This Ph.D thesis examines and discusses the notion of dispositif (device) such as it emerged within the contemporary French philosophy, mainly in Michel Foucault's and Gilles Deleuze’s works. Its intention is to criticize the association in architecture of the structural and the organization, to propose an architectural practice less dedicated to the assemblages of environments, but which facilitates situations of freedom. For that purpose, this thesis studies the notions of form and function in architecture from a philosophical order reasoning on the ""material"". Three moments of a possible history on the material are considered. In the first two moments, dedicated to the concrete, and ""smart"" materials respectively, architecture appears in its connection to a mode of the industry and to a labor economy. In the third moment, it is shown how the staging and fiction can contribute to transforming materials into dispositifs. On this base, we move, on the one hand, to strip the notion of form from the functional significations that surround it, while on the other hand, we put in tension Michel Foucault's reading proposed by Giorgio Agamben, putting into context the concepts and the suggestions implied in it, in regards to economy. All this work is indissociably architectural and philosophical. Its purpose is to establish the essential character, for both domains of thought, of the notion of an aimless form or “form for nothing "". This notion can be related to an architecture of the ""discontinuity"" whose materials are neither in harmony with the structure nor the power of the dispositifs.

The land use and land cover change is a problem which affects mostly tropical developing countries such as Colombia. Drivers of these changes are both direct and indirect, and exogenous or endogenous and include agricultural expansion, deforestation, climate change, and national and international policies. Drivers are divided according to the grade of expansion and the level of influence on the land. This project proposal evaluated the uses of the land in Colombia, the constraints, land cover, farming distribution, and permanent crops and arable land, by percentage of intensity. Two specific sites were chosen in the departments of Cundinamarca and Tolima by using Terra-i software which identified the land cover and habitat change in real time every sixteen days from 2004 to 2011. The cover and uses of the land for each site are described along with the conflicts in the uses of land. In order to fully understand the issue, both the drivers and the causes of land use and land cover are given, in addition to case studies and photographs. The data was analysed in the field qualitatively through direct interviews to communities in both sites to verify information given by Terra-i. The results focus on the changes in the land use produced by increasing industrialization and overexploitation of the land. Drivers in the land use change are divided into demographic, institutional and technological development, and global environmental change conditions.

A Strong type is a class of a bounded equivalence relation (i.e. the quotient is a proper set) on tuples of the monster model of a complete theory T. Today, there are three different notions of strong types: a Shelah’s strong type is a class under the smallest definable equivalence relation on the monster model C with finite classes; a Kim-Pillay strong type is a class of the least bounded type-definable equivalence relation kp, in fact, this type may be characterized as the finest notion of strong type for which the corresponding quotient is a compact Hausdorff space when it is equipped with the so-called logic topology; finally, a Lascar strong type is simply a class of the smallest equivalence relation ls, which is bounded and invariant under automorphisms. For some years, it was an open problem to find an example of a theory for which the Kim-Pillay and the Lascar strong type do not coincide. After finding such example, it was suggested that Lascar strong types could be described from the point of view of Decriptive Set Theory, in particular of quotient of Polish spaces by Borel equivalence relations. Furthermore, it was conjectured that for every tuple a of the monster model, if [a]ls = [a]kp, then [a]kp restricted to [a]ls is nonsmooth, using the so-called Silver dichotomy. Despite the Stone space is not always Polish, the authors proved such conjecture distinguishing the case when the theory is countable -in which case for any countable model M of T, S(M) is Polish- and when it is not. My Master’s thesis consists in filling up all the details for both cases, specially for the case when T is countable. Given a complete first order theory T, its monster model C has none topological structure. Nevertheless, given a model M of T, the Stone space S(M) has it, this is, it is well known that it is Hausdorff, that given any formula ', the set of [ ] determines a basis of clopens, etc.

