Generally studies about identity and consumption have assumed that individuals are immersed in a context of abundance, in which their possibilities to fulfil their needs and desires to purposefully construct a consumption lifestyle are granted. Within this context, studies from the Consumer Culture Theory perspective have described how individuals navigate consumer culture by developing enduring relationships with possessions that help them to build identities and a sense of self. However, this is not always possible during every individual’s life. Certain situational factors not only provoke the individual’s loss of what they have already built, but also lead them to a restricted consumption context. The present study focuses on forced and uncertain changing events, those whose severity and/or rapid change disrupts an individual’s entire life. Through a phenomenological approach of the homeless experience, this study attempts to understand individuals’ transition into a restricted consumption context. The empirical data obtained from a twenty two month ethnographic study evidences that experiencing homelessness, individuals’ loss of possessions and the perceived uncertainty that characterizes life on the streets, trigger not only a self-transformation process, but also alter their relationship with the material world. The findings are contrasted with the current literature extending previous work about transition and consumption by: a) Proposing a new transformational routine to describe the forced self-transformations and how consumption (or the lack of it) becomes an element that influences the deconstruction and construction of a new self. b) Identifying how in a restricted consumption context, individuals develop a different relationship with the material world, and how this changes their modes of consumption.

In Latin America, Duty of Memory, or Deber de memoria, forms part of Transitional Justice measures that strive to symbolically address mass historical violations through the public recognition of victims and the incorporation of their stories of pain, exclusion, and repression into their national narratives. Within this context, Argentina and Colombia are two examples of the complexities inherent in attempting to restore the social networks. Scarred by a past military dictatorship (1976-1983) and a continuing internal armed conflict (1946-), both nations have applied Transitional Justice Systems and Duty of Memory as state policy. However, even when the two countries share the same framework, the political dynamics of each country and the ways their civil societies conceive of justice, vary considerably. Argentina is closer to a Retributive Justice model in which individual criminal accountability for the past is prioritized of over other forms of symbolic reparation. Colombia frames its past and present through Restorative Justice, defining violations as collective wrongdoings and basing reparation on dialogue, negotiation, and restoration of the bonds of trust. These two distinct viewpoints can be contrasted through the analysis of the material aspect of Duty of Memory, that is, the Memorial Museums and Trauma Sites that have emerged as spaces of reflection and commemoration in both countries. This study takes one memorial museum and one trauma site as embodiments of two outlooks on Duty of Memory. The memorial museum is the Museum House of Memory in Medellín, Colombia. The Trauma Site chosen is the Space of Memory and Human Rights of Argentina located in the Navy-Petty Officers School of Mechanics (ESMA), one of Buenos Aires former Secret Detention Centers. The goal of this thesis is to explore how the architectural, spatial, aesthetic, and educational practices of these two sites are influenced by the state obligations required by Duty of Memory but also establish a two-way relationship with this framework, defining its content. Resumen: En América Latina, Deber de Memoria es un concepto incluido dentro del esquema de Justicia Transicional que aborda violaciones históricas a los derechos humanos a partir del reconocimiento de las víctimas y la incorporación de sus historias de dolor, exclusión y represión en la narrativa nacional. En este contexto particular, Argentina y Colombia resaltan como dos naciones que han ratificado el sistema de Justicia Transicional y Deber de Memoria como política estatal en las últimas décadas. Esto se ha hecho con miras a restaurar el tejido social afectado por una dictadura militar (1976-1983) y un conflicto armado interno (1946-). Sin embargo, aun cuando existe un marco compartido, las dinámicas políticas y la manera en que la sociedad civil concibe la justicia y la reparación, varían considerablemente. Argentina se acerca más a un modelo de Justicia Retributiva en donde la justicia penal individual por las violaciones prevalece sobre otras formas de reparación simbólica. En contraste, Colombia enmarca su pasado, y presente, a través de la Justicia Restaurativa. Esto significa que el Estado define las violaciones como una infracción colectiva, buscando reparar mediante el restablecimiento de los vínculos de confianza, la negociación y el diálogo. La diferencia de estos dos acercamientos se hace tangible en el análisis del aspecto material del Deber de Memoria. Es decir, en los museos memoriales y los sitios de trauma que han surgido como espacios de conmemoración y reflexión en ambas naciones. La siguiente investigación toma un museo memorial, el Museo Casa de la Memoria de Medellín, y un sitio de trauma, el Espacio Memoria y Derechos Humanos de Buenos Aires, como puntos de partida para observar las diferencias entre los dos modelos. Esto se hace a partir de un análisis textual y visual de las prácticas arquitectónicas, espaciales, estéticas y educativas de dichos lugares. Los dos ejemplos demuestran que los museos memoriales y sitios de trauma no sólo responden a las obligaciones estatales del Deber de Memoria sino, estableciendo una relación recíproca con este modelo, definen también su contenido.

