International economic relations and regional co-operation of Latin America = Las relaciones económicas internacionales y la cooperación regional en América Latina

Includes bibliography

Digital proficiency and digital inclusion: Comparison between students of computer science, public relations and engineering

New information and communication technologies may be useful for providing more in-depth knowledge to students in many ways, whether through online multimedia educational material, or through online debates with colleagues, teachers and other area professionals in a synchronous or asynchronous manner. This paper focuses on participation in online discussion in e-learning courses for promoting learning. Although an important theoretical aspect, an analysis of literature reveals there are few studies evaluating the personal and social aspects of online course users in a quantitative manner. This paper aims to introduce a method for diagnosing inclusion and digital proficiency and other personal aspects of the student through a case study comparing Information System, Public Relations and Engineering students at a public university in Brazil. Statistical analysis and analysis of variances (ANOVA) were used as the methodology for data analysis in order to understand existing relations between the components of the proposed method. The survey methodology was also used, in its online format, as a research instrument. The method is based on using online questionnaires that diagnose digital proficiency and time management, level of extroversion and social skills of the students. According to the sample studied, there is no strong correlation between digital proficiency and individual characteristics tied to the use of time, level of extroversion and social skills of students. The differences in course grades for some components are partly due to subject 'Introduction to Economics' being offered to freshmen in Public Relations, whereas subject 'Economics in Engineering' is offered in the final semesters of Engineering and Information Systems courses. Therefore, the difference could be more tied to the respondent's age than to the course. Information Systems students were observed to be older, with access to computers and Internet at the workplace, compared to the other students who access the Internet more often from home. This paper presents a pilot study aimed at conducting a diagnosis that permits proposing actions for information and communication technology to contribute towards student education. Three levels of digital inclusion are described as a scale to measure whether information technology increases personal performance and professional knowledge and skills. This study may be useful for other readers interested in themes related to education in engineering. © 2013 IEEE.

Cebus cf. apella exhibits rapid acquisition of complex stimulus relations and emergent performance by exclusion

A "second generation" matching-to-sample procedure that minimizes past sources of artifacts involves (1) successive discrimination between sample stimuli, (2) stimulus displays ranging from four to 16 comparisons, (3) variable stimulus locations to avoid unwanted stimulus-location control, and (4) high accuracy levels (e.g., 90% correct on a 16-choice task in which chance accuracy is 6%). Examples of behavioral engineering with experienced capuchin monkeys included four-choice matching problems with video images of monkeys with substantially above-chance matching in a single session and 90% matching within six sessions. Exclusion performance was demonstrated by interspersing non-identical sample-comparison pairs within a baseline of a nine-comparison identity-matching-to-sample procedure with pictures as stimuli. The test for exclusion presented the newly "mapped" stimulus in a situation in which exclusion was not possible. Degradation of matching between physically non-identical forms occurred while baseline identity accuracy was sustained at high levels, thus confirming that Cebus cf. apella is capable of exclusion. Additionally, exclusion performance when baseline matching relations involved non-identical stimuli was shown.

Knowledge and culture: two significant issues for local level development programme analysis

O artigo objetiva propor um arcabouço teórico para analisar programas de desenvolvimento e suas ações em nível local. Em particular, o artigo destaca dois conceitos-chave que devem ser levados em consideração no processo de implementação de programas de desenvolvimento em nível local: conhecimento e cultura. O artigo mostra que o entendimento do conhecimento enquanto construção social contrasta com a perspectiva racional e positivista de que este é derivado exclusivamente da ciência. O artigo mostra que se desenvolvimento é relacionado para a melhoria das condições de vida das pessoas por via de mudanças econômicas e sociais, então, desenvolvimento é mediado e impacta sobre conhecimento e cultura.

