A Note on Estimation of Multi-Sigmoidal Gompertz Functions with Random Noise

The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their suggestions that have improved the content of the paper.The behaviour of many dynamic real phenomena shows different phases, with each one following a sigmoidal type pattern. This requires studying sigmoidal curves with more than one inflection point. In this work, a diffusion process is introduced whose mean function is a curve of this type, concretely a transformation of the well-known Gompertz model after introducing in its expression a polynomial term. The maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters of the model is studied, and various criteria are provided for the selection of the degree of the polynomial when real situations are addressed. Finally, some simulated examples are presented.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain, under Grant MTM2017-85568-P

Imágenes de la Guerra Civil española en la poesía de expresión inglesa

La Guerra Civil Española entusiasmó la imaginación creadora de los intelectuales en general y de los poetas ingleses en particular. Ensayos, novelas, obras teatrales, artículos de periódicos..., proliferaron durante los tres años que duró la guerra. Muchos escritores llegaron a España para seguir los acontecimientos más de cerca, y muchos perdieron sus vidas en el campo de batalla. Pero el impacto emocional de la guerra puede verse especialmente en la poesía. Un buen número de poetas de habla inglesa -ingleses, irlandeses, norteamericanos, etc., producen una enorme cantidad de poemas que van desde contenidos de clara declaración política al lirismo más íntimo.The Spanish Civil War greatly excited the creative imagination of intellectuals in general and of English poets in particular. Essays, novels, theatrical works, newspaper articles, and son on, proliferated during the three years that the war lasted. Many writers came to Spain to follow the events more closely, and a good many lost their lives on the battlefield. But the emotional impact of the war can be seen especially in poetry. A good number of English-speaking poets -British, Irish, North American, etc.-produced an enormous quantity of poems ranging in content from bald political statement to the most intimate lyricism

Empirical evidence on return migration from Spain to Ecuador. Discourse, myth or reality?

Through this article we analyze in depth the issue of return in international migration. To do this, it has used different statistical sources and in-depth interviews in order to quantify the magnitude of the return of the Ecuadorian origin resident in Spain. We based on this premise, we note that the phenomenon of return to Ecuador has grown significantly in recent years due to the economic crisis in Spain, but has not been on a massive scale. This statement raises the need to reflect on return policies that have been implemented to the present and what should be the priorities of the origin and destination country when it comes to protecting and providing support to international migrants

Modelling regional housing prices in Spain

We estimate the long-run relationship between real housing prices of new dwellings and their fundamentals in a panel of the 50 Spanish provinces between 1985 and 2018. We fi nd acointegrating relationship between real house prices and per capita real income, unemployment rate and demographic density. According to our estimates, house prices were above their long-run equilibrium values in most provinces in 2007, during the peak of the previous boom, but there was substantial heterogeneity in the size of this gap. At the end of 2018 house prices were slightly below their estimated long-run equilibrium values in most provinces, but a few of them exhibited moderate positive deviations from those levels. Our results highlight the importance of modelling house prices at the regional level, as aggregate results may hide important heterogeneous developments.En el presente trabajo estimamos la relación a largo plazo entre los precios de la vivienda nueva reales y sus fundamentales en un panel de 50 provincias españolas entre 1985 y 2018. Encontramos una relación de cointegración entre los precios de vivienda reales y la renta real per cápita, la tasa de paro y la densidad demográfi ca. De acuerdo con nuestras estimaciones, los precios de la vivienda estaban por encima de sus valores de equilibrio a largo plazo en la mayoría de las provincias en 2007, en el punto máximo de la anterior expansión, pero había una elevada heterogeneidad en la magnitud de estas diferencias. A fi nales de 2018, los precios de la vivienda estaban ligeramente por debajo de su nivel de equilibrio estimado de largo plazo en la mayoría de las provincias, mientras que en otras el valor de estos activos inmobiliarios superaba, aunque muy moderadamente, dicho nivel de largo plazo. Nuestros resultados muestran la importancia de modelizar los precios de la vivienda a escala regional, puesto que los resultados agregados pueden encubrir importantes evoluciones heterogéneas

