The thesis focuses the topic of squatter settlements located along borders in twin cities on the Amazon context. The study claims that Twin Cities are integrated by informality, in this case by squatter settlements along borders. In addition to the integration, these squatter settlements are transforming the border from a limit towards a social spatial construction of their territory. Based on that, the study looks for a cross border approach which can be developed by local governments of twin cities in order to manage squatter settlements along borders as a shared and common problem. In order to develop the research, the study has been done in the case of Leticia (Colombia) and Tabatinga (Brazil) twin cities in the Amazon. The thesis is focused in a natural space which has been the border between these twin cities the San Antonio ravine. Along this “natural” limit between Colombia and Brazil has been taken place an occupation of squatter settlements that has transformed the international limit into an “informal” urban space. The thesis developed two approaches in order to study the mentioned case of squatter settlements located along borders in twin cities. First, the study developed a bottom up approach analysing socioeconomic and physical characteristics of squatter settlements inhabitants and comparing both squatter settlements based on fieldwork findings. The comparative study looks for symmetric and asymmetric issues between both squatter settlements which are a key output towards a cross border approach between the twin cities based on needs and characteristics of squatter settlements inhabitants in the Amazon context. On the other hand, the study developed a review of urban policies of Colombia and Brazil looking for aspects that can be taking into account for local government of Leticia and Tabatinga in their local policies for managing squatter settlements on flood prone lands located on the border’s fringe. In addition, the study made a review of the current frontiers policies of both countries in order to find key elements that can used by local government for developing a cross border cooperation for managing squatter settlements in a cooperation and integration framework.Finally, the study looks for a short and long term appropriate approach for managing these two squatter settlements located along the border between the Leticia and Tabatinga twin cities. The recommendations for both terms can be useful input for future housing policies, and urban planning and management instruments in the twin cities based on Amazon characteristics. Moreover, the research methodology developed in the study can be an appropriate research procedure for further urban studies in Leticia and Tabatinga twin cities, especially on squatter settlements along border’s fringe.

Hoy en día, la sociedad moderna se está olvidando del verdadero valor de los objetos. Una prueba de esto es el costo de algunos productos producidos en masa. Éstos pueden ser comprados a un precio muy bajo. Los productos de bajo precio generalmente no son tan apreciados y valorados como los productos de alto costo.  La conexión del producto con el dueño está limitada por el corto periodo de tiempo que el objeto es usado. En algunas ocasiones, el objeto no tiene ningún significado mas allá de la función inmediata que cumple. Esta tendencia está llevando a un consumo irresponsable creando además, problemáticas de desecho y un crecimiento de los vertederos de basuras. El mobiliario es uno de los ítems que mas crea inconvenientes para el desecho. Por una parte, no cabe en una caneca de basura normal y no está categorizado para el reciclaje. Sin embrago, por otra parte, el mobiliario representa la extensión de un espacio. Determina la interacción entre usuarios, espacios y entre ellos dos.En algunas comunidades populares de Colombia, el mobiliario es heredado. El gran paso de salir de la casa de los padres significa establecer un nuevo hogar propio. Generalmente, este paso viene acompañado con muebles donados por los padres.  Esta práctica continúa de generación en generación y establece una conexión entre la familia a través del mueble. Sin embargo, esta práctica no siempre tiene un final feliz. Algunos de estos muebles luego de varias generaciones se encuentran viejos y averiados, ya no son deseados o simplemente, han alcanzado un estado de desuso. Contribuyendo al incremento de los vertederos de basuras. El reto de AL TALLER, es dar una nueva razón de ser a estos muebles viejos. Cambiar su ciclo de vida para que así sean deseados nuevamente. Los diseñadores tienen el importante papel de analizar el estado del objeto, interpretar las necesidades y deseos de los usuarios y proveer una solución creativa. Una solución creativa dando un nuevo propósito al objeto. Haciéndolo entrar de nuevo en un ciclo en el cual durará más. A demás, el mayor valor impreso al nuevo mueble será que el trabajo es hecho por el dueño. Haciendo la pieza un orgullo y especialmente, única.