This decolonizing autoethnography hinges on Sandoval’s (2000) analysis of the metaphor of the mask by Franz Fanon (1967), to explain the different ways in which I understand and conceptualize my EFL teacher educator identity, both before coming to the University of Toronto (from 2011 to 2014) and during the coursework in the Language and Literacies Education program (from 2015 to 2016). Drawing from decolonizing and Indigenous epistemologies, an autoethnographic tapestry is woven to account for such transformations.

The XX and XXI centuries brought the best and the worst of what human kind has ever seen. Wars and Peace as never before, the first man in the moon, the internet, and even the means to write this document: all of these in a span of little over 100 years. In this swift transformation, our legal systems have adapted in order to respond to the realities of these modern times. However, human ingenuity is always ahead of legal developments, making us to rethink what were once settled rules. This is how in the year 2009, under the auspices of the famous, yet unknown, Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin was created. Based on the concept of electronic money, this pure cryptographic money-like thing has challenged legal systems in uncountable ways. Today, 2018, the existence of cryptocurrencies and new the ideas that have come with them are an undeniable reality. In this sense, law needs to understand them, regulate them and, thus, create a place within the legal systems which will allow this new development to function properly in a day-to-day basis. In this paper I will focus on the challenges that cryptocurrencies bring to Property Law. A field of law that has been timidly explored in the context of cryptocurrencies, but given the urge of people wanting to buy and ‘own’ these new assets, becomes an increasingly relevant subject. This analysis will present how the US, English and Colombian legal systems have reacted to the existence of these assets and how -despite of almost a decade of their creation- there is hardly any clear answer on how to categorize them. In order to so, I have used typical research sources as case-law, statutory provisions, authors, among others. However, due to its novelty, research also came by taking part in conferences and lectures given by legal practitioners, investors and developers in London, Amsterdam and in the context of the P.R.I.M.E. Finance annual conference held in the Peace Palace in The Hague. All of them taking place in 2018. This allowed me to offer insight about legal and practical debates that are hardly found in any published documents and bring a more practical approach to this study. With this in mind, my main objective will be to present highly debatable issues in a comparative law analysis; aiming to define if cryptocurrencies can be subject to property law, where and how would they be placed within the system, and the different actions that may be used to protect owners from misappropriation. All of which are common unsettled issues in these three systems. In the same way, this document will provide a comparative analysis of the possible implications (and difficulties) of creating security interests with these assets; an issue that is gaining relevance, as adoption of cryptocurrencies becomes more common as means of payment in business endeavors. For these purposes apart from US, UK and Colombia, I will add to this analysis the UNCITRAL Security Interest system and EU Law for Financial Collateral Agreements. This will allow for global perspective and not only for peace-meal answers, especially due to the harmonizing goal of the UNCITRAL and EU system. With all this in the table, I expect this paper will create a field for debate and a proposal about how property law should understand cryptocurrencies and how their value can be put into use as collateral in the field of Secured Commercial Transactions. Los siglos XX y XXI trajeron lo mejor y lo peor de lo que la humanidad ha visto. Guerra y paz como nunca antes, el primer hombre en la luna, Internet e incluso los medios para escribir este documento: todo esto en un lapso de poco más de 100 años. En esta rápida transformación, nuestros sistemas legales se han adaptado para responder a las realidades de estos tiempos modernos. Sin embargo, el ingenio humano está siempre por delante de los desarrollos legales, lo que nos hace repensar lo que antes eran reglas establecidas. Así es como en el año 2009, bajo los auspicios del famoso y aún desconocido, Satoshi Nakamoto, se creó Bitcoin. Basado en el concepto de dinero electrónico, este “bien” puramente criptográfico que busca simular el dinero ha desafiado a los sistemas legales de maneras incontables. Hoy en 2018, la existencia de criptomonedas y las nuevas ideas que vienen con ellas son una realidad innegable. En este sentido, la ley necesita entenderlos, regularlos y, por lo tanto, crear un lugar dentro de los sistemas legales que permita que este nuevo desarrollo funcione correctamente en el día a día. En este documento me centraré en los desafíos que las criptomonedas traen a la Ley de Propiedad. Un campo de la ley que ha sido tímidamente explorado en el contexto de las criptomonedas, pero que dado el impulso de las personas que desean comprar y "poseer" estos nuevos activos, se convierte en un tema cada vez más relevante. Este análisis presentará cómo los sistemas legales de los EE. UU., El sistema Inglés y el Colombiano han reaccionado ante la existencia de estos activos y cómo, a pesar de casi una década de su creación, no hay una respuesta clara sobre cómo clasificarlos. Para ello he utilizado fuentes de investigación típicas como jurisprudencia, disposiciones legales, autores, entre otros. Sin embargo, debido a su novedad, la investigación también se realizó participando en conferencias y seminarios impartidos por juristas, inversionistas y desarrolladores en Londres, Ámsterdam y en el contexto de la conferencia anual de la asociación P.R.I.M.E. celebrada en el Palacio de la Paz en La Haya. Todos estos eventos se realizaron en 2018. Todo esto permitió ofrecer una perspectiva sobre los debates legales y prácticos que difícilmente se encuentran en los documentos publicados, permitiéndome aportar un enfoque más práctico a este estudio. Teniendo esto en cuenta, mi objetivo principal será presentar temas altamente debatibles en un análisis de derecho comparado con el objetivo de definir si las criptomonedas pueden estar sujetas al derecho de bienes, cómo pueden ser clasificadas y ubicadas dentro de este sistema y las diferentes acciones legales que se pueden usar para proteger poseedores (propietarios) de buena fe de la apropiación indebida por parte de terceros. Todos estos son problemas con distintas soluciones en estos tres sistemas. De la misma manera, este documento proporcionará un análisis comparativo de las posibles implicaciones (y dificultades) de crear garantías mobiliarias con estos activos; un problema que está ganando relevancia a medida que la adopción de las criptomonedas se vuelve más común como medio de pago en los negocios. Para estos fines, aparte de los EE. UU., El Reino Unido y Colombia, agregaré a este análisis el sistema de garantías mobiliarias de la CNUDMI y la Ley de la UE para Acuerdos de Garantía Financiera (Financial Collateral Agreements). Esto permitirá tener una perspectiva global y no solo las respuestas parciales, especialmente debido al objetivo de armonización del sistema de la CNUDMI y de la UE. Con todo esto en la mesa, este documento pretende crear un campo para el debate y una propuesta sobre cómo el derecho de bienes debe entender las criptomonedas y cómo su valor puede ponerse en uso como garantía mobiliaria en el campo de las transacciones comerciales.

