Los efectos de la posverdad en la democracia

Abstract:Politics and truth do not always go hand in hand. Traditionally, the diversity of political actors, access to information and the role of the media have achieved an essential balance for the development of democracy. Technology has transformed communication in a revolutionary way, influencing the ways of producing, transmitting, distributing and perceiving information, converted into essential raw material for economic, industrial and social relations. This transformation affects politics in a special way, with the appearance of a new type of information disruptions which affect not only the distribution capacity, but also the timing of it, the sentimentalization of political decisions, the fragmentation of the public opinion, the creation of polarized parallel public spheres and the creation of a climate of general suspicion that questions the role of truth and endangers democracy, beyond the electoral periods.Resumen:Política y verdad no van siempre de la mano. Tradicionalmente la diversidad de actores políticos, el derecho a la información y el papel de los medios de comunicación ha logrado un equilibrio imprescindible para el desarrollo de la democracia. La tecnología ha transformado de manera revolucionaria la comunicación, impactando en las formas de captar, almacenar, producir, distribuir y percibir la información convertida en materia prima imprescindible de las relaciones económicas, industriales y sociales. Esta transformación afecta de manera especial a la política, con la aparición de un nuevo tipo de trastornos informativos que inciden no sólo en la capacidad de distribución, sino también en el tiempo de la misma, la sentimentalización de las decisiones políticas, la fragmentación de la opinión pública, la creación de esferas públicas paralelas polarizadas y la creación de un clima de sospecha general que pone en cuestión el papel de la verdad y pone en peligro la democracia, más allá de los periodos electorales.Summary:1. Communication and Society. 1.1. Truth and Politics: a weird relationship. 2. Not such a novelty. 3. What is post-truth politics? 3.1. What is new about post-truth politics? 3.1.a. Fiction or reality? 3.1.b The importance of image. 3.1.c A distorted reality. / The distortion of reality. 3.1.d. Timing. 3.1.e. Transparency and information overload. 3.1.f. Perception and cognitive dissonance. 3.1.g. Fragmentation and polarization. 3.1.h. Hyperconnectivity and communication parties. 4. Truth and Democracy. 5. The effects of post-truth politics on democracy. 6. Catalonia: a testing ground for post-truth politics. Abstract:Politics and truth do not always go hand in hand. Traditionally, the diversity of political actors, access to information and the role of the media have achieved an essential balance for the development of democracy. Technology has transformed communication in a revolutionary way, influencing the ways of producing, transmitting, distributing and perceiving information, converted into essential raw material for economic, industrial and social relations. This transformation affects politics in a special way, with the appearance of a new type of information disruptions which affect not only the distribution capacity, but also the timing of it, the sentimentalization of political decisions, the fragmentation of the public opinion, the creation of polarized parallel public spheres and the creation of a climate of general suspicion that questions the role of truth and endangers democracy, beyond the electoral periods

La actividad de los grupos de presión ante el Poder Ejecutivo: una respuesta jurídica más allá del Registro

La regulación de los grupos de presión a lo largo de la historia presenta dificultades de definición, de aplicación y de eficacia. Esta regulación se ha centrado históricamente en identificar a aquellos que realizan estas labores de influencia y aplicar la transparencia tanto a su organización como a sus actividades. En nuestra opinión este modelo, hijo de la legislación norteamericana de 1946 es ineficaz e insuficiente, al dejar fuera organizaciones y sujetos que realizan este tipo de actividades. Abogamos por centrar la regulación en las actividades y no en los sujetos que las desarrollan y buscar otros caminos que lejos de dificultar la acción de lobby, que convierte esto en algo reservado a aquellos que cuentan con más recursos, facilite las acciones de influencia a través de instrumentos institucionalizados.The Regulation of lobbies has always found many difficulties for definition, application and eficiency. This regulation has been focusing historically on identifying the key actors undertaking lobbying activities and applying transparency to both their organization and their activities. In our opinion, this legislative model, which comes from the American legislation on lobbying of 1946, is inefficient and insufficient as it typically leaves out key actors that undertake lobbying activities. Our preferred option is to regulate this field by focusing on the activities and not on the actors, and to search for means that far from adding more difficulties to the lobbying activity, which converts it into something reserved only for the few with more resources, make it an easy activity for all

