Daniela Ballari, Willington Siabato, Christophe Claramunt
et al.
Open data initiatives and infrastructures play an essential role in favoring better data access, participation, and transparency in government operations and decision-making. Open Geographical Data Infrastructures (OGDIs) allow citizens to access and scrutinize government and public data, thereby enhancing accountability and evidence-based decision-making. This encourages citizen engagement and participation in public affairs and offers researchers, non-governmental organizations, civil society, and business sectors novel opportunities to analyze and disseminate large amounts of geographical data and to address social, urban, and environmental challenges. In Latin America, while recent open government agendas have shown an inclination towards transparency, citizen participation, and collaboration, only a limited number of OGDIs allow unrestricted use and re-use of their data. Given the region's cultural, social, and economic disparities, there is a contrasting digital divide that significantly impacts how OGDIs are being developed. Therefore, this paper analyses recent progress in developing OGDIs in Latin America, technological gaps, and open geographical data initiatives. The main results denote an early development of OGDIs in the region. Nevertheless, this opens the door for the timely involvement of citizens and non-government sectors to share needs, experiences, knowledge, and expertise, as well as to address a transboundary research agenda. Challenges are discussed from multiple perspectives: data, methodological, governmental and readiness, and potential impact. This analysis is aimed at researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in the specific challenges and progress of OGDIs in Latin America, while also contributing to the global conversation on best practices and lessons learned in implementing OGDIs across different contexts.
Laura Izquierdo Sanchez, Julen Matin Robles, Jone Narbaiza
et al.
Introduction and Objectives: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) incidence and mortality are rising globally. Chronic liver diseases (CLD) are recognized risk factors. This study aimed to compare the clinical presentation and outcomes of CCA in patients with and without CLD, using data from the International CCA Registry. Patients and Methods: The international CCA Registry is a multicenter observational study enrolling cases from 54 centers across Latin America, Europe, and Asia (2010–2024). Results: Among 3,693 patients enrolled, 916 had CLD and 2,777 did not. Common CLD conditions were fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, viral hepatitis, and primary sclerosing cholangitis. Compared to non-CLD patients, those with CLD were more often male (69% vs. 53%), younger at diagnosis (63 vs. 66 years), and had higher rates of metabolic risk factors, alcohol use, and smoking. Intrahepatic CCA was more frequent in CLD patients (64% vs. 43%), whereas distal CCA was more common in non-CLD cases (20% vs. 9%). CLD patients had better performance status (ECOG 0: 53% vs. 35%), lower CA19-9 levels (59.0 vs. 134.5 U/mL), and more localized disease (56% vs. 48%). Curative-intent surgery was more frequent in the CLD group (59% vs. 48%), translating into longer median overall survival (12.3 vs. 11.0 months) and higher 5-year survival (OR = 1.67; p < 0.001). The benefit was especially evident in intrahepatic CCA. Treatment responses were comparable between groups. Conclusions: CCA is diagnosed at earlier stages in individuals with CLD, likely due to certain clinical surveillance, leading to better prognosis. Prospective validation and standardized surveillance protocols are warrant.
This paper examines Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals (2020) and her journey post-mastectomy, in relation to José Muñoz’s theory of disidentification, which he discusses in his book Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999). For Muñoz, disidentification is a survival strategy of stepping away from predominant societal ideologies. Muñoz’s theory is particularly fruitful for analyzing Lorde’s intersectional experiences and identity struggles of being a queer woman of color with breast cancer, but lacks an element of reidentification. This paper expands on the concept of disidentification and claims that Lorde does not take this passive stand Muñoz proposes but instead reidentifies herself in the face of prevailing gender norms.
Michael Safo Oduro, Eniola Fasola, Prince Peprah
et al.
