How does fiscal austerity impact on poverty and inequality? The Spanish case

The aim of this paper is contributing to fill the gap between the macroeconomic effects of policy reforms and the microeconomic and social ones, considering simultaneously both kind of impacts. Regarding fiscal adjustments, concern about the sustainability of public deficit and debt resulting from the Great Recession led governments to adopt austerity measures in most European countries. Our analysis considers the redistributive effects of such adjustments for the Spanish economy by simulating a hypothetical reduction of public deficit and distinguishing between spending cuts and tax hikes. In terms of analytical approach, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model and a microsimulation model are integrated to include the general equilibrium effects of these measures as well as the effects on income distribution. The results contribute to the growing but limited literature on the distributional effects of fiscal consolidations by showing that policymakers have to choose between more inequality or more poverty

CONOCIMIENTOS QUE TIENEN LOS ALUMNOS DE ENFERMERÍA DE LA HIPERTENSIÓN ARTERIAL.

Introduction: Knowledge about hypertension among nurses is a subject of great concern due to their important role in prevention, health education, control and follow-up of hypertensive patients. As hypertension is a prevalent health condition in western societies, the goal of this work is to assess the level of knowledge about high blood pressure in a sample of nursing students, as future professionals of this discipline. The results will help us to improve their formation and their lifestyle habits. Methods: Descriptive study. Variables were analysed using Chi-square tests, complemented with residual analysis.Los conocimientos que sobre la hipertensión arterial pueden tener las enfermeras en el desarrollo de su actividad profesional tienen una gran importancia, dada su responsabilidad en este campo, tanto en la prevención de los factores de riesgo, realizando educación sanitaria, como en el control de la presión arterial y en los cuidados, cuando se producen complicaciones. En este trabajo pretendemos profundizar en los conocimientos de los alumnos de enfermería, como futuros profesionales, en un tema tan frecuente en las sociedades desarrolladas como es la hipertensión arterial, para así poder mejorar su formación y sus hábitos de vida no siempre saludables. El objetivo de este trabajo es profundizar en los conocimientos que sobre la hipertensión arterial tienen los alumnos de la Escuela de Enfermería de la Universidad de Murcia. Material y método: se realizó un estudio descriptivo de las variables y los análisis estadísticos correspondientes de X2 de Pearson, complementado con un análisis de residuos

Assessment of Chemical Inhibitor Addition to Improve the Gas Production from Biowaste

The coexistence of sulphate-reducing bacteria and methanogenic archaea in the reactors during the anaerobic digestion from sulphate-containing waste could favor the accumulation of sulfide on the biogas, and therefore reduce its quality. In this study, the effect of sulphate-reducing bacteria inhibitor (MoO−2 4 ) addition in a two phase system from sulphate-containing municipal solid waste to improve the quality of the biogas has been investigated. The results showed that although SRB and sulphide production decreased, the use of inhibitor was not effective to improve the anaerobic digestion in a two phase system from sulphate-containing waste, since a significant decrease on biogas and organic matter removal were observed. Before MoO−2 4 addition the average values of volatile solid were around 12 g/kg, after 5 days of inhibitor use, those values did exceed to 28 g/kg. Molybdate caused acidification in the reactor and it was according to decrease in the pH values. In relation to microbial consortia, the effect of inhibitor was a decrease in Bacteria (44%; 60% in sulphate-reducing bacteria) and Archaea (38%) population

Diet quality index as a predictor of treatment efficacy in overweight and obese adolescents: The EVASYON study

Background & aim: A diet quality index (DQI) is a tool that provides an overall score of an individual''s dietary intake when assessing compliance with food-based dietary guidelines. A number of DQIs have emerged, albeit their associations with health-related outcomes are debated. The aim of the present study was to assess whether adherence to dietary intervention, and the overall quality of the diet, can predict body composition changes. Methods: To this purpose, overweight/obese adolescents (n = 117, aged: 13–16 years; 51 males, 66 females) were recruited into a multi-component (diet, physical activity and psychological support) family-based group treatment programme. We measured the adolescents’ compliance and body composition at baseline and after 2 months (intensive phase) and 13 months (extensive phase) of follow-up. Also, at baseline, after 6 months, and at the end of follow-up we calculated the DQI. Results: Global compliance with the dietary intervention was 37.4% during the intensive phase, and 14.3% during the extensive phase. Physical activity compliance was 94.1% at 2-months and 34.7% at 13months and psychological support compliance were growing over the intervention period (10.3% intensive phase and 45.3% during extensive phase). Adolescents complying with the meal frequency criteria at the end of the extensive phase had greater reductions in FMI z-scores than those did not complying (Cohen''s d = 0.53). A statistically significant association was observed with the diet quality index. DQI-A variation explained 98.1% of BMI z-score changes and 95.1% of FMI changes. Conclusions: We conclude that assessment of changes in diet quality could be a useful tool in predicting body composition changes in obese adolescents involved in a diet and physical activity intervention programme backed-up by psychological and family support

Estimación de los flujos de remesas asociados a corredores migratorios en condiciones de incertidumbre: el caso de Ecuador

