Proyecto De Research Articles

Proyectos de paz para Europa de los autores cuáqueros William Penn (1693) y John Bellers (1710)

What was particularly revolutionary in the original Quaker doctrine is the commitment to nonviolence. This found expression as early as 1660 in a declaration...

Estimating Effects of Tidal Power Projects and Climate Change on Threatened and Endangered Marine Species and Their Food Web

Marine hydrokinetic power projects will operate as marine environments change in response to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. We considered how tidal power development and stressors resulting from climate change may affect Puget Sound species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) and their food web. We used risk tables to assess the singular and combined effects of tidal power development and climate change. Tidal power development and climate change posed risks to ESA-listed species, and risk increased with incorporation of the effects of these stressors on predators and prey of ESA-listed species. In contrast, results of a model of strikes on ESA-listed species from turbine blades suggested that few ESA-listed species are likely to be killed by a commercial-scale tidal turbine array. We applied scenarios to a food web model of Puget Sound to explore the effects of tidal power and climate change on ESA-listed species using more quantitative analytical techniques. To simulate development of tidal power, we applied results of the blade strike model. To simulate environmental changes over the next 50 years, we applied scenarios of change in primary production, plankton community structure, dissolved oxygen, ocean acidification, and freshwater flooding events. No effects of tidal power development on ESA-listed species were detected from the food web model output, but the effects of climate change on them and other members of the food web were large. Our analyses exemplify how natural resource managers might assess environmental effects of marine technologies in ways that explicitly incorporate climate change and consider multiple ESA-listed species in the context of their ecological community. Estimación de los Efectos de Proyectos de Energía de las Mareas y el Cambio Climático sobre Especies Marinas Amenazadas y en Peligro y su Red Alimentaria.

Genetic diversity, genetic structure and phylogeography of the Iberian endemicGypsophila struthium(Caryophyllaceae) as revealed by AFLP and plastid DNA sequences: connecting habitat fragmentation and diversification

Financial support was provided by a project from the Consejeria de Economia, Innovacion y Ciencia (Regional Government of Andalusia) and E.R.D.F. (European Regional Development Fund): ‘Proyecto de excelencia P07-RNM03217’. MIM-N was supported by a Junta de Andalucia PhD grant. JGS-M was supported by a Ramon y Cajal postdoctoral contract from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion of Spain.

Two novel missense mutations in iron transport protein transferrin causing hypochromic microcytic anaemia and haemosiderosis: molecular characterization and structural implications

This study was supported in part by a grant BT/PR-13968/MED/12/465/2010 from the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India to ES and by the grant SAF2012-40106 from the Spanish Secretary of Research, Development and Innovation (MINECO) and the grant CIVP16A1857 “Ayudas a proyectos de Investigacion en Ciencias de la Vida- Fundacion Ramon Areces” to M.S. M.S. held a research contract under the Ramon y Cajal program from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (RYC-2008-02352).

Crisis teatral en Madrid durante el Trienio Liberal

In the spring and summer of 1820, the Madrid City Hall systematically failed to comply with the Reglamento de Teatros dictated by the Regency in 1812. The directors of the two troupes, Bernardo Gil and Antonio Gonzalez, attempted in vain to have the constitutional laws enforced. This provoked a serious crisis made worse by the fact that the spectators also showed a preference for other more political venues. The lack of response on the part of the local authorities led the directors to cancel performances for several days in August and to publish a Manifiesto explaining their decision. When, for the following season, the aldermen drew up a new set of regulations which once again contravened the Regency’s Regulations , Bernardo Gil proposed his own Proyecto de Reforma , dated en April of 1821. Apart from a comprehensive proposal for theatrer reform he advances sound arguments defending the actors’ rights as citizens who make an honest living in an honorable profession.

Inclusión educativa de colectivos desfavorecidos. Educación y género. Una mirada desde Argentina.

