Converging to efficiency : the Ramón y Cajal Program experience

We analyze the evolution on the design of a policy measure promoted by the Spanish Government: the Ramón y Cajal Program. In the first calls of the Program, an eligibility requirement for a researcher was a preacceptance from at least one Spanish research institution. This requirement was removed in the fourth call. We model the recruiting process as a twosided matching model to find the reason for the new design. We model the situation as if research centers decided by majority to play either the old or the new mechanism. Our results prove that in a repeated game and assuming that research personnel is scarce, even endogamic centers will prefer the new mechanism after a finite number of calls. We also analyze application data for the first five calls, finding empirical support to our assumptions and theoretical findings.

Converging to Efficiency: the Ramón y Cajal Program Experience

We analyze the evolution on the design of a policy measure promoted by the Spanish Government: the Ramón y Cajal Program. In the first calls of the Program, an eligibility requirement for a researcher was a preacceptance from at least one Spanish research insti- tution. This requirement was removed in the fourth call. We model the recruiting process as a two-sided matching model to find the reason for the new design. We model the situation as if research centers decided by majority to play either the old or the new mechanism. Our results prove that in a repeated game and assuming that research personnel is scarce, even endogamic centers will prefer the new mechanism after a finite number of calls. We also analyze application data for the first five calls, finding empirical support to our assumptions and theoretical findings.Two-sided Matching Markets, Stable Matching, R&D, Policy Analysis, Differences in Differences.

The influence of social capital on risk-taking propensity. A study on Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs

This paper studies the influence of social capital on immigrant entrepreneurs’ risk-taking propensity. The paper has a particular focus on Chinese immigrants and also explores the effects of the so-called “guanxi”, a specific form of social capital for Chinese communities. The empirical research is based on a survey conducted in 2012 on Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Andalusia (Spain). An ordinal logistic regression specification was employed to test the hypotheses. The results show that the Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs with greater structural, relational and cognitive social capital and better “guanxi” have a higher risk-taking propensity in their business activity

Cajal, catedrático de anatomía en Valencia (1884-1887)

Santiago Ramón y Cajal obtuvo por oposición a finales de 1883 la cátedra de Anatomía de la Universidad de Valencia, siendo titular de la misma hasta finales de 1887. En Valencia Cajal va a desarrollar y a poner a punto, junto a su discípulo Juan Bartual, la técnica de Golgi aprendida del valenciano Luis Simarro. Durante su época en Valencia Cajal estableció diversos nexos con las instituciones debiendo resaltar la estrecha relación que mantuvo con el Instituto Médico Valenciano publicando en su Boletín las primicias de sus primeras investigaciones microscópicas. Asimismo Cajal presento en el I Congreso Médico-Farmacéutico Regional de Valencia su famosa comunicación científica en la que por primera vez comunico la ley de la polarización dinámica de las neuronas. De otra parte la producción científica de Cajal en Valencia se concreta en la edición de su Manual de Histología dotado de una amplia colección de grabados (1.ª edición 1884-8, 2.ª edición en 1889) y en un total de 16 artículos publicados en revistas valencianas, de los cuales 10 aparecieron en el periodo 1884-7. De este modo en Valencia se establece el punto de partida de la genial obra científica de Cajal, iniciando en nuestra ciudad las tareas sistemáticas de su investigación histologica.Santiago Ramón y Cajal obtained the chairmanship of Anatomy in the University of Valencia (Spain) by examination in late 1883 - a post he was to occupy until the end of 1887. In Valencia, Cajal and his disciple Juan Bartual developed the Golgi technique, transmitted from the valencian Luis Simarro. During his period in the city, Cajal established a series of ties with the local institutions. In this context, special mention should be made of his close relation with the Instituto Médico Valenciano, which led to the publication (in the Bulletin of the Institute) of his early microscopic research findings. Likewise, on occasion of the I Regional Medical-Pharmaceutical Congress, Cajal presented a famous scientific communication in which he for the first time described the neuron dynamic polarization law. On the other hand, the scientific production of Cajal in Valencia was further materialized in the publication of his Manual de Histología, which included a large number of illustrations (first edition 1884-1888; second edition 1889), and in a total of 16 articles published in Valencian journals -10 of which appeared in the period 1884-7. In this way, Valencia became established as the launching point of the brilliant scientific work of Ramón y Cajal, comprising the origins of his sistematic work in histological research.Vera Sempere, Fco Jose, [email protected]

Population history, gene flow, and bottlenecks in island populations of a secondary seed disperser, the southern grey shrike (Lanius meridionalis koenigi)

