Abstract: This survey gathered information about the transportation modal choices, among Politecnico di Milano university population (n=9,763 students, n=2,185 staff members). The main tool used for this stage was Geographical Information System Software (GIS) that allow us to visualize and evaluate the travel behaviors. In particular, it was studied its relation with the accessibility to public transportation infrastructure and networks likewise the frequency of their journeys. We analyzed, in particular, the diffusion of originated trips directed to the most important campuses of Politecnico: Leonardo Citta Studi located in the east-central part of Milan and Bovisa located in the north-west border of Milan. Subsequently we proposed a variety of Transport Demand Policies (TDM) aiming the promotion of the public transportation instead of non-motorized mobility, shifting specifically the choice from the car (there are more than 80,000 journeys made by car in the academic year) promoting alternatives like train and regulate the use of cars with parking restrictions and carpooling programs. Finally we also perform calculations to figure out the estimated cost of (TDM) strategies implementation, considering different scenarios according to assumptions based in the state of art provided by the Città Studi Sustainable Campus project. Resumen: El contenido del presente trabajo se enfoca en la interpretación de los hábitos de transporte por parte de la población del Politécnico de Milán que afectan negativamente la movilidad sostenible. Se han diseñado estrategias y políticas con el objetivo de controlar estos hábitos. La metodología para identificar el problema se fundamenta en la interpretación desde el punto de vista territorial a partir de una encuesta desarrollada por el proyecto Città Studi Sustainable Campus en 2015. Esta encuesta ha recolectado información de la distribución modal por parte de la población del Politécnico de Milán (9,763 estudiantes y 2,185 trabajadores). Las principales herramientas utilizadas han sido los Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG) que permiten visualizar y evaluar los hábitos de transporte. Se ha estudiado la relación de los hábitos con la accesibilidad a transporte público y la frecuencia de los viajes a lo largo del periodo académico. Se ha analizado los viajes atraídos por los campuses principales del Politécnico de Milán: Leonardo Citta Studi ubicado en el área este-central de Milán y Bovisa, ubicado en el noroccidente de Milán. A partir del análisis se ha propuesto una serie de Políticas de Demanda de Transporte (TDM) que buscan promover el uso de transporte público, modificando principalmente el uso de vehículo particular (se tienen más de 80,000 viajes con automóvil a lo largo del año académico) tales como uso del tren, regulación en el uso de parqueaderos y programas de carpooling. Finalmente se ha estimado el costo de la implementación de las diferentes TDM al considerar diferentes escenarios a partir de estudios previos elaborados por el proyecto Città Studi Sustainable Campus.

