (at least some) philosophical problems.Fil: Perez, Diana Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas. - Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas; Argentin