Gobierno abierto: más allá de los principios

Gobierno abierto y democracia deberían ser términos sinónimos, pero en el contexto de crisis generalizada la reivindicación de instituciones más abiertas a los ciudadanos ha tomado un nuevo sentido. Para Rafael Rubio, profesor de Derecho Constitucional de la UCM, el gobierno abierto, que garantizaría la legitimidad del poder político, debería asentarse en los valores de la colaboración, la participación y la transparencia

En busca del Antiobama. El proceso de primarias del Partido Republicano frente a las elecciones presidenciales de 2012

La nominación del candidato republicano, encargado de medirse el próximo noviembre frente a Obama, está siendo un proceso político frenético e incierto. Es todavía demasiado pronto para anunciar un posible resultado. No se rechaza ni la oportunidad de convocar una convención abierta. Mientras los acontecimientos se suceden, ofrecemos un análisis de Romney y Santorum, que a priori parecen contar con más apoyos para alzarse con la nominación

CHAIN-REDS DART Challenge

CHAIN-REDS (Coordination and Harmonisation of Advanced e-infrastructure for Research and Education Data Sharing) is EU project focused on promoting and supporting technological and scientific collaboration across different communities established in various continents. Nowadays, one of the most challenging scenarios scientist and scientific communities are facing is huge amount of data emerging from vast networks of sensors and form computational simulations performed in a diversity of computing architectures and e-infrastructure. The new knowledge coming out from the interpretation of these datasets, reported on the scholar literature, is increasingly problematic to be reproducible due to the difficulty to access measured data repositories and/or computational applications that generate synthetic data through computer simulations. This paper presents CHAIN REDS approach, several tools and services, based on the adoption of standards, aimed at providing easy/seamless access to datasets, data repositories, open access document repositories and to the applications that could make use of them. All these tools and services are enclosed in what we have called the Data Accessibility, Reproducibility and Trustworthiness (DART) challenge. This initiative allows researchers to easily find data of his interest and directly use them in a code running by means of a Science Gateway (SG) that provides access to cluster, Grid and Cloud infrastructure worldwide. In this scenario, the datasets are found by means of either the CHAIN-REDS Knowledge Base (KB) or the Semantic Search Engine (SSE), the applications ran on the CHAIN-REDS SG, accessible through an Identity Federation. The datasets can be both identified by Persistent Identifier (PID) and assigned unique number ID. Scientists can then access the data and the corresponding application in order to either reproduce and extend the results of a given study or start a new investigation. The new data (and the new paper if any) are stored on the Data Infrastructure and can be easily found by the people belonging to the same domain making possible to start the cycle again.Repositório de dados científicos.Ibero-American Science and Technology Education Consortium (ISTEC

CHAIN-REDS DART Challenge

CHAIN-REDS (Coordination and Harmonisation of Advanced e-infrastructure for Research and Education Data Sharing) is EU project focused on promoting and supporting technological and scientific collaboration across different communities established in various continents. Nowadays, one of the most challenging scenarios scientist and scientific communities are facing is huge amount of data emerging from vast networks of sensors and form computational simulations performed in a diversity of computing architectures and e-infrastructure. The new knowledge coming out from the interpretation of these datasets, reported on the scholar literature, is increasingly problematic to be reproducible due to the difficulty to access measured data repositories and/or computational applications that generate synthetic data through computer simulations. This paper presents CHAIN REDS approach, several tools and services, based on the adoption of standards, aimed at providing easy/seamless access to datasets, data repositories, open access document repositories and to the applications that could make use of them. All these tools and services are enclosed in what we have called the Data Accessibility, Reproducibility and Trustworthiness (DART) challenge. This initiative allows researchers to easily find data of his interest and directly use them in a code running by means of a Science Gateway (SG) that provides access to cluster, Grid and Cloud infrastructure worldwide. In this scenario, the datasets are found by means of either the CHAIN-REDS Knowledge Base (KB) or the Semantic Search Engine (SSE), the applications ran on the CHAIN-REDS SG, accessible through an Identity Federation. The datasets can be both identified by Persistent Identifier (PID) and assigned unique number ID. Scientists can then access the data and the corresponding application in order to either reproduce and extend the results of a given study or start a new investigation. The new data (and the new paper if any) are stored on the Data Infrastructure and can be easily found by the people belonging to the same domain making possible to start the cycle again.Repositório de dados científicos.Ibero-American Science and Technology Education Consortium (ISTEC

