Based on the characteristics of the study area, and those of the fauna studied, corridor designs were proposed using a methodology that considered three main elements: 1) Evaluation of habitat use by wildlife; 2) Use of a Geographical Information System (GIS) to define corridor boundaries (pathways between habitat quality ranks); 3) Management regulations using the corridor as part of the landscape. Herbivores were consistently present in those areas covered by primary forest. Omnivores were located in a wider variety of covers (grass and agriculture, secondary forest, primary forest, melina). Wildcats were located in primary and secondary forest cover types (mainly used by their herbivore prey). The three guilds were maintained far from highways and human settlements but near forest and water resources. Several species crossed the highways that surround the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve (GDFR). Maps show that available habitat areas of ""excellent"" and ""good"" habitat quality features, were reduced for the species Panthera onca and Puma concolor, and their conflict areas were more extensive; this fact probably pushed these wildcats to move into heavily altered environments. This study reinforced affirmations about the necessity of corridors, based on identification of habitat that meets minimum quality requirements for wildlife (corridor users), and that defines or modifies their spatial distribution. The pathways designed by this procedure coincide with prior studies showing that critical areas for all wildcats species (and for other species related to them) were located north of Corcovado National Park (CNP), San Juan, Mogos, and the area where Piedras Blancas National Park (PBNP) borders the Golfo Dulce Forest Reserve (GDFR). However, the spatial location of corridors is quite different in this proposal and other possible pathway was identified for P. onca and its prey. This pathway was found to be in conflict toward Drake and wetlands of Sierpe Terraba too.

Various town centres in the UK have been experiencing worrying symptoms, such as store closures, reduction of footfall, and decrease of retail floor-space. Specifically for the town centres in Greater Manchester, none of the alternatives considered for addressing this problem contemplated the potential of smartphones, personalisation, and social networks. This dissertation is motivated by the current relevance of these topics in different contexts; businesses, social and individual behaviour, retailers, and so forth. The goal of this dissertation is to develop a conceptual model where town centres use technologies and information about individuals to influence their attitude to visit the town centre. Explicitly, the model uses digital footprints in social media and social networks, and data from mobile and static sensors, to build a profile of UK smartphone users. From the information inferred, a personalised message or service can be delivered to the smartphone user which would influence his or her attitude towards visiting the town centre. The model is based on information flowing in both directions benefiting the user as well as the town centre. As sharing, extracting, and using information is an important part of the conceptual model, it is essential that it transmits trust to the users about the privacy of the data, and about the way it is handled. However, the empirical test of the model was not within the scope of this dissertation. Hence, it is proposed to be undertaken as a further research.

LatAm’s political stability, vigorous growth, and the liberalisation of the electricity markets coupled with the privatisation of their main companies account for the region’s recent protagonism. As a result, deal activity in the LatAm’s power industry increased substantially in the last decade, and understanding of the main challenges faced during the post-merger integration stage of the M&A process became critical for firms using M&A as a tool to accomplish corporate objectives. However, M&A practitioners cannot resort to the literature, as studies pertinent to the LatAm’s power industry are still incipient. In view of the above, the value of this research lies in the insights gained by examining current practice in post-merger integration in the LatAm’s power industry with the aid of semi structure interviews with seasoned M&A executives. Furthermore, by comparing current practice and the literature on the matter, a novel comprehension of the topic in the LatAm’s power industry context is established, and future discussion via cross-pollination of experiences is facilitated and energized. Collectively, the research’s findings provide the following considerations for current and future M&A experts in the LatAm’s power industry, particularly those responsible of leading the post--merger integration process. Taking a conservative stance on synergy assessment, and concentrating the post-merger integration to deliver rather conservative results, and when possible to capitalise on new sources of value creation are determinants of successful deals in the LatAm’s power industry; the highly regulated nature of the business, and the latent risks related to the political and social views about the role of private investors in the provision of public services support this recommendation. Due diligence is not a ‘hygiene factor’ but a determinant of successful post--merger integration; due diligence should be carried out to match up the entire post-merger integration process, identify hurdles and levers to drive the transformation, estimate how long it would take to realise synergies, and understand how the target’s management practices, routines, idiosyncrasy, and beliefs need to be moulded to make the achievement of the deal objectives possible. LatAm’s power companies should rely on the best practices of post-merger integration outlined in the literature in topics such as planning, measurement and monitoring, human resources, and communication in order to enhance the predictability and reassessment of the process, facilitate employees’ buy-in and management of stakeholders’ expectations, and minimise disruption of day-to-day activities. However, as long as the integration is anchored to the deal’s value drivers, flexibility should be allowed to adapt the plan in the meantime. Standard views about leadership, culture, organisation, and speed of integration should be avoided, as these post-merger integration topics are conditional on the deal type, and the extent to which target and acquirer firms’ organisation, processes, and culture need to change after the transaction. Practices related to these topics should be designed and deployed according to an in-depth examination of the integration approach required by the deal. Practitioners should ensure that ‘buy teams’ and ‘integration teams’ are connected; in particular, senior professionals from technical and operational positions should be involved in the planning and design of the post-merger integration to estimate synergies and risks. Furthermore, people in the ‘buy teams’ should be held accountable also for the success of the post-merger integration. There is no cookie-cutter approach to post-merger integration in the LatAm’s power industry; considerably more contingent research, and in-depth case studies are required in order to avoid getting in standard views of post-merger integration.

