La renuncia a la equidad y la domesticación de la epidemiología

Bajo las presentes condiciones históricas y el modelo de acumulación por despojo, se producen un empobrecimiento extremo, la destrucción de las condiciones de vida y el deterioro de la integridad ambiental. La lógica de las grandes corporaciones avanza demoliendo las condiciones de vida, al tiempo que las movilizaciones sociales impulsan creativamente los derechos humanos y la defensa de la salud; pero el mundo académico reacciona con exasperante pasividad e indolencia. Los departamentos de las universidades, las agencias gubernamentales locales y nacionales y hasta las organizaciones no gubernamentales siguen en la línea de programas inefectivos e inocuos, muchos de los cuales son sostenidos por costosos aparatos propagandísticos. Programas que no van a las raíces de los problemas y que terminan reproduciendo y reforzando las propias reglas del juego neoliberal. En esta ponencia se explican aquello que el autor define como renuncia de la salud pública y la incapacidad institucional para mirar las raíces de esa floreciente patología de la inequidad y el divorcio entre los apararos burocráticos de la salud con la lucha de los pueblos.

Lucio Gutiérrez y el fracaso de un proyecto autoritario: reflexiones sobre la crisis de legitimidad política en el Ecuador

Entre noviembre de 2004 y abril de 2005, el Ecuador se encontró en una situación similar a la que vivió el Perú a inicios de los años noventa. Esta situación podría caracterizarse como un intento, por parte de un Ejecutivo elegido democráticamente, de constituir un régimen autoritario y concentrador de todos los poderes. Distinto a la experiencia peruana, este proyecto se valió de una mayoría legislativa y de esa forma utilizó al Congreso para el asalto institucional del país. Además, el proyecto de institucionalización autoritaria de Lucio Gutiérrez apenas tuvo vigencia inicial por unos meses y, más aún, terminó en la destitución inconstitucional del Ejecutivo, la depuración y expulsión de un buen número de legisladores y, lo más grave, la destrucción casi total de la débil institucionalidad democrática ecuatoriana.

Estudio de tres novelas de literatura proyectiva: Guayaquil, novela fantástica de Manuel Gallegos Naranjo, Río de sombras de Jorge Velasco Mackenzie y El libro flotante de Caytran Dölphin de Leonardo Valencia

La rama proyectiva de la literatura, también llamada literatura de anticipación, elabora una crítica cultural, política, social, filosófica y económica del presente al realizar fabulaciones acerca de un futuro donde usualmente se desarrollan distopías. Estos ejercicios se han escrito empleando los códigos de género fantástico, maravilloso y la ciencia ficción para suponer cómo será el destino de las urbes modernas. Dentro de esta línea, la narrativa guayaquileña recrea en sus historias una ciudad en crisis inmanente donde sus habitantes han aprendido a convivir con la idea de la destrucción. Estableciendo un diálogo con el imaginario apocalíptico judeo-cristiano instaurado desde la conquista de América y que ha cobrado un carácter renovado en este continente debido a su contacto con fábulas locales, los textos Guayaquil, novela fantástica (1901) de Manuel Gallegos Naranjo, Río de sombras (2003) de Jorge Velasco Mackenzie y El libro flotante de Caytran Dölphin (2006) de Leonardo Valencia, abordan desde sus propuestas estéticas ligadas con el fin del mundo, el temor de los guayaquileños ante la posible destrucción de su metrópoli. En estas novelas, la principal sensación de amenaza proviene del río junto al cual se construyó y ha crecido la ciudad, por lo que el agua es transformada en una alegoría de la memoria guayaquileña y también de su necesidad de transformación permanente. El haber descubierto una línea de lectura apocalíptica desde la cual abordar estas novelas prospectivas, refresca la mirada sobre el canon ecuatoriano y también ensaya un diálogo diferente con nuestra identidad. Con este conocimiento del fin que se aproxima, los habitantes de la ciudad amenazada deambulamos por sus calles aguardando –a veces con recelo, a veces con esperanza, porque el apocalipsis es también renovación– la llegada de la inundación definitiva.

