Proyectos

As the world explores alternatives to fossil fuels, hydrogen (H₂) has emerged as a critical element in accelerating the transition to clean and renewable energy sources (Gaucher et al., 2023; Le et al., 2023; Blay-Roger et al., 2024). Unlike gasoline, which emits CO2 when burned, H₂ combustion produces only water vapor, making it a high-quality and environmentally friendly fuel alternative. Hydrogen is primarily produced for industry processes, including “green hydrogen”, “blue hydrogen”, and “gray hydrogen” (IEA, 2019). On the other hand, the so-called “natural” or “white hydrogen” is potentially a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative because it is ready to be used for energy production, without the need for polluting processes to obtain it (Smith et al., 2005; Lapi et al., 2022; Gaucher et al., 2023; Blay-Roger et al., 2024). However, H₂ accumulation in the subsurface has been largely overlooked due to assumptions of its rarity or nonexistence, attributed to the hydrogen's inheritance characteristics (small and reactive molecule). The first fortuitous discoveries in the USA or Mali (West Africa) proved that it was a mistake (Zgonnik, 2020). Currently, the geological processes that generate natural hydrogen have started to be better understood, but the conditions for its accumulation remain poorly constrained (Lévy et al., 2023). The potential for global extraction of natural hydrogen is significant, so it is critical that we understand how it is generated, transported, and ultimately trapped. Recent discoveries of natural hydrogen in various geological settings, including mid-ocean ridges, ophiolitic nappes, transform faults, convergent subduction margins, and intraplate settings (Zgonnik et al., 2020; Jackson et al., 2024) highlight the increasing interest in this resource. As a result, exploration projects are currently active in several countries such as Australia, the USA, France, Spain, and South America (e.g., Zgonnik et al., 2020, Jackson et al., 2024). Experience in managing H₂ reservoirs is obviously still missing, but the analogies should perhaps rather be sought in the field of geothermal energy (Moretti et al., 2023). In terms of geotectonic settings of natural hydrogen formation, subduction zones represent the primary geological environment for the large-scale interaction between water and mantle peridotite, i.e., serpentinization processes (Zgonnik et al., 2020). Serpentinization is the most effective and hence important subsurface process for producing and focusing natural hydrogen in potentially commercial volumes (Jackson et al., 2024). Particularly, in the Central Andean Volcanic Zone (CAVZ; 18-28°S; Fig. 1a) only a limited number of investigations have focused on natural hydrogen data. Moretti et al. (2023) confirmed the presence of natural hydrogen in the Bolivian Altiplano (e.g., Pampa Lirima and Sol de Mañana; Fig. 1a) by using geochemical measurements of gasses from hot springs and in-situ analysis of soil gas. Moreover, the 3He/4He ratios in the Altiplano-Puna plateau indicate that the amount of He uprising from the mantle (i.e., 3He content) is very large (Fig. 1b). This indicates that deep gasses are migrating toward the overriding plate surface above subduction (Fig. 1c). Based on the findings of Moretti et al. (2023), it is highly probable to find natural hydrogen in the Chilean portion of the Altiplano. In this context, the proposed research plans to unlock the geological origin and assess the potential of natural hydrogen in northern Chile. Moreover, this project goes one step further than the study of Moretti et al. (2023) and proposes to investigate the potential occurrences of natural hydrogen associated with specific structural arrangements related to volcanic and geothermal systems (Veloso et al., 2019). For that reason, the acquisition of new geological, structural, geochemical, seismological, and geophysical data is crucial to better understand natural hydrogen systems and to determine the prospectivity of new areas in Chile.