My dissertation proposes new ways to study decisions in the housing market with structural models that deliver a consistent connection between house values and rents, incorporating investment and consumption motives for housing consumption, and allowing for preference heterogeneity. The models also take into account the difficulty of measuring complete housing quality in estimation by treating it as latent. The dissertation includes applications where I analyze issues like the size of agglomeration benefits of larger cities (New York City vs Chicago), and the dynamics of rent and prices as a reaction to household financial and demographic conditions during the re- cent housing crisis (in Miami). I find that New York has relatively lower qualities of housing and higher prices than Chicago, which implies positive compensating variations required by households moving from the latter to the former; and that there was a disconnect between the rent and ownership markets that suggest that the crisis mainly affected the asset and not the real market, respectively. Also, I find that heterogeneity in tastes plays an important role in the behavior of households in the housing market. I also present models that introduce heterogeneity in tastes to analyze the interaction between households with different demographics. Going beyond a single type of household presents additional challenges for estimation and identification that are addressed. I define types as households with and without children, and asses the effect of the presence of children on how sensitive households are to changes in the market. I obtain the robust result that the presence of children reduces the sensitivity of demand for housing quality to changes in the market. Additionally, I also use machine learning clustering methods to categorize house- holds into different demographic types based on age, number of children and expenditure in the housing market. With these types, I per- form analyses that contrast the implied demands for housing quality in the different obtained clusters. The methods developed in the different chapters are of interest to policy makers and agents who want to follow the evolution of rental rates and prices at different levels of the quality distribution, as well as for those interested in making welfare evaluations of policies that affect local housing markets differently for households with different demographics. Also, they give insight on agglomeration benefits of larger cities and compensations required when moving a household from one area to another.

Los documentos de transporte marítimo son pieza fundamental en las relaciones contractuales que surgen entre las partes intervinientes en este tipo de contrato. Si bien estos documentos pueden cumplir varias funciones tales como: 1. Ser prueba del contrato de transporte. 2. Ser títulos representativos de mercaderías. 3. Servir de evidencia de la entrega de los bienes al transportador y del estado de los mismos; este trabajo se centra en la última función señalada y en identificar en que variaría un posible escenario de pérdida o avería de mercancía dependiendo del tipo de documento de transporte utilizado. La intención de este escrito es estudiar el verdadero alcance que esta función cumple en los distintos documentos de transporte que se usan en el comercio marítimo y revisar, como las partes dependiendo de sus intereses, pueden reducir o amplificar dicha función.

The need for sustainable agricultural production is generally accepted, and it is increasingly investigated. However, although much has been written about the socio?economic causes of problems with sustainability and the policies needed to overcome them, this has generally been from the viewpoint of the farmer and/or government (FAO, 1991). There has been no assessment of sustainability problems and needs from of the perspective of the marketing system. What is the optimal match between marketing system and sustainability in agriculture ? This study is a first attempt to consider the question of sustainability of agricultural systems from a marketing system perspective. A stable commercial relationship between farmer and enterprise may be an economic incentive for investments in the productive natural resource. Aim To elucidate the contribution of different marketing arrangements on the sustainability of production systems under different conditioning environments. The performance of certain marketing systems may be driven to obtain sustainable effects on the farmer's use of resources. Research A conceptual framework is proposed. Different methods are used to assess and validate the stated hypotheses. Firstly, a positive model approach relates sustainability to physical (e.g. land slope), personal (e.g. attitudes), economic (e.g. income), and institutional (e.g. marketing) factors. Secondly, a normative model approach includes sustainability, but also other goals such as profitability, risk avoidance, and income distribution. The simulation optimizes multiple objectives under different marketing scenarios. Preliminary findings confirm that farmers more integrated to the market are adopters of sustainable technology. Conversely, farmers facing market imperfections do not make an appropriate use of the land. Market imperfections such as transport and communications handicaps, high interests of commercial loans, or ambiguity of input and output prices, can result in sub-optiomal managements of the natural resource. 

