Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The main transformations that have taken place in universities, in the increasingly changing environment of the contemporary information society, in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) become particularly important in order to facilitate information access are outlined. This situation facilitates the introduction of new learning styles in academic teaching, which creates a new paradigm in the relation teacher-student-librarian, starting from the need of lifelong learning. Some transformations that have been made in university libraries worldwide to integrate new learning styles, proposing new service models as an integrated space for learning in a broad, flexible and intelligent way that would generate new facilities for information access are analyzed. The role of the librarian, as an information professional, who assumes the challenge of information literacy as a development strategy for the university library in accordance with the new educational paradigms of the 21st century University is emphatized.

This essay reflects on the impact of the paradigm of complexity in the world of the XXI century’s education to demonstrate how education, to be effective and efficient, must contemplate the actions that it will execute on the critical variables that impact its system. The paper has touched the following critical points: Government as the leader of the system and as a defining entity of national needs; universities as responsible for the accurate implementation of the social function of educating citizens, as well as, for offering an education with its own style, within the autonomy that the country system allows, as representatives of particular visions in search of a free, non dictatorial education; teachers as a vital part of the system because they are the guides or facilitators who direct the process where the complete system is implemented, in both classrooms and virtual classes. And finally, the students, for whom the process exist in search of professionals who make of the nation a productive place to live and work based on ethical values. Our reflections uses as a framework of references previous researches on the subject and the wisdom of millennial cultures that still in the present century expresses in the hearts and actions of today mankind.

The University Environmental Responsibility, a concept in the process of construction worldwide, is the center ofinterest of this article in which its scope is explored, having in mind benefits not usually considered and strengths to behighlighted. It also includes the experience from UNPHU, the first private university in Santo Domingo, DominicanRepublic, verifying advantages such as the strengthening of the institutional image, the benefits of a robust studentvolunteering and the high assessment that the volunteers of its environmental program have on how this exercisecontributes to their professional training. In the end, some reflections are shared that can be used to carry out more indepthinvestigations in specific areas of the topic.

Peasant communities have been observing their territories and managing their biodiversity since immemorial times; but with the successive advances in science and technology, their knowledge is marginalized by an academic knowledge held in modernity. The destruction of innumerable cultural traditions does not benefit the environment, nor does it compromise the dialogues between academia, development agencies and local climate observers.

Population concentration and metropolisation processes caused by uncontrolled and unplanned urban growth have generated an enormous demand for infrastructure and services, as well as having an impact on the environment that can lead to imbalances in social development.To promote sustainable growth, it is necessary to plan a fair distribution of services throughout the development of the city and an efficient infrastructure system. Our answer is a competence building project, which holds the social and ecological function (in the etymological sense) of the city capable of restoring safe environmental conditions. The actions of theproject focus on: environment, health and quality of life, its results are in sustainable production. The project, therefore, deals with physical interventions, bio-sustainable innovation of supply chains of local agricultural products, and project of a robust civic image of common and public space.This means including the current crisis of the metropolitan city in the process of change, starting from an investigation regarding the possibilities of an invention. We are looking for new relations among the parts of the city through a mobility project to transform the times of the city; the identification of suitable places for the production of a modern and clean circular economy; and the selection of areas of urban regeneration to rediscover and renew the identity of the metropolitancity; all these will be our aims.Theme: Economic development based on local intelligence and social cohesion. In particular, from the circular economy we define an integrated model, linked to sustainable development objectives. The urban regeneration is related to the reactivation of a local economic system, to the innovation of agricultural products. Ad hoc training engages the local community to work on the real product, really including it in the regenerated territory, which becomes a "common good". The case study presented in support of this research hypothesis is the Bajos de Haina metropolitan centrality project in Santo Domingo; in Bajos de Haina the most important sugar cane refinery, the "Ingenio deRío Haina", is not being used and is being dismantled. The research project starts from the structures of the old sugar mill, which now belong to the memory of the place, creating a new pole of attraction to contribute to the rebirth of the area. The intervention strategy consists of building a system that takes into account the infrastructure network, green spaces and water.

Modern technological advances are a necessity inherent to the optimal functioning of 21st century society, forcing people to constant changes, in accordance with the new tools of work and socialization. This paper aims to describe the implications of modern technology in social thinking. The present work, based on natural observation, documented on the basis of experience and based on previous research, aims to explain how thought patterns evolve as technology advances, increasing productivity, hence making socialization more flexible, and triggering constant topics of research by various modern scientific disciplines. It concludes by mentioning the harmful effects of the accelerated advance of technology over physical and mental health, highlighting the consequences and negative impact on psychosocial development and focusing on social sciences, in order to highlight the importance of developing approach techniques and procedures which enable an optimal response according to the new era of information.

Present-day psychology faces challenges which possess particular characteristics. These challenges have to do with immediacy, alienation and the construction of a success-driven sense of life. The problem is that these current needs continue to be treated through psychotherapy approaches with obsolete epistemological and psychological grounds. We need to recognize this crisis. This article focuses on offering the possibility of reflection and specialization for psychotherapists and psychology in general, seeking to be more attentive to the challenges they face in their current field of work. It proposes the need to declare crisis in the philosophical grounds, paradigms, approaches and techniques that give rise to traditional psychotherapy. The production of this article proposes a newly created, complementary discipline, called psychogenic coaching. Its main and general characteristics are herein presented. Finally, there is a breakdown of certain important ethical premises to start adopting and thus increase the effectiveness and credibility of psychology.

Background: Violence against women by their domestic partner (IPV) can cause intense psychological distress and affect their self-esteem. Method: quantitative comparative research in women victims and non-victims of violence by their partners. The group of battered women (n = 170), female victims group, sought help by way of a psychological assistance center for battered and non-battered women (n = 170), the non-victims group, contacted through the support network of the Patronato de Ayuda a Casos de Mujeres Maltratadas (PACAM). The type of violence was identified using a structured and self-administered form, and their self-esteem was evaluated using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES). Results: The results showed statistically significant differences in self-esteem (p <0.001 *) between both groups. The average age of the female victims was 38.55 years (SD = 9.72, range = 20 - 67). In the group of non-victims, the average age was 37.25 years (SD = 11.43, range = 18-65). The results show that low self-esteem is associated in a statistically significant way with domestic partner violence.

This article focuses on expressing some problems with the implementation of some passive cooling systems for housing projects located in hot-humid climatic zones, since most of the time the climatic conditions are of thermal discomfort. The biggest problem is that high temperatures are accompanied by high levels of humidity, making it necessary to implement more than two cooling strategies, and although effective, they do not manage to be sufficient to maintain comfort levels most of the time, making necessary the use of active systems that consume a lot of energy. In the development of the article, some passive cooling strategies proposed by Givoni in their bioclimatic chart (Givoni, 1969) are analyzed separately to know their degree of effectiveness in a proposed case study with a hot-humid climate with rainfall throughout the year. With the strategies studied, the aim is to reduce the temperature as well as humidity inside a standard room.

Reflections on the twentieth century taken from the semblance of a professor who traveled to Paris every year and an unpublished essay dealing with the effect and retroactivity of the 2015 Latin American Architecture Seminar (SLA). Also an article on the Plaza de la Cultura on the occasion of its remodeling and its relationship with the architecture of power and the power of architecture.The Mirador del Sur Park and the influence of certain books and several essays by the author, create a sequence that begins with commentaries of the time in which the two world wars and their protagonists took place. Several reflections relate war events and the development of architecture and the arts throughout the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century. The text extends on the concept of vanguard and the philosophy of space. What is a place? What is a utopia? What is the contemporary urban reality?