Short-term changes in klotho and FGF23 in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction—a substudy of the DAPA-VO2 study

The klotho and fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF-23) pathway is implicated in cardiovascular pathophysiology. This substudy aimed to assess the changes in klotho and FGF-23 levels 1-month after dapagliflozin in patients with stable heart failure and reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). The study included 29 patients (32.2% of the total), with 14 assigned to the placebo group and 15 to the dapagliflozin, as part of the double-blind, randomized clinical trial [DAPA-VO2 (NCT04197635)]. Blood samples were collected at baseline and after 30 days, and Klotho and FGF-23 levels were measured using ELISA Kits. Between-treatment changes (raw data) were analyzed by using the Mann-Whitney test and expressed as median (p25%–p75%). Linear regression models were utilized to analyze changes in the logarithm (log) of klotho and FGF-23. The median age was 68.3 years (60.8–72.1), with 79.3% male and 81.5% classified as NYHA II. The baseline medians of left ventricular ejection fraction, glomerular filtration rate, NT-proBNP, klotho, and FGF-23 were 35.8% (30.5–37.8), 67.4 ml/min/1.73 m2 (50.7–82.8), 1,285 pg/ml (898–2,305), 623.4 pg/ml (533.5–736.6), and 72.6 RU/ml (62.6–96.1), respectively. The baseline mean peak oxygen uptake was 13.1 ± 4.0 ml/kg/min. Compared to placebo, patients on dapagliflozin showed a significant median increase of klotho [Δ+29.5, (12.9–37.2); p = 0.009] and a non-significant decrease of FGF-23 [Δ−4.6, (−1.7 to −5.4); p = 0.051]. A significant increase in log-klotho (p = 0.011) and a decrease in log-FGF-23 (p = 0.040) were found in the inferential analysis. In conclusion, in patients with stable HFrEF, dapagliflozin led to a short-term increase in klotho and a decrease in FGF-23

Effectiveness of an intervention for improving drug prescription in primary care patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy:Study protocol of a cluster randomized clinical trial (Multi-PAP project)

This study was funded by the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias ISCIII (Grant Numbers PI15/00276, PI15/00572, PI15/00996), REDISSEC (Project Numbers RD12/0001/0012, RD16/0001/0005), and the European Regional Development Fund ("A way to build Europe").Background: Multimorbidity is associated with negative effects both on people's health and on healthcare systems. A key problem linked to multimorbidity is polypharmacy, which in turn is associated with increased risk of partly preventable adverse effects, including mortality. The Ariadne principles describe a model of care based on a thorough assessment of diseases, treatments (and potential interactions), clinical status, context and preferences of patients with multimorbidity, with the aim of prioritizing and sharing realistic treatment goals that guide an individualized management. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a complex intervention that implements the Ariadne principles in a population of young-old patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. The intervention seeks to improve the appropriateness of prescribing in primary care (PC), as measured by the medication appropriateness index (MAI) score at 6 and 12months, as compared with usual care. Methods/Design: Design:pragmatic cluster randomized clinical trial. Unit of randomization: family physician (FP). Unit of analysis: patient. Scope: PC health centres in three autonomous communities: Aragon, Madrid, and Andalusia (Spain). Population: patients aged 65-74years with multimorbidity (≥3 chronic diseases) and polypharmacy (≥5 drugs prescribed in ≥3months). Sample size: n=400 (200 per study arm). Intervention: complex intervention based on the implementation of the Ariadne principles with two components: (1) FP training and (2) FP-patient interview. Outcomes: MAI score, health services use, quality of life (Euroqol 5D-5L), pharmacotherapy and adherence to treatment (Morisky-Green, Haynes-Sackett), and clinical and socio-demographic variables. Statistical analysis: primary outcome is the difference in MAI score between T0 and T1 and corresponding 95% confidence interval. Adjustment for confounding factors will be performed by multilevel analysis. All analyses will be carried out in accordance with the intention-to-treat principle. Discussion: It is essential to provide evidence concerning interventions on PC patients with polypharmacy and multimorbidity, conducted in the context of routine clinical practice, and involving young-old patients with significant potential for preventing negative health outcomes. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT02866799Publisher PDFPeer reviewe