El conflicto y la tradición letrada republicana que en Antioquia no concurrieron sino hasta finales del siglo XIX, permitieron que se diera un debate letrado en el marco del cual la novela sirvió como un arma simbólica propia de esta contradicción. El anverso de este argumento nos dice entonces que ni la sociedad letrada autoreferencial, ni los conflictos son condiciones que tienen per se la capacidad de dar origen a la novela. Como el primer conflicto que se dio dentro de la ciudad letrada republicana fue el de la construcción de la nación no sólo en Antioquia sino en toda Latinoamérica, la novela y nación quedaron asociados en sus orígenes en una relación simbiótica: la nación suponía el conflicto que la novelas reflejaban y las novelas le daban una dimensión a la nación cuando enunciaban las partes que entraban en contradicción. Pero en la Antioquia finisecular, existía además del conflicto propiamente nacional desatado tras el proyecto de la Regeneración que buscaba restarle poder a la región, un conflicto local en el cual los valores y sujetos sociales por cien años vigentes se ponían en cuestión. Y en esta doble contestación la novela inicial definió su carácter: regionalista hacia el exterior y contra hegemónica hacia el interior. Pero el acceso a este debate letrado, en el que Carrasquilla participó por medio de sus novelas y especialmente por medio de Frutos de mi tierra, exigía el seguimiento de unas reglas que iban más allá del hecho de saber leer y escribir. Además del simple alfabetismo exigía demostrar una alineación con el sistema de pensamiento europeo y con las reglas formales del buen decir que los criollos sistematizaron en manuales y códigos, o exigía, al menos, tal como lo hizo nuestro autor, el conocimiento y la capacidad para controvertirlos y poder dialogar con ellos. De todas maneras, y pese a que fue una minoría de antioqueños los que como Carrasquilla pudieron participar en este debate letrado, fueron ellos los que al canalizar sus conflictos en el debate letrado y no en la guerra permitieron hablar de una modernidad potenciada en el marco de la cual tuvo su origen la novela regional.

Résumé: Nombre d’enseignants de langues étrangères partent étudier dans le(s) pays où on parle la langue qu’ils enseignent, ce qui constitue une expérience bouleversante. Intégrer une culture différente et se socialiser par le biais d’une langue étrangère modifie à la fois notre façon d’appréhender la réalité et le regard que l’on a sur soi, comme sur autrui. Un séjour linguistique et culturel à l’étranger aurait donc des effets sur les constructions identitaires des (futur(e)s) enseignant(e)s. L’identité, considérée d’un point de vue dynamique, évolue et se construit dans l’interaction, un phénomène qui se produit dans le pays d’accueil et grâce au langage. Je présenterai une recherche qualitative dans le cadre de laquelle j’ai analysé les effets d’un séjour linguistique et culturel à l’étranger, m’intéressant de manière particulière aux aspects identitaires, mis en discours dans le récit de vie de 9 (futur(e)s) enseignant(e)s de FLE. Abstract: Many foreign language teachers go to study in the country where the language they teach is spoken, which is an overwhelming experience. Integrating a different culture and socializing through a foreign language modifies both the way we perceive reality and the way we perceive ourselves and the others. Being in contact with another language and another culture abroad would affect the identity constructions of future teachers. Identity, considered from a dynamic point of view, evolves and is built through interaction, a phenomenon that occurs in the host country and where language plays an important role. I will present a qualitative research that I conducted in order to analyze the effects of living abroad, concentrating mainly on the identity aspects in the narratives of 9 future Colombian French teachers.

Teniendo en cuenta que la disfunción miocárdica por sepsis es un proceso patológico asociado al estrés oxidativo y nitrosativo, nos propusimos determinar el efecto protector de Trx1 durante la progresión de la enfermedad. Para esto, a ratones con sobreexpresión de Trx1 específica en corazón (Tg-trx1) y sus wildtype (WT) se les realizó ligadura-doble punción cecal o laparotomía. Después de 6, 18 y 24 hs, se evaluó actividad de enzimas antioxidantes y de cadena respiratoria mitocondrial por espectrofotometría; procesos de dinámica y biogénesis mitocondrial por qRT-PCR. Morfología y autofagia por microscopía electrónica y contractilidad cardiaca por técnica de Langendorff.  Se observó que Trx1 incrementa la sobrevida en sepsis. En sepsis temprana atenúa la caída en reserva contráctil y en sepsis tardía mantiene un menor nivel oxidativo celular, retrasando el agotamiento de la capacidad antioxidante mitocondrial y la pérdida de la actividad de complejo I mitocondrial. También reduce el porcentaje de mitocondrias con alteraciones morfológicas, la alteración en la dinámica mitocondrial y activa significativamente la biogénesis mitocondrial y la autofagia. Se concluye que en disfunción miocárdica séptica Trx1 prolonga la protección redox, preservando la reserva contráctil, limitando el daño mitocondrial y activando mecanismos de recuperación mitocondrial, incrementando así la sobrevida en sepsis.

This project was made as a final project of the Master in Industrial Organization and Markets. The main objective of the document is to finnd the empirical behavior of banks in input market (deposits) and output market (loans) and identify possible imperfections that may arise at each market. The first part of the document starts with a brief survey of different related research. Then, the second part shows the main model following, mainly the document by Adams, Robert M., LH. Röller, R. Sickles (2002), ""Market Power in Outputs and Inputs: An Empirical Application to Banking."". The rest of the document is devoted to the procedures and results to nally conclude.