Abstract Background There is a dearth of studies focused on the impact of self-rated health on life satisfaction among large-bodied adolescents, as well as the moderating role of physical activity in this relationship. Large-bodied adolescents refers to young people (usually aged 10–19 years) whose body size falls within the overweight or obese range as defined by the World Health Organisation’s Growth Reference, based on age- and sex-specific body mass index (BMI) percentiles. This study aimed to address the gap in research by examining the association between self-rated health and life satisfaction in a diverse sample of large-bodied adolescents from 39 countries and regions in Europe and North America. The moderating role of physical activity in the association was also examined. Methods The study analysed data from the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, involving a sample of 24,839 large-bodied adolescents. Three sequential binary mixed effects logit models were fitted: the first assessing self-rated health alone, the second adjusting for multiple covariates, and the third incorporating an interaction term between physical activity and self-rated health. The analysis was performed using R Software (v4.1.2), with significance determined at a level of 0.05. Results The results show that adolescents who rated their health as “poor” were a little more than six times (AOR = 6.32, 95%CI: 5.30–7.54, p < 0.001) as likely to report lower life satisfaction compared to those who rated their health as “excellent”. Those who rated their health as “good” had 1.71 times higher odds (AOR = 1.71, 95%CI: 1.44–2.04, p < 0.001) of reporting lower life satisfaction compared to those who rated their health as “excellent”. The analysis further indicated that physical activity plays a partial moderating role in the relationship between self-rated health and life satisfaction. Participants who considered themselves “somewhat active” reported higher life satisfaction compared to their “inactive” peers (AOR = 0.58, p = 0.031, 95% CI: 0.36–0.95). Conclusions The study supports the hypothesis that poorer self-rated health is associated with lower life satisfaction among large-bodied adolescents. It further suggests that increased physical activity can ‘partly’ buffer the negative effects of poor self-rated health on life satisfaction. These findings emphasise the importance of interventions promoting physical activity and positive self-care to improve general well-being in large-bodied adolescents.
El artículo se concentra en una faceta del intelectual gramsciano José Aricó apenas tenida en cuenta, la condición de biógrafo de Mao Tse Tung. Editada como fascículo por el Centro Editor de América Latina, la biografía de Mao que Aricó preparó en 1971 seguramente sea su texto más reeditado y vendido en esa década. En estas páginas reconstruimos, en primer lugar, la red editorial en la que se inscribió el fascículo. Luego nos detenemos en la relación explícita que el fascículo trazó con la intelectualidad maoísta europea de entonces, específicamente con la historiadora italiana Enrica Collotti Pischel que en 1965 había editado una biografía similar; para finalmente dedicarnos a la relación tácita que el fascículo mantuvo con las tesis de Gramsci.
RESUMEN: Este trabajo tiene por objetivo principal analizar, a la luz de las fluctuaciones de los precios de los commodities, la evolución de la integración de países latinoamericanos seleccionados (Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Chile, México y Perú) en cadenas globales de valor (CGV) durante el periodo 1998-2018. A partir de información proveniente de las matrices insumo-producto globales de la OCDE, se calculan los encadenamientos backward y forward, así como la participación y posicionamiento en CGV, de los casos seleccionados, utilizando una descomposición matemática de las exportaciones en términos de valor agregado. La representación de trayectorias de posicionamiento en CGV, para cada país en el tiempo, arroja evidencia de comportamientos inerciales y dependientes de las fluctuaciones de los precios de los commodities. Se concluye que la integración de países latinoamericanos en CGV fue acotada debido principalmente a la reprimarización de las economías y a la ausencia o fracaso de políticas de industrialización.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the global economy, and Latin America is no exception. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in AI development and implementation in the region. This paper presents a ranking of Latin American (LATAM) countries based on their potential to become emerging powers in AI. The ranking is based on three pillars: infrastructure, education, and finance. Infrastructure is measured by the availability of electricity, high-speed internet, the quality of telecommunications networks, and the availability of supercomputers. Education is measured by the quality of education and the research status. Finance is measured by the cost of investments, history of investments, economic metrics, and current implementation of AI. While Brazil, Chile, and Mexico have established themselves as major players in the AI industry in Latin America, our ranking demonstrates the new emerging powers in the region. According to the results, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Ecuador are leading as new emerging powers in AI in Latin America. These countries have strong education systems, well-developed infrastructure, and growing financial resources. The ranking provides a useful tool for policymakers, investors, and businesses interested in AI development in Latin America. It can help to identify emerging LATAM countries with the greatest potential for AI growth and success.
Laura Tenjo-Patiño, Cristian E. Bello, Alcides Montoya Cañola
Quantum computing is a rapidly advancing field with the potential to drive scientific, educational, and technological development. However, it faces a significant shortage of qualified experts, creating an urgent demand for skilled professionals. In Latin America, quantum education remains in its early stages, further widening the regional talent and access gap due to limited educational infrastructure and financial constraints. This work presents an initiative to integrate quantum computing into higher education in Latin America through the application of the European Competence Framework for Quantum Technologies, which offers a standardized approach to defining competency requirements and assessing essential skills in the field. We propose introductory courses aligned with the frameworks guidelines, designed to meet industry standards and reach a broad audience. Additionally, we introduce supplementary resources, including team dynamics and evaluation methodologies, to enhance the educational ecosystem. These initiatives aim to create a sustainable and comprehensive quantum education model across Latin America, to close the regional skills gap, foster inclusivity, and prepare a diverse workforce to contribute innovative solutions on the global stage.
