The Regulatory Framework of Export Restrictions in WTO Law and Regional Free Trade Agreements. IES WORKING PAPER 8/2013

The use of export restrictions has become more and more common in recent years, evidencing the substantial loopholes existing in the WTO regulation on the matter. As a result of this deficient legal framework, the WTO membership experiences important losses of welfare and increasing political tensions. The multilateral negotiations for an updated discipline on export restrictions, in the context of the Doha Development Round, are blocked. Consequently, members have established a set of preferential bilateral and multilateral agreements to relieve the negative effects of these measures. Likewise, some recent WTO members have committed to stricter regulations as part of their Accession Protocols. Nevertheless, these methods have evidenced some important flaws, and the multilateral scene remains the optimum forum to address export restrictions. This Working Paper proposes a number of measures to improve the legal framework of the quantitative export restrictions and export duties, as well as their notification procedures

Teaching differently: The digital signal processing of multimedia content through the use of liberal arts

Generally, the curriculum design for undergraduate students enrolled in digital signal processing (DSP)-related engineering programs covers hard topics from specific disciplines, namely, mathematics, digital electronics, or programming. Typically, these topics are very demanding from the point of view of both students and teachers due to the inherent complexity of the mathematical formulations. However, improvements to the effectiveness of teaching can be achieved through a multisensorial approach supported by the liberal arts. By including the development of art and literacy skills in the curriculum design, the fundamentals of DSP topics may be taught from a qualitative perspective, compared to the solely analytical standpoint taken by traditional curricula. We postulate that this approach increases both the comprehension and memorization of abstract concepts by stimulating students' creativity and curiosity. In this article, we elaborate upon a methodology that incorporates liberal arts concepts into the teaching of signal processing techniques. We also illustrate the application of this methodology through specific classroom activities related to the digital processing of multimedia contents in undergraduate academic programmes. With this proposal, we also aim to lessen the perceived difficulty of the topic, stimulate critical thinking, and establish a framework within which nonengineering departments may contribute to the teaching of engineering subjects.This research is part of the 17th Call to Support Experiences on Innovative Teaching at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Spain, in 2019-2020 and partially funded by the Spanish Government-MinECo project TEC2017-84395-P. This project gathered members from UC3M, the Havana University of Technology, José Antonio Echeverría, Cuba, and Technische Universität Berlin, Germany

Building synthetic simulated environments for configuring and training multi-camera systems for surveillance applications

[EN] Synthetic simulated environments are gaining popularity in the Deep Learning Era, as they can alleviate the effort and cost of two critical tasks to build multi-camera systems for surveillance applications: setting up the camera system to cover the use cases and generating the labeled dataset to train the required Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). However, there are no simulated environments ready to solve them for all kind of scenarios and use cases. Typically, ‘ad hoc’ environments are built, which cannot be easily applied to other contexts. In this work we present a methodology to build synthetic simulated environments with sufficient generality to be usable in different contexts, with little effort. Our methodology tackles the challenges of the appropriate parameterization of scene configurations, the strategies to generate randomly a wide and balanced range of situations of interest for training DNNs with synthetic data, and the quick image capturing from virtual cameras considering the rendering bottlenecks. We show a practical implementation example for the detection of incorrectly placed luggage in aircraft cabins, including the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data generation process and its influence in a DNN training, and the required modifications to adapt it to other surveillance contexts.This work has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 865162, SmaCS (https://www.smacs.eu/

