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Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking en Español, or iSTART-E, is a new intelligent tutoring system (ITS) that provides reading comprehension strategy training for Spanish speakers. This paper reports on studies evaluating the efficacy of iSTART-E in real-world classrooms in two different Spanish-speaking countries. In Study 1, Chilean high school students (n = 22) who practiced with iSTART-E showed significant gains on a standardized comprehension assessment (LECTUM) from pretest to posttest. In Study 2 (n = 85), Argentinian middle school students who practiced with iSTART-E showed greater gains on the ECOMPLEC.Sec comprehension test compared to those in control classrooms. Together these results suggest that iSTART-E is an effective means of enhancing Spanish speakers' reading comprehension, with demonstrated transfer of training to standardized reading tests. [This paper was published in: "Artificial Intelligence in Education. AIED 2018, LNAI 10948," edited by C. Penstein Rosé et al., Springer International Publishing AG, 2018, pp. 215-19.]

In the late 1980s, Argentina faced frequent blackouts due to a lack of investment in generation capacity and high electricity demand growth. Argentina was one of the first developing countries to implement the liberalisation and privatisation of public utilities. In 2015, the Argentine electricity market faced a crisis due to low capacity investment. This arose from consumer prices that poorly reflected the true electricity cost, increasing risk for companies to invest in new generation capacity. Since 2016, Argentine government has called an auction to increase generation capacity; in addition, the government has cut incentive to consumers looking for reduce the electricity demand. Moreover, Argentina’s government is promoting policies to increase renewable energy share. However, it is unknown how renewable energies may affect security of supply and electricity price. This paper presents a simulation model to analyse policies for increasing generation capacity and promote renewable energy in Argentina. In this paper is concluded that renewable energies do indeed reduce the energy dependency of fossil fuels, and they lead to reduce electricity prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and English as a medium of instruction (EMI) are emerging as the preferred contexts of language learning. CLIL and EMI classes continue to proliferate in schools around the globe. The aim of this paper is to investigate the current research trends in studies of motivation to learn within EMI and CLIL settings. We sought to identify the current countries of research, educational levels, and themes that prevail in EMI and CLIL motivation research. We performed a topic search of the keywords "CLIL" or "EMI" and the keyword "motivation" in the "Web of Science" database for Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) articles published in 2020. We analyzed 17 articles related to motivation within EMI or CLIL contexts. The results showed that European countries produced the most research, with Spain being the most prolific. A majority of the studies took place at the secondary and tertiary levels of education. Comparative studies of CLIL or EMI contexts with that of traditional classrooms emerged as the prevailing theme. Future research could include more studies regarding the impact of CLIL on students at the primary level of education, in addition to studies of students from varied socio-economic backgrounds. [For the complete Volume 19 proceedings, see ED613922.]

WHO and UNICEF highlight vaccination as the most cost-effective method of prevention of infectious diseases. An effective public health strategy requires efficient tracking of vaccination to assess coverage, safety, and efficacy of these vaccines. Paper-based immunization records are still being used in most low and middle-income countries. Adequate Electronic Logistic Management Information Systems, Immunization Registries and Records are crucial for proper data collection and analysis, and for making better decisions at an individual and at a population level. In this paper we share our experience in the redesign of an interoperable immunization record to track vaccination, including the recently developed vaccines for the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work addresses the importance of innovation in entrepreneurial and business education to ensure that students develop the ability to make complex decisions and solve complex challenges. The intention was to incorporate the complexity theory in decision-making and problem-solving in business and entrepreneurship. To achieve this, we present the results of the first phase of our project, aiming to scale the levels of complex thinking in university students, discuss the need for business and entrepreneurship students to develop complex thinking competency (including its sub-competencies of critical, systemic, scientific, and innovative thinking) in the complexity of the business environment, analyze the relevance of system elements, apply their inductive and deductive reasoning, and create appropriate and relevant solutions. Our findings suggest that an educational model focused on developing complex thinking and its four sub-competencies can enable entrepreneurs to integrate sustainable development, increase their social engagement and critical thinking, develop their imaginative intelligence and discursive and reflective skills, and thus improve their decision-making and problem-solving processes. In the future, we plan to extend this analysis to the behavior of real-life entrepreneurs. [For the full proceedings, see ED654100.]

The intention of the present paper is to show that people have a series of educational needs in the era of information, so that they can become competent digital citizens. These educational needs are evident in the policies promoted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, which were well known to Latin American governments of the decades from the 1960s to the 1990s. Therefore, it is to be hoped that the educational reforms of 1990s have elements based on the principles of education that they advanced, which emphasises the preparation of subjects in the digital era, based on advances in information and communication technology, focusing on the teaching and learning of computer science. [For the complete Volume 17 proceedings, see ED596826.]