This work is part of the inter-university Cooperation Project “Inclusion educativa de colectivos desfavorecidos. Educacion y genero”, obtained in the “I Convocatoria de proyectos de Cooperacion al Desarrollo UMU-CAJAMAR”. We collected the work of the National University of Cordoba (Faculty of Philosofy and Humanities. Argentina) and the Universty of Murcia (Spain). We analyzed compliance with Argentine’s laws about education and gender in CENMA schools, the perceptions of teachers and students on equality and gender violence, and the measures used to promote equality and prevent gender violence. The results show a lack of knowledge on Argentine laws regarding gender equality and prevention of gender violence, issues that have not been previously treated in these centers hence, the teachers need materials and training to integrate it continuously and systematically within the curriculum

Necesita El Perú Un Control De Concentraciones? (Does Peru Need a Merger Review System?)

A reflection and assessment of the proposal to amend Peruvian Competition Act in 2012 to introduce a merger review system (proyecto de Ley no 972-2011-CR).

Glutamate modulates the firing rate in oculomotor nucleus motoneurons as a function of the recruitment threshold current

Studies in alert preparations have demonstrated that ocular motoneurons exhibit a phasic–tonic firing rate related to eye velocity and position, respectively. The slopes of these relationships are higher in motoneurons with higher recruitment threshold and have been proposed to depend upon synaptic input. To investigate this hypothesis, motoneurons of the rat oculomotor nucleus were recorded in a brain slice preparation in control conditions and during glutamate (5 μm) application to the bath. Glutamate did not affect membrane potential or input resistance, but produced a decrease in rheobase and depolarization voltage as a function of the current needed for generating a maintained repetitive discharge (recruitment threshold current). In addition, glutamate compressed the range of recruitment threshold current (0.1–0.4 nA) as compared to the control (0.15–0.7 nA). Glutamate exposed motoneurons showed an increase in the tonic frequency gain and the peak frequency. Such increments depended on the recruitment threshold current and the last recruited motoneurons almost doubled the tonic frequency gain (35.2 vs. 57.9 spikes s(−1) nA(−1)) and the peak frequency (52.4 vs. 102.6 spikes s(−1)). Finally, glutamate increased the spike frequency adaptation due to a significant increase in the phasic firing component as compared to the tonic one. In conclusion, glutamate modulates tonic and phasic discharge properties as a function of the recruitment threshold current and, presumably, motoneuron size. These findings contribute to understand the link between cellular functions and motoneuron discharge during oculomotor behaviour.

Abstract 5041: Characterization of the miR-125b1 promoter in breast cancer cell lines

Abstract In cancer cells, transcriptional gene silencing has been associated with genetic and epigenetic defects. The disruption of DNA methylation patterns and covalent histone marks has been associated with cancer development. Until recently, microRNA (miRNA) gene silencing was not well understood. In particular, miR-125b1 has been suggested to be a miRNA with tumor suppressor activity, and it has been shown to be deregulated in various human cancers. In this study, we characterized the promoter of the miR-125b1 and the modifications associated with gene silencing. We studied in silico the miR-125b1 locus to delimit the promoter region and then, we characterized the promoter activity by the luciferase assay, cloning a fragment in the 5′ extreme close to the transcriptional start site of the miR-125b1 gene. We found that this sequence has promoter activity and it is unidirectional. Subsequently, we analyzed the DNA methylation status in the CpG island promoter and found that it was methylated in breast cancer cell lines compared with a non-transformed breast cell line. To determine the effect of DNA methylation in the CpG island of miR-125b1 on the expression of this gene, we performed a qRT-PCR assay. We observed a significant reduction on the expression of miR-125b1 in cancer cells lines in comparison with a non-transformed cell line, suggesting that DNA methylation at the CpG island might reduce the expression of miR-125b1. Our data suggest that the fragment in the 5′ extreme close to the transcriptional start site of the miR-125b1 gene is a functional and unidirectional promoter. Also, the CpG island in this region is methylated in breast cancer cell lines and this methylation is associated with the silencing of the miR-125b1 gene. This work was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT: 83959) and the Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (PAPIIT, IN213311). Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5041. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-5041

Building up an equilateral language learning triangle through innovation and pedagogic improvement: the example of an educational innovation project