This paper explores the participation of non-state providers in public service delivery in post-conflict reconstruction societies particularly for the provision of education. Using a qualitative research method the literature regarding state capacity and governance in war-to-peace transitions is assessed to identify the pros and cons of private sector intervention. As a case study the model of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in education in Colombia is analysed in order to examine the extent to which engagements with non-state actors can be a complementary strategy to assist former combatants and victims during the implementation of a potential peace agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – FARC. The Colombian model developed through the Familiar Compensation Fund – Cajas de Compensación Familiar – may be an alternative to offering educational programmes for children and youth ex-combatants. In the light of the plausible signing of a final peace agreement the provision of effective incentives in terms of basic public services will be a key driver for peacebuilding. The importance of education in development and processes of reintegration is well known, but the challenge is how to deliver adequate teaching services for children and young fighters in a context characterized by low state capacity and resource constraints. According to institutional frameworks, the model of PPPs in Colombia has served to deliver social programmes to poor communities, former combatants and victims of the armed conflict. Therefore, the case study is framed in four regions: Bogotá, Antioquia, Putumayo and Caquetá where the majority of the municipalities of the post-conflict will be concentrated except for Bogotá. The Familiar Compensation system, also known as Social Security Institutions, is a fundamental actor in the development of the Colombian social policy. Apart from providing social welfare services to workers and targeted communities, these institutions are key allies of the government in the implementation and execution of public programmes regarding the delivery of education, housing and health services given their experience, infrastructure, good practices and national coverage to reach the population in urban and rural regions. This innovative coordination between the public and private sector is also seen in the active role the Family Compensation Fund has in the articulation and definition of public policies at national and regional levels. Likewise, the SSIs have participated actively in the delivery of public education through different type of contracts under specific socio-economic requirements and governmental policies in order to benefit disadvantaged children and adults including demobilized and victims. The SSIs CAFAM, COMFAMILIAR PUTUMAYO, COMFACA and COMFAMA operate a variety of educational and complementary programmes according to the needs of each region. Some of them have worked together to deliver non-traditional educational services in municipalities intensely affected by the internal conflict, which are funded by both governmental and international agencies. In a post-conflict setting, the intervention of the SSIs as non-state providers would be crucial for state building as a result of the coordination mechanisms developed so far between the state and the private sector; the institutional and operational capacity of the SSIs in the provision of social services; and the accountability mechanism created to supervise and control the Family Compensation system through the Superintendence of Family Subsidy. Hence strengthening engagements with non-state actors in Colombia may contribute to restoring legitimacy and accountability in marginalized regions exercising the state an indirect role in service delivery via regulation and monitoring. Still accountability will need to be reinforced since some SSIs have been intervened due to political clientelism and local elite capture of decision-making, which have undermined their social impact in the communities where they operate. Nonetheless, the successful experiences of the Family Compensation Funds – among which are entrepreneurship, housing, microcredit, and education services – can be replicated and articulated in rural areas following the alternative model of PPPs in service delivery.

LGBTQ issues have been mainstreamed in media and academic literature, especially in countries of the Commonwealth of Nations, where homosexuality has been said to be criminalized through the commonly known “sodomy laws”. This has fueled an international social movement, led by Western human rights organizations, with cultural, political and economic goals seeking to advance LGBTQ rights globally. However, research on these issues in Sri Lanka re-mains limited. This study seeks to overcome this gap by exploring the LGBTQ movement in its capital, Colombo, conducting a series of interviews to LGBTQ leaders, activists and active members of the community. The study uses social movement theory (with the concepts of grievances, collective identity and strategy) and postcolonial theory. Hence, the following research question is answered: How is the politics of the LGBTQ movement expressed in postcolonial Sri Lanka? Findings indicate that the movement’s grievances are connected to the country’s colonial history, as well as to the human rights discourse. Additionally, collective ‘identity’, a complex concept in Sri Lanka, was found to be “hybrid” among activists, and was contested by activists themselves. Lastly, it was found that there is an insinuation of concern in terms of mimicry in the strategies and a suggestion to decolonize from Western models of activism. Los temas LGBTQ han sido ampliamente debatidos en los medios de comunicación y en la literatura académica, especialmente en los países de la Mancomunidad de Naciones, donde la homosexualidad es criminalizada a través de las “leyes de sodomía”. Esto ha alimentado un movimiento social internacional, liderado por organizaciones occidentales de derechos humanos con propósitos culturales, políticos y económicos que busca promover derechos para personas LGBTQ a nivel global. Sin embargo, la investigación académica sobre estos temas en Sri Lanka es limitada. Este estudio busca llenar este vacío explorando el movimiento LGBTQ en la capital del país, Colombo, por medio de entrevistas a líderes, activistas y miembros activos de la comunidad LGBTQ. El estudio usa conceptos de la teoría de movimientos sociales (agravios, identidad colectiva y estrategia) y de la teoría postcolonial. Así, se responde la siguiente pregunta de investigación: ¿cómo se expresan las dinámicas políticas internas del movimiento LGBTQ en Sri Lanka postcolonial? Los resultados indican que los agravios del movimiento están conectados con la historia colonial del país, así como el discurso de derechos humanos. Adicionalmente, la ‘identidad’ colectiva, un complejo concepto en Sri Lanka, fue identificada como “híbrida” entre los activistas y se configuró como un concepto controvertido entre los mismos activistas del movimiento. Finalmente, se encontró que hay una preocupación en términos de la imitación en las estrategias utilizadas por el movimiento, así como una insinuación para descolonizarlo de los modelos occidentales de activismo. El autor de esta tesis fue nominado al Hydén Award de Lund University, otorgado a las mejores tesis de pregrado y maestría en asuntos socioeconómicos y políticos en países de ingresos bajos y medios.