In the last seven years, there have been major changes in two South American countries that once firmly prohibited abortion: Argentina and Uruguay. In both, social movements have mobilized to demand legal abortion, and policies have been changed to grant increased access, to different degrees. Yet in each case, advances fall short of the goal of legalization and public provision. Instead, policies restrict access to abortion to specific cases and require different implementation regimes. In some cases, it has led to challenges by feminist lawyers in the courts. How have activists, lawyers and others addressed implementation as they continue to try to expand abortion rights around these policies? What can we learn from Uruguay and Argentina to better understand the role of litigation in abortion rights and reproductive justice in the rest of Latin America and around the world? This paper draws on interviews with lawyers and activists addressing abortion rights as well analysis of key cases based on court documents and media reports to compare legal mobilization on abortion in Argentina and Uruguay. Focusing on legal mobilization in the courts as a social movement tactic, the paper views cause lawyers and litigation as important resources for each movement. It argues that movement actors pursue their goals using strategic litigation that varies based on legal opportunity structures that vary across national contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the recognition that women in science receive unequal treatment during the development of their careers, gender committees have been established inside scientific societies with the aim of promoting actions ensuring attention to gender perspectives in science activities. In this paper, we present the main activities of the recently instituted Gender Committee of the Argentine Physical Society to improve the current situation in terms of gender in physics in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a discussion on potential conflicts originated by sensorimotor distractions when learning with mobile phones on-the-move. While research in mobile learning points to the possibility of everywhere, all the time learning; research in the area suggests that tasks performed while on-the-move predominantly require low cognitive processing. This work uses Bloom's taxonomy to identify low and high order thinking activities associated to the functionalities of a mobile phone. It also provides preliminary results from a survey identifying correlations between high and low cognitive processing tasks and locations involving users' sensorimotor engagement. [For the full proceedings, see ED571335.]

This paper will present and discuss the linguistic challenges that Argentinian university students of history and Danish university students of Spanish met during the course of a telecollaboration project based on synchronous communication in Skype. The purpose of this discussion is to identify linguistic pitfalls and the solutions adopted by both native and non-native participants in order to keep the conversations going in spite of misunderstandings, vocabulary limitations and other breaches in communication. The purpose of the discussion is to detect areas of strategic competence that need to be addressed in class, particularly for the benefit of the non-native speakers. [For the complete volume, see ED571330.]

The implementation of health Information Technologies (IT) contributes to improve quality of care and management processes. In spite, evidence shows that the rates of IT adoption are not the expected ones. Since 2004, Public Healthcare System of Buenos Aires city has been implementing a Healthcare Information System with a difficult adoption in clinical setting. In December 2015, the Government made some changes that allowed the implementation of an Electronic Health Record in 20 Primary Care Centers. This paper describes the change management strategies that were designed in order to transform a difficult implementation into a successful one. The combination of timely approach to change management, good governance and specialized human resources were keys to achieve this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to remedy two gaps in sociology of culture: (1) attention to the experience and practical use of the content of music and (2) attention to opera. In order to understand how is music experienced and what kinds of uses it affords, this paper asks how does an audience receive, represent and experience opera years after its historical primacy, when it has lost both its popular and distinguishing character at the same time. We report the results of a yearlong ethnography conducted at Buenos Aires' Teatro Colon over the last three seasons.We propose five ideal types to interpret how music is experienced at the opera house: the devotee, the better self, the melancholic, the hero and the addict. Each one of them are a shade of the total operatic experience, which comprises a moral engagement with music that aims for a transcendence of everyday life by attaching values of truth and goodness to it. This engagement involves: a) a superior spiritual understanding of the opera lover; b) a past-oriented understanding of time; c) a set of practices by which the person can abandon herself to music; d) a heroic ethic that serves as the horizon for practice; e) the non-circulatory character of the object of appreciation; f) the medium and material to narrate the self and g) a never ending process of learning how to "properly" enjoy the experience. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the research paper assisted by the German Academic Exchange Service and the Social Science Research Council related to concept of states, movements and nationalism in comparison to the period of Argentina from 1930 to 1955. The paper seeks to develop a framework for tracing and highlighting the national concepts and their transformations from time to time. It also points out several concepts including the limitations of the conceptualization of state infrastructure power in order to explain ideological results.

The proposed paper will be about how the legacy of societal resistance in Argentina has repercussions on the present. For this purpose, resistance refers to a society’s ability to oppose adverse conditions -or crises - be it political, social or economic in nature and to be able to make a transition out of this predicament. In light of recent World Bank studies that show low levels of general trust and participation in Argentina, this paper examines how historical factors influence the present. Through the general discussion of Argentina in the period between 1976 and 1983, we see that due to the severe repression it was difficult for internal resistance to form. Networks that were created were largely by people who were in the common situation of being close to someone who was disappeared, killed or tortured by the regime. However, not everyone who was affected in this way participated possibly because of fear, denial and/or they went into exile. No broad based resistance movement formed in this period. Examined is whether a change in the political opportunity structure affects informal networks by comparing this period to the present. I demonstrate that to oppose a powerful shock, ideally there would be a well-connected network of diverse organizations and individuals that would come together to act in consort under a common interest and that they would require a degree of trust. The argument is that a society that has experienced fear, division and trauma does not have the environment for