Decomposable approximations and approximately finite dimensional C*-algebras

Nuclear $C^*$-algebras having a system of completely positive approximations formed with convex combinations of a uniformly bounded number of order zero summands are shown to be approximately finite dimensional.Comment: Final accepted version. Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc., to appea

Understanding Development Bureaucracies: A Case Study of Mexico’s Rural Development Policy

This research is about how development practice is produced by development bureaucracies. In 2001, the Mexican Congress enacted a new national law called Ley de Desarrollo Rural Sustentable (Sustainable Rural Development Act) seeking to produce the radical change that the Mexican rural sector needed to improve the social and economic conditions of the rural population. Its policy design was based on the dominant paradigm of rural development, of which ideas such as sustainable livelihoods, decentralisation and community participation compose the core elements. Ten years since the launch of this policy it has not triggered the expected changes in social and economic conditions in rural Mexico. This work seeks to provide grounded explanations about why some ‘good’ development policies produce unexpected outcomes. The research focus is on understanding how development bureaucracies translate the directives of development programmes. It is possible to see their influence on policy outcomes and in the rationale behind the decisions made by bureaucratic actors in the implementation arena. Making use of actor-oriented approaches, this thesis develops a case study that describes how, responding to multiple realities, bureaucratic actors make their decisions in the implementation arena. It analyses the different rationales by which bureaucracies at different levels interpret and produce meaning from the notions of decentralisation and community participation in the process of the implementation of Mexico’s Ley de Desarrollo Rural Sustentable. The case study shows that development bureaucracies play a key role in the generation of policy outcomes. It shows that Mexican development bureaucracies have a particular rationale that is significantly different from the implicit assumptions made in the design of the planned intervention and in which informal institutions such as compadrazgo and clientelism are used strategically by bureaucratic actors to produce development practice. The main conclusion of the thesis is that understanding development bureaucracies’ rationales provides coherent explanations about the apparently contradictory outcomes produced by novel policy approaches in developing countries

Kim McDonough & Alison Mackey (eds). 2013. Second language Interaction in Diverse Educational Contexts: A Review. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 332.

DOI: 10.1400/22969

Nuclear dimension of simple stably projectionless C*-algebras

We prove that Z-stable, simple, separable, nuclear, non-unital C*-algebras have nuclear dimension at most 1. This completes the equivalence between finite nuclear dimension and Z-stability for simple, separable, nuclear, non-elementary C*-algebras.Comment: 40 pages. Fixed a typo in the statement of Theorem 2.7. Analysis & PDE, to appea

Amphiphilic oxygenated amorphous carbon-graphite buckypapers with gas sensitivity to polar and non-polar VOCs

To precisely control the emission limit of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) even at trace amounts, reactive nanomaterials of, e.g., carbon are demanded. Particularly, considering the polar/non-polar nature of VOCs, amphiphilic carbon nanomaterials with a huge surface area could act as multipurpose VOC sensors. Here, for the first time, a buckypaper sensor composed of oxygenated amorphous carbon (a-COx)/graphite (G) nanofilaments is developed. Presence of the oxygen-containing groups rises the selectivity of the sensor to polar VOCs, such as ethanol and acetone through formation of hydrogen bonding, affecting the electron withdrawing ability of the group, the hole carrier density, and, thus, the resistivity. On the other hand, the electrostatic interactions between the toluene aromatic ring and the π electrons of the graphitic crystals cause a formation of charge-transfer complexes, which could be the main mechanism of high responsiveness of the sensor towards non-polar toluene. To the best of my knowledge, an amphiphilic carbon nanofilamentous buckypaper has never been reported for gas sensing, and my device sensing polar/non-polar VOCs is state of the art for environmental control

Urban Aporias and Disguise

El concepto de "aporía", del griego "aporia", que significa dificultad, perplejidad, es utilizado por Josep Acebillo para referirse a lo que él llama "una dificultad lógica insoluble que resulta de la mala utilización de conceptos teóricos.? (2007:86) Además, el autor nos advierte de sus posibles efectos, ya que vivimos una auténtica eclosión de aporías: ?Una de las consecuencias de este mal uso es la aparición de posiciones disciplinarias que pueden ocasionar que la arquitectura vaya a la deriva. "(2007: 86). A este respecto, hay muchas intervenciones en el campo de la arquitectura y el urbanismo que pueden causar perplejidad en el espectador por su tendencia a ignorar la verdad y a proponer una confusión entre realidad y deseo. Una de ellas es el uso de ?disfraces? para enmascarar lo que hay debajo. Es también lo que le sucede a menudo a muchos urbanistas que consideran el paisaje como una simplificación de la complejidad territorial e intentan reducir un problema serio e interdisciplinario a un mero problema de revestimiento, de fachada. El objetivo de este artículo es explicar cómo la arquitectura y el urbanismo utilizan diferentes tipos de disfraces, distinguir entre los distintos tipos de ocultamiento y reflexionar sobre cuáles son las principales razones de su uso. Además, se llamará la atención sobre el hecho de que algunas de las categorías descritas llevan consigo un despilfarro económico que debe controlarse en el interés de todos en una época en la que palabras como sostenibilidad y ahorro suponen un deber moral