Studying the population history and demography of organisms with important ecological roles can aid understanding of evolutionary processes at the community level and inform conservation. We screened genetic variation (mtDNA and microsatellite) across the populations of the southern grey shrike (Lanius meridionalis koenigi) in the Canary Islands, where it is an endemic subspecies and an important secondary seed disperser. We show that the Canarian subspecies is polyphyletic with L. meridionalis elegans from North Africa and that shrikes have colonized the Canary Islands from North Africa multiple times. Substantial differences in genetic diversity exist across islands, which are most likely the product of a combination of historical colonization events and recent bottlenecks. The Eastern Canary Islands had the highest overall levels of genetic diversity and have probably been most recently and/or frequently colonized from Africa. Recent or ongoing bottlenecks were detected in three of the islands and are consistent with anecdotal evidence of population declines due to human disturbance. These findings are troubling given the shrike's key ecological role in the Canary Islands, and further research is needed to understand the community-level consequences of declines in shrike populations. Finally, we found moderate genetic differentiation among populations, which largely reflected the shrike's bottleneck history; however, a significant pattern of isolation-by-distance indicated that some gene flow occurs between islands. This study is a useful first step toward understanding how secondary seed dispersal operates over broad spatial scales

Revisiting the production of ALPs at B-factories

In this paper, the production of Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) at B-factories via the process e+e− → γa is revisited. To this purpose, the relevant cross-section is computed via an effective Lagrangian with simultaneous ALP couplings to b-quarks and photons. The interplay between resonant and non-resonant contributions is shown to be relevant for experiments operating at s=mϒ(nS), with n = 1, 2, 3, while the non-resonant one dominates at ϒ(4S). These effects imply that the experimental searches performed at different quarkonia resonances are sensitive to complementary combinations of ALP couplings. To illustrate these results, constraints from existing BaBar and Belle data on ALPs decaying into invisible final states are derived, and the prospects for the Belle-II experiment are discussedThe authors acknowledge F. Anulli, D. Becirevic, S. Fajfer, A. Guerrera, C. Hearty, S.J.D. King, T. Ferben, S. Lacaprara, M. Margoni, F. Mescia, M. Passera and P. Paradisi for very useful exchanges. This project has received support by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement N◦ 674896 (ITN Elusives) and 690575 (RISE InvisiblePlus) and by the exchange of researchers project “The flavor of the invisible universe” funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI). L.M. acknowledges partial financial support by the Spanish MINECO through the “Ram´on y Cajal” programme (RYC-2015-17173), by the Spanish “Agencia Estatal de Investigaci´on” (AEI) and the EU “Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional” (FEDER) through the project FPA2016-78645-P, and through the Centro de excelencia Severo Ochoa Program under grant SEV-2016-0597. L.M. thanks the Physics and Astronomy Department ‘G.Galilei’ of the Universit`a degli Studi di Padova for hospitality during the development of this projec

Optical photometric monitoring of gamma-ray binaries

Four gamma-ray binaries, namely PSR B1259-63, HESS J0632+057, HD 215227 and LS I +61 303, contain compact objects orbiting around massive Be stars. The nature of the compact object is only known in the case of PSR B1259-63, but the other systems could also contain young non-accreting pulsars with relativistic winds. Around periastron passage the compact objects should produce significant changes in the structure of the Be discs due to gravitational forces and eventually by ram pressure from the putative pulsar wind. Indeed, variability in the Halpha emission line has been detected in all these systems, and periodic variability in the optical photometry has been detected in two of them. However, there is lack of a systematic monitoring with accurate photometry, which could be used to constrain the shape of the disc during the periastron passage. This information is important to build accurate physical models to explain the broadband spectral energy distribution of these sources. Here we present an ongoing program to monitor the optical photometry of gamma-ray binaries and we show preliminary results for the case of HD 215227.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Proceedings of the "5th International Symposium on High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy", Heidelberg (Germany), 9-13 July 201

The Smith Cloud and its dark matter halo: Survival of a Galactic disc passage

The current velocity of the Smith Cloud indicates that it has undergone at least one passage of the Galactic disc. Using hydrodynamic simulations we examine the present day structure of the Smith Cloud. We find that a dark matter supported cloud is able to reproduce the observed present day neutral hydrogen mass, column density distribution and morphology. In this case the dark matter halo becomes elongated, owing to the tidal interaction with the Galactic disc. Clouds in models neglecting dark matter confinement are destroyed upon disc passage, unless the initial cloud mass is well in excess of what is observed today. We then determine integrated flux upper limits to the gamma-ray emission around such a hypothesised dark matter core in the Smith Cloud. No statistically significant core or extended gamma-ray emission are detected down to a 95% confidence level upper limit of $1.4\times10^{-10}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ in the 1-300 GeV energy range. For the derived distance of 12.4 kpc, the Fermi upper limits set the first tentative constraints on the dark matter cross sections annihilating into $\tau^{+}{\tau}^{-}$ and $b\bar{b}$ for a high-velocity cloud.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to MNRA