Retinal vascular diseases are major causes of vision loss in the United States and around the world. To better treat these disorders, we need to understand the signaling pathways that control the growth and integrity of retinal blood vessels. Our recent publications and preliminary data detail a novel angiogenic signaling system centered around heme, a co-factor critical for oxygen transport, metabolism, and gene transcription. We found that heme promotes angiogenic growth in the retina by regulating tip/stalk selection, and that reduced heme production or import leads to reduced retinal vascularization and tissue hypoxia, similar to other retinal vasculopathies including retinopathy of prematurity, choroidal neovascularization, and the rare but important exudative vitreoretinopathies. Furthermore, we found that VEGF suppresses, while Norrin-bCatenin promotes, the expression of the obligate endothelial heme importer, Flvcr2. Based on these data, we hypothesize that heme, is involved in retinal angiogenesis and retinal vasculopathies. The Specific Aims of this proposal are to (1) determine how heme intersects with Notch signaling to control angiogenic tip/stalk selection, (2) characterize the role for Flvcr2/heme in VEGF-induced angiogenic proliferation and neo-vascularization, and (3) determine whether induction of Flvcr2/heme signaling is sufficient and necessary to reverse the vascular defects and downstream vision changes observed in mouse models of exudative vitreoretinopathy. To accomplish these aims, we developed new tools to directly manipulate heme in cultured retinal endothelial cells and assess heme transport and intracellular trafficking in vitro. We also generated new conditional knock-in and knock-out alleles to manipulate endothelial heme transport in vivo. Our studies will fundamentally impact our understanding of how endothelial heme levels are controlled, and the role of heme in retinal angiogenesis and vascular disease.

The proposal focuses on understanding the neuro-vascular aging mechanisms associated with alterations in fetal growth by intrauterine hypoxia using molecular biology and physiology as an area. The aim of the study is to demonstrate that impaired fetal growth conditions are associated with epigenetic programming of aging-related DNA methylation, chromatin remodeling, and miRNA-omic profile of junctional complex genes in the neuroendothelium, which can alter BBB integrity and permeability, increasing cerebral damage which impacts the juvenile and adulthood neurocognitive function.

El objetivo principal del proyecto consiste en explorar cómo niños y niñas haitianas que viven en Chile aprenden y desarrollan la habilidad pragmática en inglés como una tercera lengua (L3) en contextos de enseñanza del inglés como lengua extranjera (L2) en contextos educativos formales y multiculturales.

The project seeks to achieve new understandings of how schools (teachers/students), communities (homes/community centers) and universities (researchers/master students) can work together to build knowledge and engagement on contemporary issues of great importance for European societies. In this way young people will be able to take on new roles in our societies, as transformative agency towards merging social and environmental issues and their own future lives. One concrete result will be the development of a roadmap for social change and transformative agency, defined as a multimodal guideline. This will be built on projects and activities at schools in combination with results generated through the collaboration between partners on issues of transformative agency and ways of dealing with social change within schools. Another result of public interest will be emerging constellations of collaboration between educational partners and countries.

Los tiempos actuales han facilitado nuevos medios de expresión e interacción como son las redes sociales. Estas plataformas, desde unos orígenes que bien podrían definirse como centrados en el entretenimiento, la comunicación interpersonal y la puesta en común de nuestra imagen e intereses, han pasado a convertirse en arenas de debates polarizados y nada edificantes. En este escenario, nos parece necesario preguntarnos: ¿cómo funciona la producción y circulación cross-plataforma de discursos de odio en las redes sociales chilenas en los últimos años? Para obtener una respuesta, confiamos en que una aproximación interdisciplinar emprendida por un equipo de comunicadores, lingüistas y cientistas de datos puede proporcionar una mirada más completa y compleja sobre este problema. Nuestro objetivo general es comprender el funcionamiento cross-plataforma de los discursos de odio producidos y puestos en circulación en las redes sociales en Chile a partir de las tendencias informativas más relevantes entre 2015 y 2023. Para ello requerimos: 1) caracterizar cuantitativa y cualitativamente los tipos de discursos de odio producidos y puestos en circulación en las redes sociales en Chile a partir de las tendencias informativas más relevantes entre 2015 y 2023; 2) identificar las cuentas de origen y diseminación que hacen posible tanto la producción como la circulación cross-plataforma de los tipos de discursos de odio y sus comentarios en las redes sociales en Chile, y; 3) analizar cualitativamente las estrategias lingüísticas y semióticas usadas sistemáticamente en la producción de los tipos de discursos de odio y sus comentarios. Además, y no menos importante, proponemos diseñar un kit de recursos digitales con ejemplos y recomendaciones para fomentar estrategias de formación ciudadana que ayuden a los/as usuarios/as de estas redes sociales a leer críticamente los discursos de odio y proyectar acciones para confrontarlos o neutralizarlos. Si bien esta es una acción de divulgación científica, nos parece necesario dar un pequeño paso que proyecte incluso futuras investigaciones aplicadas.

