2,789 research outputs found
Local government debt: an application to the Spanish case
For the last years, Europe has been subject to fiscal austerity in order to satisfy the Maastrich criteria. In this way, Spanish municipalities have been affected by new regulations and local government structure has changed. This paper is focused on the main factors that explain local government debt. In particular, budgetary information of a group of Spanish municipalities is used (1990-2000). Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data are presented. Key words:Fiscal Federalism, Local Government, debt, decentralization.
Blockade of CNG channels abrogates urethral relaxation induced by soluble guanylate cyclase activation
Payments for Pioneers? Revisiting the Role of External Rewards for Sustainable Innovation under Heterogeneous Motivations
© 2017, Elsevier Acknowledging the diversity of preferences, goals and motivations of individuals is key to promote the effectiveness of incentive-based conservation interventions. This paper analyses the heterogeneity of motivations to adopt silvopastoral practices, a social-ecological innovation for soil conservation and carbon emission reduction. We use Q methodology to identify smallholders' views with regard to these practices in a community in the forest frontier in Chiapas (Mexico). The analysis uncovers three main perspectives: self-sufficient pioneers, environmentally-conscious followers and payment-dependent conservatives. We discuss these perspectives around three topics: smallholders' predisposition to adopt silvopastoral practices, their views about needing external payments to sustain their livelihood and the diffusion of innovative sustainable practices. We relate these perspectives with livelihood characteristics and with observed adoption levels under a pilot programme to promote silvopasture. Our findings suggest that incentives other than payments may be more appropriate for those more likely to adopt, and that payments could encourage rent-seeking strategies and not necessarily promote permanent behavioural change. We suggest ways for designing more effective and adaptive environmental conservation programmes to foster adoption and continuation of social-ecological innovations
Optical determination of three-dimensional nanotrack profiles generated by single swift-heavy ion impacts in lithium niobate
Three-dimensional (3D) profiles of single nanotracks generated by a low impact density of Cl ions at 46 MeV have been determined by optical methods, using an effective-medium approach. The buried location of the maximum stopping power induces a surface optical waveguiding layer even at ultralow fluences (1011-1013 at./cm2) that allows to obtain the effective refractive index profiles (from dark-mode measurements). Combining the optical information with Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy/channeling experiments, the existence of a surrounding defective halo around the amorphous track core has been ascertained. The 3D profile of the halo has also been determined. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewe
Optical determination of three-dimensional nanotrack profiles generated by single swift-heavy ion impacts in lithium niobate
Three-dimensional (3D) profiles of single nanotracks generated by a low impact density of Cl ions at 46 MeV have been determined by optical methods, using an effective-medium approach. The buried location of the maximum stopping power induces a surface optical waveguiding layer even at ultralow fluences (1011-1013 at./cm2) that allows to obtain the effective refractive index profiles (from dark-mode measurements). Combining the optical information with Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy/channeling experiments, the existence of a surrounding defective halo around the amorphous track core has been ascertained. The 3D profile of the halo has also been determined. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewe
Impact of gaps in the asteroseismic characterization of pulsating stars. I. On the efficiency of pre-whitening
It is known that the observed distribution of frequencies in CoRoT and Kepler
{\delta} Scuti stars has no parallelism with any theoretical model.
Pre-whitening is a widespread technique in the analysis of time series with
gaps from pulsating stars located in the classical instability strip such as
{\delta} Scuti stars. However, some studies have pointed out that this
technique might introduce biases in the results of the frequency analysis. This
work aims at studying the biases that can result from pre-whitening in
asteroseismology. The results will depend on the intrinsic range and
distribution of frequencies of the stars. The periodic nature of the gaps in
CoRoT observations, just in the range of the pulsational frequency content of
the {\delta} Scuti stars, is shown to be crucial to determine their oscillation
frequencies, the first step to perform asteroseismolgy of these objects. Hence,
here we focus on the impact of pre-whitening on the asteroseismic
characterization of {\delta} Scuti stars. We select a sample of 15 {\delta}
Scuti stars observed by the CoRoT satellite, for which ultra-high quality
photometric data have been obtained by its seismic channel. In order to study
the impact on the asteroseismic characterization of {\delta} Scuti stars we
perform the pre-whitening procedure on three datasets: gapped data, linearly
interpolated data, and ARMA interpolated data. The different results obtained
show that at least in some cases pre-whitening is not an efficient procedure
for the deconvolution of the spectral window. therefore, in order to reduce the
effect of the spectral window to the minimum it is necessary to interpolate
with an algorithm that is aimed to preserve the original frequency content, and
not only to perform a pre-whitening of the data.Comment: 27 pages, 47 figures Tables and typos fixe
Diagnóstico diferencial de las enfermedades prostáticas
Este trabajo incluye una revisión de los métodos de diagnóstico de las enfermedades prostáticas; además describe cómo podemos distinguir entre cada una de ellas, dependiendo del método de diagnóstico utilizado.This paper reviews the prostatic pathologies diagnosis methods; it also describes the way we can distinguish between each one depending on the one we use
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