Alguna vez, recostado en el umbral de la puerta del aula de clase, me preguntaba por el sentido de lo que hacía, justo después de que un hecho inusitado me hubiera dejado retumbando la cabeza. Una estudiante que estaba haciendo un juego de creación escénica a partir del monólogo de Darío Fo La violación , encontró un espacio y el tiempo para contar su propia historia. La ví llorar en escena y no por aquello que en teatro se llama verdad escénica sino porque, en verdad, le había ocurrido un hecho traumático desde los siete hasta los nueve años, había sido violada sistemáticamente. Al ver en escena aquello, encontré que el lugar de la clase de arte era para eso, para dar cuenta de verdades profundas.

Este trabajo expone el proceso y los resultados de una investigación-creación que tiene como objetivo la descripción de los cuerpos que transitan en el sistema de transporte bogotano: Transmilenio. Basado en microrelatos de usuarios, en un diario de campo, fuentes teóricas, registro visual, construcción de categorías, lo análogo y metafórico de un proceso de creación artística desde las artes escénicas, se proponen descripciones sobre las sensaciones, emociones y acciones que realiza el cuerpo que transita, gracias a su relación estésica y estética que tiene con este medio de transporte. Igualmente, se realiza una presentación del proceso y los resultados de la creación y por último como conclusiones, se proponen varios dilemas que debe soslayar este cuerpo en su diario vivir. Planteándose como una de las soluciones para mejorar la calidad de vida en este medio de transporte, el concebir el cuerpo como metáfora de transformación gracias al concepto de poder cotidiano, capaz de construir un lugar de tránsito también en un lugar para habitar.

The Interaction of electromagnetic waves with dielectric bodies and metals has been extensively studied because of its importance to problems including propagation through rain or snow, scattering by and detection of air borne particles, coupling to missiles with plasma plumes or dielectric-filled apertures, performance of communication antennas in the presence of dielectric and magnetic inhomogeneities, and medical diagnostics and power absorption in biological bodies. Computational electromagnetics methods (CEM) offer and indispensable tool for calculating the electromagnetic scattering from an internal field distribution of arbitrarily shaped, inhomogeneous, dielectric bodies. The aim of this thesis is the study and simulation of a RF coils system design by developing a novel parallel fast Method of Moments (MoM) modeling approach suitable for the simulation of dielectric bodies and metals. The parallel fast MoM implementation uses volume and surface basis functions with special properties appropriate for the representation of flux current densities for perfect electric conductors (PEC) and dielectrics. The results obtained with our modeling method were confirmed by comparisons with analytical solutions and other commercial software results, yielding very good agreement. The RF coil is employed in high field Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to obtain high quality brain images. Among all the clinical imaging techniques, MRI stands as a noninvasive technique that provides accurate, detailed anatomic images, which has had a major impact in the diagnosis of human diseases. MRI is a widely use soft-tissue imaging modality that has involved over the past several years into a powerful and versatile medical diagnostic tool capable of providing in-vivo diagnostic images of human anatomy. Current research areas in MRI system design are driven by the need to obtain detailed high resolution images with improved image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at a given magnetic field strength. One of the most critical factor that influences the quality and resolution of the MRI is the homogeneity of the RF field. To this end, this requirement demands the development of high performance MRI radio frequency (RF) coils and a standard procedure for enhancing the uniformity of the field directly at the modeling stage of the RF Coil.