Since the creation of the Old Age Pension scheme (Algemene Ouderdomswet, henceforth; AOW) in 1957 some important changes in its regulation have taken place. The purpose of this study is to analyse the redistribution of income for different individuals in the AOW taking into account these changes in regulation and different groups of individuals according to their gender, civil status and income. This comparison is made by using the Generational Accounts approach, initially presented by Auerbach (1991), in which the Net Present Value of the pension benefits received by every individual from the system is subtracted from the Net Present Value of the contributions paid to the system. In this study the database IPO, Documentatierapport Inkomenspanelonderzoek from CBS, Statistics Netherlands, has been used for some specific years after 1977. For the data of 2008 onwards the future contributions and benefits of the individuals will be projected according to the forecasts of the wage increases and pension benefits. A sensitivity analysis is also performed in order to check the changes in the Generational Accounts of the individuals with different discount rates and including the effects of the New Pension Contract.

Over the last decade, the Latin American Cross-Border M&A activity experienced a significant increase in terms of volume, value, and complexity. Between 2002 and 2011, 1483 M&A announcements involving Latin American bidders were found in this study. From this sample 344 were targeting companies in a foreign country. With the purpose of measuring to what extent CB-M&A can be a catalyst of value creation or destruction for the bidder in the short-term, the event study methodology was employed in a sample of 47 observations. I found that on average, the market reaction is positive after the announcement, leading to the short-term value creation for the Latin American acquirers. Regarding the allocation of investments in terms of geographies, the outcome shows that bidders tend to favor countries with similar cultural values and geographically close. The Hofstede’s cultural dimensions along with additional factors such as language, legal origins, and religion were analyzed in order to evaluate to what degree cultural differences affect cross-border acquisitions. However much the results are not statistically significant, it appears that cultural differences tend to have a negative effect on the bidder’s short-term performance.

The study will be based on an anthropological view of learning in which the central idea is to find out how people become to be who they are. On that account, it will be interested in the social influences of the environment people are settled in, as well as the individual’s agency in their process of making sense of their experience. The discovery of the common practices individuals execute at a particular setting –as it is the school- will be one of the aims of this study that is to contribute to the revelation of the social relations structured within the community. Studying deeper these social relations structured in practice (Lave & Wegner, 1991) and in the material dispositions, will bring us to an understanding of how people are valued in the specific situations inside a particular society. On that account, I am concerned with the idea of what it means to be a child and how children come, in particular contexts, like educational institutions, to be valued in historically specific ways. Taking two primary school classrooms in a West London school as my case study, I analyse how value is created as the outcome of socially structured processes of interaction between teachers and children and between children themselves. Comparing and contrasting the teachers’ ideas of what makes children valued at school, I describe how the structuring influence exerted by the teachers in the classroom infringe on the formation of friendship relations among the children. 

In order to receive the title of Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management, the author Juan Pablo Rolón Paz, developed the current Master Thesis, which by the hand of the Dutch company ASML Holding, identified, described and analysed strategies to service generations of machines developed by ASML, now referred as platforms, during the decline stage and post Product Life Cycle (PLC). ASML is a company that designs, develops, integrates, markets and services machines to create chips that power electronic, communications, and information technology products. The services provided by ASML include spare parts, tooling and labour. ASML is characterised to offer perpetual support for their products. They service their recently released equipment, to the ones developed over the life of the company. In this light, ASML wants to identify strategies to service their platforms during the decline stage of product life cycle. This means, strategies to service their aged platforms. ASML is interested in identifying the criteria for deciding whether to stop offering their service products or not, and in the situation they agree to stop offering their service products, what approaches to take regarding post PLC.  To identify strategies to service platforms in the decline stage and post PLC, we decided to do a literature and benchmarking study, to get the best practices in service management, service parts management and service parts logistics for aged products. We met with people within ASML, and people of other companies in The Netherlands, and the United States of America. The results were triangulated with the information gathered through the literature research, meetings with experts on product life cycle and spare parts management, and having feedback from managerial people of ASML. In the next chapter, we define the research, developing the research statement, objectives, questions, scope, delineation, deliverables, method and structure.