resistance unless it confronts how past events have influenced how people relate to one another. History and, more specifically, collective memory, have a role in constructing present-day relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I focus in the embodiment and experiences of women that were direct victims of repression, survived torture and persecution and/or were murdered/disappeared during Argentina’s bloodiest military regime (1976-1983). Particularly, I look at testimonies of female survivors of this case of necropolitics -following Mbembe’s conceptualization (2003)- with the intention of contesting Argentina’s historiography and policy-making, which have been highly institutionalized, with little regard to gender, ethnic, religious and class issues. Based on personal accounts found in the Nunca Más (1984) report by the Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas - CONADEP (National Committee of Disappeared People), and Pájaros sin luz. Testimonios de mujeres de desaparecidos by Noemi Ciollaro (1999), I explore the effects of institutional hierarchies and filters in the construction of personal accounts and official discourses of political events, the suppression, omission and inclusion of emotions in testimonies, the criteria of selection of voices both spoken and silenced, and the underpinning issues of gender, class, ethnicity, religion, motherhood and citizenship as crucial aspects of repression. This paper is the initial phase of my dissertation project towards building a feminist sociological account from below of one of the darkest phases of Argentine history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exercise in theoretical unorthodoxy that endeavors to produce new concepts and new ways of thinking about the interconnections of gender, violence, cities, and what many call "globalization," or more specifically structural adjustment in tune with worldwide neoliberal agendas. The point of departure is the phenomenon of secuestro express in crisis-ridden, structurally adjusted Buenos Aires: this is a form of swift and often indiscriminate kidnapping aimed at procuring lucrative payments in ransom from middle-class and elite Argentines. Interestingly, gender serves as an axis of differentiation in the ways wealthier residents of Buenos Aires react to this increasing and relatively novel threat, with men considerably more frightened than women, even though likelihood of victimization is not particularly gendered. The subjectivities of these menaced men become the focus of theorization in the development of two key concepts: the kidnapped flâneur and the gender of fear. In the context of a structurally adjusted urban modernity, several feminist theorists (Wilson, Young, Butler, and Mohanty) are helpful in drawing out the conflicts and anxieties inherent in changes to masculinity which men and women both begin to illuminate in personal interviews. Especially important beyond gender itself -- but still related to it -- is the changing status of the city, from revived Paris of the South during ostensible neoliberal success to Third World metropolis in the wake of neoliberal collapse. To conclude by way of theoretical extrapolation, the paper considers what is at stake when both the alteration of material urban terrain and the negotiation of global-economic agreements become sites for a politics of gender, one in which masculinity is put into question by a destabilization of relations and privileges among men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the scholarship on "contaminated communities" - spaces in which people live in areas affected by widespread pollution - assumes that residents will either publicly protest the existence of contamination once they are aware of its health effects or will remain "acquiescent" on the issue, and it will fail to become a salient political priority. This scholarship hinges on recognizing public contention according to familiar tropes - protests, marches, roadblocks, and the like, which in turn are motivated by people's level of awareness and understanding of health risks they face. In this paper, I analyze how what might look like "acquiescence" on contamination is a result of the embeddedness of environmental contention in everyday routines and political power struggles. Based on two years of ethnographic observations and interviews, this paper shows how local political party networks frame people's discourse and action on widespread pollution in Palpalá, Argentina, a hub for mineral processing in the country's Northwest. I show how people's aversions, frustrations, alienation from or loyalty to local party politics mediate organization and discourse on environmental contamination, despite a general awareness of health risks incurred by exposure to toxic industrial pollution. Understanding how local politics and political networks are bound to residents' relationship to "action" on contamination complicates existing literature that links people's understandings of the gravity of environmental risks to their likelihood to act collectively on them, and also complicates scholarly definitions of what "action" looks like among residents of contaminated spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a newly flourishing research agenda, food sovereignty continues to generate heated debates in critical agrarian studies. In this paper, these debates are extended to the sparse literature on agrarian mobilization in Argentina with the aim of not only presenting a fuller account of the state of this relatively young literature but also demonstrating how Argentina's case can contribute to resolving the problem of conceptual ambiguity in defining food sovereignty. (1) My assessment suggests that a class-informed approach can simultaneously capture social differentiation and homogenization in agrarian communities, while in the mean time setting tangible standards for the inclusivity of movement alliances, local-national tensions, and state-movement interactions. (2) This paper also advises against the use of fixed formulas to assess food sovereignty, profile its target population and regulate relationships with the state. Rather, excessive conceptual rigidity may obstruct a clear understanding of how the balance of class forces and historical conditions in a given geography configure the form and content of food sovereignty movements. (3) I suggest conceptualizing food sovereignty as a social mobilization process and outcome that principally stem from social class cleavages. Relatedly, my literature review on agrarian mobilization in Argentina demonstrates that peasants' awareness of their own material grievances is an important factor in food sovereignty mobilization. However, the literature also highlights that material grievances do not translate into agrarian mobilization only by themselves. Collective action is triggered when a number of mediating determinants come into play including classcultural grievances, state-society relations, alliance-building, and leadership dynamics. This calls for a comprehensive framework that can take into account the multi-scalar and multi-faceted character of food sovereignty movements in all their complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014 Argentina has initiated the development of a new policy mix promoting the diffusion of renewable energies in the country. In this paper, we analyse the associated policy making processes and the impacts of the emerging policy mix on socio-technical change in the electricity sector, with a particular focus on the development of a domestic industry. Our analysis is based on a novel analytical