In recent years, several initiatives relating to pedagogical innovation have been implemented at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Spain, in order to integrate ICT into current teaching practices by means of combining the efforts made by teachers, students and the institution itself in terms of the support it provides. These three core elements reflect the main theme of the EuroCALL 2011 Nottingham Conference, i.e. the CALL triangle. The paper focuses on the role played by each of these three elements or sides of the equilateral triangle that has been set up in our particular research context. The authors will refer to one of the projects funded by the UPV, known as the Innovation and Improvement in Education Project (Proyecto de Innovación y Mejora Educativa – PIME), which aims to encourage academic staff to engage in projects that provide an added value to a subject by renewing methodologies, rethinking teaching strategies, that is, on innovation. It was this funding initiative that allowed the authors of this paper to complete the final design, development and implementation stages of the recently published InGenio FCE Course & Tester, an online preparatory course and exam simulator for learners wishing to acquire a B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) of competence in English or take the Cambridge First Certificate in English Examination. The authors will refer to the courseware and illustrate how the CALL triangle has been formulated and sustained.

A new taxonomic status for Iberoformica (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) based on the use of molecular markers

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia through project CGL2006-04331 ⁄ BOS (co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund) and by the Junta de Andalucia through the programs Ayudas a Grupos de Investigacion , Group BIO220 and Incentivos a proyectos de investigacion de excelencia , proyect CVI-6807 (co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis: New Therapeutic Approaches

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare disease that affects young women of child-bearing age. It is characterized by the presence of cystic changes in the pulmonary parenchyma, repeated pneumothorax, chylothorax and renal angiomyolipomas, and in the majority of cases it is accompanied by a progressive loss in lung function.1 In the last two decades, there has been an increase in the understanding of LAM, both in its clinical as well as physiopathological aspects and molecular biology. The first case of sporadic LAM was published in 1937,2 but the first national registries were not initiated until the 1990s. In the year 2000, somatic mutations were reported in the genes of tuberous sclerosis (TSC2) in LAM patients.3 Since then, LAM research has grown exponentially, and recently the results have been published from a multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical assay with sirolimus in this disease.4 The true incidence and prevalence of LAM are unknown. In the United States, The LAM Foundation has 1300 registered patients. In Spain, in recent years the LAM registry has been begun through the Integrated Research Project (Proyecto de Investigacion integrada – PII) for Diffuse Interstitial Pulmonary Diseases (Enfermedades Pulmonares Intersticiales Difusas – EPID) of the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (Sociedad Espanola de Neumologia y Cirugia Toracica – SEPAR). To date, 72 cases have been included, which have been contributed by 23 centers in 8 autonomous Spanish communities (provinces).5 Due to its low prevalence, LAM is a disease that is rather unknown, even in the medical setting. Many of the symptoms of the disease (dyspnea, cough) are similar to those of other lung diseases, such as asthma or chronic bronchitis, which results in its late diagnosis. Lung transplantation is the best therapeutic option in the advanced phases of the disease.6 LAM treatment has been based on the use of therapies with anti-estrogenic effect, such as oophorectomy, progesterone, tamoxifen and gonadotropinreleasing hormone analogue. There are no placebo-controlled

Aportes del Proyecto de Educación Rural (PER)

Recibido 05 de mayo de 2010 • Aceptado 31 de agosto de 2010 • Corregido 27 de julio de 2011
 
 El presente artículo se deriva de la investigación “El proceso de formación inicial del Proyecto de Educación Rural (PER)”, desarrollada entre 1984 y 1987 en las Direcciones Regionales de Educación de San Carlos, Coto y Limón, y sus aportes para los procesos formativos en la actualidad. El PER fue implementado por el Centro de Investigación en Docencia y Educación (CIDE), de la Universidad Nacional (UNA) y estaba orientado a la formación de educadores para escuelas unidocentes ubicadas en el contexto rural. El objetivo de la investigación se abocó a rescatar los aportes del PER a la luz de los procesos formativos que se requieren en la actualidad, dado que el éxito del PER tuvo como eje fundamental el liderazgo de los docentes para potenciar el desarrollo comunitario del contexto rural desde el aula, insumo por considerar en los nuevos procesos formativos en la educación rural.

