La aparición de Frutos de mi tierra de Tomás Carrasquilla, la primera novela en Antioquia en 1896 y la aparición de varias revistas culturales en las dos últimas décadas del siglo XIX son el punto de partida de esta investigación. ¿Qué razones explican la proliferación repentina de revistas culturales, tertulias literarias y la aparición de la novela? ¿Qué fuerzas estimulan el debate y el pensamiento crítico en una región en la cual la publicidad –entendida como el conjunto de textos públicos o Öffentlichkeit de Habermas— no pasaba de ser oficial o se restringía a la lucha partidista? ¿Qué condiciones políticas, antropológicas y estéticas, no existían hasta esta fecha y empiezan a aparecer?Para responder estas preguntas, la investigación indaga por los hitos históricos que fueron perfilando a la sociedad “paisa”: la implantación de las políticas borbonas con el oidor Mon y Velarde a finales del siglo XVIII que definieron el discurso de la región: conservador en el ámbito religioso y liberal en el económico; la expedición de la Constitución del Estado de Antioquia en 1812 y la llegada de la imprenta el mismo año, la cohesión social interna en las primeras seis décadas de vida republicana y la defensa a ultranza del Estado confesional que llevó a la región a varias guerras durante el siglo XIX.Una de ellas, la 1876 tendría una incidencia definitiva en el discurso regional: tras vivir la derrota, el discurso religioso y auto adulatorio comenzaría a enervarse. Lo anterior, sumado a Estado central que se impuso con la Constitución de 1886 desde Bogotá, generaría las condiciones para que los “paisas” comenzaran a preguntarse críticamente por su identidad cultural y a compararla, lo cual daría origen a estos nuevos espacios de sociabilidad y a la novela como uno de los productos culturales fundacionales que surgirían de este ambiente deliberativo y crítico.

China is a successful destination for companies that are looking to receive a good return on their investment and make part of the most outstanding economy in the world. The adverse condition promoted by the state, impact directly the performance of multinational companies, one of these consequences is the Trapped Cash caused by the regulated environment in which the corporation is developing the business.The specific problem of the trapped cash will be analyzed in three different levels; the first one is China in order to familiarize corporations with the environment, generating greater understanding of the basic concepts and concerns that the organization would face. Second, the current theoretical solutions to the problem that will offer and a handful of solutions; third and finally, the case of Alcatel Lucent, a multinational company that has a long background in the Chinese environment, and is struggling because of the trapped cash in China, however, is implementing a solution to solve the liquidity problems of the organization.Concluding the study is possible to highlight the various approaches to increase the liquidity of the company by improving the management practices for the trapped cash situations. Nonetheless, while the roots of the trapped cash remain, a significant amount of cash will be freed.

In this thesis two different studies are presented separately because each study has a different purpose even though the two studies are complementary. For the first study an available dataset for BCI is used. This dataset is consistent with the aim of the first study because it allows the implementation and development of the proposed technique for BCI based on imaginary limb movement with a small amount of electrodes. The technique I implemented trough this study is a reliable option to be used for a BCI-based on imaginary movements.In the second study a different dataset is used because the requirements for the technique to be implemented are different. Training and testing dataset are necessary to describe a practical computational technique that is applied for a single trial classification based on a Common Spatial Pattern and complemented with a linear discriminator. The training data is used to build a classifier and the testing data allows measuring the performance of the classifier implemented. After testing the classifier the good performance obtained makes this technique of great interest for any imaginary movement based-BCI.

If we know how to apply a good communication and understand the roll of technology in our society, we can help elders become more useful and feel active helping them prevent depressions and applying their time to the new media technologies being also part of what’s going on and how fast technology changes and society has to evolve with it and take it part of their lives. The elderly have lots to offer, experience, education, wisdom and even money; we can´t leave all these on a side we need to act and change our perception of older people in our society. Kids should benefit from all of this that in one way or another is going to be useful for their learning.Some kids believe in what their grandpa´s says, in what their parents teach them and off course in what they learn in school. Kids are more capable to adapt to new environments and new languages but still its very fast and too much things that are happening at the same time and each time kids meets technology faster and younger that you get impressed of how fast they learn with this new media, or this new opportunity, if we could see it like that. What we need to understand is even if kids learn faster doesn't mean that adults and especially senior’s can’t learn. You just have to always have in mind that you’re never too old to learn. We need virtual connections to bring people, families together that for one reason life has separate them. Technology can add an enormous value to human relationships and permit or let you express your emotions beyond others even not having them present or standing towards or beside you.It can also help to have a better communication and improve your relationship getting closer. Communication progress, new technologies and a better living, leads to more and more new solutions in the field of design. The increasing diversity between developed end developing countries give designers a very important role today. Design and technology is a powerful medium to reach and to give new possibilities not only to people with easy access to Internet and digital devices. It is necessary to provide new opportunities for next generation in poorer countries, because only in this way they have a chance for a better future. Service design is made for people. The social reality is created as a result of the sum of all individual actions and communication between each other.