framework which enriches the literature on policy mixes for sustainability transitions with key concepts from the Advocacy Coalition Framework for analysing policy change. Methodologically, we conduct a qualitative analysis drawing on document analysis and expert interviews with key stakeholders. We find that the design of the Argentinean policy mix has been heavily influenced by a dominant advocacy community (AC1) with fiscal policy and investments in renewable energy as its main motivation. In contrast, a second but less resourceful advocacy community (AC2) has been arguing, albeit in a fairly uncoordinated manner, to also support the formation of a domestic renewables industry, but its influence on the policy mix has been limited, with policy strategy and instrument mix design clearly dominated by the more powerful AC1. However, incremental policy learning has led to adjustments in the instrument mix, thereby alleviating some barriers for the domestic industry. Based on our intermediary findings for this nascent policy subsystem of renewable energy in Argentina, we derive implications for better integrating the industrial policy dimension in Argentina's policy mix for the energy transition towards renewables. In addition, we argue on further implications for other countries and for enriching the literatures that guided this analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, emigration rates out of much of Southern Europe, particularly Spain, radically increased. Spanish emigration's global character presented a novel opportunity to study the role that considerably different destinations have on European individuals' white ethnoracial identity and status. Through two years of ethnographic observations of and 135 interviews with Spanish emigrants in New York City, Buenos Aires, and London, this paper is an international comparative/Transatlantic analysis of how race/whiteness operates for Spaniards in the U.K., the U.S., and Argentina in both social and institutional settings. In the U.S. context, I engage more heavily on concepts of boundaries between whites and Hispanics/Latinos. Particularly, I focus on the Hispanic/Latino and white boundaries and engage with both Mary Waters' "ethnic options" and Michel Lamont's "symbolic boundaries" frameworks. For Latin America, much of the literature on whiteness has actually focused on Brazil, and the role that class plays in transitions to whiteness for some mixed-raced groups. The key conceptual framework that operates in the region is the notion of a raced-based pigmentocracy that has been the legacy of both the Portuguese and Spanish colonial regimes. I believe that Argentina, being a predominantly European country, adds a different layer of complexity to this race literature that often looks at far more racially diverse/mixed countries in the region, particularly the aforementioned Brazil and Mexico. The U.K. context has been heavily shaped by both the broad implementation of the EU and the ultimately successful Brexit campaign, so there I focus on how regional panethnic ties have begun taking hold post-2008 financial crisis, especially between Southern Europeans, Northern Europeans, and Eastern Europeans. Overall, I develop the concept of "contextual whiteness," which I argue better captures the more nuanced manner by which the white identities operate across political, cultural, and national lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relational dynamics of police-criminal collusion: the illicit relationships and hidden transactions between law enforcement officers and drug dealers. While depictions of clandestine interactions are common in popular culture, social scientific research has been limited and has focused primarily on the exchange of money for non-enforcement of the law. Drawing on an original legal archive of court cases in Argentina, this article dissects the dynamics of police-criminal collusion. Beyond non-enforcement, we find that illicit relations allow for the exchange of material and informational resources and the manipulation of bureaucratic procedures marked by frequent mistakes, improvisations, and corrections. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings for understanding the systemic violence of the drug trade and the possibilities for using judicial records to examine state actions hidden from public view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors will try to do an in depth study and analysis of Argentina's economy. Argentina, just like any other country during the last six or seven years, had its own economic meltdown. Recently though, it seems that other economic problems are impacting Argentina. The goal in this paper is to present and discuss the current situation, and if possible to make some projections. To that end the authors are going to present data for about thirty five years, including Gross Domestic Product, Growth Rates, Population, Unemployment and Trade. Based on this the conclusions will be derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Chatbot or Conversational Agent is a computer application that simulates the conversation with a human person (by text or voice), giving automated responses to people's needs. In the healthcare domain, chatbots can be beneficial to help patients, as a complement to care by health personnel, especially in times of high demand or constrained resources such as the COVID-19 Pandemic. In this paper we share the design and implementation of a healthcare chatbot called Tana at the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires. Considering best practices and being aware of possible unintended consequences, we must take advantage of information and communication technologies, such as chatbots, to analyze and promote useful conversations for the health of all people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnational support for indigenous movements and indigenous rights raises two important questions about the relationships between identity, solidarity, political claims and place. First, what are the consequences for transnational organizing for groups whose identity is solidly place-based? Second, can a cross-border movement, operating on behalf of the "same people" in two different nation-state contexts achieve more than solidarity? Drawing on theories of transnational activism and identity, this paper seeks to investigate these questions, using transnational Mapuche indigenous activism in Chile and Argentina as a case study. In doing so, it looks at both the connections between Mapuche activist organizations and transnational solidarity groups and the cross-border pan-Mapuche transnational networks between Chile and Argentina. Using these two examples, the paper proposes that while transnational advocacy networks give indigenous actors greater agency and opportunities to leverage international support, they do not always lead to the achievement of indigenous political goals because of the very local, place-based processes through which indigenous identity is constructed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades Argentina experienced a cultural and political sea change. Ethnicity gained importance in political activism and state policies, and became a dominant feature in public discourse. The 1994 Constitution defined Argentina as a multiethnic nation and granted special rights to indigenous citizens. This paper explores the dynamics and implications of recent ethnic mobilization through a comparative analysis of the Mbya-Guaraní in Misiones and the Diaguita-Calchaquí in Tucumán, two indigenous groups from very distinct geographical and economical