Guía de metodologías comunitarias participativas: Guía No. 5

Hay una historia del saqueo de la naturaleza, de la explotación de las personas, de la dominación a las mujeres, de maltrato a los niños y desprecio a los ancianos, pero hay también una historia de cuidado y reproducción de la vida, de conocimientos y de construcción de alternativas Los pueblos han mantenido formas de resistencia contra las diferentes formas de opresión y han inventado alternativas para enfrentar el ataque contra los territorios, contra la naturaleza y contra las familias. En esa larga historia de los pueblos se han desarrollado herramientas de trabajo para recoger las aspiraciones y entender las necesidades de las comunidades en diálogo con lo que ocurre en el lugar. Las mejores herramientas han nacido, se han recreado y se han intercambiado desde los haceres y saberes de las mismas comunidades: • Las asambleas como espacios en donde se piensa, se decide y se celebra juntos. • La memoria de los haceres del pasado, de las luchas y de las experiencias de los mayores. • El conocimiento de la relación de todo con todo, de los bosques con el agua, de los suelos, con la biodiversidad, de los cultivos con la cultura, y así sucesivamente. • El conocimiento colectivo sobre el tiempo, los ciclos de la naturaleza, el uso de las plantas medicinales, la agricultura, las artes de la caza, la pesca y la artesanía. • El reconocimiento de los efectos y de las reacciones de la naturaleza en respuesta a las agresiones y a la destrucción. • Las huellas de la penetración del capitalismo dentro de las comunidades con manifestaciones de competencia, individualismo, corrupción. Desde los movimientos sociales y desde las universidades también se han construido herramientas y métodos para identificar, recoger y organizar la información, así como también para presentarla en los escenarios más formales, de tal manera que no sea descalificada o desvalorizada. Esta guía pretende sumar herramientas y compartir metodologías de dentro y de fuera. Aporta con elementos para recoger, organizar y utilizar la información: Construir diagnósticos y estrategias participativas • Facilitar elementos que permitan explicar de mejor manera los efectos de las intervenciones foráneas. • Diseñar y compartir estrategias de protección, de incidencia y de resistencia.

In the intersection of the angles of a table, there is more truth than in all the tangle of muscles: Futurism as anti-humanist critique

The recent celebrations of the centenary of the publication of the Futurist manifesto led to a renewed discussion of the ideas and artworks of the Italian artists’ group. Jacques Rancière related the Futurist ethos with the modernist project of liberating art from representation. Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, in his post-Futurist manifesto, also identified a historical irony at play in the emptying out of Futurism’s promise: a liberated mechanical humanity did indeed materialize, in a global economic system premised on financial servitude to the future via debt. However, these models continue to assess Futurism against an unchallenged humanism, finding it either supporting ideals of freedom and human rights despite itself, or else lacking in these areas. But Futurism is potentially more relevant than ever not in spite of its anti-humanist agenda, precisely because of it. Tom McCarthy annexes not Futurist art but Futurist writing to an emerging object oriented ontology that seeks to challenge the primacy of the human. If Futurism is to be repurposed as a critical concept, it can only do so by countering the humanist myth the liberal subject that underlies the current cultural and political hegemony of neo-liberalism.

Modern lovers

Modern Lovers was a survey show of contemporary art practices in dialogue with modernism, bringing together established and emerging artists based in London and international artists from Berlin, Jerusalem and Zagreb. The show features video, film, installation, sculpture, music and performance work that addresses the legacy of the avant garde and the survival of its aesthetics within contemporary culture. In 1976, as punk rock was busy smashing the cultural rubble left behind by the second world war and rejecting the consumer society that had emerged from the ruins, one band bravely announced that it wanted no part in this destruction. Jonathan Richman's Modern Lovers sang about how they still loved the old world. Neither parents nor girlfriends could understand, but the decaying inner city with its false promises of progress still held a fascination for Richman, who claimed he wanted to keep his place in this arcane landscape. Punk's assault on culture was the logical conclusion of modernism's linear narrative of art as a force of innovation that must reject preceding artistic movements to establish new ones. Echoing the negations of Dada, it set out to put an end to this narrative, an end to culture. It is partly because of this inherently destructive and totalising side of Modernism that it has come under harsh critique in the post modern era. Nevertheless, we are still caught up in the same dialectic of progress, revolution and destruction. Post modernism has failed to unseat our desire for the revolutionary moment, even as it has been co-opted to the degree of meaninglessness by the discourses of marketing and Capitalism. But, like Jonathan Richman, the artists in the exhibition "Modern Lovers" keep returning to modernism for something else. Instead of taking it at its word when it proffers revolution, they turn to it in search of reform. Still loving the old world and desiring a dialogue with the past, perhaps as an antidote to the eternal present of Capitalism, they are willing to engage with its aesthetics and ideas on equal ground. Leaving behind the ironic deconstructions of post modernism, they find perspectives worth salvaging and juxtapose them with contemporary visual productions. Trading in the grand narratives of modernity for a more personal approach, they don't seek the purity of form that drove the avant garde movements that inspire them but rather revel in adulteration, dilution and contamination of the past by the present". A live performance by sala-manca was sponsored by the British Council and took place May 26th, 19:00. MODERN LOVERS was accompanied by a catalogue (14.80 cm x 14.80 cm) including essays by Avi Pitchon, the sala-manca group and the curators. A discussion panel about the exhibition themes, as well as the catalogue launch,took place at Goldsmiths College's cinema on the 27th of May at 14:00, chaired by Dr. Suhail Malik (Senior Lecturer & Course Leader Postgraduate Fine Art Critical Studies at Goldsmiths College) and with the participation of Tom Morton (curator, Cubitt Gallery, and regular contributor to Frieze magazine), sala-manca (artist group), Dr. Amanda Beech (artist, curator and senior lecturer at the Wimbledon School of Art), Matthew Poole (course director of MA Gallery Studies, dept. of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex).

