Ni crisis ni panaceas: dinámicas y transformaciones de los sistemas partidarios en América Latina

A nivel global, tanto en la literatura especializada como en el debate público, la desafección ciudadana hacia la cosa pública, el debilitamiento de los partidos políticos y el aumento de la abstención contribuyeron a asentar la idea de una crisis de los sistemas de partidos y de la democracia. Diferentes indicadores darían cuenta de esta crisis: el desarraigo social de los partidos que consagró el modelo del partido cartel (Katz y Mair 1995); el declive de la militancia (Van Biezen, Mair y Poguntke 2012; Whiteley 2011); la erosión de las estructuras partidarias tradicionales capturadas por el lobby corporativo (Crouch 2004 [2014], 112) o la tecnocracia; la pérdida de capacidad de los líderes para construir partidos programáticos que expresaran identidades políticas duraderas (Cheresky 2006; Dalton 2004; Luna 2014b); o su incapacidad para responder con una mayor deliberación interna a los desafíos de la representación política (Accetti y Wolkenstein 2017).Fil: Alenda, Stéphanie. Universidad Andrés Bello; ChileFil: Varetto, Carlos Augusto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martin. Escuela de Politica y Gobierno. Centro de Estudios Federales y Electorales; Argentin

Raggiungere la parità di genere nella ricerca scientifica: linee guida e strumenti per il cambiamento istituzionale.

Nei paesi dell’Unione Europea, le donne rappresentano il 46% di coloro che ottengono il titolo di dottore di ricerca, ma solo il 32% dei ricercatori attivi e il 20% dei professori. Negli ultimi vent’anni, sono state finanziate varie iniziative per promuovere una maggiore uguaglianza di genere nel campo della ricerca scientifica; tuttavia i risultati sono stati insoddisfacenti e non hanno aiutato a superare le barriere discriminatorie di tipo strutturale e culturale che limitano la partecipazione delle donne nella scienza. Le disparità che consolidano un regime di disuguaglianza nei luoghi di lavoro in ambito scientifico ed accademico si producono e si consolidano in molti e diversi aspetti delle organizzazioni, spesso invisibili. La DG Ricerca della Commissione Europea, con l’obiettivo di combattere le disuguaglianze che si sviluppano all’interno delle organizzazioni, ha destinato una linea specifica di finanziamenti, all’interno del Settimo Programma Quadro Ricerca e Sviluppo, al sostegno di progetti volti a promuovere cambiamenti strutturali nelle organizzazioni scientifiche per giungere ad una maggiore uguaglianza di genere. Queste linee guida sono il risultato dall’attività di uno dei primi progetti ad essere finanziati in questa linea e presentano una serie di strumenti per rafforzare la consapevolezza sulle dimensione del genere nella gestione organizzativa e per avviare cambiamenti strutturali ed istituzionali nelle organizzazioni di ricerca, sulla base delle esperienze maturate nel progetto Genis Lab

Practical Aspects of the Validation of Toxicity Test Procedures

This is the report of the fifth of a series of workshops organised by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM). ECVAM's main goal, as defined in 1993 by its Scientific Advisory Committee, is to promote the scientific and regulatory acceptance of alternative methods which are of importance to the biosciences and which reduce, refine or replace the use of laboratory animals.JRC.(EI)-Environment Institut

Safety assessment of food-contact paper and board using a battery of short-term toxicity tests: European union BIOSAFEPAPER project

International audienceAn European Union (EU)-funded project QLK1-CT-2001-00930 (BIOSAFEPAPER) involves the development, validation and intercalibration of a short-term battery of toxicological tests for the safety assessment of food-contact paper and board. Dissemination of the results to industry, legislators (e.g. DG Consumer Protection, DG Enterprises, DG Research), standardization bodies such as CEN, and consumers will create an agreed risk evaluation procedure. The project involves pre-normative research in order to establish a set of in-vitro cytotoxicity and genotoxicity tests that will be easily adaptable to food-contact fibre-based materials and have endpoints relevant to consumer safety, including sub-lethal cellular events. These tests will be performed on samples representing actual migration conditions from food-contact paper and board with respect to different foodstuffs, and should form an experimental basis for scientifically sound recommendations for a harmonized system of risk evaluation and product testing

An Inter-laboratory Study to Evaluate the Effects of Medium Composition on the Differentiation and Barrier Function of Caco-2 Cell Lines

Differentiated human intestinal Caco-2 cells are frequently used in toxicology and pharmacology as in vitro models for studies on intestinal barrier functions. Since several discrepancies exist among the different lines and clones of Caco-2 cells, comparison of the results obtained and optimisation of models for use for regulatory purposes are particularly difficult, especially with respect to culture conditions and morphological and biochemical parameters. An inter-laboratory study has been performed on the parental cell line and on three clonal Caco-2 cell lines, with the aim of standardising the culture conditions and identifying the best cell line with respect to parameters relevant to barrier integrity, namely, trans-epithelial electrical resistance (TEER) and mannitol passage, and of epithelial differentiation (alkaline phosphatase activity). Comparison of the cell lines maintained in traditional serum-supplemented culture medium or in defined medium, containing insulin, transferrin, selenium and lipids, showed that parameter performance was better and more reproducible with the traditional medium. The maintenance of the cell lines for 15 days in culture was found to be sufficient for the development of barrier properties, but not for full epithelial differentiation. Caco-2/TC7 cells performed better than the other three cell lines, both in terms of reproducibility and performance, exhibiting low TEER and mannitol passage, and high alkaline phosphatase activity.JRC.I.2-Validation of biomedical testing method