Change in the publishing regime in Latin America: from a local to universal journal,Archivos de investigación Médica/Archives of Medical Research (1970–2014)

This study addresses an early case of an association between a local journal and a commercial publisher in Latin America striving to improve quality. The two journals examined are Archivos de Investigación Médica (AIM), 1970–1991 and its continuation as Archives of Medical Research (AMR), 1992–2014. The aim is to characterize and compare the publishing policies and patterns of scientific communication and bibliometric indicators developed under the two different types of publication: AIM as a source of local dissemination and the commercially circulated AMR. Publishing policies, production, and citations were identified in accordance with coverage by the Web of Science and Scopus indexes. The papers and citations were grouped into three categories according to the author´s affiliation: local, regional, and external. This categorization resulted in different combinations of correlations between cited and citing papers, in addition to a distribution of collaborative production and citations by country organized by continent. The comparison of results reveals two successful publishing projects; however, editorial practices pose an irreconcilable situation between the AIM objectives as a regional journal and AMR objectives as a mainstream journal, according with dominant indicators of international competition. Some implications of this situation are discussed in the context of Latin American and Caribbean journals.     

Environmental impact of toxic metals and metalloids from the Muñón Cimero mercury-mining area (Asturias, Spain)

This paper presents the results of the sampling surveys carried out in order to evaluate the environmental problems associated to La Soterraña, an abandoned Hg mine in Asturias, north of Spain. In particular, this paper overviews the impact of mining and metallurgical activities on terrestrial and aquatic environments. The wastes generated during the mining activity (ore extraction and processing) and later accumulated on the ground, contain great amount of sulphides, becoming potentially acid-generating. Consequently, the mobility of heavy metals and other ecotoxic elements is enhanced. Wastes are generally located close to watercourses and on very steep hillsides, where they are exposed to oxidative weathering, posing a significant risk due to the release of ecotoxic elements to the environment. Background levels were determined at sites, which had not been directly affected by mercury mining. A multielemental geochemical study of mining wastes, soils, stream sediments, water and air samples collected in the area of influence of the old mining and metallurgical works was carried out. Total Hg and As concentrations in soils reach values up to 502 and 19,940 mg kg⁻¹, respectively, 500 and 2000 times higher than the local background levels. The effects of mining seem to be intense both in waters and stream sediments, as well as in the local atmosphere, whose Hg content is 10 times higher than the background level in the area. Therefore, the target carcinogenic risk was exceeded for As and Hg in La Soterraña site.     

Criminal Lines,Indian Colours,and the Creation of a Black Legend: The Photographs of ‘Los Bandidos de la Halancha’, Bolivia

The author’s discovery of a set of inscribed photographs of the ‘Bandits of La Jalancha’, made in La Paz, Bolivia in 1871 and now in the collections of Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, has made possible the identification of the photographed gang’s leader ‘Salvador Chico’ with the Afro-Aymara anti-hero known in contemporary folklore as El Zambo Salvito. On their photographic journeys out of Bolivia, Salvador and his men were transformed into anonymous ‘Indian bandits’ and became generic illustrations of ethnic Aymara types in the service of racialised evolutionary science. Back in La Paz, however, the photographs were forgotten but the legend of the infamous son of an African slave from Chicaloma, a coca-producing hacienda in the region of Yungas, grew in the public imagination. Whereas nineteenth-century racial discourse only recognised his indigeneity, twentieth- and twenty-first-century folklore and illustrations have instead emphasised his blackness. In tracing the split legacies of Salvador of Chicaloma, through exported photographs and the formation of local legends, this work reveals how identity was constructed, evacuated, and made anew. This fluidity of representation was made possible, in part, by the relative archival invisibility of afrodescendientes in Andean South America, whose lives and histories remain largely uninscribed.     

Positional isomerism,stability, and polarizability of C20(CH2)n (n = 1–10), the cyclopropane adducts of the smallest fullerene: General formula for calculation of mean polarizability of fullerene derivatives C20XnYm and C60XnYm with fixed (n + m) number of different addends

All regioisomers of fullerene adducts C₂₀(CH₂)_n have been found and their stability and polarizability have been studied by the PBE/3ζ method. As in the case of the C₆₀ and C₇₀ adducts, mean polarizability of C₂₀(CH₂)_n quadratically depends on the number of addends and demonstrates the depression, viz. negative deviation of polarizability from the linear additive scheme. Another, linear formula is proposed for calculating mean polarizability of the C₂₀ and C₆₀ fullerene adducts with mixed functionalization C₂₀(CH₂)_nO_m and C₆₀(CH₂)_nO_m and fixed number of addends. The obtained results will be further used to work out the algorithm for counting all possible C₆₀X_n cycloadducts and searching a general formula for calculation of the C₆₀X_nY_m polarizability with variable (n + m) number of addends.     

Emergence,consolidation and dominance of meta-regimes: Exploring the historical evolution of mass production (1765–1972) from the Deep Transitions perspective

Grand environmental and societal challenges have drawn increasing attention to system innovation and socio-technical transitions. A recent Deep Transitions framework has provided a comprehensive theory of the co-evolutionary patterns of multiple socio-technical systems over the last 250 years. However, so far the framework has not been subjected to systematic empirical exploration. In this paper we address this gap by exploring the co-evolutionary model linking niche-level dynamics, transitions in single systems and ‘great surges of development’, as conceptualized by Schot and Kanger (2018) [1]. For this purpose, we conduct a case study on the historical evolution of mass production in the Transatlantic region from 1765 to 1972. Instead of focusing on dominant technologies or common practices the development of mass production is understood as the emergence of a meta-regime, i.e. a set of mutually aligned rules guiding production activities in multiple socio-technical systems. The results broadly confirm the overall model but also enable to extend the Deep Transitions framework by uncovering new mechanisms and patterns in the variation, diffusion and contestation of meta-regimes.     

Participation of women in doctorate,research, innovation,and management activities at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid: analysis of the decade 2006–2016

Scientometrics - This article studies the participation of women in doctorate, lecturing and research, innovation, and management activities at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), the...