City, island rurality and public policies. Interconnected networks: alliances and business solidarity in the territorialization of the agribusiness model (Córdoba, Argentina)

Las discusiones en torno a las transformaciones en el agro, producto de innovaciones biotecnológicas, el aumento del precio de los commodities a nivel internacional y las reformas políticas y económicas en diferentes países latinoamericanos, ha sido ampliamente trabajado en estos últimos años desde diversos campos disciplinares. Dada esta preponderancia de las transformaciones rurales en Argentina como objeto de estudio en la academia, este dossier convoca a repensar la ruralidad como objeto de reflexión desde las ciencias sociales, prestando particular atención a las especificidades que asumen estos cambios en prácticas y experiencias rurales concretas. En ese sentido, este trabajo se pretende sumar a las discusiones que plantean tensiones en las visiones dicotómicas respecto a lo rural y lo urbano como territorios diferenciados y diferenciables. Dado que el modelo de agronegocios plantea configuraciones reticulares entre acciones estatales, intervenciones desde las empresas y asociaciones técnicas del agro, y las comunidades locales urbanas, es necesario prestar atención a los proyectos y acciones solidarias desarrollados por actores empresariales del agro, desde los cuales apuntan a construir narrativas sobre la ruralidad, el desarrollo productivo, la sustentabilidad y la responsabilidad social. Se apunta a entender cómo se construye legitimación social del modelo de agronegocios en centros urbanos y ciudades de Córdoba, Argentina, desde las intervenciones empresariales de una asociación técnica del agro.Discussions around transformations in agriculture, the result of biotechnological innovations, increased world commodity prices, and the political and economic reforms in Latin American countries, has been studied widely in recent years from diverse disciplinary perspectives. Given the prevalence of rural transformations in Argentina in the literature, this dossier calls for a rethink of rurality as an object of reflection from the social sciences, with particular attention to the specificities assumed by these changes in certain rural practices and experiences. This article aims to contribute to the discussions that raise tensions in the dichotomous view of the rural and the urban as differentiated and differentiable territories. The agribusiness model proposes network configurations between state actions, interventions from companies and agricultural technical associations, and urban local communities. As a result, attention must be given to projects and actions of solidarity undertaken by agricultural business actors, designed to construct narratives about rurality, productive development, sustainability and social responsibility. The study aims to understand how the social legitimization of the agribusiness model is constructed in the urban centers and cities of Córdoba, Argentina, through the lens of the business interventions of a technical agricultural association

Harnessing poly(ionic liquid)s for sensing applications

The interest in poly(ionic liquid)s for sensing applications is derived from their strong interactions to a variety of analytes. By combining the desirable mechanical properties of polymers with the physical and chemical properties of ILs, new materials can be created. The tunable nature of both ionic liquids and polymers allows for incredible diversity, which is exemplified in their broad applicability. In this article we examine the new field of poly(ionic liquid) sensors by providing a detailed look at the current state-of-the-art sensing devices for solvents, gases, biomolecules, pH, and anions

El Cambio Climático un Problema Económico

Este trabajo pretende hacer un análisis de la relación entre la Economía y el Cambio Climático. Con tal fin se realizó una revisión teórico conceptual de que es el cambio de climático, cuales son las causas y consecuencias económicas, sociales y ambientales que trastocan los niveles de bienestar de la población, posteriormente hace una revisión general de cómo se está tratando esta situación climática a nivel nacional e internacional, y hace algunas propuestas de lo que se necesita para realmente lograr una mitigación y adaptación a este flagelo que ya no es una utopía sino una realidad. Los principales resultados de este análisis se centran en la necesidad de lograr una verdadera adaptación y mitigación al cambio climático a través de destinar recursos económicos para la investigación científica, educación e inducción de cambios de comportamiento en los procesos de producción y en los hábitos de consum