Afro-Puerto Rican Oral Histories: A Disruptive Collaboration

Afro-Puerto Rican Oral Histories:A Disruptive Collaboration Jocelyn A. Géliga Vargas (bio) We are a Western people in the manner of our own roots. We are Americans of the United States and Americans of America and Westerners of the West. And we are all this as Puerto Ricans from Puerto Rico. —Former Governor Luis Muñoz Marín, 1953 The contribution of the black race to Puerto Rico is irrelevant, it is a merely rhetorical addition. —Former Governor Rafael Hernández Colón, 1988 Puerto Rico is a work in progress where the wealth of our history does not dictate our fate, the strength of our roots does not tie us to the past and the affirmation of our Hispanicity goes hand in hand with our participation in a nation [United States] whose multicultural vocation increases daily. —Governor Luis Fortuño Burset, 2011 Testimonios afropuertorriqueños: Un proyecto de historia oral en el oeste de Puerto Rico (Afro-Puerto Rican testimonies: An oral history project in western Puerto Rico) is a collaborative research project launched in September 2006. Its purpose is recording the voices, memories, and histories of contemporary Afro-Puerto Ricans in order to fertilize debates about racial constructions and discourses in Puerto Rico and democratize the forum of discussion, representation, and analysis of Afro-Puerto Rican history and identities. In its first year the project was funded by the Otros Saberes Initiative of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), which supported five other Latin American collaborative [End Page 90] research initiatives focused on either Afro-descendents or indigenous communities. During the course of that year we composed a diverse research collective of nearly two dozen members, including academics; community members from the western towns of Aguadilla and Hormigueros, where the oral history project was conducted; and students from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. At the onset of the project we were guided by the following objectives: 1. To employ oral history to ignite profound and self-reflective discussions about contemporary Afro-Puerto Rican identity and experience. 2. To carve out a space for the production and circulation of Afro-Puerto Rican self-representations. 3. To debunk prevalent myths and stereotypes about Afro-Puerto Ricans and the "African heritage" in Puerto Rico. 4. To challenge the circumscription of Afro-Puerto Rican culture, history, and experience to ever-shrinking regions in the east and south of Puerto Rico. 5. To record the life stories of local actors in order to challenge the reduction of Afro-Puerto Rican history to chapters on eminent blacks or "mulattos" or on particular, marginal "communities" so as to demonstrate that this history is written, narrated, and constructed "from below" in everyday struggles to define, negotiate, and assert individual and collective identities. 6. To develop a collaborative research methodology that contributes to building a diverse project community dedicated to research and education about the Afro-Puerto Rican experience in Puerto Rico. By the end of the first year the project had generated an unprecedented Afro-Puerto Rican oral history collection that included thirty-three interviews and a parallel archive of photographic and video material. Thereafter a smaller but equally diverse collective has continued collaborating in the dissemination of the project in publications and presentations as well as in the analysis of the testimonial material collected. In this essay I reflect on the first year of the project, which I have coordinated since its inception, focusing primarily on its evolution in the town of Aguadilla, to argue that the collaborative oral history methodology employed forcefully disrupts the tenets of racial discourse in Puerto Rico as well as dominant saberes (lore) about [End Page 91] contemporary Afro-Puerto Rican subjectivities.1 To contextualize my argument I begin with a necessarily abridged discussion of race and identity in Puerto Rico, followed by a characterization of the field of Afro-Puerto Rican studies, which provided the point of departure for our project. Against these backdrops I discuss how the conjunction of intimacy and identity in the search for alternative saberes about Afro-Puerto Ricanness enabled our collaborative research project to transcend firmly entrenched confines in both social science research and race and identity discourses in Puerto...

Programa de fortalecimiento de capacidades: reflections on a case study of community-based teacher education set in rural northern Peru

This article explores distinctive features of a 5-year international education development project set in rural northern Peru (PROMEB, the Proyecto de Mejoramiento de la Educacion Basica). Grounded within a partnership between teacher educators from Peru, Mexico and Canada, and rural Peruvian teachers, students and their communities, we offer reflections on a teacher education initiative which sought to support action-orientated inquiries as a mechanism for school/community development. Set against a background of poverty, hunger, isolation and an “educational crisis”, we outline our pedagogy and describe two projects. We then reflect on the influences of our engagements and on associated tensions and ambiguities in our methods. We hope that such discussions might offer insights for others involved in international school/community development projects of this type.

