[Review of] Paul Lauter, et aI, eds. The Heath Anthology of American Literature

For years editors of standard American literature anthologies have presented undergraduates with a narrow view of the American literary experience. Their anthologies have reflected the predominant view of the academy, which has maintained a traditional literary canon denying the importance of works by women and ethnic authors. This denial has sparked controversy and gained national media attention, resulting in gradual changes in curricula at many universities, including Stanford. As the climate of the undergraduate classroom changes and reflects a wider vision, so must the anthologies used in the classroom. The recently published Heath Anthology of American Literature is just such a work. It challenges convention and invites reevaluation of the standard American literary canon

De arraigos y desarraigos

Libro reseñado:Árabes en Macondo: ensayos y poemas. Jorge García Usta y Aida Teresa Báladi (presentación), Alberto Abello Vives (recopilación y prólogo). El Áncora, Bogotá, 2015, 175 pp., il. En su libro de ensayos Los placeres del exilio, el poeta barbadense George Lamming describe la Ceremonia del Agua del vudú haitiano, mediante la cual los vivos se encuentran con sus muertos para que unos y otros puedan tener un futuro. Los primeros, casi siempre cercanos, convocan a los segundos para hacer las preguntas que se mantienen sin respuesta tras la partida de sus cuerpos. Los difuntos deben contestar para abandonar esa suerte de limbo que es el agua, y los dolientes vivos abrirse a los nuevos horizontes (p. 16).Este libro póstumo de Jorge García Usta, publicado a los diez años de su fallecimiento, convocó afectos para traer a la luz la persistente investigación que realizó este hombre a lo largo de su corta pero prolífica vida, pues muchas de sus facetas permanecieron inéditas, y las que fueron publicadas están dispersas en archivos de periódicos, instituciones o bibliotecas, y en especial de la Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango. Se trata, como el título del libro en parte lo indica, de rastrear la migración de sirio-libaneses y palestinos a Suramérica y el Caribe, especialmente al Caribe colombiano. Mujeres y hombres de procedencias diferentes que, como sus países estuvieron bajo la ocupación otomana hasta principios del siglo XX, viajaban con pasaportes turcos. De allí que a todos se los denominara “turcos” o “árabes” en este país, con las consecuentes limitaciones que la unificación trae consigo

Macroeconomic and policy uncertainty and Exchange rate risk Premium

The goal of this paper is to identify the main determinants of the risk premium in some European currency markets just before the EMU. To that extent, we start from Lucas (1982) exchange rate model and derive an analytical expression for the forward premium. This expression includes money and production variables and it is quite standard, except for the inclusion of macroeconomic policy risk. Under some standard assumptions, this formula simplifies substantially and becomes amenable to regression analysis. Then, using standard measures of money and production, as well as interest rate swap spreads as indicators of macroeconomic policy risk, the theoretical expression is estimated. We provide evidence suggesting that it is policy uncertainty, much more than fundamental macroeconomic uncertainty, which determined risk premium over the convergence process to the euro. Whether these results can be extended to similar experiences for other currency unions remains open for future research.Risk premium, Peso Problem, Macroeconomic policy risk, European monetary System.

Regional development and the action of public investment: the FNDR and the ERDF, a comparative analysis

Regional economic growth and development is triggered by a combination of many factors such as public sector intervention, national and regional policies, and private sector investments. Regional development funds, through the application of pertinent objectives, focusing, participation, and co-ordination can certainly make an important contribution on regional development. In Chile one of the main public sector policy instruments for regional development are the Regional Investment Funds. The role of these funds in the economic and social development of regions in difficulty or whose development is lagging has significantly increased in recent years. The country has had a regional development fund, the "Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Regional" (FNDR) since the mid-1970s. This fund, modest in its beginning, was significantly increased starting in 1985 due to loans from the Inter American Development Bank. The FNDR has played an important role providing basic social infrastructure in regions. However, despite the increasing amount of resources channelled to regions, twenty five-years of existence of the FNDR, and almost a decade since establishment of Regional Governments in Chile, few improvements can be recorded in the way the Regional Funds are being used or on their overall effect on regional development. The main purpose of the study is to analyse the action of the regional development fund of Chile (the FNDR) and its relationship with the overall objective of regional development. Two different empirical approaches evaluated specific effects of the FNDR. The first was concerned with the analysis of particular aspects of the fund labelled as the "key elements" in the running of the FNDR. The second presents and compares the experience of a similar fund for regional development. The fund selected to carry out this comparison was the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The specific questions to the "key elements" address three different aspects of the existence and performance of the fund: questions 1 and 2 deal with the very existence or the overall aim of the fund; questions 3 and 4, with the way the fund is being allocated and used; and question 5 is rather different as it tries to explore the possibility of finding other potentials for regional development, not exploited as such, due to the dominance and statutory primacy of the fund

Continuous Bioprocessing: Technology for Next-Generation Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Development of a Python-coded Bench-scale Raman-based Continuous Bioprocess Platform

Current industrial practices for producing biopharmaceuticals include fed-batch production with batch isolation and purification. Nonproductive hold-up steps and manual offline measurements are common in batch processing which increases processing time and contributes to a high cost of production. Current market trends and cost pressures in the biopharmaceutical industry are creating a push to innovate bioprocessing platforms. Continuous bioprocessing has been considered a solution to the current limitations of batch production of biopharmaceuticals. Continuous bioprocessing involves intensifying individual processing steps by eliminating hold-up steps through a continuous operation to increase productivity, which results in advantages such as lower capital and production costs, higher equipment utilization efficiencies, smaller facility footprints, and increased manufacturing flexibility. Current bottlenecks of implementing continuous bioprocessing include technologies for real-time monitoring and control of critical/key process parameters and versatile scale-down models for process understanding and development. Commercially available platforms for implementing continuous bioprocessing are often expensive and inflexible. Technologies including Raman spectroscopy, perfusion cell culture, and continuous chromatography are explored in this Ph.D. study to develop a proof-of-concept, versatile bench-scale continuous platform driven by open-source software. Real-time, at-line monitoring of critical nutrients for cell culture via Raman spectroscopy allows for providing feedback control to nutrient pumps to maintain a continuous supply of these nutrients to cells for the production of biopharmaceuticals, and the products are continuously harvested in a perfusion process to a two-column platform for protein A capture. The preliminary data supports that the bench-scale platform is readily maneuverable to customized requirements, adaptable for the production of different modalities, and much cheaper for implementation