Instructions for an Audio Performance/Scissors Music

‘Instructions for an Audio Performance/Scissors Recording’ is a score for a performance using an amplified scissors that can be downloaded and interpreted by a performer anywhere in the world. The file functions as a manual for the performer with guidance for creating the instrument and preparing the performance space while it also provides a template for the actual sonic pattern to be followed in the live performance. Created originally for ‘Storageroom’ an online platform featuring complete exhibitions that are available for download, the piece was exhibited and interpreted in a live performance by Ayelet Lerman for the File Transfer Protocol, the contemporary section of the Haifa-Jerusalem-Tel Aviv exhibition at the Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel.

Do soldiers' lives matter? A view from proportionality

A military operation is about to take place during an ongoing international armed conflict; it can be carried out either by aerial attack, which is expected to cause the deaths of enemy civilians, or by using ground troops, which is expected to cause the deaths of fewer enemy civilians but is expected to result in more deaths of compatriot soldiers. Does the principle of proportionality in international humanitarian law impose a duty on an attacker to expose its soldiers to life-threatening risks in order to minimise or avert risks of incidental damage to enemy civilians? If such a duty exists, is it absolute or qualified? And if it is a qualified duty, what considerations may be taken into account in determining its character and scope? This article presents an analytic framework under the current international humanitarian law (IHL) legal structure, following a proportionality analysis. The proposed framework identifies five main positions for addressing the above queries. The five positions are arranged along two ‘axes’: a value ‘axis’, which identifies the value assigned to the lives of compatriot soldiers in relation to lives of enemy civilians; and a justification ‘axis’, which outlines the justificatory bases for assigning certain values to lives of compatriot soldiers and enemy civilians: intrinsic, instrumental or a combination thereof. The article critically assesses these positions, and favours a position which attributes a value to compatriot soldiers’ lives, premised on a justificatory basis which marries intrinsic considerations with circumscribed instrumental considerations, avoiding the indeterminacy and normative questionability entailed by more expansive instrumental considerations.

Conversion in late antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and beyond

The papers in this volume were presented at a Mellon-Sawyer Seminar held at the University of Oxford in 2009-2010, which sought to investigate side by side the two important movements of conversion that frame late antiquity: to Christianity at its start, and to Islam at the other end. Challenging the opposition between the two stereotypes of Islamic conversion as an intrinsically violent process, and Christian conversion as a fundamentally spiritual one, the papers seek to isolate the behaviours and circumstances that made conversion both such a common and such a contested phenomenon. The spread of Buddhism in Asia in broadly the same period serves as an external comparator that was not caught in the net of the Abrahamic religions. The volume is organised around several themes, reflecting the concerns of the initial project with the articulation between norm and practice, the role of authorities and institutions, and the social and individual fluidity on the ground. Debates, discussions, and the expression of norms and principles about conversion conversion are not rare in societies experiencing religious change, and the first section of the book examines some of the main issues brought up by surviving sources. This is followed by three sections examining different aspects of how those principles were - or were not - put into practice: how conversion was handled by the state, how it was continuously redefined by individual ambivalence and cultural fluidity, and how it was enshrined through different forms of institutionalization. Finally, a topographical coda examines the effects of religious change on the iconic holy city of Jerusalem.

