I suppose you mean the partial group actions invented by my colleague Ruy Exel. One of the great things about partial actions is that they can be used to describe a lot of interesting C*-algebras, like, for example graph C*-algebras, which include, for instance, the Cuntz algebras. Recently Exel and Dokuchaev submitted a paper into the arxiv (http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.00939) where they also describe C*-algebras of dinamical systems (subshifts) via partial actions.
And yes Alcides, it has been a mistake when I wrote the question, I do mean this recent result developed on Ruy's work. I've seen lot of his contribution. Haven't got access to F.Abadie thesis that supports this theory, but I am very elated studying partial group actions and others theories and researches related. Thanks for updating me about this latest paper.
Partial actions have been used in my work with Orr Shalit to describe C*-algebras related to monomial ideals (http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.06495). We coin them as the quantized dynamics. This class contains the subshift algebras.
They arise naturally when analysing both the C*-algebras and the tensor algebras. Among others the quantized dynamics can be used to describe subshift algebras as Pimsner algebras of an appropriate C*-correspondence, and for solving rigidity problems. For example, the non-involutive parts of the subshift algebras (i.e. the tensor algebras in the sense of Muhly-Solel) coincide iff the quantized dynamics are locally conjugate.