Bone Marrow'S Harvest in The Coxal Tuberosity for Isolation and Culture of Mesenchymal Stem Cells of Buffaloes (Bubalus Bubalis)

Several studies with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been developed in many species because of its ability to differentiate into other mesoderm lineages, capacity of self-regeneration, low immunogenicity, paracrine, anti-inflamatory, immunomodulatory and antiapoptotic effects which make then a promissory source to be used in therapeutic strategies. The aim of this study is to report the technique of harvest of bone marrow (BM) in the coxal tuberosity (CT) of buffaloes. For this, the animals were selected, identified and contained in a stock. Then trichotomy was performed in the region corresponding to the CT. After identifying the anatomic site it was performed antisepsis, local anesthetic block and introduction of a myelogram's needle (Lang(R)) for BM aspiration. Once the needle was firmly fixed in the CT, the mandril was removed and proceeded to BM aspiration with a syringe (20 mL) containing 1 ml of heparin at 1000 IU / mL and 1 mL of PBS. After the collection, each sample collected was manually homogenized, identified and referred to the LRACT - FMVZ / UNESP-BRAZIL for the correct processing. The anatomical site tested showed to be an alternative site of harvest of BM once provided the appropriate isolation and culture of the mononuclear fraction. Moreover, the procedure was performed without difficulty and with great security. Based on this, it can be conclude that CT is an excellent anatomical site for isolation and culture of MSCs and the proposed technique is viable and feasible to be held in buffaloes.

Assessing melatonin and its oxidative metabolites amounts in biological fluid and culture medium by liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS/MS)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Daily photosynthesis, water relations, and ion concentrations of uuonymus irrigated with treated wastewater

Euonymus japonica Thunb. (euonymus) plants were submitted for 9 months to two irrigation treatments using water from different sources: a control (C) water with electrical conductivity (EC) less than 1.2 dS.m(-1) and reclaimed wastewater (RW) with EC approximate to 4 dS.m(-1). At the end of the experiment, no differences in the total dry weight were observed between treatments, whereas the leaf dry mass increased (to the detriment of the root part in RW plants). Throughout the day, the stem water potential (Psi(stem)) of the RW plants was lower than in C, whereas stomatal conductance (g(S)) was slightly reduced in RW from 0800 HR to 1200 HR, but no significant variation in photosynthesis (P-n) or energy conversion efficiency (F'(v)/F'(m)) in photosystem II was detected through the effect of salinity. Gas exchange and fluorescence showed a tendency to increase after midday in plants treated with RW. The photosynthetic behavior and fluorescence of RW plants may have been related to the nitrogen and chlorophyll content of the leaves, confirming the resistance of the photosynthetic mechanism to salinity in this species in these conditions. The toxic effects produced by high concentrations of boron (B), sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-) were offset by the effect of other ions like magnesium (Mg2+), potassium (K+), and phosphorus (P) in plants irrigated with RW, thus improving their physiological status without decreasing their ornamental value.

The use of a mixture of somatic and culture filtrate antigens in the evaluation of the immune response to Paracoccidioides brasiliensis

Three Paracoccidioides brasiliensis antigens, namely a culture filtrate preparation, a somatic antigen and a mixture of equal parts of the two, were tested by two serological techniques against sera from patients with paracoccidioidomycosis, and in an in vivo delayed hypersensitivity model in mice. The antigen mixture was more sensitive than the two individual antigens for the evaluation of humoral and cellular immune response to P. brasiliensis, both in man and in experimental animals.

Orthogonality relations and supercharacter formulas of U(m vertical bar n) representations

In this paper we obtain the orthogonality relations for the supergroup U(m|n), which are remarkably different from the ones for the U(N) case. We extend our results for ordinary representations, obtained some time ago, to the case of complex conjugated and mixed representations. Our results are expressed in terms of the Young tableaux notation for irreducible representations. We use the supersymmetric Harish-Chandra-Itzykson-Zuber integral and the character expansion technique as mathematical tools for deriving these relations. As a byproduct we also obtain closed expressions for the supercharacters and dimensions of some particular irreducible U(m|n) representations. A new way of labeling the U(m|n) irreducible representations in terms of m + n numbers is proposed. Finally, as a corollary of our results, new identities among the dimensions of the irreducible representations of the unitary group U(N) are presented. © 1997 American Institute of Physics.