Agua virtual y desarrollo sostenible

El presente artículo trata un tema bastante novedoso, es la conceptualización e importancia económica del análisis del Agua Virtual, para introducir en la discusión académica la sostenibilidad del capital natural, y como sabemos El Agua es un recurso natural de vital importancia tanto como un insumo es los principales procesos productivos, así como también elemento esencial para mantener la vida, por tanto debe ser considerado uno de los principales componentes del capital natural de una nación, y debemos analizar su uso racional, su reposición y conservación para garantizar la sostenibilidad de la estructura económica. Por tanto su contenido está enfocado en aspectos conceptuales para comprender a que nos referimos cuanto escuchamos sobre el Agua Virtual, cuál es la relación y diferencia entre este concepto y la huella hídrica?. Como podemos cuantificarla y porque es importante hacerlo. Aquí se presente un pequeño ejercicio sobre la base lo que se requiere de agua para producir algunos rubros que ocupan un lugar considerable dentro de la estructura productiva, que nos permite sentarnos a reflexionar sobre que estamos haciendo para garantizar el uso de los recursos hoy y en el futuro

Long-term disease-free survival of patients with radically resected thymomas: relevance of cell-cycle protein expression

BACKGROUND. Despite radical Surgical resection, thymomas often recur. The objective of the current retrospective Study was to investigate the prognostic relevance of the expression of cell-cycle proteins in these neoplasms to formulate a possible therapeutic Surveillance strategy for the prevention of recurrence. METHODS. The authors retrospectively reviewed the main clinicopathologic factors, including the World Health Organization (WHO) classification, of patients with thymoma who had undergone radical surgical resection. Specimens were studied using immunohistochemistry and the expression of cell-cycle proteins (i.e., p21, p27, and p53) was assessed. Univariate and multivariate analysis of predicting survival prognostic factors were performed. RESULTS. The authors analyzed 88 patients with thymoma who underwent radical surgical resection at the study institution. According to the Masaoka staging system, 41 patients had Stage I disease, 31 patients had Stage II disease, and 16 patients had Stage III disease. There were 24 tumor recurrences (27.3%), 4 of which were local, 16 of which were distant intrathoracic, and 4 of which were extrathoracic. The second radical resection provided a disease-free Survival rate that was similar to the first. Only Masaoka stage (P=0.001), WHO classification (P=0.001), high expression of p53 (P=0.03), and low expression of p21 (P=0.02) and p27 (P=0.001) were found to he correlated with a reduced disease-free survival. Low p27 expression was found to be the most significant predictive factor of a short disease-free Survival (P=0.001), especially when associated with low p21 expression and high p53 expression (P=0.0001). CONCLUSIONS. Long-term disease-free survival in thymoma patients treated with radical surgical resection Was found to be correlated with Masaoka stage, WHO classification, and expression of cell-cycle proteins, with the latter found to be the most significant predictive factor. Functional cooperation between cell-cycle proteins might constitute another level of regulation in tumor growth. More careful surveillance should be adopted whenever there is negative cell-cycle protein expression. (c) 2005 American Cancer Society

Microporous Hyper-Crosslinked Polystyrenes and Nanocomposites with High Adsorption Properties: A Review

Hyper-crosslinked (HCL) polystyrenes show outstanding properties, such as high specific surface area and adsorption capability. Several researches have been recently focused on tailoring their performance for specific applications, such as gas adsorption and separation, energy storage, air and water purification processes, and catalysis. In this review, main strategies for the realization of HCL polystyrene-based materials with advanced properties are reported, including a summary of the synthetic routes that are adopted for their realization and the chemical modification approaches that are used to impart them specific functionalities. Moreover, the most up to date results on the synthesis of HCL polystyrene-based nanocomposites that are realized by embedding these high surface area polymers with metal, metal oxide, and carbon-based nanofillers are discussed in detail, underlining the high potential applicability of these systems in different fields

Cancer profiles by affinity propagation

The affinity propagation algorithm is applied to a problem of breast cancer subtyping using traditional biologic markers. The algorithm provides a procedure to determine the number of profiles to be considered. A well know breast cancer case series was used to compare the results of the affinity propagation with the results obtained with standard algorithms and indexes for the optimal choice of the number of clusters. Results from affinity propagation are consistent with the results already obtained having the advantage of providing an indication about the number of clusters