Income Inequality and the Internet of Things: interesting links between ‘socially just’ and ‘environmentally sustainable’

Public interest on income inequality increased during the last decade. Among scholars, one of the aspects that has been researched is how does income distribution affect innovation and technology adoption. On the one side, hopes for long term economic development highlight the need to understand what drives innovation. On the other side, inequalities are fuelling social unrest and public debate on what is the fair distribution of opportunities and benefits in our societies. Consequently, the question about the link between income inequality and innovation is becoming more and more attractive

Concursos públicos : aquisição local de equipamentos de proteção individual no contexto de descentralização e elevada desigualdade socioeconômica

Published: 15 December 2023Published in two languages: English (original version) and Portuguese (translation)Under the influence of fiscal federalism and government decentralization theories, a significant part of health systems around the world confronted the COVID-19 pandemic after being shaped or re-shaped by processes of devolution from central to local governments. Procurement of key supplies is one of the components that operate in a decentralized manner, forcing local governments to compete against each other. This was the origin of what has been called the “bidding wars” between subnational governments at the beginning of the pandemic response. These wars led to centralization policies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Yet, less is known about cases from the Global South. By analyzing the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the 320 Chilean municipalities in charge of primary health, this research provides evidence of the impacts of horizontal government competition on the ability to procure key supplies. In Chile, during the 2020 response to the pandemic, richer municipalities were able to procure more face masks per population, while economies of scale rewarded bigger purchases with lower prices. The authors support the theoretical notion of “concurrency” as a concept that adds nuances to the centralization-decentralization debate. In Chile, for instance, while testing and tracking required decentralization, PPE purchases could have probably benefited from centralization in order to avoid reproducing territorial inequalities.Sob a influência do federalismo fiscal e das teorias de descentralização governamental, uma parte significativa dos sistemas de saúde em todo o mundo enfrentou a pandemia da COVID-19 depois de terem sido moldados ou remodelados por processos de transferência dos governos centrais para os governos locais. A aquisição de suprimentos essenciais é um dos componentes que operam de forma descentralizada, forçando os governos locais a competir entre si. Esta foi a origem do que foi chamado de “guerras de licitações” entre governos subnacionais no início da resposta à pandemia. Essas guerras levaram a políticas de centralização nos Estados Unidos, no Reino Unido e na União Europeia. No entanto, sabe-se menos sobre os casos do Sul Global. Ao analisar a aquisição de Equipamentos de Proteção Individual (EPI) nos 320 municípios chilenos responsáveis pela saúde primária, esta pesquisa fornece evidências dos impactos da competição governamental horizontal na capacidade de adquirir suprimentos essenciais. No Chile, durante a resposta à pandemia de 2020, os municípios mais ricos conseguiram adquirir mais máscaras faciais por população, enquanto as economias de escala recompensaram compras maiores com preços mais baixos. Os autores apoiam a noção teórica de simultaneidade como um conceito que acrescenta nuances ao debate centralização-descentralização. No Chile, por exemplo, embora os testes e o acompanhamento exigissem a descentralização, as compras de EPI poderiam provavelmente ter beneficiado da centralização, a fim de evitar a reprodução de desigualdades territoriais.Funding support from Margarita Salas, the Spanish Ministry of Universities, and the European Union, specifically through the European Union-Next Generation EU program

Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe

We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median $z\sim 0.03$). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between $z\sim 0.6$ and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July