Hacia una economía sostenible: interpretaciones, teorías e indicadores de desarrollo sostenible

[ES] Los enormes problemas de degradación ambiental y la presión a la que se ven sometidos los recursos naturales hoy en día son evidentes. Muchos autores defienden que el equilibrio ecológico y el crecimiento económico según los modelos económicos actuales son incompatibles. Por ello, en las últimas décadas se ha defendido como objetivo lo que se ha denominado desarrollo sostenible. Aunque hay diferentes interpretaciones de este concepto, hay un cierto consenso en que para alcanzarlo, además de considerar los aspectos medioambientales, habrá que hacer también consideraciones económicas y sociales. En cuanto a la dimensión económica, se plantean cambios estructurales en los modelos de desarrollo y en el método para realizar la contabilidad. En la dimensión social se hace hincapié en cuestiones de equidad, intergeneracional, intrageneracional, y entre países desarrollados y en desarrollo. En la dimensión ecológica se plantean la Política Integrada de Producto, el cierre de los ciclos en la producción y el consumo, y técnicas para identificar, cuantificar y caracterizar los impactos ambientales, como el Análisis del Ciclo de Vida o los Indicadores de desarrollo sostenible.

Virtual Reconstruction of the Ancient State of a Ruined Church

Contributed to: 4th International Conference, EuroMed 2012, Limassol, Cyprus, October 29 – November 3, 2012.

Cheese consumption and prevalence of overweight and obesity in a Basque adult population: a crosssectional study

[EN] Studies have reported a negative association between dairy product consumption and weight status. However, not as much research has focused on cheese; therefore, the aim of this study was to study the association between cheese intake and overweight and obesity in a representative Basque adult population. A food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was obtained from a random sample of 1081 adults (530 males and 551 females, 17–96 years old). Cheese consumption data were expressed as g/1000 kcal/day. The prevalence of overweight/obesity was higher in men (55.1%) than in women (35.4%) (p50.001). Participants with low or moderate intake of fresh and processed cheese demonstrated a higher prevalence of excess weight, compared with those with higher consumption. The confounding variables selected in multivariate analysis were occupational status and age in both genders; and place of residence in men. In conclusion, negative associations were found between consumption of some types of cheese and overweight and obesity in this population.

Learning to perceive in the sensor motor approach: Piaget's theory of equilibration interpreted dynamically

Learning to perceive is faced with a classical paradox: if understanding is required for perception, how can we learn to perceive something new, something we do not yet understand? According to the sensorimotor approach, perception involves mastery of regular sensorimotor co-variations that depend on the agent and the environment, also known as the "laws" of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs). In this sense, perception involves enacting relevant sensorimotor skills in each situation. It is important for this proposal that such skills can be learned and refined with experience and yet up to this date, the sensorimotor approach has had no explicit theory of perceptual learning. The situation is made more complex if we acknowledge the open-ended nature of human learning. In this paper we propose Piaget's theory of equilibration as a potential candidate to fulfill this role. This theory highlights the importance of intrinsic sensorimotor norms, in terms of the closure of sensorimotor schemes. It also explains how the equilibration of a sensorimotor organization faced with novelty or breakdowns proceeds by re-shaping pre-existing structures in coupling with dynamical regularities of the world. This way learning to perceive is guided by the equilibration of emerging forms of skillful coping with the world. We demonstrate the compatibility between Piaget's theory and the sensorimotor approach by providing a dynamical formalization of equilibration to give an explicit micro-genetic account of sensorimotor learning and, by extension, of how we learn to perceive. This allows us to draw important lessons in the form of general principles for open-ended sensorimotor learning, including the need for an intrinsic normative evaluation by the agent itself. We also explore implications of our micro-genetic account at the personal level.