Restauración de los colores exteriores del Palacete Burgos de Valencia

[ES] Se describe el estudio desarrollado para restaurar los colores exteriores del Palacete Burgos (1921), un edificio ecléctico del arquitecto D. Javier Goerlich Lleó, ubicado en la Avda. del Puerto de Valencia. El estudio incluye un análisis histórico del edificio, un análisis visual de los restos de colores encontrados y su medición cromática, así como la extracción y análisis de muestras de morteros coloreados. Estos análisis permiten formalizar una carta de colores y una propuesta de restauración que se basa en 6 criterios: (1) recuperar en la fachada la policromía frente a la monocromía actual, basándose en las características generales de la arquitectura ecléctica valenciana y los numerosos restos de colores encontrados; (2) emplear los colores para favorecer una mejor lectura de la estructura compositiva del edificio, diferenciando paños de fondo, elementos arquitectónicos y ornamentación, un criterio que expresa la voluntad de Goerlich de ir ordenando el proyecto en sus distintas versiones; (3) disponer en el paño de fondo y elementos decorativos un color siena rojizo de valor alto y baja saturación (NCS S2030-Y30R), habitual en la edilicia valenciana y equivalente a los restos encontrados in situ y caracterizados con ayuda de microscopía; (4) disponer en los elementos arquitectónicos verticales un color más claro y menos saturado (S1020-Y30R) equivalente a los ocres observados en microscopio óptico; (5) disponer en el resto de elementos arquitectónicos un color grisáceo similar a la piedra (S2005- Y40R), coherente con el análisis de las muestras y con la teoría arquitectónica del periodo, que establecía el empleo de piedra en los elementos más expuestos al desgaste; (6) y por último asegurar la coherencia de la nueva intervención con la composición mineralógica de los enlucidos originales. En definitiva, se recuperan los valores cromáticos originales de tan singular edificio para potenciar una mejor lectura de sus características estilísticas y compositivas.[EN] The objective of this study is the restoration of the exterior colours of the Palacete Burgos (1921), an eclectic building by the architect Mr. Javier Goerlich Lleó, located at Avda. Del Puerto in Valencia. The study includes a historical analysis of the building, a visual analysis of the coloured remains and their chromatic measurement, as well as the extraction and analysis of samples of coloured mortars. These analysis make it possible to formalize a colour chart and a restoration proposal that is based on 6 criteria: (1) recover the polychromy on the facade exceeding the current monochromy, based on the general characteristics of Valencian eclectic architecture and in the finding of numerous colour remainings; (2) use colours to favor a better reading of the building's compositional structure, differentiating background, architectural elements and ornamentation, a criterion that emphasizes Goerlich's desire to set a good organization of elements in the different versions of the project; (3) arrange on the background and decorative elements a reddish sienna color with high value and low saturation (NCS S2030-Y30R), common in the Valencian eclectic buildings and equivalent to the remains found in situ and characterized with microscopy; (4) provide the vertical architectural elements with a lighter and less saturated color (S1020-Y30R) equivalent to the other observed with the optical microscope; (5) arrange on the rest of the architectural elements a grayish color similar to stone (S2005-Y40R), consistent with the analysis of the samples and with the architectural theory of the period, which established the use of stone in those elements most exposed to the erosion; (6) and finally to ensure the coherence of the new intervention with the mineralogical composition of the original plasters. In short, the original chromatic values of such a unique building are recovered to enhance a better reading of its stylisticand compositional characteristics.Torres Barchino, AM.; Serra Lluch, JDR.; Llopis Verdú, J.; De La Torre, I.; Hidalgo, J. (2020). Restauración de los colores exteriores del Palacete Burgos de Valencia. Arché. (13 - 14 - 15):217-226. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/15657421722613 - 14 - 1

La influencia de la teoría del valor en las revistas económicas ortodoxas y heterodoxas

La teoría del valor es un tema económico que ha sido investigado por los más grandes pensadores económicos a través de la historia, tanto por ortodoxos como heterodoxos. En este artículo se realiza una investigación descriptiva con base en revistas especializadas en temas económicos, de las corrientes ya mencionadas, acerca del estudio y el énfasis que tienen sobre el tema de la teoría del valor a través de sus diferentes volúmenes. Se seleccionaron distintas revistas. Con esta investigación se busca saber la frecuencia con la que se aborda la teoría del valor en sus diversos artículos y así comprobar la importancia y utilización de la teoría del valor en las revistas en la actualidad

Methylation alterations are not a major cause of PTTG1 misregulation

Background: On its physiological cellular context, PTTG1 controls sister chromatid segregation during mitosis. Within its crosstalk to the cellular arrest machinery, relies a checkpoint of integrity for which gained the over name of securin. PTTG1 was found to promote malignant transformation in 3T3 fibroblasts, and further found to be overexpressed in different tumor types. More recently, PTTG1 has been also related to different processes such as DNA repair and found to trans-activate different cellular pathways involving c-myc, bax or p53, among others. PTTG1 over-expression has been correlated to a worse prognosis in thyroid, lung, colorectal cancer patients, and it can not be excluded that this effect may also occur in other tumor types. Despite the clinical relevance and the increasing molecular characterization of PTTG1, the reason for its up-regulation remains unclear. Method: We analysed PTTG1 differential expression in PC-3, DU-145 and LNCaP tumor cell lines, cultured in the presence of the methyl-transferase inhibitor 5-Aza-2'-deoxycytidine. We also tested whether the CpG island mapping PTTG1 proximal promoter evidenced a differential methylation pattern in differentiated thyroid cancer biopsies concordant to their PTTG1 immunohistochemistry status. Finally, we performed whole-genome LOH studies using Affymetix 50 K microarray technology and FRET analysis to search for allelic imbalances comprising the PTTG1 locus. Conclusion: Our data suggest that neither methylation alterations nor LOH are involved in PTTG1 over-expression. These data, together with those previously reported, point towards a post-transcriptional level of missregulation associated to PTTG1 over-expression.This project was funded by The Fundación de Investigación Biomédica Mutua Madrileña Automovilista. Neocodex have been partially funded by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain (FIT-010000-2004-69, PTQ04-1-0006, PTQ2003-0549, PTQ2003-0546 and PTQ2003-0783). MAJ was also supported by SAF2005- 07713-C03-03 and CS by FIS 06/757