The importance of early childhood education is indisputable. In the last decades developing countries have prioritized their budget towards education but despite those efforts, institutional investment in education still does not translate in higher enrollment rates in early education. Public investment can provide educational facilities, quality, and other institutional measures but only household’s investment will enable its utilization.This study pursued to identify poor household’s constraints to investment in basic education in Colombia, to understand how educational policy actions should be focalized. The OLS and fixed effects analysis for 2008 and 2003 estimates evidence the gap between urban and rural households, suggesting that the educational attainment of the parents is the most robust determinant of expenditure in early education and that data for single-mothers as the most vulnerable group is not conclusive enough.Policy targeting this population should be revised and resources prioritized towards specific programs to improve educational attainment of parents and decentralization measures. This kind of research provides empirical evidence for Colombia and would be useful for policy makers who seek a general understanding of educational regulatory policy and its implications to national development.

El concepto de Internet of Things (IoT por sus siglas en inglés) o Internet de las cosas se define como una evolución del actual internet y tiene el objetivo de permitir a objetos o dispositivos identificables unívocamente en digital, comunicarse con otros dispositivos y sistemas distribuidos a través de internet, utilizando estándares abiertos. Este paradigma permite ofrecer muchos servicios innovativos, pervasivos y ubicuos que encuentran aplicabilidad tanto en sectores tradicionales como automatización o control industrial y en campos más modernos como e-health, sistemas de energía inteligentes, ciudades inteligentes entre otros.Una de las principales tecnologías habilitantes para el IoT es el Tag RFID, de hecho este Tag asociado a un objeto no inteligente, puede identificarlo unívocamente y ser utilizado para memorizar información sobre el objeto mismo. También la estandarización de tecnologías wireless, como las consolidadas Bluetooth y ZigBee y las más recientes 6LoWPAN e COAP han tenido una gran importancia en la difusión del concepto de IoT, porque han permitido tener sensores poco invasivos, sensibles, económicos y muy precisos, los cuales no perturban los parámetros medidos por los otros sensores expuestos cercanamente, pueden ser stand-alone o reagrupados en redes de sensores y pueden funcionar de manera independiente. Tales sensores son utilizados para recoger información en tiempo real sobre parámetros del ambiente, como temperatura, localización, movimiento, etc.Y pueden ser gestionados e integrados en plataformas tecnológicas para el IoT. Sin embargo, estos objetos inteligentes pueden interactuar entre ellos a pesar de las diferencias en términos de hardware, software y protocolos de comunicación usados. Una solución común es utilizar un software especializado conocido como middleware, el cual se trata de un importante componente arquitectural para el soporte de las aplicaciones distribuidas, que usualmente se posiciona entre las aplicaciones y el sistema operativo. El rol del middleware es el de presentar un modelo de programación unificado para programadores y desarrolladores de aplicaciones, enmascarar los problemas de heterogeneidad entre dispositivos y la distribución del software.Vista la complejidad de las plataformas para el internet de las cosas, y teniendo en cuenta varios aspectos importantes para facilitar el uso de tales sistemas y herramientas de configuración que vienen incorporados con ellos, los cuales permiten configurar una instancia del sistema, gestionar el ciclo de vida de los módulos que lo integran y tener una idea clara en tiempo real de su estado de ejecución, facilitando al usuario la fase de commissioning de la plataforma y la fase de configuración de los diferentes componentes principales. El objetivo de esta tesis es extender la actual herramienta de configuración del middleware VIRTUS, basándose sobre las consideraciones hechas estudiando el estado del arte de los métodos para la configuración de arquitecturas de software distribuido.Visto el amplio campo de posibles soluciones, se decidió focalizarse sobre algunas soluciones del sector Smart energy poniendo particular atención sobre el middleware open source LinkSmart. VIRTUS es un middleware orientado al internet de las cosas que usa instrumentos abiertos y estándares que ofrecen una solución escalable, ágil y totalmente event-driven para el soporte de aplicaciones para el internet de las cosas. La arquitectura de VIRTUS prevé un instrumento para la configuración y gestión del middleware, este software permite al usuario interactuar con varios módulos del sistema y controlar en fase de ejecución el ciclo de vida del software, y recuperar el estado de ejecución actual de las aplicaciones.Después de la fase de estudio, se decidió concentrar los desarrollos sobre la funcionalidad de configuración dinámica de aplicaciones multidominio, que permiten la comunicación entre diferentes instancias del middleware, dado que aún no está presente en el sistema de configuración. Además de adicionar esta característica, en el mismo contesto ha sido implementado también un mecanismo de DISCOVERY para permitir al middleware, descubrir cuales sensores están presentes en una instancia remota de VIRTUS y poder escoger aquellos que sean necesarios para completar la configuración de la propia aplicación. Esta última parte ha sido desarrollada a través del protocolo XMPP, protocolos abiertos de mensajería instantánea utilizados en VIRTUS para la comunicación entre las diferentes entidades.El presente trabajo se estructura en 4 capítulos. En el primer capítulo vienen analizados a nivel general los conceptos de Internet de las cosas y middleware, el segundo capítulo describe como pueden clasificarse los middleware y sus diferentes arquitecturas, en el tercer capítulo se presenta el estudio hecho sobre los principales sistemas de configuración y herramientas de gestión en tiempo real, en el ámbito de Smart energy y sobre el middleware LinkSmart, en el último capítulo se describe la arquitectura del middleware VIRTUS y su sistema de configuración, además vienen detallados los desarrollos hechos, las posibles evoluciones y las conclusiones.

