Consejo De Research Articles

Clearing the king’s conscience: tyranny and legal fiction in the New Laws of 1542

ABSTRACT This essay argues that the New Laws of 1542 responded both legislatively and narratively to contemporary suspicions that Spanish rule in America constituted a tyranny, which, if true, would invalidate Charles V’s exclusive rights of sovereignty and property on the continent. To affirm the legitimacy of Charles’s authority, the New Laws showed him exercising good governance: reforming the corrupt Consejo de Indias, expanding the duties of the lackadaisical Audiencias, restricting the privileges of abusive encomenderos, and mandating the good treatment of his Amerindian vassals. The changes that the New Laws prescribe for the councilors’, oidores’, and encomenderos’ behavior tell the story of a righteous monarch defending the public good against the incursions of greedy and faithless subordinates, suggesting that they—not he—are the true authors of tyranny in Spanish America.

Massive testing in the Galapagos Islands and low positivity rate to control SARS-CoV-2 spread during the first semester of the COVID-19 pandemic: a story of success for Ecuador and South America.

During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America, countries like Ecuador, Peru and Colombia experienced chaotic scenarios with public health systems collapsing and lack of testing capacity to control the spread of the virus. In main cities like Guayaquil in Ecuador, dramatic situations such as corpses in the streets were internationally broadcasted. While the COVID-19 pandemic was devastating South America, SARS-CoV-2 transmission was successfully managed in the Galapagos Islands due to the implementation of a massive screening strategy including hospitalized and community-dwelling populations, and travel restrictions facilitated by its geographical location (972 km from the Ecuadorian continental territory). Floreana Island was one of the few locations in the world that remained COVID-19 free during 2020. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the data related to SARS-CoV-2 massive testing campaigns from April to September 2020 in the Galapagos Islands, and found this territory to have the lowest positivity rate in South America (4.8-6.7%) and the highest testing ratio among Ecuadorian provinces (9.87% of the population, which is 2480 out of 25 124 inhabitants) during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This story of success was possible because of the interinstitutional collaboration between the regional government of Galapagos Islands (Consejo de Gobierno), the local authorities (Gobiernos Autonomos Descentralizados de Santa Cruz, San Cristobal and Isabela), the regional authorities from Ecuadorian Ministry of Health, the Agencia de Regulación y Control de la Bioseguridad y Cuarentena para Galápagos and Universidad de Las Américas.

Information and Revolt: The Use of Communications and the Exercise of Power in the Tuxtla Riot of 1693

In May 1693, the indian town of Tuxtla began a riot in which an Indian governor, the alcalde mayor of Chiapas, and his alguacil were killed. The local authorities had to find out about what had happened and coordinate their efforts to manage the calm and punishment of the mutineers, reporting it to the monarch subsequently. Starting from this particular case, in this paper we propose an approach to the reality of these communications and their role in the exercise of power. To do this, we will use as main sources the letters sent to the Consejo de Indias from American territory, whose content will allow us to reflect on the construction of the story about the events and their journey.

Brain cancer after radiation exposure from CT examinations of children and young adults: results from the EPI-CT cohort study

The European EPI-CT study aims to quantify cancer risks from CT examinations of children and young adults. Here, we assess the risk of brain cancer. We pooled data from nine European countries for this cohort study. Eligible participants had at least one CT examination before age 22 years documented between 1977 and 2014, had no previous diagnosis of cancer or benign brain tumour, and were alive and cancer-free at least 5 years after the first CT. Participants were identified through the Radiology Information System in 276 hospitals. Participants were linked with national or regional registries of cancer and vital status, and eligible cases were patients with brain cancers according to WHO International Classification of Diseases for Oncology. Gliomas were analysed separately to all brain cancers. Organ doses were reconstructed using historical machine settings and a large sample of CT images. Excess relative risks (ERRs) of brain cancer per 100 mGy of cumulative brain dose were calculated with linear dose-response modelling. The outcome was the first reported diagnosis of brain cancer after an exclusion period of 5 years after the first electronically recorded CT examination. We identified 948 174 individuals, of whom 658 752 (69%) were eligible for our study. 368 721 (56%) of 658 752 participants were male and 290 031 (44%) were female. During a median follow-up of 5·6 years (IQR 2·4-10·1), 165 brain cancers occurred, including 121 (73%) gliomas. Mean cumulative brain dose, lagged by 5 years, was 47·4 mGy (SD 60·9) among all individuals and 76·0 mGy (100·1) among people with brain cancer. A significant linear dose-response relationship was observed for all brain cancers (ERR per 100 mGy 1·27 [95% CI 0·51-2·69]) and for gliomas separately (ERR per 100 mGy 1·11 [0·36-2·59]). Results were robust when the start of follow-up was delayed beyond 5 years and when participants with possibly previously unreported cancers were excluded. The observed significant dose-response relationship between CT-related radiation exposure and brain cancer in this large, multicentre study with individual dose evaluation emphasises careful justification of paediatric CTs and use of doses as low as reasonably possible. EU FP7; Belgian Cancer Registry; La Ligue contre le Cancer, L'Institut National du Cancer, France; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research; Worldwide Cancer Research; Dutch Cancer Society; Research Council of Norway; Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear, Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain; US National Cancer Institute; UK National Institute for Health Research; Public Health England.