Context: 32-52/100,000 people per year have an ACL injury. The majority of injuries occur during sports practices and 53% of the total in football players. Almost half of the injuries happen without physical contact between athletes and practically all occur during landing or sidestepping. The ACL injury rate has been increasing in the last ten years, which brings us to the problem that ACL injury prevention research along athletes community is not translated efficiently into injury prevention practices. Biomechanical studies suggest that knee valgus moment increases ACL injury risk and focus on studying the kinematic correlations that contribute to this loading pattern at the knee, explaining body dynamics at the moment of the injury. However, a successful method for screening and identifying athletes at increased risk of ACL injury is currently unavailable. If links between peak joint loading (kinetics), kinematics and muscular support (biomechanically relevant risk factors) could be identified, these would be useful for developing ACL injury prevention training programs. Additionally, if we could transfer these positive laboratory-based findings to real-world community level training environments the efficacy and effectiveness of those training programs would increase. Objective: Determine correlations between kinematic variables related to ACL injury mechanism in standardised tests, and test if they are representative of real-life situations. Results: PCs space from the standardised tests give correlations between features that describe a drop vertical jump and a sidestepping cut and allow to differentiate between risky and non-risky ACL injury motion patterns. A comparison between those PCs spaces to the PCs space from the plyometric test suggests similar motion patterns. Conclusion: A PCA is an optimal tool to describe correlations between kinematic features and allows for discrimination between motion patterns. Besides, geometrical interpretation of PCs allows answering if motion patterns that occur in standardised test appear in real-life situations. Contexto: 32-52 personas por año sufren de ruptura del ligamento cruzado anterior (LCA). La mayoría de las lesiones ocurren durante practicas deportivas y el 53% del total en jugadores de futbol. Casi la mitad de las lesiones suceden sin ningún contacto físico entre deportistas, y casi todas suceden debido a la caída luego de un salto o cambios de dirección. La tasa de ruptura del LCA ha venido aumentando durante los últimos 10 años, lo que quiere decir que la investigación relacionada con prevención de ruptura del LCA en la comunidad deportiva no se esta evidenciando efectivamente en practicas de prevención deportivas. Los estudios biomecánicos sugieren que el momento valgo de la rodilla aumenta el riesgo de lesión del LCA y se centra en estudiar las correlaciones cinemáticas que contribuyen a este patrón de movimiento en la rodilla, explicando la dinámica corporal en el momento de la lesión. Sin embargo, no está disponible actualmente un método que permita evaluar e identificar a los atletas que presentan mayor riesgo de lesión del LCA. Si se pudieran identificar los vínculos entre la carga articular máxima (cinética), la cinemática y el soporte muscular (factores de riesgo biomecánicamente relevantes), estos serían útiles para desarrollar programas de capacitación de prevención de lesiones del LCA. Además, si pudiéramos transferir estos hallazgos encontrados en el laboratorio a entornos reales de entrenamiento, la eficacia de esos programas de capacitación aumentaría. Objetivo: Determinar las correlaciones entre las variables cinemáticas relacionadas con el mecanismo de ruptura del LCA en pruebas estandarizadas e identificar si son representativas en situaciones de la vida real. Resultados: El espacio de las componentes principales (CP) de las pruebas estandarizadas proporciona correlaciones entre variables que describen un aterrizaje después de un salto y un cambio de dirección permitiendo diferenciar entre patrones de movimiento riesgosos y no riesgosos para el LCA. Al comparar el espacio de CP de las pruebas estandarizadas con el espacio de las CP de las pruebas pliométricas se evidencian patrones de movimiento similares. Conclusión: Un análisis de componentes principales es una herramienta óptima para describir las correlaciones entre las características cinemáticas, y además permite la discriminación entre los patrones de movimiento. Adicionalmente, la interpretación geométrica de las CP permite identificar si los patrones de movimiento que ocurren en las pruebas estandarizadas aparecen en situaciones de la vida real.

