El conflicto de Yugoslavia (Kosovo) y el nuevo orden internacional post Guerra Fría.

A finales del siglo XX, 1999, Kosovo, hasta entonces provincia de Serbia, se transforma en un Protectorado de las Naciones Unidas como acto, tal vez no final, pero si culminante del proceso de disolución de la Federación Yugoslava, que fundada en 1945 por Josip Broz, Tito, ha visto la separación de cuatro de las seis repúblicas federadas en la década de los noventa (Eslovenia, Croacia, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina) quedando reducida a Serbia y Montenegro. A la fecha, Serbia tenía dos provincias autónomas, Kosovo y la Voivodina. El mandato de la ONU sobre Kosovo implica para Serbia la pérdida de la provincia, cuna de la iglesia ortodoxa yugoslava y emblema del nacionalismo serbio. Pero el conflicto de Kosovo no es reciente, él se inicia en la Baja Edad Media. El presente trabajo pretende aproximarse a la comprensión de este elemento puntual del proceso histórico mundial contemporáneo: Kosovo (en lo específico, Serbia como referente inmediato, Yugoslavia en lo general y la región de los Balcanes como referente mayor) en la perspectiva del ejercicio actual de consolidación de un poder mundial unipolar, cuya concreción más evidente en lo geoestratégico, es la OTAN. La región de los Balcanes, Yugoslavia, el conflicto de Kosovo más puntualmente, es en consecuencia, el objeto, el elemento de estudio de esta tesis; la configuración actual del poder, el nuevo orden mundial unipolar, su horizonte de intelección. Y es que ambos procesos, las guerras de secesión de la pasada década en Yugoslavia, por un lado, y por otro, la instauración de un poder global, planetario, están vinculados, en su núcleo, por un acontecimiento previo de colosal importancia: el desmantelamiento de la URSS, la proclamación de Rusia como Estado independiente de la hasta entonces Unión Soviética al comienzo de esa década, el consiguiente fin de la Guerra Fría, igual que el fin del alineamiento bipolar de las naciones en la escena internacional. Y si el tema a considerar se entrecruza, apenas planteado, con instancias complejas: la llamada comunidad internacional, el mercado, la red global de información, aquello nos muestra la no casual imbricación, la interdependencia de actores y acciones en el escenario contemporáneo; implica que aproximarse a la trama de Kosovo es acercarse al mismo tiempo al entramado entero mundial, a fuerzas y voluntades, a relaciones activas, históricas, estructurales, que configuran –bajo la atenta mirada del poder- el sentido de la sociedad humana en su historia como presente. Y lo dicho de modo precedente determina también el asumir una hipótesis, que parece tener un correlato plausible en los hechos, aunque no sea la única que pueda plantearse como 6 explicativa de los mismos. En términos generales dicha hipótesis se apoya en el teorizar de Noam Chomsky y afirma que: el proceso de disolución de la República Federal Yugoslava, la secuela de guerra provocada por esa diáspora, es la manifestación inequívoca y fehaciente de un nuevo orden mundial unipolar detentado, en lo básico, por Washington. Es decir, que la consolidación de EE.UU. como potencia hegemónica, en lo económico, político y militar, ha dado paso a una forma de Estado mundial sui géneris que reclama para sí la supremacía en el nuevo orden internacional. El cometido, por tanto, será intentar demostrar que la hipótesis es válida, que funciona en independencia y correlación con otras hipótesis posibles, que su poder explicativo no es inferior a aquellas y que más allá de su aparente reduccionismo –lo unipolar contrapuesto a lo multipolar- tal reduccionismo, de haberlo, no es sino el correlato de la acelerada concentración del poder mundial en la esfera del poder norteamericano.

El femi(ni)cidio como expresión de dominio patriarcal

La utilización de los términos femicidio y feminicidio en Ecuador, es relativamente reciente, y aunque no existe una figura penal que acoja alguna de estas denominaciones, a priori se refiere al homicidio de mujeres. El concepto de femicidio fue introducido en los debates sobre violencia contra las mujeres en los 70, para referirse al asesinato perpetuado por hombres a mujeres, motivados por un sentido de poder y al mismo tiempo de desprecio o desvalorización de sus cuerpos y proyectos de vida. Diana Rusell, feminista estadounidense, planteó la definición de femicidio, con el objeto de que al nombrar los crímenes de mujeres en manos de hombres, sea más fácil identificarlos en el ámbito de la política sexual, y para que estos dejen de ser asumidos como cuestiones privadas y/o patológicas, y más bien sean analizados como expresión del dominio patriarcal: “Cuando los hombres matan a las mujeres [...] el poder dinámico de la misoginia y el sexismo está involucrado”.1 Siguiendo esta línea de reflexión, la Comisión de Transición hacia el Consejo de las Mujeres y la Igualdad de Género, explica que al hablar de femicidio se refiere a las muertes violentas de mujeres, que no se producen en forma casual, y tampoco son producto de actos de violencia social generalizada. Por otro lado, recalca que los femicidios ocurren bajo lógicas y dinámicas distintas que las que envuelven los homicidios de hombres causados por hombres