The central system for generating genetic diversity and protecting the genomic integrity of replicating cells, from bacteria to humans, involves the homologous recombination (HR) machinery. It involves the process of exchange of molecules between DNA strands using the homology sequences. Because these machineries are highly efficient and precise it has become a useful analytical tool for the bacterial geneticists, thus, the engineering recombinant DNA molecules by homologous recombination, method called recombineering, is functional for sequence deletions, substitutions, or insertions. Under some conditions, the phage-mediated recombination system can be provided in E. coli by the ? phage Red enzymes, Red? and Red?. It involves a processive 5’ to 3’ exonuclease or a member of helicase family, namely Red?, which generates single stranded DNA (ssDNA) regions that are substrates for the single strand annealing protein (SSAP), i. e. Red?, which promotes joining of the DNA molecules by joining the recently replicated complementary sequences. The motivation of this study is to contribute to the understanding of the physical and functional coupling of the two enzymes Red? and Red?, as well as understanding the influence of including the DNA into the reaction, which acts as the substrate. Consequently, the experiments were designed and performed incorporating in vitro techniques not only for finding protein-protein interactions, such as co-immunoprecipitations and size exclusion chromatography, but also for analyzing the exonuclease activity of Red?. Also, the interaction of DNA with Red enzymes by means of the mobility shift assays was evaluated. In parallel, in vivo tests were made with the objective of defining the stoichiometry of the intracellular concentrations of both proteins during the co-expression in E. coli. In order to reveal more about the physical coupling of Red system’s components the preliminary data of a fluorescence correlation spectroscopy assay is described with the aim of determining whether the presence of Red? has an effect on Red?’s dwell-time on its substrate.

Pregnancy during adolescence is a worldwide public health concern. In developing countries, 14 million adolescents give birth each year, which accounts for 90% of all worldwide pregnancies. The proportion of adolescent women aged 10-19 whom have been pregnant in Mitú, Colombia is of approximately 25%, in comparison to 19.5% at the national level. This report aims to review the effectiveness and identifying best practice of adolescent pregnancy interventions in low and middle income countries and use formative research to make specific recommendations for policy and practice to prevent adolescent pregnancy in Mitú, Colombia. EMBASE, Medline, CINHAL, Cochrane library, GLOBAL HEALTH, ADOLEC, Popline, LILACS and REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH LIBRARY were searched to identify studies examining adolescent pregnancy prevention interventions in developing countries. GOOGLE was searched to identify grey literature. Five semi-structured interviews were also conducted with key service providers in the field of Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in Mitú to explore the needs of the region in regards to adolescent pregnancy prevention and the barriers and facilitators for programme implementation. The literature review found that adolescent pregnancy prevention interventions in developing countries had a positive impact on the knowledge of pregnancy prevention and may contribute to the delay of sexual initiation. However, impact on the use of contraceptive methods and reduction of adolescent pregnancy inconclusive. Interviews revealed key societal, familial and individual factors that were viewed to be linked to adolescent pregnancy in Mitú. Relationships between military personnel and young women appeared to be an important factor in high teenage pregnancy rates. Barriers for the adequate implementation and continuation of programmes included lack of political commitment, lack of financial, human and material resources and lack of inter-institutional collaboration, the high rate of staff turnover and the lack of monitoring programmes. Only few facilitators were mentioned that consisted mainly in the willing of both adolescent and military to collaborate in the implementation of adolescent pregnancy prevention interventions. In conclusion, evidence suggests that adolescent pregnancy prevention strategies are effective in increasing knowledge of pregnancy and might delay sexual initiation in low and middle-income countries. Features of effective programmes were identified and discussed and are important in designing and developing new strategies. However, cultural, environmental and social barriers need to be addressed through political commitment and inter-institutional collaboration in order to develop effective interventions for pregnancy prevention in Mitú.

Las filas, en general son algo que no le gusta a la gente, sin embargo, para muchos temas sociales son necesarias, en particular si hablamos de eventos de entretenimiento como funciones de cine, obras de teatro e incluso conciertos musicales, los espectadores en general se ven obligados a hacer filas para adquirir o reclamar sus boletas fisicas, y luego generalmente para ingresar a los eventos debes hacer nuevamente una fila. El objetivo es mejorar la experiencia de los clientes implementando procesos innovadores que cambien la forma en la que actualmente acceden a este tipo de eventos, en principio se buscara eliminar la necesidad de hacer filas para adquirir la boletería, este proceso entregará una boleta electrónica que evitara que el cliente deba hacer una nueva fila para reclamar su boleta fisica, esto ya aporta mejoras en el tiempo que debe invertir el cliente para adquirir y obtener su boleta. Seguido a esto se implementará un método novedoso y ágil que permita la validación y entrada rápida de los usuarios a los eventos en los que se utilice ésta tecnología, motivando un incremento en el uso y asistencia a estos servicios.