Colombia has an advantageous geographical position over the equator, topographical conditions and water resources availability and makes hydropower the main energy source not only to meet the national demand but also to export it to the surrounding countries, especially to Central America, positioning the country as a key provider in generation terms. Hydropower represents 10% of the national GDP and is expected to grow as a consequence of the most recent investments in new infrastructure. Moreover, its contribution is likely to increase from 70% to 80% of the national total generation with new reservoirs operation start, mostly located within the Magdalena river basin. However, those new reservoirs were based on old surveys carried out during the 70s, using the resources available at that time and hence, under a top-down planning approach. Thus, neither Climate variability, climate change nor sediment retention have been assessed involving their inherent uncertainties for planning purposes. This research seeks to apply a novel risk-based approach (CRIDA) to give strategy directions and thus enhance hydropower generation in the Magdalena. The study case is building on an existing method by (1) providing a multi-sector element to the stress test and (2) considering variables not previously included in CRIDA case studies such as a focus on ENSO effect on rainfall and sediment retention. It looks for a better understanding of those natural drivers by defining drought in two different ways by bootstrapping the current rainfall records, comparing the results among different hydropower plant setups and consequently determining the system vulnerability. The results provide greater depth to CRIDA’s Level of Concern Analysis. Climate Change is considered the main threat as its risk is very high; hence it is required to formulate robust and flexible actions. For climate variability the strategy direction must be only robust as its uncertainty is lower than for climate change and the risk between medium and high. Finally, for sediment retention due to the low deviation necessary for further planning stages, the standard planning guidance is enough and CRIDA is not the approach it may kept be using.

