Community-led housing: Between ‘right to the city’, ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ and post-pandemic cities

This paper examines the Self-Managed Housing Program (Law 341), in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This programme created 45 cooperative housing units between 2001 and 2020 in consolidated urban areas currently undergoing renewal processes. It investigates the conditions that the programme has generated for the realisation of the ‘right to the city’ in the context of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper analyses the origins of the process and mode of cooperative housing production, including tangible and intangible aspects and capacities acquired by the inhabitants. This study used a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology. The analytical strategy focused on defining a set of dimensions that characterised the self-managed mode of production, conditions of social and urban insertion in the case studied and participants’ perceptions of the influence of material characteristics and organisational arrangements during the pandemic. This paper contributes to our understanding of the socio-economic dynamics in the production of urban space by elucidating the role of the state and specific tensions arising due to bottom-up policies, specific forms adopted by urban experiences of resistance and their contribution in the promotion of concrete conditions of urban life. Finally, this paper characterises an emergent self-managed urbanism and reflects on its possibilities of dialogue with the construction of alternative local policies that challenge growing territorial inequality caused by the subordination of policies to real estate financialisation and its deepening tendencies in the pandemic context.

Knowledge and Disputes Socialized in the Framework of the Latin American School of Habitat Selfmanagement of Selvihp

This article recovers as an object of analysis one of the constitutive devices of the SELVIHP (Latin American Secretariat of Housing and Popular Habitat): the Latin American School of Habitat Self-Management (ELAH). Specifically, it seeks to analyze ELAH in terms of a strategy promoted by the Secretariat for the meeting and production of knowledge and knowledge, and as a regional integration tactic between popular organizations and resistance built from a self-managed perspective of habitat production. Based on a qualitative approach methodology, we seek to reflect on the characteristics that the School imprints on the mobility of ideas and practices that are articulated between the socio-territorial movements that are members of the SELVIHP on a regional scale, the role that this device plays in the production of situated knowledge-within the SELVIHP strategy and as an articulation of its movements- and, in particular, the strategies used to sustain the space during the context of the COVID19 pandemic in terms of appropriation of the territory of virtuality.

Teaching High-Performance Computing in Developing Countries: A Case Study in Mexican Universities

Teaching High-Performance Computing (HPC) to undergraduate programs represents a significant challenge in most universities in developing countries like Mexico. Deficien-cies in the required infrastructure and equipment, inadequate curricula in computer engineering programs (and resistance to change them), students' lack of interest, motivation, or knowledge of this area are the main difficulties to overcome. The COVID-19 pandemic represents an additional challenge to these difficulties in teaching HPC in these programs. Despite the detriments, some strategies have been developed to incorporate the HPC concepts to Mexican students without necessarily modifying the traditional curricula. This paper presents a case study over four public universities in Mexico based on our experience as instructors. We also propose a course that introduces the HPC principles considering the heterogeneous background of the students in such universities. The results are about the number of students enrolling in related classes and participating in extra-curricular projects. © 2022 IEEE.

Low-dose radiotherapy to the lungs using an interventional radiology C-arm fluoroscope: Monte Carlo treatment planning and dose measurements in a postmortem subject.

Objective.The goal of this study was to use Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and measurements to investigate the dosimetric suitability of an interventional radiology (IR) c-arm fluoroscope to deliver low-dose radiotherapy to the lungs.Approach.A previously-validated MC model of an IR fluoroscope was used to calculate the dose distributions in a COVID-19-infected patient, 20 non-infected patients of varying sizes, and a postmortem subject. Dose distributions for PA, AP/PA, 3-field and 4-field treatments irradiating 95% of the lungs to a 0.5 Gy dose were calculated. An algorithm was created to calculate skin entrance dose as a function of patient thickness for treatment planning purposes. Treatments were experimentally validated in a postmortem subject by using implanted dosimeters to capture organ doses.Main results.Mean doses to the left/right lungs for the COVID-19 CT data were 1.2/1.3 Gy, 0.8/0.9 Gy, 0.8/0.8 Gy and 0.6/0.6 Gy for the PA, AP/PA, 3-field, and 4-field configurations, respectively. Skin dose toxicity was the highest probability for the PA and lowest for the 4-field configuration. Dose to the heart slightly exceeded the ICRP tolerance; all other organ doses were below published tolerances. The AP/PA configuration provided the best fit for entrance skin dose as a function of patient thickness (R2 = 0.8). The average dose difference between simulation and measurement in the postmortem subject was 5%.Significance.An IR fluoroscope should be capable of delivering low-dose radiotherapy to the lungs with tolerable collateral dose to nearby organs.

Parental perceptions of increased child-to- parent violence of Spanish adolescents during COVID-19 lockdown

Background: Internationally, there was a warning of the risk of increased domestic violence during lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including child-to-parent violence. The objective of our study was to assess the prevalence of different violent behaviors from children to parents during pre-lockdown, lockdown and immediately after, between March 14 and June 20, 2020, and to assess differences in behaviors between pre-lockdown and lockdown and between pre-lockdown and post-lockdown.