Display, disclosure and concealment: the organization of raw materials in the chambered tombs of Bohuslän

The Neolithic chambered tombs of Bohuslan on the west coast of Sweden were built out of locally occurring raw materials. These exhibit a wide variety of colours, textures and mineral inclusions, and all were used to contrive a series of striking visual effects. Certain of these would have been apparent to the casual observer but others would only have been apparent to someone inside the passage or the burial chamber. There is no evidence that the materials were organized according to a single scheme. Rather, they permitted a series of improvisations, so that no two monuments were exactly alike. The effects that they created are compared with those found in megalithic art where the design elements were painted or carved, but in Bohuslan all the designs were created using the natural properties of the rock.

Risk management and the corporate real estate portfolio

In a global business economy, firms have a broad range of corporate real estate needs. During the past decade, multiple strategies and tactics have emerged in the corporate real estate community for meeting those needs. We propose here a framework for analysing and prioritising the various types of risk inherent in corporate real estate decisions. From a business strategy perspective, corporate real estate must serve needs beyond the simple one of shelter for the workforce and production process. Certain uses are strategic in that they allow access to externalities, embody the business strategy, or provide entrée to new markets. Other uses may be tactical, in that they arise from business activities of relatively short duration or provide an opportunity to pre-empt competitors. Still other corporate real estate uses can be considered “core” to the existence of the business enterprise. These might be special use properties or may be generic buildings that have become embodiments of the organisation’s culture. We argue that a multi-dimensional matrix approach organised around three broad themes and nine sub-categories allow the decision-maker to organise and evaluate choices with an acceptable degree of rigor and thoroughness. The three broad themes are Use (divided into Core, Cyclical or Casual) – Asset Type (which can be Strategic, Specialty or Generic) and Market Environment (which ranges from Mature Domestic to Emerging Economy). Proper understanding of each of these groupings brings critical variables to the fore and allows for efficient resource allocation and enhanced risk management.

Accommodative instability: relationship to progression of early onset myopia

Background: In a previous study, we demonstrated that children with early onset myopia had greater instability of accommodation than a group of emmetropic children. Since that study was correlational, we were unable to determine the causal relationship between this and myopic progression. To address this, we examined the children two years later. We predicted that if accommodative instability was causing the myopic progression, instability at Visit 1 should predict the refractive error at Visit 2. Additionally, instability at Visit 1 should predict myopic progression. Methods: Thirteen myopic and 16 emmetropic children were included in the analysis. Dynamic measures of accommodation were made using eccentric photorefraction (PowerRefractor) while children viewed targets set at three distances (accommodative demands), namely, 0.25 metres (4.00 D demand), 0.5 metres (2.00 D demand) and 4.00 metres (0.25 D demand). Results: Both refractive error and accommodative instability at Visit 1 were highly correlated with the same measures at Visit 2. Children with myopia showed greater instability of accommodation (0.38 D) than children with emmetropia (0.26 D) at the 4.00 D target on Visit 1 and this instability of accommodation weakly predicted myopic progression. Conclusions: The results presented in the present study suggest that instability of accommodation accompanies myopic progression, although a casual relationship cannot be established.