Actions for the confirmation of the continuous improvement plan for the Educational Program in Chemical Engineering at UAEMéx

The objective of this work was to reflect on the responsibility that the educational program in Chemical Engineering at UAEMex has in translating its intentions into actions, as well as establishing an organised process for continuous planning and systemic evaluation which is reflected in a continuous improvement plan. This process entails the inclusion of tools that permit the evaluation or self-evaluation of the measurements and forms in which the educational program is improving its actions in achieving the criteria established by the acreditory organisation Consejo de Acreditación de la Enseñanza de la Ingeniería (CACEI) (Accreditation Board for the Teaching of Engineering) in their Marco de Referencia (Frame of Reference) 2018 in the international context.

Reforma constitucional para eliminar el Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social en el Ecuador

La presente investigación tuvo como objetivo principal proponer una reforma constitucional para eliminar el Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social en el Ecuador. Su metodología fue de tipo aplicada y su diseño descriptivo-propositiva, utilizando como muestra 107 ciudadanos de Guayaquil, obtenidos por el muestreo no probabilístico por conveniencia, a la cual se les administró los instrumentos: Reforma Constitucional y del Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social creados por el autor y evaluados por cinco jueces expertos. Los resultados indican que el estado actual del CPCCS es percibido como inadecuado tras no cumplir con sus funciones descritas en nuestra Constitución 2008. Además, según la teoría existen factores influyentes en el consejo, tales como: derechos ciudadanos, rendición de cuentas y mecanismos de control. Se diseñó la reforma la cual propone el retorno de las funciones a la Asamblea Nacional para el cumplimiento de los derechos de todos los ciudadanos y evitar la corrupción. Por último, se concluye que la reforma permitirá traer resultados positivos para la institucionalidad y por ende a los ciudadanos del Ecuador.

Las prácticas pedagógicas mediadas por tecnologías digitales en espacios curriculares de alto contenido práctico

This article summarizes a research about teaching practices under digital technologies (TD) in curricular areas with high practical content (ECACP) in blended-modality courses of Plan 2017, from the Instituto Normal de Enseñanza Técnica (INET). This type of classes, with practical content like workshops and lab work, are taught through a virtual platform from the Consejo de Formación en Educación (CFE) and are complemented with a thirty percent of in-person classes. There is also the possibility of using videoconferencing. Teachers are responsible for designing strategies to address the practical aspects of their courses using virtual digital technologies. Questions arise regarding the problems faced by the teachers, how they handle them, which are the critical aspects to solve and which are the most successful strategies that can be used as an input by other teachers. This is a descriptive study in which semi-structured interviews with three teachers, the observation of their virtual classrooms and the analysis of documentation have been used as data-collection instruments.

El uso de Schoology en CFE durante la emergencia sanitaria

In this article, the authors present the work done in the “Consejo de Formacion en Educacion” (CFE) in context of the health emergency. The institutional response allowed going from an uncertain initial situation, in which the aspiration was to maintain a link between students and teachers, to a final situation in which it was possible to continue with the curricular activities through distance education without this implying resign academic quality.The work carried out by the Academic Unit of Educational Technology (UATE), which accompanied teachers and students in their incursion into the work in Virtual Platforms, is described. This support included the creation of users, classrooms, video tutorials and manuals with recommendations for academic performance.The work and patience of the students stand out, as they had to adapt to a new reality in the course of the subjects and also in the teaching practices, so important in the training of teachers. And it also highlights the work and solidarity of the teaching community that from one day to the other saw their entire work routine disrupted. Finally, the work carried out by the Guiding Teachers in Technology (DOT) and the Articulating Teachers in Technology (DAT), who carried on their shoulders the administration of virtual spaces and guidance to the CFE community, is greatly appreciated.