Arabinogalactan-proteins (AGPs) or proteoglycans in Green coffee beans (GCB) are characterized by their low levels of extraction. Previous work reported a yield of ~1,1% (w/w) of GCB using hot water extraction. This means over 92% AGP of the coffee beans remains in the residual cell wall material (RCWM) composed of cellulose and mannan. The aim of this research is to increase the extraction of AGP from green coffee beans, applying different extraction methods and to compare the methods based on their yield and the chemical composition of obtained fraction. AGP was extracted by: single extraction using (1) cold (4 °C) or (2) hot water (90°C), (3) enzymatic hydrolysis or by sequential extraction, starting with cold water, followed by (4) hot water or alkali (6M KOH) extraction and enzymatic hydrolysis. Extracted AGP was purified and recovered using a preparative anion exchange column (AEC). AGP fractions were identified with a Yariv radial gel diffusion assay. The highest extraction yield (8,7% AGP) was obtained through sequential extraction using alkali. In this method, the alkali extraction resulting in extraction of 57% of the total AGP extracted with the sequence followed by the enzymatic treatment with a 37%. Two main AGPs were obtained with AEC one unbound and the other bound (both showed positive reaction to Yariv reagent test). In order to elucidate the reasons of having these two different AGPs, molecular size was determined using HPSEC, but clear differences were not observed. A main peak with a molecular weight of 287 kDa was measured for both. Analysis carried out in the composition of AGPs confirmed the majority content of arabinose and galactose and the presence of proteins and uronic acids to a less extent. Protein content was on average 12% (w/w). The carbohydrate moiety accounted between 3 to 7% uronic acids with glucuronic acid being the most predominant. Effect of the extraction method on the structure was reflected in the variation of the ratio Galactose/Arabinose. For instance, AGP from cold water showed a ratio of 2.6 indicating its highly branched nature that eases its solubilization. In contrasts ratio of AGP from the enzymatic treatment in the sequential extraction was around 8, which means a poor branch structure. The difference in the ratios reflects the strength of the treatment applied in the composition of AGP. Therefore studies on the extraction of AGP from coffee beans have to be developed using milder methods to maintain the native structure of the AGP presences in the CWM and therefore reducing the side effects on its structure.

This research project focuses on the experiences and narratives of Syrian exiles living in Turkey. The emphasis of this research was placed on the perceptions of each person about their new environment, and the way they rebuilt their lives in exile while the conflict intensified in Syria. The research question is: how do Syrian exiles configure their social worlds in exile and how do they narrate their experiences? By social worlds I refer to the participants’ relation with their new life in displacement, to the space and the people around them, and to the way their memories and expectations influence this relation. I conducted my research with Syrians from different social backgrounds, different ages, and different dreams for the future.Their experiences, varied as they were, shared many similarities and exemplified the anguish and hardship that forced displacement causes to people. Some participants tried to center their everyday lives in remembering past times in Syria, during the beginning of the revolution and before it began. These memories were brought back to life by sharing them with others, by spending days following the news of the destruction of their cities, and talking to their loved ones that remained in Syria. Their life was interrupted when the conflict intensified and they were forced to relocate in Turkey, thus, most participants did not have the opportunity to regard this as the past, but as an interrupted present. While living in exile, most participants lived day by day without making further plans, hoping for something to change. The fact that the conflict in Syria is not showing any signs of arriving to a peaceful solution soon, people’s uncertain condition perpetuates.