Los conflictos militares no resueltos y las desigualdades persistentes entre países desarrollados y menos desarrollados hacen de la migración un tema prioritario en las agendas públicas y políticas globales. Los medios de comunicación han fomentado la percepción de la migración como crisis, a menudo presentándola como un problema (Stefoni el al., 2023). La representación de la migración como un problema es prominente en los medios, influenciando la opinión pública y generando actitudes negativas hacia los inmigrantes. Sin embargo, existe poca evidencia sistemática sobre cómo el Gobierno chileno representa la migración a nivel oficial. Este proyecto analiza cómo los medios influencian las percepciones públicas sobre la migración en Chile, centrándose en el Servicio Nacional de Migraciones. Particularmente, se investiga la forma en que el Gobierno chileno comunica informaciones relativas a los inmigrantes durante el mandato de Gabriel Boric (2022-2024), desde su cuenta oficial de Instagram, enfocándose en la configuración de la agenda y el encuadre mediático. Es por ello por lo que el objetivo principal es analizar los encuadres mediáticos sobre inmigración en la cuenta oficial de Instagram del Servicio Nacional de Migraciones durante el gobierno de Gabriel Boric. Los objetivos específicos son: Identificar los encuadres mediáticos más prominentes sobre inmigración en Instagram del Servicio Nacional de Migraciones. Analizar cómo se construye discursivamente la migración en dicha plataforma. El estudio utilizará la herramienta Crowtangle para recolectar publicaciones de Instagram del Servicio Nacional de Migraciones, de marzo 2022 a marzo 2024. Se realizará un análisis de contenido cualitativo manual utilizando el software Atlas.Ti. Se identificarán palabras clave, imágenes y otros elementos significativos para evaluar cómo se enmarcan los temas inmigratorios. Adicionalmente, se utilizará el Enfoque Histórico-Discursivo para evaluar la construcción discursiva de las publicaciones, complementando con taxonomías de representación de actores sociales y análisis de hashtags. Esta metodología mixta ayudará a revelar patrones en la manera en que el Gobierno chileno comunica la migración y cómo influye en las actitudes públicas hacia este fenómeno.