Evidence against Zika virus infection of pets and peri-domestic animals in Latin America and Africa

Decades after its discovery in East Africa, Zika virus (ZIKV) emerged in Brazil in 2013 and infected millions of people during intense urban transmission. Whether vertebrates other than humans are involved in ZIKV transmission cycles remained unclear. Here, we investigate the role of different animals as ZIKV reservoirs by testing 1723 sera of pets, peri-domestic animals and African non-human primates (NHP) sampled during 2013–2018 in Brazil and 2006–2016 in Côte d'Ivoire. Exhaustive neutralization testing substantiated co-circulation of multiple flaviviruses and failed to confirm ZIKV infection in pets or peri-domestic animals in Côte d'Ivoire (n=259) and Brazil (n=1416). In contrast, ZIKV seroprevalence was 22.2% (2/9, 95% CI, 2.8–60.1) in West African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) and 11.1% (1/9, 95% CI, 0.3–48.3) in king colobus (Colobus polycomos). Our results indicate that while NHP may represent ZIKV reservoirs in Africa, pets or peri-domestic animals likely do not play a role in ZIKV transmission cycles.Peer Reviewe

Cost‐effectiveness and cost‐utility evaluation of individual vs. group transdiagnostic psychological treatment for emotional disorders in primary care (PsicAP‐Costs): a multicentre randomized controlled trial protocol

Background: Emotional disorders are common, and they have become more prevalent since the COVID‐19 pan‐ demic. Due to a high attendance burden at the specialized level, most emotional disorders in Spain are treated in primary care, where they are usually misdiagnosed and treated using psychotropic drugs. This contributes to perpetu‐ ate their illness and increase health care costs. Following the IAPT programme and the transdiagnostic approach, the PsicAP project developed a brief group transdiagnostic cognitive‐behavioural therapy (tCBT) as a cost‐effective alternative. However, it is not suitable for everyone; in some cases, one‐on‐one sessions may be more effective. The objective of the present study is to compare, in cost‐benefit terms, group and individual tCBT with the treatment usu‐ ally administered in Spanish primary care (TAU). Methods: A randomized, controlled, multicentre, and single‐blinded trial will be performed. Adults with mild to moderate emotional disorders will be recruited and placed in one of three arms: group tCBT, individual tCBT, or TAU. Medical data and outcomes regarding emotional symptoms, disability, quality of life, and emotion regulation biases will be collected at baseline, immediately after treatment, and 6 and 12 months later. The data will be used to calcu‐ late incremental cost‐effectiveness and cost‐utility ratios. Discussion: This trial aims to contribute to clinical practice research. The involvement of psychologists in primary care and the implementation of a stepped‐care model for mental disorders are recommended. Group therapy and a transdiagnostic approach may help optimize health system resources and unblock waiting lists so that people can spend less time experiencing mental health problems. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04847310; Protocols.io: bx2npqde. (April 19, 2021

Cómo se adaptan las instituciones educacionales municipales de la Región Metropolitana al aumento de la multiculturalidad escolar

Tesis (Profesor de Educación Física para la Enseñanza Básica, Licenciado en Educación)La presente investigación hace referencia al alza existente en los últimos años en la cantidad de migrantes que llegan al país y con esto, los diversos efectos generados por la multiculturalidad en el ámbito educacional y siendo más específicos aún, en la Educación Física a nivel escolar. Este estudio utilizará como muestra a los colegios municipales de la Región Metropolitana. La característica principal del estudio se basa en ver el cómo se adaptan las instituciones educacionales y la clase de Educación Física con respecto al aumento de extranjeros y los efectos de la multiculturalidad generados en la Región Metropolitana