Since the last two decades, touch as a sense that could be extended by means of technology has become a major topic for interaction design.The following Thesis examines how touch has been approached by Digital Media and specifically by Interaction Design the last decades. Following this exam there appears to be two main ways in which touch is offered and narrated: Either as Haptic interactions which mention touch as the possibility of simulating Closeness and Intimacy, or as Tangible interactions where touch becomes critical, subversive or monstrous as it opposes to other inmaterial digital media. By a media archeological methodology of finding Topos (cliches or recurrent narrations that spread and repeat in time and different cultures), both strangeness and intimacy as narrations of touch within interaction design were analyzed from the perspective of a ‘tactiloclasm tradition’ in western culture and the return of touch as the ‘other’. Touch as closeness and intimacy, a narration which often appears in Haptic screen-based interactions, was found connected to tactiloclasm as it presents a private and pleasurable immaterial touch that is clean and free of any co-implication: touch is black boxed. By the other hand, the narration of Touch as strangeness, which often appears in Critical Design and Digital Fabrication, was found connected to a nostalgia for a supposed primitive fetishistic touch: touch returns in digital media as strangeness, monstrousity, criticality or subversiveness. As a proposal to confront these two recurrent narrations, the second part of this Thesis presents the idea of a design inquiry and the construction process of 5 smart phone cases that materialize the fat traces left by the users on the screens of their devices. The cases intend to open the black box of hidden haptic touch and confront into what we consider monstrous in touch relations. The co-implication of humans and artifacts is embodied.

La presente investigación es un trabajo que pretende hacer un acercamiento a la crítica política de la representación mediante un estudio de casos de sujetos pertenecientes al contexto social de Colombia. La construcción del presente escrito esta guiada por los estudios culturales enfocados en la cultura visual, por la teoría crítica y a través de una indagación de tipo narrativo. Como referente tomado desde la cultura visual se trabajó con diez obras de las cincuenta que componen la colección: ‘Violencia en Colombia’ (2004) del artista Fernando Botero. Como sujetos participantes del estudio en mención se trabajó con tres grupos familiares colombianos. Las preguntas de investigación entorno a las cuales gira esta disertación son: ¿De qué forma(s) se asume la situación social de la violencia en Colombia desde el problema de la crítica política de la representación? y además ¿Cómo se relaciona cada sujeto participante en este estudio con este aspecto desde su propia cotidianidad y en relación con las dinámicas de las relaciones sociales?

Colombia is a country that is afflicted by violent conflict. Nowadays many Colombians suffer as a result of it, especially children who are directly affected, either physically or emotionally. Peace education is a very effective tool for change, thus enables people and communities to start building processes of change together. Children are the present and future of any country and so working with them is a constructive way to start processes of change. In order to help change the current violent situation in Colombia, an intervention for building a culture of peace with Colombian children through playful interactions has been created. Taking into account the results and successes of previous research carried out by Villar-Guhl (2007), it has been possible to continue using games and activities as vehicles to work with children for peace. By doing so, it has been possible to develop a new way of empowering children, by encouraging critical thinking about their current situation in order to help them to raise their voices and participate in building a new and positive future for themselves and their communities. This intervention is a tool that starts the work of changing the current culture of violence in Colombia, hence beginning the process of transforming it into a culture of peace.

La Corte Constitucional colombiana ha ocupado un lugar fundamental durante los últimos años en el imaginario de los ciudadanos gracias a su rol como defensora de los derechos fundamentales. Los ciudadanos recurren a ella para resolver sus problemas más cotidianos, convirtiendo a este actor judicial en un actor político. Esta situación ha generado un fuerte enfrentamiento entre el poder judicial y el poder ejecutivo. Claro ejemplo de ello ha sido la prohibición por parte de la Corte de una tercera elección presidencial en favor del presidente más popular de la historia colombiana reciente: Álvaro Uribe Vélez. La pregunta que pretende resolver este trabajo es entonces ¿cómo un poder público que no ha sido elegido democráticamente (en este caso, la Corte Constitucional) puede imponer su voluntad, incluso cuando dicha voluntad es contraria a los deseos de la gran mayoría ciudadana?

