A lecturer profile categorization for evaluating education practice quality

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This research-to-practice work in progress paper is focused on creating a categorization of lecturers in order to define quality in their education practice. The reason for this work is that we found that our faculty perceived the time devoted to teaching as something that had no real impact on the progress of their academic careers, whereas the real impact consists of papers published and grants obtained. Our lecturers require from the university an institutional policy that defines strategies and guidelines to favour a quality education, which in turn requires the definition of a teaching evaluation system. However, a single evaluation system cannot be implemented for all teachers. Different teaching profiles must be defined and the lecturers must be evaluated in accordance with the profiles to which they belong. In this paper, a categorization of four lecturer profiles is presented.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Do differences exist between how Engineering and non-Engineering lecturers perceive the importance of teaching competences?

A survey we conducted a few years ago concluded that higher education teachers should have the following competences: interpersonal, methodological, communicative, planning and management, teamwork and innovation. The authors of this work belong to the Institute in charge of the lecturer-training program at our university, which is basically a technical one. In order to improve our training program, we pose the following research questions: What are the competences that lecturers perceive as less important. Do our university teachers (engineering teachers) have a different perception of the importance of the different lecturer competences compared to that of other teachers? The results we present in this paper come from a survey that was sent to a total of 15,209 teachers belonging to public universities in our community, and we received a total of 2,347 valid answers. As a result of this study, we found which competences are those with a significantly bad rating by lecturers in general, and our lecturers in particular. We analyze what measures should be introduce into our teacher training program.Postprint (author's final draft

Exchange rate policy and trade balance. A cointegration analysis of the argentine experience since 1962.

Using multivariate cointegration tests for non-stationary data and vector error correction models, this paper examines the determinants of trade balance for Argentina over the last forty to fifty years. Our investigation confirms the existence of long-run relationships among trade balance, Real Exchange Rate (RER) and foreign and domestic incomes for Argentina during different real exchange rate management policies. Based on the estimations, the Marshall-Lerner condition is examined and, by means of impulse response functions, we trace the effect of a one-time shock to the RER on the trade balance checking the J-curve pattern.Argentina; Marshall-Lerner; J-Curve; cointegration and impulse response analysis

STED imaging performance estimation by means of Fourier transform analysis

Due to relatively high powers used in STED, biological samples may be affected by the illumination in the process of image acquisition. Similarly, the performance of the system may be limited by the sample itself. Optimization of the STED parameters taking into account the sample itself is therefore a complex task as there is no clear methodology that can determine the image improvement in an objective and quantitative manner. In this work, a method based on Fourier transform formalism is presented to analyze the performance of a STED system. The spatial frequency distribution of pairs of confocal and STED images are compared to obtain an objective parameter, the Azimuth Averaged Spectral Content Spread (AASCS), that is related to the performance of the system in which the sample is also considered. The method has been first tested on samples of beads, and then applied to cell samples labeled with multiple fluorescent dyes. The results show that a single parameter, the AASCS, can be used to determine the optimal settings for STED image acquisition in an objective way, only by using the information provided by the images from the sample themselves. The AASCS also helps minimize the depletion power, for better preservation of the samples.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Hypogravity research and educational parabolic flight activities conducted in Barcelona: a new Hub of innovation in Europe

We report on different research and educational activities related to parabolic flights conducted in Barcelona since 2008. We use a CAP10B single-engine aerobatic aircraft flying out of Sabadell Airport and operating in visual flight conditions providing up to 8 seconds of hypogravity for each parabola. Aside from biomedical experiments being conducted, different student teams have flown in parabolic flights in the framework of the international contest ‘Barcelona Zero-G Challenge’, and have published their results in relevant symposiums and scientific journals. The platform can certainly be a good testbed for a proof-of-concept before accessing other microgravity platforms, and has proved to be excellent for motivational student campaigns.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Enabling future access. Nations, generations, institutions and opportunity costs

The following paper is a response to Axel Gosseries’s “Nations, Generations and Climate Justice.” The core argument in Gosseries’s sharp and challenging text states that (1) we can understand intergenerational justice as transit duties between countries; that (2) impartial global planners should realize these duties through an intergenerational global leximin principle; and (3) that the right implementation of this principle implies strictly equivalent intergenerational transfers. In this text I will address the evaluative perspective of the impartial global planner and its institutional interpretation; then I will briefly present an “opportunistic” reply to the vagueness objection to rectificatory justice; finally I briefly examine the development of the right of transit in the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea and the limits to its intergenerational extension.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Asturias, ¿Paraíso natural? : Sobre la genealogía de los paisajes culturales del Occidente Cantábrico y la invisibilización de su profundidad temporal

En este trabajo se analizan las narrativas de los organismos de promoción turística del gobierno asturiano sobre los paisajes culturales. Estos discursos ofrecen lecturas que resaltan especialmente los aspectos ambientales del medio rural asturiano, mientras los factores culturales ligados a las comunidades campesinas locales aparecen menos visibles. Los presupuestos teórico-metodológicos de la Arqueología del Paisaje han puesto de relieve la importancia de los procesos históricos de antropización en la construcción social de los paisajes culturales actuales. A la vista de estas observaciones, se reflexiona acerca de la relevancia de las Ciencias Sociales en el diseño de las políticas de gestión territorial del medio rural asturiano

La Arqueología comercial como escenario de conflictos sociolaborales: El caso madrileño

Se presenta sintéticamente la situación sociolaboral de la Arqueología comercial en la Comunidad de Madrid, haciendo hincapié en sus problemas estructurales. Se plantean unas líneas prioritarias de trabajo hacia las que deberían avanzar los agentes implicados en el sector para superar las graves dificultades que, en particular, atraviesa el colectivo de trabajadores/as. [ABSTRACT] We briefly review the social and labour situation of Commercial Archaeology in the Community of Madrid, with an emphasis on the structural problems of the sector. We present some priority lines of work that should be assumed by the stakeholders in the sector to overcome the serious difficulties that, particularly, affect to the Commercial Archaeology workers

Investigar en educación: guía práctica

Hay profesores que dedican una parte de su tiempo a estudiar cómo funciona el aprendizaje, cómo mejorar sus clases y sus prácticas, así como a integrar, motivar y enseñar más y mejor a sus estudiantes. Utilizan sus capacidades y formación como investigadores para estudiar y comprobar teorías, planificar experimentos, analizar resultados y extraer conclusiones que permiten aumentar los conocimientos sobre educación. Estos profesores están investigando en educación. Sin embargo, no es habitual que este trabajo sea publicado, ni reclamado como investigación. Muchas veces, esto es debido a que separamos ambos mundos sin pensar que la educación pueda ser investigación. Otras, simplemente no sabemos dónde publicar, o si estas publicaciones serán tenidas en cuenta en nuestro currículum. En este artículo se realizan unas reflexiones sobre la investigación en educación y su valoración, así como un estudio sobre los congresos y revistas donde leer, aprender y, eventualmente, publicar.Peer Reviewe