THE RECUPERATION OF MEMORY IN REGIONAL AND NATIONAL TELEVISION DOCUMENTARIES: THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF ELS FOSSES DEL SILENCI (2003) AND LAS FOSAS DEL OLVIDO (2004)

Throughout the past decade, the documentary genre in Spain has enjoyed unprecedented popularity, both in the global market and in the Spanish peninsula. In Spain, the large number of documentaries ...

Textiles as an object of knowledge in the "Museographic Renovation Project" of the Museu Casa de Rui Barbosa (Rui Barbosa's House-Museum), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

This paper provides an overview of the “Proyecto de Renovation Museografica (Museographic Renovation Project)” of the textile collection currently underway at the Museu Casa Rui Barbosa (Rui Barbosa’s Home-Museum ), describing the project rationale and primary approaches of the research methodology, in order to demonstrate how decorative textiles can be articulated into the museography for the purpose of elucidating economic and social aspects of the historical context of these artefacts´ production.

Long-lasting insecticide-treated net usage in eastern Sierra Leone - the success of free distribution

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs a malaria control project in Bo and Pujehun districts (population 158 000) that includes the mass distribution, routine delivery and demonstration of correct use of free, long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs). In 2006/2007, around 65 000 LLINs were distributed. The aim of this follow-up study was to measure LLIN usage and ownership in the project area. Heads of 900 randomly selected households in 30 clusters were interviewed, using a standardized questionnaire, about household use of LLINs. The condition of any LLIN was physically assessed. Of the 900 households reported, 83.4% owning at least one LLIN. Of the 16.6% without an LLIN, 91.9% had not participated in the MSF mass distribution. In 94.1% of the households reporting LLINs, the nets were observed hanging correctly over the beds. Of the 1135 hanging LLINs, 75.2% had no holes or 10 or fewer finger-size holes. The most common source of LLINs was MSF (75.2%). Of the 4997 household members, 67.2% reported sleeping under an LLIN the night before the study, including 76.8% of children under 5 years and 73.0% of pregnant women. Our results show that MSF achieved good usage with freely distributed LLINs. It is one of the few areas where results almost achieve the new targets set in 2005 by Roll Back Malaria to have at least 80% of pregnant women and children under 5 years using LLINs by 2010.

The Environmental Health/Home Safety Education Project: A Successful and Practical U.S.-Mexico Border Initiative

The Environmental Health/Home Safety Education Project (Proyecto de Salud Ambiental y Seguridad en el Hogar) has been developed in response to a wide array of severe and often preventable environmental health issues occurring in and around homes on the U.S.-Mexico border. Utilizing well-trained community members, called promotoras , homes are visited and assessed for potential environmental hazards, including home fire and food safety issues. Data analyzed from project years 2002 to 2005 shows a significant impact in knowledge levels and initial behavior change among targeted participants as it relates to fire and food safety issues. Since the initiation of the project in 1999, hundreds of participants have improved their quality of life by making their homes safer. The project has proven to be sustainable, replicable, flexible, and attractive to funders.

Community engagement in health research: two decades of experience from a research project on HIV in rural Uganda

To describe how a research project on HIV epidemiology in rural Uganda has engaged the community over the past two decades, describing activities, opportunities and challenges that have arisen. The review draws on the experience of the authors as investigators involved in the project at various times since its inception in 1989, and on project documents and peer-reviewed publications. The project attracts community interest, participation and support mostly through community groups. The three main areas of activity are: health care and promotion, HIV/AIDS prevention and care, and community development aimed at poverty reduction. Key opportunities arise from the long-term joint commitment of the project and the community over nearly 20 years, and the potential to accommodate research beyond HIV. Challenges arise from participation fatigue, countered by innovations for the community and investment in capacity development for staff, and from the need to balance community development expectations and the project focus on HIV research. Judged by criteria of longevity, acceptance, and scientific output, community engagement in this HIV research project in rural Uganda has been successful. The experience from this project contributes to the collective documentation and analysis of case studies from various research projects in developing countries which identify good practices from multiple stakeholder perspectives.