contexts, and with very different histories of engaging larger society. In a first step we examine the relationship between transnational dynamics, state action, and indigenous land struggles. A historical analysis of ethnic mobilization in these two groups allows pinpointing the global, national, and local factors involved in enabling indigenous land struggles. In a second step this paper explores the consequences of land struggles for the experience of poverty among local indigenous communities in Argentina. While research on indigenous movements in Latin America has become a virtual growth industry over, we still know relatively little about the actual impact of ethnic mobilization on the experience of poverty and inequality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political shifts and fluctuations in economic conditions have had major implications for Latin American journalists. This is exemplified in the case of Argentina. This paper intends to examine historically how Argentine media—considered among the region’s most sophisticated—have been affected as evidenced by changing regulatory environments, media-state relations, and media content. During periods when globalization forces allowed foreign capital to infuse media industries and new technologies to be adopted, and reduced the role of the state, Argentine media grew into vibrant and sophisticated industries. These periods of growth were abruptly shunted by periods of non-democratic political rule, when media were co-opted directly or indirectly by the state to serve political purposes, and by several periods of economic recession, when dependence upon the state for subsidies increased as private industries disappeared. Political elites continued to view the media as advocacy instruments to advance specific goals. By the 1990s, changes wrought by shifts to neo-liberal policies were dramatically affecting media organizations, and ensuing complications arising from the economic crisis of 2001 continue to permit control of the media by the state. Those working within the contexts of such a system find their profession either stymied or encouraged, given the circumstances. By looking historically at changes in the media-state relations, together with regulatory shifts and accompanying economic transitions, it is hoped that this case study will provide a useful base for other research in Latin American media. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze middle class citizens' trust in political and economic actors in Argentina, their satisfaction with the performance of Argentine democracy, and the relationship between these two variables. Our study brings new elements to the discussion about this relationship by incorporating a novel and more holistic way of measuring these variables. Our hypothesis is that the higher the levels of trust, the higher the levels of satisfaction with democracy. Our control variables are the respondents' socio-demographic characteristics and their political/social activism. Data come from a random sample of 400 Buenos Aires middle-class residents during October and November 2002. Our major analytic techniques are cross-tabulation and regression. Our findings suggest that the interviewees highly distrust the political and economic elites, and that the level of satisfaction with the performance of the Argentine democracy is alarmingly low, especially in relation to the social role of the state, and the rule of the legal system. In addition, trust is the most important significant explanatory variable of satisfaction, and among different types of trust, organizational trust in big companies, banks and police forces is the one with best explanatory power, followed by trust in politicians, judges/prosecutors, trade union leaders and religious ministers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 1990s in Argentina, a tradition of small-scale corruption combined with a series of big scandals to make corruption a central issue on the political agenda. This paper employs some key ideas from economic sociology widely understood-from classical sociology to new economic sociology and economic anthropology-to ana-lyze corruption. Five basic concepts are presented and discussed: Max Weber's pat-rimonial type of domination; the tension between embeddedness and autonomy in Peter Evan's type of developmental state; Richard Swedberg's focus on conflicts of interests; the effects of status differentials in corrupt exchanges; and the role of com-peting social norms in framing corruption. While none of them is found to offer a com-plete explanation, they all help account for meaningful aspects of the problem. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to introduce the study of economic indicators as cultural phenomena into the research agenda of sociology. It introduces two concepts for this analysis: fact-totems and rankings. First, fact-totems are a specific kind of cultural objects where an indicator captures the imagination and the attention of a public in the process becoming collective representations of an imagined community. Rankings are powerful micronarratives and signifying structures that work on and around economic indicators. I develop these concepts around a case study of "country risk" a crucial indicator in Argentina before the economic crisis of 2001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Argentina, atrocities of the last dictatorship (1976 - 1983) continue to resonate not only through ongoing trials but also in sites where detainees were disappeared, tortured, and exterminated. Many of those former detention centres have been recovered and converted into memorial spaces. This work delves into the controversy over one of the most notorious sites in Buenos Aires known as ESMA. With a keen eye on architecture, it analyses the manner by which repressors utilized and modified ESMA as a clandestine centre. Turning critical attention to the afterlife of that space allows for deep introspection into how human rights groups repurposed the same space. Chief among the curatorial techniques is the management of the site's temporal mode linking the past with the present. The current incarnation of ESMA reveals a history of brutality that was once concealed. By thoughtful design, the site now provides a performative anchor through which visitors - as secondary witnesses - can empathize with sufferers. The analysis is guided by the performative theory of Taylor (1997) and the dramaturgy of Goffman (1959) while taking informative cues from Nora (2002; 1989). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do sending and receiving states build relations with migrant persons? Drawing on documentary analysis of migration and nationality laws and treaties, congressional debates, and administrative policies in Argentina, Spain, and Italy (1860-1955), this paper argues that states build relations with migrants as they compete for workers and citizens. Specifically, I focus on how competing states defined membership through national affinity policies (i.e. laws, regulations, and practices that facilitate a privileged migration or state membership status based on applicants? descent or origins). Spanish and Italian states acted to control the out-migration of nationals, maintain relations with nationals abroad, to extend state membership to emigrants? descendants, while Argentina made every effort to attract Italian and Spanish workers and to make Argentine nationals of them. The arguments presented contribute to a larger project of explaining contemporary nationality alternatives in Argentina and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between women?s embodiment and political resistance in Argentina?a country undergoing a deep socio-economic crisis paradigmatic of the impacts of and resistance to neoliberal globalization. In this tumultuous context, women?s bodies are embattled terrain, shaken by the crisis, but also actively engaged in constructing a new society and new forms of embodied womanhood. This study draws on and contributes to literature on sociology of the body, feminist theory, and women?s movements in Latin America, analyzing how activist women construct alternative embodied subjectivities, and the meanings of "poner el cuerpo" (literally, ?to put the body?) from women?s perspectives. As a practice of resistance, "poner el cuerpo" means not just to talk, think, or desire, but to be really present and involved; to put the whole being in action, to be committed to a social cause, and to assume the bodily risks and demands of such commitment. The following connotations of "poner el cuerpo" are discussed: 1) Backing up words with bodies, 2) Collective Resistance, 3) Risk, courage, and struggle, and 4) Sacrifice. The results are based on a fourteen-month qualitative research carried out in Argentina during 2002-2003, combining ethnographic observations; in-depth interviews with 50 women with diverse life experiences (about half of them with activist histories), and 4 focus groups with women from different social locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Argentine crisis of December 2001 made evident important limitations of the neoliberal model. With the political and economic crises, contestatory practices within civil society, some of which had been forming since the return to democracy, flourished and became widespread among large sectors of the population. In this paper I suggest that the legacy of human rights struggles in Argentina is meaningful and critical to comprehend redefinitions of ?citizenship? discourses and practices. I analyze the practices of human rights activism as contestations to notions of passive citizenship and as disruptions to dominant narratives of the nation fomented through the widespread adoption of neoliberal, market-driven principles throughout the 1990s. I draw from cases of human rights organizations to discuss the significant ways in which place, culture and politics intersect in current re-significations of citizenship. My argument focuses on political and cultural practices developed around human rights, which have re-claimed, re-created and expanded the debates about citizenship and ultimately the democratic project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses gender in IT courses in the UNLP, taking into consideration multiple contexts: a) The proportion of gender in STEM courses in the UNLP and specifically IT courses (these numbers are compared with a previous analysis from 2009). b) Gender statistics in computer science courses in Argentina. c) The international gender context globally and in the US in particular. The paper also describes some of the actions carried out to promote the study of IT and perspective of young students about their future job prospects. Due to the fact that the women studying IT degrees in UNLP largely exceed by 60% the figures of national statistics these action are referred to as good practices for reducing gender gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to examine business education that aims to prepare students to understand poverty and design sustainable solutions for people living in subsistence in a yearlong course at a Midwestern U.S Land-grant university. I conduct a case study of the course in order to understand the curriculum and pedagogical arrangements and to examine the experiences of the course participants. Theoretically, my project is situated at the intersections of globalization and education studies, capabilities approach, and critical pedagogy. Theoretically informed and empirically grounded, my study offers a more nuanced understanding of pedagogical possibilities to prepare students to understand the conditions of poverty around the world and to contribute to global poverty reduction in the age of globalization.

In 1999, the Province of San Luis (Argentina) approved the creation of the so-called 'Escuelas Experimentales Autogestionadas' (SelfManaged Experimental Schools) inspired by the US charter schools, but with important differences. This article explores the circumstances under which the project was dismantled and abandoned prematurely. The study included a thorough documental analysis and interviews with key informants including members of the project's steering committee, scholars, members of the evaluation committee and the external audit, government and ex-government officials of the Ministry of Education, and teachers. We found strong incompatibilities among the guiding principles of the project, i.e. democratization, cooperativeness, autonomy and plurality, the practices of the provincial rentier political system, and the traditional structures of power bureaucratically organized at the national level.

During the last decades, scholarly research on inequality, identity formation, and conflict in Latin America tended to abandon the concept of class. Through different arguments and explanations, several scholars have claimed that class is no longer relevant for explaining both people's identity and more general patterns of collective action. In this context, research on class consciousness and identity was either abandoned or relegated to case studies and single-country investigations. As a result, recent sociological research has not explored the political-economic mechanisms through which the class structures of different countries leads to national variations in class identity. In this paper we aim to fill this gap by developing a comparative study of subjective class identification in Argentina and Chile. To do so, we use quantitative data to develop a micro-analysis of the individual determinants of class identity in both countries, with a specific focus on class location and class trajectories (biographical and work trajectories). Based on this, we then develop a macro-analysis of the processes by which the political economy each county--for instance, the uneven development of Neoliberalism--has shaped different patterns of class identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ozone and ultraviolet (UV) radiation are two important issues in the study of Earth's atmosphere. The anthropogenic perturbation of the ozone layer has induced change in the amount of UV radiation that reaches the Earth's surface, mainly through the Antarctic ozone hole. Also clouds have been identified as the main modulator of UV amount over short time scales. While clouds can decrease direct radiation, they can produce an increase in the diffuse component, and as a consequence the surface UV radiation may be higher than during an equivalent clear sky scenario. In particular this situation can be important when a low ozone column and partially cloud coverered skies occur simultaneously. These situations happen frequently in southern Patagonia, where the CEILAP Lidar Division has established the Atmospheric Observatory of Southern Patagonia, an atmospheric remote sensing site near the city of Río Gallegos (51°55'S, 69°14'W). In this paper, the impact of clouds on UV radiation is investigated by the use of ground based measurements from the passive remote sensing instruments operating at this site, mainly broad and moderate narrow band filter radiometers. Cloud modification factors (CMF, ratio between the measured UV radiation in a cloudy