Abstract: Geographical Indication (GI) contains a number of economic tools and, due to the close relationship with their territory of origin, GIs are used as a mechanism to reach and benefit local communities through the increased remunerative value associated with their agricultural, handicraft and artisan production. Empirical evidence indicates GIs provide economic, social, and environmental effects over their territory of origin although; the grade of impact differs from case to case. Inadequate structures and weak governance also generate unexpected outcomes such as; abandonment of traditional practices, or the destruction of biodiversity —especially in developing countries where scarcity of economic resources and the inability of sustaining long–term commitments has been evident. GIs require a careful analysis of the circumstances in which the product is embedded under GI recognition, as well as the study of resources available for its implementation. GIs are a legitimate form of intellectual property —a status which guarantees the owner’s right to economically exploit it. Due to connection to the land, GIs could also generate social and environmental impacts over local communities that are not trivial. This paper aims to outline a GI implementation process that has a wider scope of variables, in order to obtain not only economic, but social and environmental benefits for the region to which the GI is linked. This paper is organized in two parts of three sections each. The first section describes the objectives, structure, and methodology used by the author. In the second, a “state of the art” for GI is explained; outlining some expected benefits and challenges. The third section establishes a legal basis for GIs, providing a background of the international legal schemes and current discussions. In Part 2, Section 4 analyses five existing GI cases; describing the circumstances and focus undertaken by GI policy makers. In the analysis that follows, specific patterns and relationships between variables and outcomes are discussed. Section 5 outlines an implementation process—including precise objectives, variables, and suggestions that can be adapted to specific circumstances. Section 6 summarises the main findings and final conclusions. Resumen: Las indicaciones geográficas (GIs por sus siglas in ingles) contienen un gran numero de herramientas, que debido a su estrecha relación con el territorio de origen, son utilizadas como un mecanismo que beneficia a las comunidades del lugar donde son producidas, este beneficio es generalmente concebido a través del mayor valor que el productor percibe dado el trabajo agrícola y artesanal relacionado con el GI. Aunque sus impactos difieren de caso a caso, evidencia empírica indica que GIs producen efectos económicos, sociales y ambientales sobre sus territorios de origen. Sin embargo, estructuras inadecuadas y pobre gobernanza pueden generar resultados inesperados tales como: abandono de practicas tradicionales o incluso, destrucción de la biodiversidad de la región – especialmente en países en desarrollo donde han sido evidentes la escases de recursos económicos y la inhabilidad de sostener compromisos al largo plazo. Por lo anterior, es claro que GIs requieren de un análisis cuidadoso sobre las circunstancias en las cuales el producto objeto de reconocimiento de GI es enmarcado, así como también, requiere de un estudio minucioso sobre los recursos disponibles para su implementación. GIs son una forma legitima de propiedad intelectual – un estatus que le garantiza al dueño del derecho a explotarlo económicamente. Debido a su estrecha conexión con la tierra, las GI también pueden generar impactos sociales y ambientales sobre las comunidades locales, adyacentes a su lugar de producción. Este documento tiene como objetivo establecer un proceso de implementación de GIs que logre obtener beneficios no solo económicos sino también sociales y ambientales a las regiones ligadas a las GIs. Este documento esta organizado en dos partes, cada uno con tres secciones. En la primera parte, la primera sección describe los objetivos, estructura y metodología utilizada por el autor. En la segunda sección, el “estado de arte” de GIs es explicado, resaltando algunos de los beneficios y retos que estas contienen. La tercera sección establece un base legal para las GIs, proporcionando un análisis general de los esquemas legales internacionales y las discusiones que se están llevando a cabo en el momento.