Alvaro M. Aparicio-Morales, Enrique Moguel, Luis Mariano Bibbo
et al.
Quantum computing represents a revolutionary computational paradigm with the potential to address challenges beyond classical computers' capabilities. The development of robust quantum software is indispensable to unlock the full potential of quantum computing. Like classical software, quantum software is expected to be complex and extensive, needing the establishment of a specialized field known as Quantum Software Engineering. Recognizing the regional focus on Latin America within this special issue, we have boarded on an in-depth inquiry encompassing a systematic mapping study of existing literature and a comprehensive survey of experts in the field. This rigorous research effort aims to illuminate the current landscape of Quantum Software Engineering initiatives undertaken by universities, research institutes, and companies across Latin America. This exhaustive study aims to provide information on the progress, challenges, and opportunities in Quantum Software Engineering in the Latin American context. By promoting a more in-depth understanding of cutting-edge developments in this burgeoning field, our research aims to serve as a potential stimulus to initiate pioneering initiatives and encourage collaborative efforts among Latin American researchers.
Sher Afghan Khan, Qadeer Nawaz, Sameer Ahmad
et al.
Abstract
Objective: To analyze pharmacotherapy provided in the hospital for MI indications and outcomes and to assess the protocols that are practiced for MI patients against the AHA and NICE guidelines.
Methods: This study was conducted from 23rd July 2022 to 13th December 2022 in Cardiology ward of Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Patients of Myocardial Infarction (n = 240) admitted to hospital during the said period were included in this work.
Results: The results showed that around 77% (185) of male patients suffered from MI as compared to 23% (55) of female patients. In our study only 68% of the patients were kept on aspirin and clopidogrel simultaneously, rest were either only administered aspirin or clopidogrel. The p-value for anti-coagulant and beta-blocker usage was found to be significant as it came out to be less than 0.001 whereas the use of ACE inhibitors was around 0.67, which stated that it was the least important.
Conclusion: MI is as emergency that needs the patients follow up and monitoring and their treatment is administered to the latest and most advanced guidelines whether they are AHA or NICE guidelines. For this a thorough study was conducted on admitted patients in cardiac ward with MI and the drugs data was tabulated. Then studied the different internationally accepted guidelines that are followed by the most advanced hospital in the world ranging from Europe to America.
The data collected showed that the tertiary care hospital of Peshawar do not follow the latest new guidelines. The practicing doctors administered the drugs that were correct almost half decade ago but now new guidelines have overtaken them which leads to improved patients morbidity and decreased mortality.
Sue Ann Costa Clemens, Gustavo Mendes Lima Santos, Isabela Gonzalez
et al.
Poliovirus infection causes paralysis in up to 1 in 200 infected persons. The use of safe and effective inactivated poliovirus vaccines and live attenuated oral poliovirus vaccines (OPVs) means that only two pockets of wildtype poliovirus type 1 remain, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, OPVs can revert to virulence, causing outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV). During 2020–2022, cVDPV type 2 (cVDPV2) was responsible for 97–99% of poliomyelitis cases, mainly in Africa. Between January and August 2022, cVDPV2 was detected in sewage samples in Israel, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, where a case of acute flaccid paralysis caused by cVDPV2 also occurred. The Pan American Health Organization has warned that Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Peru are at very high risk for the reintroduction of poliovirus and an additional eight countries in Latin America are at high risk, following dropping vaccination rates (average 80% coverage in 2022). Sabin type 2 monovalent OPV has been used to control VDPV2 outbreaks, but its use could also lead to outbreaks. To address this issue, a more genetically stable, novel OPV2 (nOPV2) was developed against cVDPV2 and in 2020 was granted World Health Organization Emergency Use Listing. Rolling out a novel vaccine under the Emergency Use Listing in mass settings to contain outbreaks requires unique local regulatory and operational preparedness.
