The Afro-Colombian identity has been characterized for being notoriously strong in certain areas of the country but extremely weak in others. In the 1970s some Afro-Colombian activists made possible the “creation” of an identity discourse that is based on their ancestors’ historical struggles and contributions to the nation. Behind this “recent” discourse there is a strategy that seeks the elimination of racist practices and other human rights abuses against Afro-descendants. To what extent has this ethnic discourse been successful? Why have some Afro-Colombians resisted ethnic homogenization projects whereas many of them have followed the elites’ rules? What are the challenges of the Afro-Colombian identity-building process and mobilization? The author intends to answer these questions, while explaining the importance for Afro-Colombians of their heritage and ethnic self-awareness as a political tool. The paper represents one of the few works of its kind that studies the Afro-Colombian ethnic identity discourse and the political strategy behind its social goals.

Résumé: Le mal de ventre chez les enfants est un lieu de métissage et de créolisation traversé par des dimensions sociales et culturelles. Il est construit collectivement au sein des familles nucléaires avec leurs parcours migratoires et leurs souffrances. Par le biais d’entretiens menés auprès de familles haïtiennes vivant à Montréal, nous documentons les trajectoires de ces douleurs, dans lesquelles les perceptions, les explications et les moyens mis en oeuvre pour les soulager interagissent d’une manière dynamique. En général, les enfants perçoivent leurs maux de ventre comme une expérience insaisissable, diffuse et ayant un impact sur leur vie sociale, tout en étant tolérés par les enfants et par les mères.Ces familles n’ont pas reçu de diagnostic médical et elles attribuent à ces maux des explications provisoires en constante recomposition. En général, elles ont recours à différentes méthodes de prise en charge des maux de ventre. L’espace familial, les activités réalisées au sein des églises et la médecine officielle sont des espaces thérapeutiques privilégiés. Abstract: Belly-stomachaches in children are a space of hybridity and creolization, affected by social and cultural dimensions. These aches are collectively constructed within nuclear families, with their migratory histories and their sufferings. Having interviewed Haitian families living in Montreal, we documented the illness trajectories, the perceptions, explanations and means of relieving the aches, which all interact in a dynamic mode. Generally speaking, the children perceive their belly-stomachaches as an irregular experience that has an impact on their social life, although tolerated by the children and theirs mothers. Families have not received a medical diagnosis and give temporary, changing explanations to the aches, in a constant reformulation. In general, families will use different methods to deal with belly and stomach aches. The family space, church activities, and official medicine are privileged therapeutic spaces.

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.

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.

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.

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.

During the last decade, mining activity in Colombia is becoming a strong sector due to the political and economic incentives government gave to support foreign investment. This promotion and economic development should go hand by hand with environmental and social protection as it has an important contribution to the total GDP of the country. There are a high number of mining projects currently under development but despite the existence of laws, policies and regulations, there is a continuous environmental negative impact on the environment and several social problems are emerging. As a result of the current natural resource degradation, represented in a high rate of decline in vegetation cover, the increase of plant and animal species threatened, contamination of surface and ground water sources, poor air quality in major cities, land use conflicts and conditions of inadequate quality of life for the population, becomes urgent to develop responsible mining. With the aim of achieving this purpose, is necessary to evaluate the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, which is the main tool to evaluate and assess the impacts generated during a project, work or activity and make decisions as Decree 2820 of 2010 states on the other hand the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) approach is not ruled by any law but is the voluntary role of business towards society to respond to their needs and expectations. The purpose of the study is to determine the actual and potential role of EIA and CSR, both separately and if used together as decision-making and management tools. To attain the objectives of the research, a discourse analysis between different actors is used as a research strategy in order to find the answers to the research questions by collecting data through relevant documents and interviews with experts in mining, CSR and EIA process from Ministries, academy and mining companies. In this way, different perceptions on EIA and CSR are obtained, in order to determine how one improves the other or not to achieve environmental and social objectives. The findings reveal that, according to the perceptions of some environmental experts, the EIA process in Colombia is still a weak tool; it coincides with the study developed by the General Comptroller of the Republic in 2005-2006 which states that the whole licensing process (which includes the EIA) is inefficient in many aspects. It is not being used in the appropriate way, consequently does not meet the purpose of adequately protecting the environment; the analysis revealed that the main reasons for these problems are the lack of state-regulated methodologies and the moderate control to the process. Additionally, there is not a shared agenda between the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Mines, which leads to take wrong decisions that are detrimental to either environmental protection or mining development. Regarding the Corporate Social Responsibility approach in Colombia, mining companies always work with their stakeholders developing different strategies; in most of the cases they use this approach to gain approval of communities and the social license to operate. Organizations use different instruments in order to respond to both employees and members of their geographical communities of influence. In most of the cases, their requirements centers on two main areas: basic education for them and their families and microbusiness initiatives. Even though there is no mining activity without impact, for sure there is responsible mining with less impact. The important issue is to make sure that the technical, social, economical and environmental aspects will be considered to develop a project. Moreover the guidelines proposed by the Ministry of Environment, the existent legal framework and the tools the country has, should be respected and used appropriately with the support of all the stakeholders involved in order to combine the so called “engine of the economy” with the protection of the environment and Colombian society.

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.

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. 

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.