La financiarización de las relaciones salariales. Una perspectiva internacional. Madrid, La Catarata, 2012

Para comprender las dimensiones económicas, políticas, ecológicas y, sobre todo, sociales, de la actual 'gran transformación' neoliberal en el sentido que Karl Polanyi le dio a este término, es necesario dar cuenta del proceso de financiarización, así como de sus múltiples y perniciosas consecuencias. En esta dirección se orienta la obra que aquí reseñamos La financiarización de las relaciones salariales. una perspectiva internacional

The paradoxes of dairy farmers in Catalonia (Spain) : crisis and "double bind"

Altres ajuts: Acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICAltres ajuts: Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA) (CF616633)We want to thank Marta Terra for her contribution to the research. To Miren Etxezarreta and Luis Enrique Alonso for the comments on the text. This work was supported by the Departament d'Agricultura Ramaderia i Pesca de la Generalitat de Catalunya within the framework of an agreement between the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA) and UAB: Project code CF616633The article analyses the crisis and 'double bind' situation to which Catalan dairy farmers find themselves subjected. Two contradictory commands are being imposed on them: 'act as if nature does not matter and increase production because, otherwise, the abandonment of livestock activity threatens you'; and 'reduce production and protect the environment to avoid an environmental catastrophe'. In the first part of the article, we study the socioeconomic crisis facing cattle farmers. In the second, we analyse farmers' discourse on the matter as a 'double bind'. Our conclusions indicate that in order to escape this paradoxical situation and gain some autonomy with respect to industry, farmers must establish a collective conscience and unite their interests: Although the path of producer cooperativism may be among the most realistic, it is not an easy one to follow

La reinvención de la autenticidad en el contexto de la mercantilización neoliberal

Desde la últimas décadas del siglo pasado, la constatación empírica de que los límites naturales al crecimiento estaban siendo traspasados (García, 2004) supuso un incremento de la conciencia medioambiental y dio lugar a la búsqueda de respuestas de distinto tipo. El concepto de 'Parque Natural', como un intento de preservar determinados espacios, se inscribe en este contexto. En su versión neoliberal dicha preservación no implica ninguna modificación sustantiva de las reglas que impone el desarrollo económico capitalista. De este modo, se convierte en una aplicación del binomio 'desarrollo sostenible', un oxímoron (Latouche, 2006) donde se yuxtaponen dos significados contrapuestos, a saber, desarrollo económico capitalista y sostenibilidad medioambiental

Promotion of pregnant merino Ewes’ Welfare with the introduction of a drought- and high-temperature-resistant cereal into their diet: analysis of tritordeum meadow

Tritordeum is a new cereal resistant to drought and high temperatures, and it is a very healthy crop. The aim of this study was to compare two different diets (tritordeum meadow vs. oat meadow) for grazing pregnant ewes to determine if there was any effect on the objective physiological indicators of animal welfare. A total of 150 pregnant Merino ewes (3–5 years) were randomly divided into two groups (n = 75 each) to be fed with two different meadows, being evaluated during the spring season. Red blood cells count, haemoglobin, packed cell volume, white blood cell count, neutrophiles/lymphocytes ratio, lactate dehydrogenase, creatinine phosphokinase, aspartate aminotransferase, glucose, cortisol, total plasma proteins, albumin, globulins, albumin/globulins ratio, alkaline phosphatase, glutamate dehydrogenase, IgA, and IgG were determined. Overall, the results of this study indicate that the welfare of pregnant ewes fed with tritordeum meadow was better than that of pregnant ewes fed with oat meadow. Tritordeum meadow had a positive influence on the physiological parameters of animal welfare studied in pregnant Merino ewes. Therefore, tritordeum meadow can be considered a functional feed, as it has a beneficial effect on health beyond its basic nutritional value. Farmers are recommended to feed a cereal such as tritordeum grassland to their sheep, as it not only ensures that the animals benefit from all the nutrients, but also prevents diseases and improves their quality of life. In addition, the cereal’s resistance to fungal diseases makes it suitable for use in sustainable production systems with a reduced environmental footprint

Abundant Z-cyanomethanimine in the interstellar medium: paving the way to the synthesis of adenine