Salud y políticas de las instituciones económicas internacionales

Las políticas son determinantes de la distribución social de los “determinantes sociales de la salud”. A partir de los años 80 las políticas neoliberales de organismos internacionales como el Banco Mundial, el Fondo Monetario y la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC) han empujado a los países en desarrollo hacia el suministro privado y la internacionalización de sus sectores económicos. Mecanismos para la implementación de estos objetivos, como los programas de ajuste estructural, han obstaculizado la intervención intersectorial sobre los determinantes sociales de la salud como se había planteado en Alma Ata. El impacto en la salud de este tipo de políticas las ha convertido en objeto de investigación desde la epidemiología política, definida como el estudio de los efectos sobre la salud de las decisiones asumidas o no asumidas por las instituciones derivadas del poder político. Dado que con el proceso de globalización las inequidades en salud cada vez más son consecuencia de políticas que responden a intereses de actores transnacionales, es pertinente aplicar la perspectiva de la epidemiología política en la avaluación del impacto en la salud de las poblaciones

Recent developments in financing and bank lending to the non-financial private sector: first half of 2022

Artículo de revistaIn 2022 to date there has been a tightening of financing conditions for firms and households, with a strong rise in the cost of corporate debt issuance and a contraction in the supply of loans. However, the pass-through of market interest rates to bank lending interest rates appears to be somewhat slower than in other historical bouts of interest rate hikes. Against this backdrop, the flow of new funding raised by households and firms and their outstanding debt have increased moderately or remained stable. Lending by deposit institutions (DIs) for non-financial business activities declined in 2022 Q1, more than offsetting the increase in the balance of loans for house purchase, while in April and May their joint performance was moderately expansionary. Since early 2022 and despite the worsening of the macro-financial environment, the credit quality of the DIs’ portfolio has continued to improve in general, except in the case of financing allocated to the sectors most affected by the pandemic, as well as in Official Credit Institute (ICO)-backed loans as a whole. The materialisation of adverse macro-financial scenarios might lead to less buoyancy in the volume of bank lending and the deterioration of its quality in the coming quarters

Synthesis of Enantiopure Oxygen- and Nitrogen-Containing Heterocycles by Diastereoselective Ring-Closing Metathesis Reaction in Perhydro-1,3-benzoxazine Derivatives

Producción CientíficaDiastereoselective ring‐closing metathesis reactions on chiral trienic perhydro‐1,3‐benzoxazines derived from (−)‐8‐aminomenthol featuring two diastereotopic olefin chains is described. The diastereochemical outcome of the cyclization appeared to be dependent on the length and position of the olefin chains in perhydro‐1,3‐benzoxazine, the degree of substitution of the double bonds and the ruthenium catalyst used. After separation of the diastereomers, and removal of the chiral auxiliary, enantiopure oxygen‐ and nitrogen‐containing heterocycles were obtained.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (Project FEDER-CTQ2014-59870-P)Junta de Castilla y León (Ref. Project FEDER-VA115P17

Technology at the service of music education

Technology is part of our everyday lives, whether we like it or not. Learning to live with it is not just a requirement but is also necessary if we are to avoid succumbing to a new form of illiteracy: technological illiteracy. As teachers we must contribute through continuous training to the computer literacy that contemporary society demands of us in the day-to-day performance of our activities. In the following pages, we present and analyse some of the tools available for use in music education, applying criteria of quality, stability, and, above all, freedom of use.Las tecnologías, queramos o no, forman parte de nuestra vida cotidiana. Aprender a convivir con ellas no solo es una obligación, sino una necesidad para no caer en un nuevo analfabetismo: el tecnológico. Los docentes debemos contribuir con nuestra formación permanente a la alfabetización digital que la sociedad actual impone en el desarrollo diario de nuestras actividades. En las siguientes páginas presentaremos y analizaremos algunas de las herramientas disponibles para su utilización en la educación musical, desde criterios de calidad, estabilidad y, sobre todo, libertad en su utilización