Variation among Attic fine wares: the case of the Pan Painter's pelikai

This paper is a case study of the continuum between standardization and variation in the production of red-figure Athenian fine wares in the first half of the 5th century BC. An investigation of the Pan Painter's pelikai reveals that they fall into 3 distinct groups, according to size. While the pelikai in each group are also distinguishable from each other by shape, pattern, and iconography, the next clearest distinction between the groups (after size) is in their style of decoration. The pelikai in the largest group, which is comprised of small pelikai, are particularly distinct from the Pan Painter's broader oeuvre of ca. 220 vases insofar as they exemplify a lackadaisical painting style, which I have termed banausic, on account of its frequent use for images of craftsmen, women at work, and other such genre images. While this casual style is antithetical to the Pain Painter's refined style, for which he is better known, and which he employs for his large pelikai, affinities between the 2 styles—as judged by his confident line, anatomical details, and other technical features—permit the conclusion that this group of pelikai were executed by one and the same craftsman as the others. As with all of the vases attributed to this talented painter, however, the pelikai—whether large or small—are decorated with a great bariety of images. While most painted Athenian vases are understood to have been individually created, not mass-produced, the Pan Painter's coherent group of small pelikai seem to have been created en masse, in a uniform size and shape and with a distinct decorative style. This group of standardized vases represents a body of work executed under the influence or at the behest of a specific vase workshop. The form of the small pelikai in fact allows us to associate them with the Geras Painter. With his work on these small pelikai, perhaps in the latter part of his career, the Pan Painter may have intentionally minimized variability in favour of standardization, to meet market demands.

Typographic meaning: readers’ impressions of patterns of typographic differentiation

This research explores whether patterns of typographic differentiation influence readers’ impressions of documents. It develops a systematic approach to typographic investigation that considers relationships between different kinds of typographic attributes, rather than testing the influence of isolated variables. An exploratory study using multiple sort tasks and semantic differential scales identifies that readers form a variety of impressions in relation to how typographic elements are differentiated in document design. Building on the findings of the exploratory study and analysis of a sample of magazines, the research describes three patterns of typographic differentiation: high, moderate, and low. Each pattern comprises clusters of typographic attributes and organisational principles that are articulated in relation to a specified level of typographic differentiation (amplified, medium, or subtle). The patterns are applied to two sets of controlled test material. Using this purposely-designed material, the influence of patterns of typographic differentiation on readers’ impressions of documents is explored in a repertory grid analysis and a paired comparison procedure. The results of these studies indicate that patterns of typographic differentiation consistently shape readers’ impressions of documents, influencing judgments of credibility, document address, and intended readership; and suggesting particular kinds of engagement and genre associations. For example, high differentiation documents are likely to be considered casual, sensationalist, and young; moderate differentiation documents are most likely to be seen as formal and serious; and low differentiation examples are considered calm. Typographic meaning is shown to be created through complex, yet systematic, interrelationships rather than reduced to a linear model of increasing or decreasing variation. The research provides a way of describing typographic articulation that has application across a variety of disciplines and design practice. In particular, it illuminates the ways in which typographic presentation is meaningful to readers, providing knowledge that document producers can use to communicate more effectively.

My generation(s): cycles, branding and renewal in E4’s 'Skins'

In an era of fragmenting audience and diversified viewing platforms, youth television needs to move fast and make a lot of noise in order to capture and maintain the attention of the teenage viewer. British ensemble youth drama Skins (E4, 2007-2013) calls attention to itself with its high doses of drugs, chaotic parties and casual attitudes towards sexuality. It also moves quickly, shedding its cast every two seasons as they graduate from school, then renewing itself with a fresh generation of 16 year old characters - three cycles in total. This essay will explore the challenges of maintaining audience connections whilst resetting the narrative clock with each cycle. I suggest that the development of the Skins brand was key to the programme’s success. Branding is particularly important for an audience demographic who increasingly consume their television outside of broadcast flow and essential for a programme which renews its cast every two years. The Skins brand operate as a framework, as the central audience draw, have the strength to maintain audience connections when it ‘graduates’ those characters they identify with at the close of each cycle and starts again from scratch. This essay will explore how the Skins brand constructs a cohesive identity across its multiple generations, yet also consider how the cyclic form poses challenges for the programme’s representations and narratives. This cyclic form allows Skins to repeatedly reach out to a new audience who comes of age alongside each new generation and to reflect shifts in British youth culture. Thus Skins remains ever-youthful, seeking to maintain an at times painfully hip identity. Yet the programme has a somewhat schizophrenic identity, torn between its roots in British realist drama and surrealist comedy and an escapist aspirational glamour that shows the influence of US Teen TV. This combination results in a tendency towards a heightened melodrama at odds with Skins claims for authenticity - its much vaunted teenage advisors and young writers - with the cyclic structure serving to amplify the programme’s excessive tendencies. Each cycle wrestles with a need for continuity and familiarity - partly maintained through brand, aesthetic and setting - yet a desire for freshness and originality, to assert difference from what has gone before. I suggest that the inevitable need for each cycle to ‘top’ what has gone before results in a move away from character-based intimacy and the everyday to high-stakes drama and violence which sits uncomfortably within British youth television.