On the basis of Colombia´s National Development Plan – NDP (2010-2014), this paper assesses whether the idea of an environmentally responsible mining is leading to Environmental Policy Integration (EPI) in Colombia’s Large-scale mining sector. From a political ecology perspective, the literature review discusses the concept of responsibility in the context of environmental governance. Beyond the EU and OECD jurisdictions, this represents a useful theoretical approach to consider EPI as a principle, its institutional features and the main challenges to enable policy learning between different stakeholders. Complemented with primary and secondary data, the proposed assessment is performed. Conclusions and policy implications suggest that Colombia´s NDP represents a valuable platform setting the main institutional factors for EPI, despite the existence of major barriers impeding to advance in a long and challenging policy-learning process.

The current study analyzed attitudes towards size and physical appearance among four hundred and seventy Colombian and two hundred and ten American college students. The effects of gender and culture (and their interaction) on thin ideal internalization, sociocultural pressure to be thin, and body image dissatisfaction were examined in the sample.  Results from the study showed that there are differences between gender and country: Colombian students perceived themselves as having a better body image overall compared to American students; females from both countries had a lower body image satisfaction compared to males. Surprisingly, males from both countries worry about their physical size and appearance. Implications for future research include validating instruments especially for a Colombian population, as well as continuing to include males in studies related to body image and eating disorders because it was found that they were also unsatisfied with their overall body image. 

Scholars generally agree that irregular migration is the direct consequence of the restrictionist and containment policies that have been used by states to keep immigrants outside their borders. This creates a dynamic that has three significant parts. First, restrictive border policies and practices drive refugees, asylum-seekers, and other migrants to resort to the use of irregular migration in order to reach their destinations. Second, the use of this type of migration, in particular the use of human smugglers, criminalizes and de-legitimizes refugees and asylum-seekers, and consequently third, this continues to legitimize states’ restrictionist practices. This dissertation argues that the dynamic described above is either 1) facilitated by media discourses and constructed to portray irregular migrants as a social and economic threat or 2) challenged by media discourses portraying irregular migrants as helpless victims. This dissertation explains the above-mentioned dynamics by examining the cases of Colombia and Ecuador and by providing a critical discourse analysis of written media in both countries.

Aquaculture operations over the years have suffered a dramatic change because of the increasing levels of industrial and agricultural contaminants in the aquatic environment. Several methods have been studied to reduce the negative contribution of contaminated effluents in the ecosystem. The method studied in this research was the use of activated carbon sorption as a feasible method to reduce the influent and effluent load of heavy metals and other harmful pollutants present mainly in fresh water aquaculture installations. The sorption of Cd, Cu, Ni, Hg, Pb, and phenol-based compounds was evaluated using batch adsorption isotherms and breakthrough experiments in packed GAC vertical columns. Both experimental facets are commonly used as scaling up techniques in the waste water treatment technology. Adsorption of Cd, Cu, Pb, and phenol occurred at different rates for each toxic contaminant, with Cd being the most readily adsorbed pollutant. The analytical determination of nickel and mercury presented some difficulties, possibly due to the analytical procedures followed. Analysis of the breakthrough curves for Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and phenol, after the samples were passed through the columns showed that the concentration of all contaminants was reduced to a minimum value. These results support similar conclusions mentioned by several authors in the literature. The results of this research proved that activated carbon technology can be applied in aquaculture; its use however will be limited because of the high costs involved in design and development, particularly in large scale aquaculture practices.