sky and the simulated radiation under cloud-free conditions) are evaluated for the study site. CMFs higher than 1 are found during spring and summer time, when lower total ozone columns, higher solar elevations and high cloud cover occur simultaneously, producing extreme erythemal irradiance at the ground surface. Enhancements as high as 25% were registered. The maximum duration of the enhancement was around 30 minutes. This produces dangerous sunbathing conditions for the Río Gallegos citizen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vitamin D plays an important role in human health. Vitamin D production from the sun is affected by UVB solar radiation. This paper presents a simple method for retrieving vitamin D-weighted UV by using a multiband filter radiometer GUV-541 installed at the Atmospheric Observatory of Southern Patagonia (OAPA) (51 ° 33' S, 69° 19' W), Río Gallegos. The methodology used combines irradiance measurements from a multiband filter radiometer with spectral irradiance modeled by the SOS radiative transfer code (developed by Lille University of Science and Technology (USTL)). The spectrum modeled is weighted with vitamin D action spectra published by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE), which describes the relative effectiveness of different wavelengths in the generation of this particular biological response. This method is validated using the vitamin D-weighted UV derived from a Brewer MKIII spectrophotometer (SN 124) belonging to the National Institute for Spatial Research (INPE), Brazil, which is able to measure solar spectra between 290 and 325nm. The method presents a good correlation between the two independent instruments. This procedure increases the instrumental capabilities of the multiband filter radiometer. Moreover, it evaluates the annual variation of vitamin D-weighted UV doses from exposure to ultraviolet radiation. These values are likely to be lower than suitable levels of vitamin D during winter and part of spring and autumn at these latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy production and use are important contributions to greenhouse gases. Argentina does not escape that situation. As of 2014, 53% of greenhouse gases' emissions originate in energy. A way to mitigate emissions is through energy efficiency (EE). There is evidence that the potential of EE to reduce emissions is almost as high as the deployment of renewable (OECD/EIA 2016). There are many articles that measure the contribution of EE as a way to compensate the energy use using decomposition techniques, and also several that study decoupling between energy and economic activity, and there are few papers that link both. There is no study of that kind for Argentina. This work attempts to fill that gap. The results show that energy intensity has compensated activity expansion for the 2004 y 2017 period, and there has been a weak decoupling between energy final demand and GDP. That same kind of decoupling has occurred in industry and the agricultural sector (the intensity effect has been relatively lower in the latter). When both sectors are taken together, a reduced structure effect can be observed. Yearly decoupling and decomposition are generally in that same direction, but results differ for some biannual changes. In general, the findings are in line with the literature. Energy intensity reductions are crucial to be able to increase economic activity and at the same time decrease energy use. Un alto porcentaje de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI) del planeta provienen de la producción y el uso de la energía. Argentina no escapa a esta situación ya que, al 2014, 53% de los GEI provienen de dicha fuente. Una de las principales formas de reducir los GEI es a través de eficiencia energética (EE). Según fuentes internacionales, estas tienen tanto potencial de reducción de emisiones como la introducción de energías renovables. Hay más de medio centenar de trabajos en el mundo que han medido la contribución de la EE para morigerar el uso de energía por medio de las llamadas técnicas de descomposición. No hay ningún estudio publicado para Argentina que lo haga. Este documento llena este vacío. Lo que permiten los métodos de descomposición es diferenciar qué parte de los cambios en la demanda energética se deben a variaciones en: la actividad productiva, la estructura productiva, y la intensidad en el consumo de energía. Los resultados encontrados muestran que entre 2004 y 2017 el consumo de energía para uso final subió en gran medida debido a la variación en el nivel de actividad y la disminución en la intensidad energética tuvo un efecto compensador. Ese mismo desacople débil entre energía y actividad se encontró en la industria y en el agro, aunque fue menor en este último caso. Cuando se consideran ambos sectores en su conjunto, se encuentra un muy reducido efecto estructura ya que la composición de la actividad económica ha cambiado poco. En general, los resultados aquí encontrados son similares a la literatura. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Raman lidar at the Central (Raman) Laser Facility of the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina, has been operational since September 2013. In this paper, the Auger Raman Lidar performance is discussed in terms of the data quality for the assessment of the aerosol contribution to the atmospheric UV optical transparency, and how much this is important for the reconstruction of the UHECR properties, based on the Auger Fluorescence Detector observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring teachers' attitudes towards online education adoption and the processes developed in universities to institutionalize individual initiatives has been the aim of a research project being held at National Technological University (UTN) of Argentina for four years. This paper deepens in the results of a comparative study performed between 2006 and 2010 at teachers and university management level. It appeared that the lack of institutional support perceived by teachers was the trigger of non systemic individual initiatives. A mixed research methodology with questionnaires, interviews with key-persons, and collection of institutional strategy documents was used. Descriptive statistics and cross-tabulation were performed in the quantitative analysis. Comparison and interpretation based on narrative mode of analysis were preferred in the qualitative approach for a better understanding of the context and the processes. Data analysis showed that the scenario had changed radically during the four years. A lot of instructions and bureaucratical documents had been created by the university management about implementing online education at the same time that teachers in Schools were developing individual initiatives at their own costs and efforts in a totally decentralized way. Normative had not been properly communicated down on the hierarchical chain so teachers had been working without knowing the existence of those strategies and support. Interviews and documental analysis gave the clue that not only the development of strategies is a determinant of the adoption and institutionalization of learning innovations but also the formal and informal communication of them across all the institutional levels. Positive attitude, encouragement and perception of institutional strategies acted as drivers of teachers' more intensive use of online education. The meeting of these two flows, teachers' initiatives from the bottom and institutional strategies from the top, promoted a new culture of innovation that is slowly but effectively getting