The rapid increase in immigration and the presence of different Indigenous peoples in the country have resulted in culturally diverse classrooms in Chile. Cultural differences are significant for communication (Otten & Geppert, 2009) and teaching processes (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013). Hence, intercultural interactions correspond to embodied culture discourses (Carbaugh, 2017; Shi-xu, 2023), which entail the communication practices that take place at institutional levels (i.e., top-down) and language classrooms (i.e., bottom-up). However, some tensions have been identified in these processes, particularly because they seem to maintain cultural and linguistic hierarchies that do not necessarily promote the social mobility or acceptance of minoritized groups (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Unamuno, 2016; Zavala, 2017). Against this backdrop, discursive practices are at the core of how these raciolinguistic hierarchies are maintained, negotiated, and/or challenged by educational communities. Consequently, the main objective of this research proposal is to examine how language and interculturality are discursively conceptualized and implemented in culturally diverse Chilean schools, specifically within three language subjects: Spanish, Ancestral Languages, and English as a Foreign Language. This objective is articulated through the following research question: How are language and interculturality discursively conceptualized and implemented in culturally diverse Chilean schools across the subjects of Spanish, Ancestral Languages, and English as a Foreign Language? To address this question, the project outlines four specific objectives (SOs): SO1) To examine how interculturality is discursively constructed in educational policies and the national curriculum on language subjects (i.e., Spanish, Ancestral Languages, and English as a Foreign Language); SO2) To assess how language teachers understand and implement intercultural practices in Chile, highlighting areas of convergence and divergence; SO3) To analyze how school communities discursively construct interculturality on their schoolscapes; and SO4) To analyze how language teachers’ actions and decisions address interculturality in the language classroom. The proposed research is a mixed-methods study (Creswell & Plano, 2018). First, we will analyze a corpus of institutional pedagogical discourses to examine how interculturality is discursively constructed in educational policies and the national curriculum (SO1). To this end, the data will be examined from a Corpus-Assisted Approach to Discourse Studies (CADS) (Partington et al., 2013) following the guidelines proposed by Jaworska and Kinloch (2018, p. 116) for a thorough and systematic examination of multiple datasets in CADS. The first quantitative stage considers the analysis of frequency, concordance lines, collocations, and keywords. The second qualitative stage is informed by Bacchi's (2012) model, What's the Problem Represented to be? (or WPR) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl, 2017; Reisigl & Wodak, 2016). Second, we will conduct a questionnaire to identify how language teachers understand interculturality and intercultural practices in their classrooms (SO2). The sampling considers a disproportionate stratification to enable similar sample sizes for Spanish and EFL teachers, and Traditional Educators, ensuring the representation of Traditional Educators, who are the smallest population (CEM Mineduc, 2024). Third, we will analyze how school communities discursively construct interculturality on their school grounds (SO3) through the examination of schoolscapes (Gorter & Cenoz, 2015). To this end, three schools across three regions will be selected (i.e., Tarapacá, Metropolitan, and Araucanía) to ensure geographic representativeness. The data will be analyzed in light of Ledin and Machin’s multimodality framework (2017, 2018, 2019) as it incorporates the materiality of the semiotic signs, the ideologies and beliefs behind the creation of multimodal texts, and the recontextualization of social actors and practices (van Leeuwen, 2008). Finally, we analyze the actions and decisions language teachers take to address interculturality in the language classroom (SO4) through classroom observation (minimum 48 pedagogical hours in total; four hours per language subject) in the same schools. These observations will be analyzed using the synopsis technique (Dolz et al., 2018; Schneuwly & Dolz, 2009), which allows us to both hierarchize central pedagogical sequences and examine teachers' actions and students' reactions in detail. In turn, it enables data reduction and serves as heuristic support for analysis. Expected results seek to enlighten how educators co-create language and interculturality in culturally diverse schools. It examines how these social actors recontextualize and mediate top-down policies to their daily realities, thus illuminating the negotiation and resemiotization of hegemonic understandings of interculturality in line with the needs of their own communities (bottom-up practices).

Objetivo general: Examinar los procesos de convivencia intercultural y describir los discursos y prácticas escolares sobre la producción de diferencias étnicas y migrantes en dos escuelas secundarias chilenas diversas en la Región de O'Higgins y en la Región Atacama.

The general objective of the Center is to support the transformation of education in Chile. It aims to collaborate with institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean to address significant challenges in the present and future. These challenges include reducing gaps in fundamental learning, strengthening the quality of public education, developing innovative and effective school practices, and addressing critical issues such as the educational impacts of the pandemic, the climate crisis, and the rapid integration of advanced technologies, including the transformative emergence of artificial intelligence to assist educators. The Center will promote collaboration with national and international educational organizations and schools to engage in scientific research of excellence, knowledge transfer, technological solutions, and training of skilled professionals. In doing so, it seeks to drive meaningful and sustainable changes in the education system, contributing to a more equitable and inclusive future.