This dissertation aims to discuss and analyse the images constructed of the Arabs in Latin America in the first half of the twentieth century. Based on mass media productions of the time, aspects of movie and novel narratives will be examined with the intention of forming an idea of what stereotypes Arabs had to deal with in their daily lives and how they overcame them. In order to understand the question of “How has the status of Arabs been represented in the Americas”, there will be a revision of what the main historical highlights of the Arab diaspora in Latin America are, and how historiography has approached Middle Eastern presence in the continent. I will examine the interplay between locals and Arab immigrants through the eyes of local stereotypes, and state discourses concerning immigration. Finally, I will argue that despite negative stereotypes, Arabs have managed to achieve very important professional goals in Latin America, and their contributions to society have been greater than what has been acknowledged so far in the continent. Esta tesis recibió una distinción meritoria.

An extended method of the optimal rapidly exploration random tree (RRT*) for car-like robots is presented in this research paper. As it is known RRT* approach allows finding an asymptotic optimal solution to path planning problem. However, a lot of unnecessary waypoints are necessary as well as sharp corners between two consecutive segments. Also in this work, a removing redundant waypoints method is implemented by checking the visibility along a neighborhood from an initial configuration which will yield a pruned path. To avoid complex turning of the robot in each waypoint, a smoothness path method is implemented by using quintic Bèzier spline as parametric curve taking into account the constraints imposed by the robot leading to increasing the convergence rate to reach an optimum or near an optimum solution and decrease the execution time. Finally, a simulation is presented to verify the effectiveness of the new path.

Amidst the peace deals with the FARC-EP in 2016 and the accession process to the OECD beginning in 2013, the future of Colombia’s success is at a crossroads. This paper explores and describes the dynamics of the violent actors in the conflict during the 1996-2016 period, the role of the extractive economy and their effects on the Colombian human capital. Con la firma del acuerdo de terminación del conflicto con las FARC-EP en 2016 y el proceso de acceso a la OECD iniciado en 2013, el futuro de Colombia está en juego. Esta disertación pretende explorar y describir las dinámicas de los distintos actores violentos en el conflicto armado para el periodo 1996-2016, el papel de la economía extractiva y sus efectos en el capital humano colombiano. Entre les accords de paix avec les FARC-EP en 2016, et le processus d'accession à l'OCDE commencé en 2013, le futur de la réussite colombienne est à un tournant. Cet article explore et décrit les dynamiques des acteurs de la violence du conflit ayant eu lieu dans la période 1996-2016, ainsi que le rôle de l'économie extractive et leurs effets sur le capital humain colombienne.

The North American housing affordability crisis is escalating each year. In Canada, approximately the 83 percent of all homeowners and 40 percent of all renters exceed their affordability threshold on an annual basis. This implies high prices that prevent low-income families from becoming homeowners. Prefabricated, self-help kit homes are a potential solution to reduce housing cost, and to allow customers to participate in the decision-making process with respect to the design of their homes. The former is possible by eliminating paid labor and replacing it with sweat equity, while the latter is possible through the application of mass customization strategies that allow a high level of customer involvement during the pre-occupancy stage. The main goal of this research is to identify the different strategies that manufacturers apply during the production of kit homes. In addition to the theoretical framework, this report consists of analyses of kit homes from eight manufacturers, including evaluations of their advantages and disadvantages with respect to both affordability and mass customization. These analyses led to the definition of guidelines for manufacturing kit homes in Quebec. These guidelines were based on the ideals of improving customer involvement and ensuring the feasibility of self-help construction, while also offering choices and flexibility within kit home packages and affordable options for buyers. The main conclusion of this study is that self-help kit homes are approximately 45 percent less expensive than the conventional housing. However, this savings primarily depends on the ability of the buyers to be self-builders, and on the provision of cost-saving alternatives by manufacturers. Moreover, in terms of mass customization, both panelized and pre-cut prefabrication methods allow a tailored or pure customization. However, it is essential to facilitate the decision-making of customers during the post-occupancy stage as well, and to define more specific parameters and variations.