This thesis advances a theory in the metaphysics of phenomenal consciousness, which I label “ephysicalism”. It takes a realist stance towards subjective conscious experience: there are some entities such that there is something it is like, intrinsically, to be one of them (Nagel 1974). Firstly, I argue for a physicalist metaphysics. Secondly, I reject the thesis that consciousness is a supervenient property and, in particular, Strong AI and computational functionalism. Thirdly, I reject HOT theories of consciousness, address the “unity of consciousness”, and discuss the “explanatory gap” (Levine 1983). Fourthly, I argue that consciousness is an emergent property of conscious entities: it is, with respect to the micro-constituents of the emergence base, an ontologically novel property with original causal powers. Fifthly, I criticise Chalmers' (1996) “zombie argument” and Kim's (2005) “supervenience argument”. Finally, I argue that phenomenal contents are physical properties, and discuss Jackson's (1982) “knowledge argument”.

Financial inclusion helps poor households to improve their consumption levels, protect against risks and significantly reduce the need to sell assets to meet basic needs. With access to savings, credit, insurance, and other financial services, poor people take advantage of economic opportunities, are more resilient and better able to cope with the everyday crises they face. Thus, the use of financial services is associated with improvements in household economic welfare and enterprise stability or growth. By reducing vulnerability and increasing earnings and savings, financial services allow poor households to make the transformation from ‘every-day survival’ to ‘planning for the future’ (Kiva-Organization). Microfinance is even more than providing a fundamental economic basis for planning and expanding business activities. By supporting women's economic participation, microfinance helps to empower women, thus promoting gender-equity and greater investment in their children's education. Also, increased earnings from financial services lead to better nutrition and better living conditions, which translates into a lower incidence of illness. With more money, poor people may seek out and pay for health care services when needed, rather than go without or wait until their health seriously deteriorates. The availability of credit for entrepreneurs is likely to lead to economic diversification and wealth creation in the community, which might support the development of health-related infrastructure such as sanitation and medical facilities (UNCDF Microfinance). Many different studies have shown that poor people who participate in microfinance programs that had access to financial services have better economic conditions than those who did not have access to financial services (Nawaz, 2010). While this empirical evidence seems almost to be done, we looked for a field that is nearly unexplored. Instead of understanding the determinants of financial inclusion or exclusion, this study will focus on the outcomes of interest that are shaped by financial exclusion. One such outcome is individual health. To start with, individual health (and mostly mental rather than physical health) is lower the larger the uncertainty individuals face, for a given level of income. As long as financial inclusion provides insurance against many possible shocks, and allows a better planning of one's life, we should expect a positive effect of financial inclusion on individual health. Also, it seems that in most impoverished communities, financial inclusion serves to raise the level of general sanitation, which also improves individual health. With research data from Columbia, this study considers if there is any statistical significance for the linkage between financial inclusion and health. The organization of this study is the following. In Section 2 we describe the principals of financial inclusion, determinants of health and the current linkage between microfinance and health. After the theoretical part, Section 3 offers the data collection process, explains the basic survey and gives an analysis of the descriptive statistics. Section 4 includes the definition of the relevant variables as well as the regression of the models we used. The empirical findings are shown in Section 5, while the evaluation and the discussion of the results are shown in Section 6. Finally, Section 7 presents some conclusions.

Abstract: This dissertation studies the effect of scientific discoveries, regulation, and changes in market access on the American and Japanese brewing industries over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Breweries adapted to these shocks by switching to new technologies, products, and geographical markets. In the long run, this adaptation process shaped the structure of the brewing industry and introduced competition and new production techniques in the soft-drink and biotechnology industries. Using detailed data at the brewery-level, coupled with natural experiments, I study the repercussions of this adaptation mechanism across industries and over time. Resumen: Esta tesis estudia el efecto de descubrimientos científicos, regulación y cambios en acceso a mercados en las industrias cerveceras de Estados Unidos y Japón durante los siglos diecinueve y veinte. Las cerveceras se adaptaron a estos cambios modificando su mezcla de tecnologías, productos y mercados geográficos. En el largo plazo, este proceso de adaptación cambió la estructura de la industria cervecera e introdujo competencia y nuevas técnicas de producción en las industrias de la gaseosa y la biotecnología. Usando datos detallados al nivel de cervecera, junto con experimentos naturales, estudio las consecuencias de este proceso de adaptación a través de industrias y a lo largo del tiempo.