Crime and violence have been regarded as one of the main obstacles to development in Latin America countries. Well-known researchers and institutions have studied the impact of violence on health and development in many countries of South America, showing violence as a two-fold constraint, to health and development. Since Colombia has been one of the countries most affected by violence, this dissertation studies violence at the national level and at the municipal level. This research uses a quantitative approach in order to reveal how violence has been occurring in Colombia. Likewise, it uses the city of Bucaramanga as a case study in order to understand how violence, low socioeconomic status and low academic levels are related.Crime and violence have been regarded as one of the main obstacles to development in Latin America countries. Well-known researchers and institutions have studied the impact of violence on health and development in many countries of South America, showing violence as a two-fold constraint, to health and development. Since Colombia has been one of the countries most affected by violence, this dissertation studies violence at the national level and at the municipal level. This research uses a quantitative approach in order to reveal how violence has been occurring in Colombia. Likewise, it uses the city of Bucaramanga as a case study in order to understand how violence, low socioeconomic status and low academic levels are related.This dissertation analyses how interpersonal and collective violence occurs in Colombia (2006 – 2009) and particularly in Bucaramanga (2006). It analyses violence by linking two main rising typologies in Colombia and their most common manifestations. Firstly, it looks at interpersonal violence through child abuse and intimate partner violence; secondly, it focuses on collective violence through homicides. Quantitative analysis is carried out through factors such as age, gender, perpetrators and time to measure manifestations at the national level and the municipal level (Bucaramanga). Furthermore, violence is mapped in Bucaramanga with the purpose of identifying where the most affected areas are. Similarly, it points out deprived areas of Bucaramanga by showing indicators such us socioeconomic status, academic level, public services coverage, which are also mapped. Finally, both maps are overlapped with the aim of understanding links between violence, socioeconomic status and academic level.The research carried out found that there is a close relationship between interpersonal and collective violence and across their manifestations. It also revealed that Bucaramanga shows the same patterns in interpersonal and collective violence as the national level with small variations. Moreover, the research found a close relation between violence, low socioeconomic status and low academic levels in Bucaramanga. This dissertation concludes reviewing successful policies implemented at the municipal level aimed at reducing violence. It uses the successful example of Medellín to recommend possible policies that could reduce crime and violence in Bucaramanga.

How can public employees be motivated to pursue important public purposes with intelligence and energy? When employees are motivated to work, a greater State capacity and a better public provision can be achieved. Motivation concerns how behavior starts, energizes, sustains and directs people to attain goals with drive and persistence and the kind of subjective reaction present in the organism while all this is going on. Current literature in public administration, human resource management and psychology argue that motivation fosters employee work performance and, even more, that it affects the degree to which an employee can contribute to an organization’s success.This paper explains the importance of employee motivation, specifically in the public sector, and explores how this concept affects different factors of human resource management such as goal setting, training and development, organizational climate and culture, team-building, appreciation, feedback, rewards and fairness. This analysis is then contrasted with the reality of a specific organization belonging to a specific context: the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.For this, the Colombian public sector background – and the Ministry’s in particular – in regards to public employee motivation is illustrated. Through a qualitative research approach, the Human Resources Direction, 4 other top-level management and 34 employees are asked to indicate the main motivators of the staff and the factors that most affect their motivation to work.The results show that, due to the particularities of the Colombian context, there are certain factors that deeply affect the staff´s motivation. Such factors, nonetheless, validate what has been concluded by motivation, psychology and HRM literature and research. Employees in the Ministry, just as any other human being, seek to carry out interesting and purposeful tasks; want to grow and achieve goals; and long for an environment whose climate and culture provides appreciation, feedback and fairness.In this regard, 8 recommendations are provided to help the MFA improve its employees’ motivation and thus productivity, performance and – equally important – happinness (for high motivation is a sign of happier people). Although the recommendations are specific for the MFA, considering that the findings confirm motivation literature and are in accordance with the problems portrayed of the Colombian public sector context, it is also plausible to take them into account for other public sector agencies in Colombia and abroad.