Examining ‘Latinidad’ in Latin America: race, ‘Latinidad’ and the decolonial option

This article provides a critical account of the idea of race, conceived of and derived from European colonisers in the New World. The paper argues that race became a crucial category to the colonising projects of the New World, and in particular in the distribution of power during colonialism. The paper further examines how the notion of Latinidad (Latinity), entrenched in the term Latin America, continued to enact a discourse of racial superiority/inferiority even after the battles for Independence had taken place. Employing the critical vocabulary and framework of Decolonial theory, the paper introduces key arguments against Western European universality, and calls for a re-reading of the processes that structure privilege across racial and ethnic lines.

Non-homogeneous volatility correlations in the bivariate multifractal model

In this paper, we consider an extension of the recently proposed bivariate Markov-switching multifractal model of Calvet, Fisher, and Thompson [2006. "Volatility Comovement: A Multifrequency Approach." Journal of Econometrics {131}: 179-215]. In particular, we allow correlations between volatility components to be non-homogeneous with two different parameters governing the volatility correlations at high and low frequencies. Specification tests confirm the added explanatory value of this specification. In order to explore its practical performance, we apply the model for computing value-at-risk statistics for different classes of financial assets and compare the results with the baseline, homogeneous bivariate multifractal model and the bivariate DCC-GARCH of Engle [2002. "Dynamic Conditional Correlation: A Simple Class of Multivariate Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity Models." Journal of Business & Economic Statistics 20 (3): 339-350]. As it turns out, the multifractal model with heterogeneous volatility correlations provides more reliable results than both the homogeneous benchmark and the DCC-GARCH model. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Analysis of serious non-AIDS events among HIV-infected adults at Latin American sites

Acquired immune deficiency appears to be associated with serious non-AIDS (SNA)-defining conditions such as cardiovascular disease, liver and renal insufficiency and non-AIDS-related malignancies. We analysed the incidence of, and factors associated with, several SNA events in the LATINA retrospective cohort.

Homogeneous isolation of nanocelluloses by controlling the shearing force and pressure in microenvironment

Nanocelluloses were prepared from sugarcane bagasse celluloses by dynamic high pressure microfluidization (DHPM), aiming at achieving a homogeneous isolation through the controlling of shearing force and pressure within a microenvironment. In the DHPM process, the homogeneous cellulose solution passed through chambers at a higher pressure in fewer cycles, compared with the high pressure homogenization (HPH) process. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrated that entangled network structures of celluloses were well dispersed in the microenvironment, which provided proper shearing forces and pressure to fracture the hydrogen bonds. Gel permeation chromatography (GPC), CP/MAS 13C NMR and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) measurements suggested that intra-molecular hydrogen bonds were maintained. These nanocelluloses of smaller particle size, good dispersion and lower thermal stability will have great potential to be applied in electronics devices, electrochemistry, medicine, and package and printing industry. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Study on nanocellulose by high pressure homogenization in homogeneous isolation

Nanocellulose from cotton cellulose was prepared by high pressure homogenization (HPH) in ionic liquids (1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([Bmim]Cl). The nanocellulose possessed narrow particle size distribution, with diameter range of 10–20 nm. Weight average molecular weight (Mw) of nanocellulose treated by HPH was lower (173.8 kDa) than the one ILs treated cellulose (344.6 kDa). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and Solid-state CP/MAS 13C NMR measurements were employed to study the mechanism of structural changes, which suggested that network structure between cellulose chains were destructed by the shearing forces of HPH in combination with ionic liquids. The intermolecular and intra-molecular hydrogen bonds of cellulose were further destroyed, leading to the long cellulose molecular chains being collapsed into short chains. Therefore, the nanocellulose could provide desired properties, such as lower thermal stability and strong water holding capacity. Results indicated that it had great potential in the applications for packaging, medicines, cosmetics and tissue engineering.

Initiation of trades on the Chinese stock market

The flow of orders from buyers and sellers, relative to past returns and stock characteristics, was examined in the Chinese stock market. Order imbalance (the gap between buyer-and seller-initiated trades) was found to be negatively related to long term returns. Turn of the calendar year trading provided strong indications of tax-motivated trading as well as support for the flight-to-quality hypothesis, which suggests selling in response to perceived increases in market risk.

Volatility dynamics in the term structure of Latin American sovereign international bonds

We examine the nature of volatility dynamics in the term structure of sovereign bonds issued in international markets by major Latin American countries. Focusing only on the U.S. dollar-denominated sovereign international bonds, this study shows the heterogeneous nature of volatility effects that affect the term structure of individual countries in Latin America. Considering the significance of the Argentine credit event in the region, we also account for any change in dynamics following the Argentine default in 2001 by subsampling the pre- and postdefault windows. We also find some evidence of liquidity-driven volatility interaction in the term structure.

Consumption smoothing in Latin America: an empirical assessment of present value models

The study aims to assess the empirical adherence of the permanent income theory and the consumption smoothing view in Latin America. Two present value models are considered, one describing household behavior and the other open economy macroeconomics. Following the methodology developed in Campbell and Schiller (1987), Bivariate Vector Autoregressions are estimated for the saving ratio and the real growth rate of income concerning the household behavior model and for the current account and the change in national cash ‡ow regarding the open economy model. The countries in the sample are considered separately in the estimation process (individual system estimation) as well as jointly (joint system estimation). Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SURE) estimates of the coe¢cients are generated. Wald Tests are then conducted to verify if the VAR coe¢cient estimates are in conformity with those predicted by the theory. While the empirical results are sensitive to the estimation method and discount factors used, there is only weak evidence in favor of the permanent income theory and consumption smoothing view in the group of countries analyzed.