Amor intellectualis diaboli

An essay on love and liberty in the writings of Gillian Rose, Marquis de Sade, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, written in response to the following provocation: "Encore un effort. A banderole publicitaire carries the breathless descriptions of the new fashions for 1968, when anything goes and details place the accent on this or that part of the body and its adornment: a pair of shoes that come off in a struggle, for example, the heel of one snapped off; a striking checked shirt, with two buttons undone; a light-coloured trench coat (perfect for a May day); a blouson-style jacket that allows easy freedom of movement; place casual slacks worn with an ankle boot. Beauty is in the streets as fashion becomes democratic (or so say the houses of haute couture), while the philosopher of the boudoir extorts us once again to make an effort if we wish to be republicans. Here, to an assembled crowd of sensitive men and women, which petit-maitre or dangerous man of principles would suggest that the only moral system to reinforce political revolution is that of libertinage, the revenge of nature's course against the aberrations of society?"

Vikten av säkra nätverk

The purpose of this thesis is to show how to use vulnerability testing to identify and search for security flaws in networks of computers. The goal is partly to give a casual description of different types of methods of vulnerability testing and partly to present the method and results from a vulnerability test. A document containing the results of the vulnerability test will be handed over and a solution to the found high risk vulnerabilities. The goal is also to carry out and present this work as a form of a scholarly work.The problem was to show how to perform vulnerability tests and identify vulnerabilities in the organization's network and systems. Programs would be run under controlled circumstances in a way that they did not burden the network. Vulnerability tests were conducted sequentially, when data from the survey was needed to continue the scan.A survey of the network was done and data in the form of operating system, among other things, were collected in the tables. A number of systems were selected from the tables and were scanned with Nessus. The result was a table across the network and a table of found vulnerabilities. The table of vulnerabilities has helped the organization to prevent these vulnerabilities by updating the affected computers. Also a wireless network with WEP encryption, which is insecure, has been detected and decrypted.

Likelihood estimate of treatment effects under selection bias

We consider methods for estimating causal effects of treatment in the situation where the individuals in the treatment and the control group are self selected, i.e., the selection mechanism is not randomized. In this case, simple comparison of treated and control outcomes will not generally yield valid estimates of casual effects. The propensity score method is frequently used for the evaluation of treatment effect. However, this method is based onsome strong assumptions, which are not directly testable. In this paper, we present an alternative modeling approachto draw causal inference by using share random-effect model and the computational algorithm to draw likelihood based inference with such a model. With small numerical studies and a real data analysis, we show that our approach gives not only more efficient estimates but it is also less sensitive to model misspecifications, which we consider, than the existing methods.

Gestão de conhecimentos e desempenho: evidências de uma amostra de Organizações do Terceiro Setor no Rio de Janeiro

This dissertation examines the implications of the organizational capability for the performance of organizations of the Third Sector. That relationship is examined in a sample of five organizations with headquarters in the city of the Rio de Janeiro, and acting in peculiar segments, like health, childhood and adolescence, sustainable development, environment and social inclusion. The organizational capability was studied from existing analytical frameworks available in the international literature, and adapted for this dissertation. The kinds of empirical evidences are quantitative and qualitative on first hand, and were obtained by multiple techniques: interviews, direct-site observation, exam of documents and casual meetings. These evidences indicators were examined in used in two levels: individual, specific of each one of the organizations, and general, common to all the organizations researched. Concerning organizational capability, the exam of the empirical evidences revealed that the organizations that had had the most significant development in terms of the dimensions identified by Tremblay (1998) as of high performance - that¿s the case of CIEDS and CDI -, were the ones with the best organizational performance. Another relevant point shown by the evidences is the importance of the dimension management attitude to human resources development, similar to previous studies presented by Tremblay (1998), Leonard-Barton (1998) and Figueiredo (2003). The study also shows that the organizations which developed projects aiming at the review and the improvement of managerial practices, approaching them to the models adopted by private companies, had the best performances among the researched group.

