Abstracts - CDT Nº 46

Science, Technology & Society

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Science, Technology & Society

Science research policies of Argentinian national universities within the national science system

Vasen, Federico

This paper analyzes the features of the research policies of Argentinian national universities. Through a comparison of policy instruments of the universities and of national research councils and agencies, this study aims to detect vacant areas and overlapping actions. The results show three main issues: a) university research policies can be characterized as more “supportive” to in-house researchers, while access to national funds is more competitive, b) universities are the only institutions awarding research scholarships to undergraduate students, and c) policies for research orientation are weak at the university level.

Dynamics of the relationship between CONICET and two Argentinian national universities

Oregioni, María Soledad; Sarthou, Nerina

The recent relationship established between the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) in Argentina and two national universities: Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNL) and Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires (UNCPBA) is reviewed in this paper. After identifying certain analytical dimensions, major initiatives promoted by CONICET for national universities are presented, followed by a description of the relationship established betwen CONICET and each specific university. The paper seeks to identify the features characterizing this relationship and the factors that seem to influence the bond. The main results show that in the last decade CONICET has considered those national universities as an indispensable partner for the implementation of its national science and technology policy. However, the relationship between the Council and each national university is significantly related to the historical and political context and the research tradition of each institution.

Capabilities and institutional conditions for internationalization in scientific research teams

López, María Paz

The influence of local conditions of scientific knowledge production on the internationalization of scientific research teams, in particular those in Argentinian universities, is reviewed in this paper. We will first explore the concept of scientific internationalization considering not only those activities developed at the international level from an explicit cooperation, but also those carried out unilaterally by research groups. We will also propose the concepts of capabilities for internationalization and institutional conditions for internationalization in order to inquire into the abilities built up by the actors in research groups as well as the possibilities offered by the broader institutional frameworks within which they move for the internationalization of their activities.

Humanities and Social Sciences

Research

Labor informality by weak insertion: case study of the city of Concordia (Entre Rios, Argentina)

Reta, Magdalena; Toler, Stella

By the year 2006 and after an extended period of economic growth, the labor market in the city of Concordia (Entre Ríos Province, Argentina) was characterized by a high rate of weak insertions exceeding a fifty percent of the economically active population, mainly explained by the logics of survival. The characterization of informality –understood in a broad sense– showed situations present in employees as well as in independent workers and in self-employment activities unable to generate sufficient incomes to gain access to acceptable minimum levels of consumption. This study allowed us to realize that the problems in labor market exceed the analysis of open unemployment.

Contributions to thinking about community participation in health/mental health from the perspective of networks

Bang, Claudia; Stolkiner, Alicia

Since the Declaration of Alma-Ata (1978), multiple experiences have included devices based on community participation in their practices in health/mental health. Abstract and global senses that artificially homogenized community and participatory characteristics have been reproduced, reproducing models that gave rise to the Primary Health Care (PHC). This paper aims to review some of the main contributions of the networks theory that, from a complex perspective, resize the community participation in health. In a case study, the logics in which community and community participation are understood are enquired. It is concluded that to consider the population as a potential role player and to generate effective channels of participation remain a great challenge.

Strategies for the positioning of Carlos Mastronardi within the Argentinian literary system

Rosa, Claudia

This paper aims to map the institutional policies concerning the consecration systems and the social dynamics of the positioning within the canon of the national Argentinian literature, taking Carlos Mastronardi as a study case. Its singularity is constituted by one of the basic dualisms of the political, social and economic American history: Capital vs Interior of the country, specific vicissitude derived from the opposition city-country that has been expressed in cultural terms from the commercial consolidation of Buenos Aires port through a national production circulation and validation system from the capital city. Mastronardi’s position will be analized according to the entrance of his production and figure as author in the literary field of what we have called the Argentinian literature.

Humanities and Social Sciences

Communications

Wikis used as a tool for collaborative work in learning processes for future teachers

Silva-Peña, Ilich; Salgado Labra, Isabel

The results of the utilization of Wikis as a strategy to facilitate at distance collaborative work in a face-to-face course for teacher education are presented in this paper. This strategy was part of a research and development project aimed to explore some pedagogical improvements in teacher education programs. The selected tool was Moodle®, an Open Source Course Management System. An open questions questionare was used in order to survey how students valued this blended learning experience; responses were analyzed with ATLAS ti ® software. Results showed that students esteemed this technological tool highly valuable in at distance and asynchronous participation in collaborative work.

Exact and Natural Sciences

Communications

Industrial waste management evaluation model applied to discarded foundry sands

Miguel, Roberto E.; Porta, Atilio A.; Banda Noriega, Roxana B.

Waste foundry sands (WFS), discarded material generated by metal foundries, are disposed in either controlled or uncontrolled landfills. The present study was aimed to chemically analyze the sands and assess their disposal by means of an evaluation model of industrial waste under different climate conditions. Twelve samples were collected and subjected to leach tests to determine phenols and heavy metals concentrations. Ten of them showed concentrations below the regulatory limits of the Hazardous Waste Act. The model found that in areas with extreme vulnerability to pollution of groundwater resources, under humid climate conditions, composite lined landfills should be used to dispose the WFS with concentrations of phenols higher than 0.001 mg.L-1, and for WFS that use urethane alkyd system with Pb as a constituent.