African American and Teaching in Higher Education IS a Course on Race and Culture

Using theoretical applications, the authors present an overview of theories that highlight approaches for teaching culturally sensitive content, personal experiences as educator and colleague in a predominantly white college campus and strategies for addressing culturally insensitive experiences in and outside the classroom. Presenters focus on the recruitment and retention of people of color and stress the need for today's predominantly white institutions to become more knowledgeable, tolerant and sensitive about their environments in an effort to make them more accepting.

Clownfish : comercial interest and culture

Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Facultad de Ciencias del Mar. Trabajo Fin de Título para la obtención del Graduado en Ciencias del Mar ; 2013-2014

The firm. Techno-organizational changes, industrial relations and performances. An enquiry on Reggio Emilia local industrial system

It is not unknown that the evolution of firm theories has been developed along a path paved by an increasing awareness of the organizational structure importance. From the early “neoclassical” conceptualizations that intended the firm as a rational actor whose aim is to produce that amount of output, given the inputs at its disposal and in accordance to technological or environmental constraints, which maximizes the revenue (see Boulding, 1942 for a past mid century state of the art discussion) to the knowledge based theory of the firm (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995; Nonaka & Toyama, 2005), which recognizes in the firm a knnowledge creating entity, with specific organizational capabilities (Teece, 1996; Teece & Pisano, 1998) that allow to sustaine competitive advantages. Tracing back a map of the theory of the firm evolution, taking into account the several perspectives adopted in the history of thought, would take the length of many books. Because of that a more fruitful strategy is circumscribing the focus of the description of the literature evolution to one flow connected to a crucial question about the nature of firm’s behaviour and about the determinants of competitive advantages. In so doing I adopt a perspective that allows me to consider the organizational structure of the firm as an element according to which the different theories can be discriminated. The approach adopted starts by considering the drawbacks of the standard neoclassical theory of the firm. Discussing the most influential theoretical approaches I end up with a close examination of the knowledge based perspective of the firm. Within this perspective the firm is considered as a knowledge creating entity that produce and mange knowledge (Nonaka, Toyama, & Nagata, 2000; Nonaka & Toyama, 2005). In a knowledge intensive organization, knowledge is clearly embedded for the most part in the human capital of the individuals that compose such an organization. In a knowledge based organization, the management, in order to cope with knowledge intensive productions, ought to develop and accumulate capabilities that shape the organizational forms in a way that relies on “cross-functional processes, extensive delayering and empowerment” (Foss 2005, p.12). This mechanism contributes to determine the absorptive capacity of the firm towards specific technologies and, in so doing, it also shape the technological trajectories along which the firm moves. After having recognized the growing importance of the firm’s organizational structure in the theoretical literature concerning the firm theory, the subsequent point of the analysis is that of providing an overview of the changes that have been occurred at micro level to the firm’s organization of production. The economic actors have to deal with challenges posed by processes of internationalisation and globalization, increased and increasing competitive pressure of less developed countries on low value added production activities, changes in technologies and increased environmental turbulence and volatility. As a consequence, it has been widely recognized that the main organizational models of production that fitted well in the 20th century are now partially inadequate and processes aiming to reorganize production activities have been widespread across several economies in recent years. Recently, the emergence of a “new” form of production organization has been proposed both by scholars, practitioners and institutions: the most prominent characteristic of such a model is its recognition of the importance of employees commitment and involvement. As a consequence it is characterized by a strong accent on the human resource management and on those practices that aim to widen the autonomy and responsibility of the workers as well as increasing their commitment to the organization (Osterman, 1994; 2000; Lynch, 2007). This “model” of production organization is by many defined as High Performance Work System (HPWS). Despite the increasing diffusion of workplace practices that may be inscribed within the concept of HPWS in western countries’ companies, it is an hazard, to some extent, to speak about the emergence of a “new organizational paradigm”. The discussion about organizational changes and the diffusion of HPWP the focus cannot abstract from a discussion about the industrial relations systems, with a particular accent on the employment relationships, because of their relevance, in the same way as production organization, in determining two major outcomes of the firm: innovation and economic performances. The argument is treated starting from the issue of the Social Dialogue at macro level, both in an European perspective and Italian perspective. The model of interaction between the social parties has repercussions, at micro level, on the employment relationships, that is to say on the relations between union delegates and management or workers and management. Finding economic and social policies capable of sustaining growth and employment within a knowledge based scenario is likely to constitute the major challenge for the next generation of social pacts, which are the main social dialogue outcomes. As Acocella and Leoni (2007) put forward the social pacts may constitute an instrument to trade wage moderation for high intensity in ICT, organizational and human capital investments. Empirical evidence, especially focused on the micro level, about the positive relation between economic growth and new organizational designs coupled with ICT adoption and non adversarial industrial relations is growing. Partnership among social parties may become an instrument to enhance firm competitiveness. The outcome of the discussion is the integration of organizational changes and industrial relations elements within a unified framework: the HPWS. Such a choice may help in disentangling the potential existence of complementarities between these two aspects of the firm internal structure on economic and innovative performance. With the third chapter starts the more original part