We report the first detection in the interstellar medium of the Z-isomer of cyanomethanimine (HNCHCN), an HCN dimer proposed as precursor of adenine. We identified six transitions of Z-cyanomethanimine, along with five transitions of E-cyanomethanimine, using IRAM 30m observations towards the Galactic Center quiescent molecular cloud G+0.693. The Z-isomer has a column density of (2.0$\pm$0.6)$\times$10$^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$ and an abundance of 1.5$\times$10$^{-9}$. The relative abundance ratio between the isomers is [Z/E]$\sim$6. This value cannot be explained by the two chemical formation routes previously proposed (gas-phase and grain surface), which predicts abundances ratios between 0.9 and 1.5. The observed [Z/E] ratio is in good agreement with thermodynamic equilibrium at the gas kinetic temperature (130$-$210 K). Since isomerization is not possible in the ISM, the two species may be formed at high temperature. New chemical models, including surface chemistry on dust grains and gas-phase reactions, should be explored to explain our findings. Whatever the formation mechanism, the high abundance of Z-HNCHCN shows that precursors of adenine are efficiently formed in the ISM.Comment: Accepted in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letter

Complex organic molecules in the Galactic Centre: the N-bearing family

We present an unbiased spectral line survey toward the Galactic Centre (GC) quiescent giant molecular cloud (QGMC), G+0.693 using the GBT and IRAM 30$\,$ telescopes. Our study highlights an extremely rich organic inventory of abundant amounts of nitrogen (N)-bearing species in a source without signatures of star formation. We report the detection of 17 N-bearing species in this source, of which 8 are complex organic molecules (COMs). A comparison of the derived abundances relative to H$_2$ is made across various galactic and extragalactic environments. We conclude that the unique chemistry in this source is likely to be dominated by low-velocity shocks with X-rays/cosmic rays also playing an important role in the chemistry. Like previous findings obtained for O-bearing molecules, our results for N-bearing species suggest a more efficient hydrogenation of these species on dust grains in G+0.693 than in hot cores in the Galactic disk, as a consequence of the low dust temperatures coupled with energetic processing by X-ray/cosmic ray radiation in the GC.Comment: 24 pages, 23 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA

A bivariate return period based on copulas for hydrologic dam design: accounting for reservoir routing in risk estimation

A multivariate analysis on flood variables is needed to design some hydraulic structures like dams, as the complexity of the routing process in a reservoir requires a representation of the full hydrograph. In this work, a bivariate copula model was used to obtain the bivariate joint distribution of flood peak and volume, in order to know the probability of occurrence of a given inflow hydrograph. However, the risk of dam overtopping is given by the maximum water elevation reached during the routing process, which depends on the hydrograph variables, the reservoir volume and the spillway crest length. Consequently, an additional bivariate return period, the so-called routed return period, was defined in terms of risk of dam overtopping based on this maximum water elevation obtained after routing the inflow hydrographs. The theoretical return periods, which give the probability of occurrence of a hydrograph prior to accounting for the reservoir routing, were compared with the routed return period, as in both cases hydrographs with the same probability will draw a curve in the peak-volume space. The procedure was applied to the case study of the Santillana reservoir in Spain. Different reservoir volumes and spillway lengths were considered to investigate the influence of the dam and reservoir characteristics on the results. The methodology improves the estimation of the Design Flood Hydrograph and can be applied to assess the risk of dam overtoppin

Chemical Features in the Circumnuclear Disk of the Galactic Center

The circumnuclear disk (CND) of the Galactic Center is exposed to many energetic phenomena coming from the supermassive black hole Sgr A* and stellar activities. These energetic activities can affect the chemical composition in the CND by the interaction with UV-photons, cosmic-rays, X-rays, and shock waves. We aim to constrain the physical conditions present in the CND by chemical modeling of observed molecular species detected towards it. We analyzed a selected set of molecular line data taken toward a position in the southwest lobe of the CND with the IRAM 30m and APEX 12-meter telescopes and derived the column density of each molecule using a large velocity gradient (LVG) analysis. The determined chemical composition is compared with a time-dependent gas-grain chemical model based on the UCL\_CHEM code that includes the effects of shock waves with varying physical parameters. Molecules such as CO, HCN, HCO$^+$, HNC, CS, SO, SiO, NO, CN, H$_2$CO, HC$_3$N, N$_2$H$^+$ and H$_3$O$^+$ are detected and their column densities are obtained. Total hydrogen densities obtained from LVG analysis range between $2 \times 10^4$ and $1 \times 10^6\,$cm$^{-3}$ and most species indicate values around several $\times 10^5\,$cm$^{-3}$, which are lower than values corresponding to the Roche limit, which shows that the CND is tidally unstable. The chemical models show good agreement with the observations in cases where the density is $\sim10^4\,$cm$^{-3}$, the cosmic-ray ionization rate is high, $>10^{-15} \,$s$^{-1}$, or shocks with velocities $> 40\,$km s$^{-1}$ have occurred. Comparison of models and observations favors a scenario where the cosmic-ray ionization rate in the CND is high, but precise effects of other factors such as shocks, density structures, UV-photons and X-rays from the Sgr A* must be examined with higher spatial resolution data.Comment: 17 Pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A&