COVID-19 fake news diffusion across Latin America

Fact-checking verifies a multitude of claims and remains a promising solution to fight fake news. The spread of rumors, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories online is evident in times of crisis, when fake news ramped up across platforms, increasing fear and confusion among the population as seen in the COVID-19 pandemic. This article explores fact-checking initiatives in Latin America, using an original Markov-based computational method to cluster topics on tweets and identify their diffusion between different datasets. Drawing on a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, including time-series analysis, network analysis and in-depth close reading, our article proposes an in-depth tracing of COVID-related false information across the region, comparing if there is a pattern of behavior through the countries. We rely on the open Twitter application programming interface connection to gather data from public accounts of the six major fact-checking agencies in Latin America, namely Argentina (Chequeado), Brazil (Agência Lupa), Chile (Mala Espina Check), Colombia (Colombia Check from Consejo de Redacciín), Mexico (El Sabueso from Animal Polótico) and Venezuela (Efecto Cocuyo). In total, these profiles account for 102,379 tweets that were collected between January and July 2020. Our study offers insights into the dynamics of online information dissemination beyond the national level and demonstrates how politics intertwine with the health crisis in this period. Our method is capable of clustering topics in a period of overabundance of information, as we fight not only a pandemic but also an infodemic, evidentiating opportunities to understand and slow the spread of false information.

Las informaciones a petición de parte y los memoriales episcopales como vías de promoción personal, a través de la correspondencia del obispo quiteño fray Pedro de Oviedo (1629-1647)

This study surveys the routes to promotion followed by lawyers and churchmen in the New World, as seen in the correspondence between bishop Pedro de Oviedo and the Consejo de Indias (Council administering Spain's American possessions) from 1629 to 1647. It falls into three parts. The first concentrates on the character of this prelate of Quito in Ecuador. The second analyses their desire for preferment and the routes they took to obtain it, and the degree to which these were effective. The third puts together a list of the individuals most insistently recommended by the Bishop, who was a Cistercian frian.

Council of Paleontology of INAH: Background and perspectives

The paleontological heritage refers to the movable (fossils) and immovable (paleontological deposits) assets of a nation. In Mexico, as in other countries, this heritage has problems such as commercial exploitation, urban growth, damage, illicit traffic, among others. The federal government agency responsible for protecting, preservation, restoration, and research of the paleontological heritage in Mexico is the "Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia", supporting the "Consejo de Paleontología", created in 1994. The Council suspended its activities in 2000. However, due to the current problems facing the paleontological heritage, the Council of Paleontology restarted activities in 2017 as a consultative-chartered organ that advises the INAH General Directorate on research, preservation, protection, and science outreach of the paleontological heritage located in the Mexican territory. This work aims to show the reason and purpose of creating the Council of Paleontology of INAH, the stages in which it has been working, the first from 1994 to 2000, and its reactivation in 2017. In addition, the different perspectives that each Council has had and the proposed solutions to the particular problems that each of them has faced.

Margins of documents, center of power: a case study on the Consejo de Indias’ annotated paperwork and the construction of legality in an imperial archive

This article focuses on a set of reports sent from the Spanish overseas territories in the New World to the Consejo de Indias (Council of the Indies) in Spain. Special attention will be paid to the annotations that appear in the margins of the documents, since they bring light to the activities that were taken over by a wide array of the Consejo’s officials in order to treat the information that came from America. We will demonstrate that such activities—classifying, summarizing, but also linking documents to one another across time and space—were at the core of the process of decision-making in the Spanish monarchy. The main challenge of this research, however, is that most of the marginal annotations were anonymous, and that not all of them were written by the same person, nor did they have the same functions. In order to overcome those obstacles, we will combine a visual, paleographic, and textual study of the sources aimed at exploring the links between the overseas reports, the marginal annotations and the royal decrees to which they had given rise. In doing so, we will highlight the paradoxical nature of the archive which, through its classifying process, gives access to a wide range of documents and, at the same time, separates them from one another and even tends to erase the connections that used to exist between them. Examining the margins of the documents will thus enable us to better understand the relationship between archival techniques, political communication and the development of imperial legality in the Spanish monarchy.

Allocating medical resources fairly:the CSG bioethics guide.

On April 12, 2020, a bioethics guide for allocating scarce hospital resources during the current Covid-19 pandemic was posted on the website of the Consejo de Salubridad General(CSG) of the Government of Mexico. The guide, entitled Guía bioética para asignación de recursos limitados de medicina crítica en situación de emergencia, was intended as a preliminary document, but the website posting did not describe it as a first step in the process. The publicity resulted in a wide array of comments and criticisms. That first version posted on the CSG website contained an age-based criterion for breaking a tie between two or more medically eligible patients who needed of a ventilator: younger patients would have prefer-ence over older ones. The final version of the guide eliminated that criterion and instead, relied on the leading public health principle, "save the most lives", without regard to personal characteristics other than the possibility of benefitting from the scarce medical resources.

Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire

Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire

Políticas públicas y etnicidad

El presente escrito explora la articulación existente entre la etnicidad y el Estado a partir del análisis de dos organizaciones indígenas urbanas: el “Consejo Indígena de Almirante Brown” -de Bueno Aires- y el “Consejo de Lonkos” -de La Pampa- . Indagaremos acerca de las estrategias que ambos consejos llevaron a cabo tanto para incrementar la visibilización local como su participación política al interior de la estructura municipal para repensar los procesos de negociación alcance y resistencia de la práctica política indígena.

Oposición en Twitter como novedad en las elecciones seccionales 2019 en Ecuador

In the regional elections of March 24, 2019, in Ecuador, 11,069 popularly elected dignitaries were chosen among main and alternate candidates. In the two years of Lenin Moreno's government, no opposition has been identified from the territories or the traditional media, and digital communication has marked a passive media agenda. The 2019 elections presented a different panorama for the executive and this is due to the involvement of former president Rafael Correa, who is currently the face of the opposition in social networks utilizing Twitter and promoting the political movement Fuerza Compromiso Social (FCS). In this research, a mixed methodology was applied. The analytical method was used for compiling, with observational tools, the Tweets generated during the 45 days of the campaign. Also, using the synthetic method, the results of the regional elections from the official page of the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), the National Electoral Council, were analyzed in order to know how a social network influenced the Ecuadorian electoral campaign and, from this perspective, to evaluate the state of democracy after the regional elections of March 2019 in Ecuador. About the candidates, FCS, also known as List 5, gave priority to the candidates of the Prefectures and the candidates who stood for election to the Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social (Council for Citizen Participation and Social Control). One of the main conclusions is that the means of visualization of the candidacies are not equitable and are constructed through social networks. In the case of FCS, this is strengthened in the digital realm since it maintained its presence as a party in the electoral registry of the CNE by obtaining 5% of the total registered electorate which is the minimum percentage required to participate in the 2021 elections.

Medidas administrativas con efectos expropiatorios en Colombia: el caso de los contratos de concesión minera

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether rights that derive from a mining concession are protected when governmental measures, that are not expropriatory per se, are adopted; but that nevertheless encroach upon the rights that derive from a mining concession. To this end, this article conducts a general study of the concepts of private property, acquired rights, and their social and environmental functions, based on a review of scholarly research and the case- law of the Corte Constitucional (Constitutional Court) and the Consejo de Estado (Council of State). In particular, this paper analyses how the social and environmental functions of property can be pursued with government measures that are not expropriations, and which thus affect private property or acquired rights indirectly. The State’s regulatory activity has affected the rights that derive from mining titles, limiting the title holders’ rights, without a previous formal expropriation procedure nor an indemnity. The paper concludes that the protection of these rights under Colombian law, implies, for the title holder, the costly procedure of resorting to administrative litigation to seek compensation, which goes against the general interest of the State and the rights of the title holder.

Chazuta: subnational governments and internationalization of the agro-industrial value chain

Chazuta: subnational governments and internationalization of the agro-industrial value chain

Vigencia anticipada del código general del proceso para la jurisdicción de lo contencioso administrativo

Este artículo científico busca analizar el auto del Consejo de Estado – Sala Plena de lo Contencioso Administrativo, de junio 25 de 2014, C.P. Enrique Gil Botero, en el cual se señaló que el Código General del Proceso entró a regir para la Jurisdicción de lo Contencioso Administrativo de manera plena el 1º de enero de 2014. A partir de éste, se determinará la competencia o no de la Sala Plena de lo Contencioso Administrativo del Consejo de Estado para proferir, por importancia jurídica, autos que les remitan con tal fin las secciones o subsecciones; de igual manera, se analizará si el numeral 3 del artículo 111 del CPACA, pese a ser una norma ordinaria, tenía la facultad de derogar el numeral 5 del artículo 37 de la ley 270 de 1996, LEAJ (Ley Estatutaria de Administración de Justicia) En igual sentido, se hará un estudio pormenorizado de todas las razones que esgrimió la Sala Plena de lo Contencioso Administrativo del Consejo de Estado, para señalar que el Código General del Proceso entró en vigencia para la Jurisdicción de lo Contencioso Administrativo desde el 1 de enero de 2014, realizándose una disertación en cuanto a la competencia de este órgano judicial para adoptar dicha determinación, las consecuencias de la misma y la real fecha de entrada en vigencia del Código General del Proceso para aquella jurisdicción.

Fire development in multi‐compartment facilities: PRISME 2 project

Fire development in multi‐compartment facilities: PRISME 2 project