Pedro Alfonso de la Puente, Juan José Berdugo Cepeda, María José Pérez Pacheco
The purpose of this systematic review is to identify and describe the state of development literature published in Latin America, in Spanish and English, since 2010. For this, we carried out a topographic review of 44 articles available in the most important bibliographic indexes of Latin America, published in journals of diverse disciplines. Our analysis focused on analyzing the nature and composition of literature, finding a large proportion of articles coming from Mexico and Colombia, as well as specialized in the economic discipline. The most relevant articles reviewed show methodological and thematic diversity, with special attention to the problem of growth in Latin American development. An important limitation of this review is the exclusion of articles published in Portuguese, as well as non-indexed literature (such as theses and dissertations). This leads to various recommendations for future reviews of the development literature produced in Latin America.
Valerio Lucarini, Vera Melinda Galfi, Gabriele Messori
et al.
Elucidating the statistical properties of extreme meteo-climatic events and capturing the physical processes responsible for their occurrence are key steps for improving our understanding of climate variability and climate change and for better evaluating the associated hazards. It has recently become apparent that large deviation theory is very useful for investigating persistent extreme events, and specifically, for flexibly estimating long return periods and for introducing a notion of dynamical typicality. Using a methodological framework based on large deviation theory and taking advantage of long simulations by a state-of-the-art Earth System Model, we investigate the 2021 North America Heatwave. Indeed, our analysis shows that the 2021 event can be seen as an unlikely but possible manifestation of climate variability, whilst its probability of occurrence is greatly amplified by the ongoing climate change. We also clarify the properties of spatial coherence of the 2021 heatwave and elucidate the role played by the Rocky Mountains in modulating hot, dry, and persistent extreme events in the Western Pacific region of North America.
Lluis Danus, Carles Muntaner, Alexander Krauss
et al.
Scientists collaborate through intricate networks, which impact the quality and scope of their research. At the same time, funding and institutional arrangements, as well as scientific and political cultures, affect the structure of collaboration networks. Since such arrangements and cultures differ across regions in the world in systematic ways, we surmise that collaboration networks and impact should also differ systematically across regions. To test this, we compare the structure of collaboration networks among prominent researchers in North America and Europe. We find that prominent researchers in Europe establish denser collaboration networks, whereas those in North-America establish more decentralized networks. We also find that the impact of the publications of prominent researchers in North America is significantly higher than for those in Europe, both when they collaborate with other prominent researchers and when they do not. Although Europeans collaborate with other prominent researchers more often, which increases their impact, we also find that repeated collaboration among prominent researchers decreases the synergistic effect of collaborating.
This paper describes the submission to the speaker diarization track of VoxCeleb Speaker Recognition Challenge 2021 done by North America Bixby Lab of Samsung Research America. Our speaker diarization system consists of four main components such as overlap speech detection and speech separation, robust speaker embedding extraction, spectral clustering with fused affinity matrix, and leakage filtering-based postprocessing. We evaluated our system on the VoxConverse dataset and the challenge evaluation set, which contain natural conversations of multiple talkers collected from YouTube. Our system obtained 4.46%, 6.39%, and 6.16% of the diarization error rate on the VoxConverse development, test, and the challenge evaluation set, respectively.
Galileo Violini, VÍctor M. Castaño, Juan Alfonso Fuentes Soria
et al.
Central America and the Caribbean (CAC) need science development efforts through ambitious projects that require strong regional collaboration. Inspiration can be drawn from initiatives in regions with similar problems. The bottleneck is the scarcity of public research centers and little or no research in private universities. An interesting proposal is the creation of a Dominican "Silicon Beach". The "Central American Science and Technology Fund" should focus on objectives capable of attracting the attention of the non-academic sector, first and foremost policy makers, but also civil society in general. The successful experience of SESAME (" Synchrotron Light for Experimental Science and Applications in Middle East ") offers an interesting basis for reflection, as it allows scientific research and short-term practical and social applications. Only two of the more than 60 existing synchrotrons are in Latin America, both in Brazil. Together with other similar projects in the South, such as the African Light Source (AFLS), and with the support of SESAME, LNLS and other synchrotrons in the South, it could lead to interesting South-South cooperation, which could be supported by the European Union or the NSF.As David Gross reminded, Science drives Technology, Technology drives Innovation, and this ends up in the welfare of society. A regional synchrotron may be the way to make this a reality in the Great Caribbean Region, as a first historical example of a large regional facility there.