Uma avaliação do acesso à qualidade de vida dos moradores dos bairros Rubem Berta e Moinhos de Vento, em Porto Alegre/RS

De acordo com o Censo Demográfico do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), realizado no ano de 2000 (PMPA, 2004a, 2004b), existem grandes disparidades socioeconômicas entre os bairros Rubem Berta e Moinhos de Vento, em Porto Alegre/RS. Como exemplo, o rendimento médio mensal dos responsáveis pelo domicílio nos bairros referidos, captados em 2000, foi de 29,33 salários mínimos no bairro Moinhos de Vento e de 4,05 salários mínimos no bairro Rubem Berta. Inicialmente, elege-se o quesito renda para, então, partir-se em busca de dimensões mais abrangentes em termos de qualidade de vida. Objetiva-se verificar o acesso à qualidade de vida dos habitantes dos bairros Rubem Berta e Moinhos de Vento realizando-se um estudo comparativo entre os dois bairros pesquisados, por meio da Abordagem da Capacitação e, mais especificamente, das capacitações centrais de Martha Nussbaum (2000), como também sob a impressão dos próprios sujeitos estudados. Discute-se também a possibilidade do enfoque da capacitação contribuir para a elaboração e avaliação de programas sociais. Uma pesquisa de campo caracteriza o tipo de estudo. O método de investigação é a análise interpretativa, fundamentada em entrevistas baseadas nas dez capacitações centrais de Nussbaum (2000), bem como nos métodos comparativo e observacional casual. As entrevistas foram realizadas junto a membros das associações de moradores dos bairros Rubem Berta (Associação Comunitária de Moradores do Conjunto Residencial Rubem Berta - AMORB) e Moinhos de Vento (Moinhos Vive). Como resultados, a pesquisa apresenta alguns elementos que levam a crer que seis blocos temáticos (dos dez abordados) sintetizam as maiores preocupações dos moradores do bairro Rubem Berta (saúde; violência; nutrição e habitação; planejamento familiar; educação, cultura e diversão; e meio ambiente), e que dois blocos temáticos (violência e meio-ambiente) constituem as maiores preocupações do bairro Moinhos de Vento.

Diagnóstico de microalbuminúria em pacientes com diabete melito

A microalbuminúria representa o primeiro estágio da nefropatia diabética (ND) e, além de prever a evolução para nefropatia clínica e insuficiência renal, é acompanhada de elevado risco de doença cardiovascular. Este trabalho discute o curso clínico, valores e procedimentos utilizados no diagnóstico da microalbuminúria em pacientes com diabete melito (DM). A progressão de microalbuminúria para nefropatia clínica é menor do que inicialmente suposto. O rastreamento da microalbuminúria deve ser realizado por ocasião do diagnóstico de DM tipo 2, em pacientes com DM tipo 1 após 5 anos de duração de DM e por ocasião da puberdade. A microalbuminúria é diagnosticada com valores de excreção urinária de albumina (EUA 24-h) entre 20-200 μg/min, embora valores elevados ainda dentro da faixa normal já sejam preditivos de nefropatia clínica. A concentração de albumina em amostra casual de urina, além de ser facilmente realizada, é o teste de maior acurácia e menor custo para o rastreamento da microalbuminúria. Contudo, o diagnóstico deve ser confirmado com EUA 24-h. Fitas reagentes para medida semi-quantitativa apresentam baixa acurácia, além de alto custo. No presente momento, a albuminúria é ainda o melhor teste para prever a instalação da nefropatia clínica.

Aprendizado Evolucionário, Inércia Inflacionária e Recessão em Desinflações Monetárias

Este artigo busca justificar a evidência casual de que desin‡ações monetárias tendem a ser acompanhadas de queda no produto utilizando-se doarcabouç odaTeoriados Jogos Evolucioná rios. A aplicaç ã odeste arcabouç otem oseu apeloporquecombinaduas hipóteses frequentemente apontadas como responsá veis pelo fato de que desin‡aç ões críveis têm custos: racionalidade limitada e falha de coordenaç ã o. A aná lise das desin‡aç õesconstitui-senaaná lisedatransiç ã oentredoisequilíbriosestacioná rios. A dinâmicadaeconomiaem direç ã oaonovoequilíbriodojogo deestabelecimentodepreç os édadapeladinâmicareplicadora, que usa uma regra de seleç ã o de estratégias muito simples: estratégias que apresentam desempenho piorque a média têm sua utilizaç ã o reduzida ao longo do tempo. O s custos da desin‡aç ã o em nosso modelo depende doquã orá pidoagentes passivos, que adotavam a estratégia ótima para o equilíbrio in‡acioná rio, se convertem em agentes ativos, que adotam estratégias maximizadoras duranteatransiç ã o.