Elections in Ecuador: An Emerging Alternative beyond the Left-Right Antagonism

On 11 April 2021 Ecuador's presidential run-off election will take place between leftist candidate Andrés Arauz from the UNES coalition and right-wing conservative Guillermo Lasso from the PSC-CREO alliance. Though this appears to be a conventional left-right battle, the successful first-round performance of Yaku Pérez from Pachakutik and Xavier Hervas from the ID surprised many observers. Ecuador's run-off represents the choice between two opposing models of development. Arauz seeks to advance ex-president Rafael Correa's anti-neoliberal "Citizen Revolution," while Lasso promotes the old neoliberal agenda. Both contenders are betting on revenues from extractivism to fund their development plans. In the first round, Arauz and Lasso avoided taking firm stances on issues related to the environment, gender, and sexual minorities. For the run-off, they have both "greened" their agendas and spun their positions as "women- and LGBT-friendly," recognizing the success of alternative third forces led by Pachakutik and the Izquierda Democrática (ID). Despite a left majority in the legislature, creating a unified leftist front is wishful thinking. The differences between Unión por la Esperanza (UNES) and Pachakutik are irreconcilable: the former seems incapable of turning away from its founding figure, Correa, and the indigenous movement continues to be internally fragmented. As both run-off candidates combined received only a little over half of the first-round vote, endorsements are currently a crucial battleground for the finalists. Pachakutik and the ID have announced they will support neither Arauz nor Lasso. The political tradition in Ecuador indicates that votes are not easily transferred, due to voters' weak identification with programmatic militancy and ideology. Whoever wins the presidential run-off will have to deal with an urgent and profound socio-economic crisis reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Parental perceptions of increased child-to-parent violence of Spanish adolescents during covid-19 lockdown.]

OBJECTIVE: Internationally, there was a warning of the risk of increased domestic violence during lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including child-to-parent violence. The objective of our study was to assess the prevalence of different violent behaviors from children to parents during pre-lockdown, lockdown and immediately after, between March 14 and June 20, 2020, and to assess differences in behaviors between pre-lockdown and lockdown and between pre-lockdown and post-lockdown. METHODS: The researchers developed a survey with closed questions about different violent behaviors of the children (poor responses, insults and physical aggression). This was distributed with the CAWI methodology during the months of August and September 2020 to a sample of Spanish parents stratified by autonomous communities. 1,500 families with 1,927 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years participated. The frequency of responses obtained between the pre-lockdown and lockdown and between pre-lockdown and post-lockdown was compared through the Mac Nemar test for comparison of related samples. RESULTS: The prevalences of poor responses, insults and aggressions in a pre-lockdown setting were 30.1%, 3.8% and 0.6%, respectively. Poor responses and insults increased significantly between pre-lockdown and lockdown (p<0.001) and between pre-lockdown and post-lockdown (p<0.001) in all autonomous communities, age groups, genders, occupation type of the adolescent and type of household. No statistically significant differences were found in physical aggression for the periods evaluated. Single-parent families, adolescents residing in subsidized housing and those without an occupation or education ("NEET") exhibited more violent behavior in the three periods. CONCLUSIONS: Lockdown led to an increase in nonphysical violent behaviors, which were maintained to the end, warning of the potentially persistent risks of lockdown in this age group, especially in vulnerable families.

COVID-19. Complicaciones del control prenatal y resultado perinatal

There is little data on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on pregnancy. There are four cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, confirmed by polymerase chain reaction with real-time reverse transcription of nasopharyngeal secretions collected by swabs, in pregnant women with respiratory symptoms, who attended the author's prenatal care and perinatology consultation at the Hospital de Clínicas Caracas. The clinical evolution was acute for SARSCoV-2. They remained hospitalized for seven days, in two of them strict maternal and fetal surveillance was maintained, checking fetal well-being. Obstetric resolution was via cesarean section at 40 weeks, with satisfactory evolution. One of the newborns was sampled for SARS-CoV-2 serology for umbilical cord at birth, resulting in positive immunoglobulin G and M negative. The analysis of these data is important to guide clinical practice, covering prevention, detection, isolation, epidemiological investigation, diagnosis and treatment. © 2021 Sociedad de Obstetricia y Ginecologia de Venezuela. All rights reserved.

Recommendations from the asociación colombiana de medicina del sueño for the practice of sleep medicine in Colombia during the covid-19 pandemic

Measures such as frequent handwashing, mandatory use of face masks by the general population in public spaces, social and physical distancing, and mandatory confinement of most people at their homes have contributed to slowing down the spread of the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which is the source of the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, adopting some of these measures has caused delays in the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, including sleep disorders. There-fore, it is urgent for sleep specialists and sleep centers to gradually resume activities, as long as strict biosecurity protocols aimed at reducing the risk of contagion are implemented. In this scenario, and in order to help somnologists reopen sleep centers and resume the proce-dures performed there, the Asociación Colombiana de Medicina del Sueño (Colombian Association of Sleep Medicine) proposes through this reflection paper several recommendations that should be considered during the reactivation process. These recommendations are based on the COVID-19 spread mitigation strategies established by the Colombian health authorities, the guidelines issued by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and relevant literature on this subject, which was re-viewed after performing a search in the PubMed, SciELO, and Google Scholar databases using the search terms “sleep” “sleep medicine” and “COVID19”. © 2021, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. All rights reserved.