Massmordet och korsriddaren : En studie av de ämnesövergripande möjligheterna i svenska och historia utifrån film och skönlitteratur

I det här arbetet har jag undersökt hur man kan använda en skönlitterär roman och en underhållningsfilm i ämnesintegrerad undervisning i syfte att uppnå målen i svenska och historia på gymnasiet. Som underlag för mitt arbete har jag använt Steven Spielbergs Schindler´s list och Jan Guillous Vägen till Jerusalem. Min undersökning bygger på en tolkning av styrdokumentens intentioner, samt svensk- och historielärares åsikter om mediernas användbarhet i ämnesintegrerad undervisning. Undersökningen visade att lärare uppfattade filmens och romanens integrationsmöjligheter som mycket väl användbara i syfte att uppnå kursmålen, vilka i sin tur tydligt uttryckte en gemensam nämnare mellan svenska och historia, det vill säga som identitetsskapande. Vidare återfanns förenande element så som en historisk dimension, en kritisk medvetenhet och språket som medium för kommunikation. Genom olika former av diskussioner, analyser och fördjupningsarbeten kan eleven, med utgångspunkt i filmen Schindler´s list och romanen Vägen till Jerusalem uppnå flera av kursmålen för svenska och historia A och B på gymnasienivå.

Auto-eficácia de alunos de administração: um estudo com concluintes do curso de graduação em Administração no Estado do Pará

The current study presents the characteristics of self-efficacy of students of Administration course, who work and do not work. The study was conducted through a field research, descriptive, addressed quantitatively using statistical procedures. Was studied a population composed of 394 students distributed in three Higher Education Institutions, in the metropolitan region of Belém, in the State of Pará. The sampling was not probabilistic by accessibility, with a sample of 254 subjects. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire composed of a set of questions divided into three sections: the first related to sociodemographic data, the second section was built to identify the work situation of the respondent and the third section was built with issues related to General Perceived Self-Efficacy Scale proposed by Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1999). Sociodemographic data were processed using methods of descriptive statistics. This procedure allowed characterizing the subjects of the sample. To identify the work situation, the analysis of frequency and percentage was used, which allowed to classify in percentage, the respondents who worked and those that did not work, and the data related to the scale of self-efficacy were processed quantitatively by the method of multivariate statistics using the software of program Statistical Package for Social Sciences for Windows - SPSS, version 17 from the process of Exploratory Factor Analysis. This procedure allowed characterizing the students who worked and the students who did not worked. The results were discussed based on Social Cognitive Theory from the construct of self-efficacy of Albert Bandura (1977). The study results showed a young sample, composed the majority of single women with work experience, and indicated that the characteristics of self-efficacy of students who work and students who do not work are different. The self-efficacy beliefs of students who do not work are based on psychological expectations, whereas the students who work demonstrated that their efficacy beliefs are sustained by previous experiences. A student who does not work proved to be reliant in their abilities to achieve a successful performance in their activities, believing it to be easy to achieve your goals and to face difficult situations at work, simply by invest a necessary effort and trust in their abilities. One who has experience working proved to be reliant in their abilities to conduct courses of action, although know that it is not easy to achieve your goals, and in unexpected situations showed its ability to solve difficult problems

Production and action pattern of inulinase from Aspergillus Niger-245: hydrolysis of inulin from several sources

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

Purification and characterization of β-Fructosidase with inulinase activity from Aspergillus niger - 245

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

Toward a hierarchical concept of plant stress

A number of attempts have been made to obtain a clear definition of biological stress. However, in spite of the efforts, some controversies on the concept of plant stress remain. The current versions are centered either on the cause (stress factor) or on the effect (stress response) of environmental stress. The objective of this study was to contribute to the definition of stress, using a hierarchical approach. Thus, we have performed an analysis of the most usual stress concepts and tested the relevance of considering different observation scales in a study on plant response to water deficit. Seedlings of Eucalyptus grandis were grown in vitro at water potentials ranging from -0.16 to -0.6 MPa, and evaluated according to growth and biochemical parameters. Data were analyzed through principal component analysis (PCA), which pointed to a hierarchical organization in plant responses to environmental disturbances. Growth parameters (height and dry weight) are more sensitive to water deficit than biochemical ones (sugars, proline, and protein), suggesting that higher hierarchical levels were more sensitive to environmental constraints than lower hierarchical ones. We suggest that before considering an environmental fluctuation as stressful, it is necessary to take into account different levels of plant response, and that the evaluation of the effects of environmental disturbances on an organism depends on the observation scale being used. Hence, a more appropriate stress concept should consider the hierarchical organization of the biological systems, not only for a more adequate theoretical approach, but also for the improvement of practical studies on plants under stress.