embedded in this traditional institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CEILAP’s Lidar Division has established an atmospheric remote sensing site in Río Gallegos (51°55′ S, 69°14′ W) in the southern region of Argentina. SOLAR Campaign was held during 2005–2006. The main objectives of this experiment were to measure stratospheric ozone profiles and surface UV radiation in a subpolar region, where the influence of polar vortex and the Antarctic ozone hole are remarkable. This remote sensing site has lidar instruments and passive sensors to measure solar UV irradiance. In this paper we focused on passive remote sensing sensors and the Río Gallegos erythemal irradiances reported during 2005–2006. Time evolution of UV index was derived from these measurements and the influence of ozone depleted air masses passing over over Río Gallegos is highlighted in this paper. This Patagonian region is characterized by high cloud cover during the day that strongly changes the distribution of UV radiation that reaches the ground surface. For that reason some overpasses of ozone hole are masked by cloud cover avoiding the increase in UVB radiation. Reversely in same opportunities, cloud border increases the surface UV radiation. Both effects are analyzed in this work and the reduction or increase of ultraviolet radiation is quantified by comparing measurement and modeled UV radiation. In addition time evolution of daily UV exposures is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last quarter of a century, Argentine tango dancing has either created or reinvigorated existing communities of tango practitioners all over the globe, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, and in the place of its mythical foundation, Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the context of the global exchange and consumption of cultural forms, the dance has experienced changes in its aesthetic, phenomenological, discursive, and affective levels, deterritorializing it from the Argentine nation-state machine, and territorializing it on diverse cultural formations, such as the pursuing of a transcendental spirituality, or the resistance to the commodification of the life-world. This paper examines assemblages that provide cohesiveness to Argentine tango dancing, focusing on the exploration of the modus of operation and the connections between the different bodies that constitute it and the bodies formed by communities operating at the local, national, and transnational level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the implementation of the training received through the IAEA Project “Preparation of Reference Materials and Organization of Proficiency Tests Rounds” in the Nuclear Analytical (NAT) Group of CNEA. Special emphasis is done on those activities related to the first Proficiency Test being carried out by the NAT Group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes and analyses the apparitions of the Virgin Maria in Salta in the north of Argentina. The phenomenon in taking place since 1990. At present thousands of people from all over Argentina gather each Saturday to receive the pray of Maria Livia -the lady that sees the Virgin- hoping that she will intercede and that they will get cures for their illness. I describe all the stages of the phenomenon from the beginning, when it was a private issue to Maria Livia, to the moment when she started to make public the messages of the Virgin and certain groups of the Catholic Church supported the issue. I analyze the significance of phenomenon in three of its dimensions: a. the meaning of an ¨apparition¨ of the Virgin at this moment of the Catholicism; b. the meaning this issue has for the different groups that support or react against it, and why the most conservative catholic groups support it; c. the reactions it if provoking within the Catholic Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a poor community's transition from a sparse to a highly-dense associational space and the rise of new social relations that result through different avenues of civic participation. It compares three different associational settings in a poor community in the Argentine province of Buenos Airesâ?”a non-governmental organization, a religious network, and a political networkâ?” and reveals how civic participation can be centrally organized in order to construct and communicate civic understandings and relations. Leaders and participants in these settings are engaged in "civic work" at two levels: first, associations do civic work at the organizational level as leaders select and manage participants in ways that distinguish their association from other associations. Second, within associations, the interactions between leaders and participants draw upon, build and reconfigure broader social relations. These emerging social relations are built out of class and gender identities and the community's own image of its associational autonomy in a sea of clientelism. Ultimately, this study demonstrates how the configuration of social relations serves to legitimate and reproduce new relations in poor communities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like gansta-rap itself, music influenced by this musical genre, such as Argentine's cumbia villera, shows a marked sexist and misogynist content. While some American academicians have refused to analyze why young females follow a music that objectify and denigrate them, it is the intention of this paper to do precisely that. Taking advantage of the more than 70 interviews and 30 participant observations in dance halls we have already collected, we want to advance the idea that different kinds of young females establish very distinct type of relationships with the lyrics that so negatively portray them, continuously rewriting patriarchal and misogynist texts. The extensive range of possibilities goes from dancing the music but never listening to the lyrics; to some girls admitting that they are willing to make themselves accomplices of the male objectivation and the fragmentation of their femaleness into the body parts that excite masculine desire in order to continue dancing, (but stressing that this move does not make them whores); to some others pointing out that the lyrics are not bad, because they really portray how the majority of cumbia villera's fans really are, "except us, of course;" to some young females allowing themselves to "play," in the restricted space of the dance hall, with the possibility of assuming the whore role that cumbia villera lyrics propose for them as a possible identification, knowing that the play starts and ends on Saturday night and does not go beyond the dance hall. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to investigate and analyze the most relevant aspects that influence the development and implementation of electronic informed consent for genetic studies. Interviews were conducted with experts in the area within our institution, the different informed consents available and the number of genetic studies requested in the last 5 years were analyzed. Professionals acknowledged the ethical dilemmas related to the genetic studies and the importance of having an electronic informed consent that not only provides the patient with the information necessary to understand the implications of the study, but also be flexible enough to adapt to the various genetic studies today. The development of informed consent is a challenge for health IT professionals, due to the complexity of the information it contains and the ethical implications it represents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]