of the thesis. The data utilized in order to disentangle the relations between HPWS practices, innovation and economic performance refer to the manufacturing firms of the Reggio Emilia province with more than 50 employees. The data have been collected through face to face interviews both to management (199 respondents) and to union representatives (181 respondents). Coupled with the cross section datasets a further data source is constituted by longitudinal balance sheets (1994-2004). Collecting reliable data that in turn provide reliable results needs always a great effort to which are connected uncertain results. Data at micro level are often subjected to a trade off: the wider is the geographical context to which the population surveyed belong the lesser is the amount of information usually collected (low level of resolution); the narrower is the focus on specific geographical context, the higher is the amount of information usually collected (high level of resolution). For the Italian case the evidence about the diffusion of HPWP and their effects on firm performances is still scanty and usually limited to local level studies (Cristini, et al., 2003). The thesis is also devoted to the deepening of an argument of particular interest: the existence of complementarities between the HPWS practices. It has been widely shown by empirical evidence that when HPWP are adopted in bundles they are more likely to impact on firm’s performances than when adopted in isolation (Ichniowski, Prennushi, Shaw, 1997). Is it true also for the local production system of Reggio Emilia? The empirical analysis has the precise aim of providing evidence on the relations between the HPWS dimensions and the innovative and economic performances of the firm. As far as the first line of analysis is concerned it must to be stressed the fundamental role that innovation plays in the economy (Geroski & Machin, 1993; Stoneman & Kwoon 1994, 1996; OECD, 2005; EC, 2002). On this point the evidence goes from the traditional innovations, usually approximated by R&D investment expenditure or number of patents, to the introduction and adoption of ICT, in the recent years (Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2000). If innovation is important then it is critical to analyse its determinants. In this work it is hypothesised that organizational changes and firm level industrial relations/employment relations aspects that can be put under the heading of HPWS, influence the propensity to innovate in product, process and quality of the firm. The general argument may goes as follow: changes in production management and work organization reconfigure the absorptive capacity of the firm towards specific technologies and, in so doing, they shape the technological trajectories along which the firm moves; cooperative industrial relations may lead to smother adoption of innovations, because not contrasted by unions. From the first empirical chapter emerges that the different types of innovations seem to respond in different ways to the HPWS variables. The underlying processes of product, process and quality innovations are likely to answer to different firm’s strategies and needs. Nevertheless, it is possible to extract some general results in terms of the most influencing HPWS factors on innovative performance. The main three aspects are training coverage, employees involvement and the diffusion of bonuses. These variables show persistent and significant relations with all the three innovation types. The same do the components having such variables at their inside. In sum the aspects of the HPWS influence the propensity to innovate of the firm. At the same time, emerges a quite neat (although not always strong) evidence of complementarities presence between HPWS practices. In terns of the complementarity issue it can be said that some specific complementarities exist. Training activities, when adopted and managed in bundles, are related to the propensity to innovate. Having a sound skill base may be an element that enhances the firm’s capacity to innovate. It may enhance both the capacity to absorbe exogenous innovation and the capacity to endogenously develop innovations. The presence and diffusion of bonuses and the employees involvement also spur innovative propensity. The former because of their incentive nature and the latter because direct workers participation may increase workers commitment to the organizationa and thus their willingness to support and suggest inovations. The other line of analysis provides results on the relation between HPWS and economic performances of the firm. There have been a bulk of international empirical studies on the relation between organizational changes and economic performance (Black & Lynch 2001; Zwick 2004; Janod & Saint-Martin 2004; Huselid 1995; Huselid & Becker 1996; Cappelli & Neumark 2001), while the works aiming to capture the relations between economic performance and unions or industrial relations aspects are quite scant (Addison & Belfield, 2001; Pencavel, 2003; Machin & Stewart, 1990; Addison, 2005). In the empirical analysis the integration of the two main areas of the HPWS represent a scarcely exploited approach in the panorama of both national and international empirical studies. As remarked by Addison “although most analysis of workers representation and employee involvement/high performance work practices have been conducted in isolation – while sometimes including the other as controls – research is beginning to consider their interactions” (Addison, 2005, p.407). The analysis conducted exploiting temporal lags between dependent and covariates, possibility given by the merger of cross section and panel data, provides evidence in favour of the existence of HPWS practices impact on firm’s economic performance, differently measured. Although it does not seem to emerge robust evidence on the existence of complementarities among HPWS aspects on performances there is evidence of a general positive influence of the single practices. The results are quite sensible to the time lags, inducing to hypothesize that time varying heterogeneity is an important factor in determining the impact of organizational changes on economic performance. The implications of the analysis can be of help both to management and local level policy makers. Although the results are not simply extendible to other local production systems it may be argued that for contexts similar to the Reggio Emilia province, characterized by the presence of small and medium enterprises organized in districts and by a deep rooted unionism, with strong supporting institutions, the results and the implications here obtained can also fit well. However, a hope for future researches on the subject treated in the present work is that of collecting good quality information over wider geographical areas, possibly at national level, and repeated in time. Only in this way it is possible to solve the Gordian knot about the linkages between innovation, performance, high performance work practices and industrial relations.

„This is TZ power! Kenkey can’t do this!“ : Die performative Aushandlung nationaler Kultur ; das National Festival of Arts and Culture in Ghana /// Arbeitspapiere / Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien ; 92

Der vorliegende Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der performativen Aushandlung nationaler Kultur auf dem National Festival of Arts and Culture, das 2006 in Wa, Nordwestghana, stattfand. Die Autorin nahm an der Vorbereitung und Planung des Festivals in lokalen staatlichen Kulturinstitutionen teil, und beobachtete die Diskussionen um die Repräsentation einer (imaginierten) spezifischen Kultur des Nordens in scharfer Abgrenzung zu der des als dominant und diskriminierend empfundenen Südens. In diesem Zusammenhang werden Fragen der Authentizität und Authentifizierung, wie sie in der Planung und Rezeption diskutiert wurden, aufgegriffen und mit der Konzeption des Festivals als gleichzeitig einheitsstiftendes Vehikel für nationale Identität und als Austragungsort eines Wettbewerbs der Regionen um Anerkennung und Ressourcen in Verbindung gesetzt. Das Festival, so die Argumentation, ist eine cultural performance, die das Wesen einer „Kultur“ nicht nur abbildet, sondern auch die Möglichkeit des Wandels und der Subversion birgt. Performance meint hier also gleichzeitig die Aufführung und das Skript der Diskurse, die der Aufführung Bedeutung zuschreiben. Diesen doppelten Ansatz verfolgt der Artikel durch die Verknüpfung von Festivalbeobachtungen und Komiteesitzungsmitschriften im Rahmen der Vorbereitung.