La Teoría de la Información Generalizada (Klir, 2006, 1991) se fundamenta en la reducción de la incertidumbre presente en situaciones decisionales mediante el uso del conocimiento. Este paradigma promueve el desarrollo de teorías que expresen formalmente la incertidumbre y permitan cuantificar la reducción de la misma, ocasionada por la generación de información útil para la toma de decisiones. En este marco teórico, la presente investigación pretende desarrollar una teoría T sobre la incertidumbre, empleando redes bayesianas construidas en base al conocimiento como metodología de modelado de situaciones en condiciones de incertidumbre. Para ello se propone una metodología de cálculo, que hibrida técnicas estadísticas y de inteligencia artificial, tales como la Simulación Monte Carlo (Metropolis and Ulam, 1949), la Lógica Difusa (Zadeh, 1975) y los Algortimos Evolutivos Multi-objetivo (Schaffer, 1985), con objeto de salvar dos de las limitaciones que afectan al modelado y resolución de redes bayesianas construidas a partir del conocimiento, tales como la dificultad para la asignación de probabilidades a las variables aleatorias de la red (Renooij and Witteman, 1999) y el tratamiento de aquellas de naturaleza continua (Cobb et al., 2005). Además, la hibridación de técnicas hace posible la formalización y evaluación de distintos tipos de incertidumbre que pueden existir de forma simultánea en problemas complejos. Mientras que la Simulación Monte Carlo permite formalizar la incertidumbre ocasionada por falta o escasez de datos, la Lógica Difusa posibilita el tratamiento de la incertidumbre motivada por la imprecisión del lenguaje natural con el que se expresa el conocimiento sobre el fenómeno de estudio. Por su parte, los Algoritmos Evolutivos Multi-Objetivo reducen la subjetividad del proceso de calibración del modelo. Los resultados obtenidos mediante este procedimiento de cálculo son evaluados empleando el índice de Shannon (Shannon, 1948), el cual permite medir la incertidumbre asociada a la función de distribución conjunta P de la red bayesiana, estimada conforme al procedimiento de cálculo diseñado. La operatividad de la teoría T propuesta en esta investigación ha sido probada mediante su aplicación al caso de estudio de los flujos de remesas, fenómeno en el que la falta o escasez de datos constituye una importante fuente de incertidumbre, con implicaciones en la construcción y evaluación de modelos para la estimación de dichos flujos. Concretamente, la teoría T ha sido empleada para la evaluación de los flujos de remesas en dos estudios relativos al corredor España-Ecuador, uno de los principales canales de remesas en el área de América Latina y el Caribe y con uno de los crecimientos más importantes tanto en número de personas como de flujos monetarios remitidos durante el periodo 2000-2010 (Ratha et al., 2010)

Economic impact assessment of small-scale sporting events using Social Accounting Matrices: an application to the Spanish Football League

Small-scale sporting events contribute to hosting economies through the expenditures of both sports team activities and sports tourism. Among these sports, football has an increasing importance worldwide, with outstanding competition, such as the Spanish Football League. The goal of this paper was to assess the impact of a team’s promotion on the hosting economy by using linear models based on regionalized Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs). The proposed methodology is applied to the real case of the promotion of the Spanish team Cordoba F.C. over the 2014–2015 season. Estimates are made under two scenarios, conservative and progressive, encompassing different rates of both attendance and average expenditure per spectator and per match. The results highlight that the net expenditures associated with small-scale sporting events benefit the hosting economy, spurring the production of goods and services directly demanded as well as the production of supplier activities

A new >User-friendly> blast furnace advisory control system using a neural network temperature profile classifier

The adaptation of blast furnaces to the new technologies has increased the operation information so that the sensor information can be known at every moment. However this often results in the supply of excessive data volume to the plant operators. This paper describes an industrial application for self-organized maps (SOM) in order to help them make decisions regarding blast furnace control by means of pattern recognition and the matching of temperature profiles supplied by the thermocouples placed on the above burden. The classification of patterns via easy color coding indicates to the operator what the blast furnace operational situation is, thus making the necessary corrections easier. © 2010 ISIJ.Peer Reviewe

AFFINImeter: A software to analyze molecular recognition processes from experimental data

18 pags., 9 figs., 3 tabs., 1 app.The comprehension of molecular recognition phenomena demands the understanding of the energetic and kinetic processes involved. General equations valid for the thermodynamic analysis of any observable that is assessed as a function of the concentration of the involved compounds are described, together with their implementation in the AFFINImeter software. Here, a maximum of three different molecular species that can interact with each other to form an enormous variety of supramolecular complexes are considered. The corrections currently employed to take into account the effects of dilution, volume displacement, concentration errors and those due to external factors, especially in the case of ITC measurements, are included. The methods used to fit the model parameters to the experimental data, and to generate the uncertainties are described in detail. A simulation tool and the so called kinITC analysis to get kinetic information from calorimetric experiments are also presented. An example of how to take advantage of the AFFINImeter software for the global multi-temperature analysis of a system exhibiting cooperative 1:2 interactions is presented and the results are compared with data previously published. Some useful recommendations for the analysis of experiments aimed at studying molecular interactions are provided.The authors thank the financial support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (projects MAT2015-71826-P to Á. P., BFU2016-78232-P to A.V.C. and CTQ2017-84354-P to L. G-R), Xunta de Galicia (projects AGRUP2015/11, GPC ED431B 2017/21, GR 2007/085, IN607C 2016/03 and Centro singular de investigación de Galicia accreditation 2016-2019, ED431G/09), and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (project UID/QUI/0081/2013 to M.B.). These research projects were partially supported by FEDER. Financial support from PAIP-FQ-UNAM (grant 5000-9018 to M.C.) and FEDER (project Norte-01-0145-FEDER-000028 to M. B.) is acknowledged. P. F. G. thanks the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Social Fund for his predoctoral research grant, reference BES-2016-076761. Facilities provided by the Galician Supercomputing Centre (CESGA) are also acknowledged

European cultural heritage and tourism flows: The magnetic role of superstar World Heritage Sites

Cultural heritage is a potentially important determinant of international tourism flows. Apart from being an enrichment for both individuals and communities and an opportunity for different cultures to meet, tourism also represents a significant industry for European economies. We empirically investigate the impact of the endowment of tangible cultural heritage on tourism attractiveness of European regions. We measure material forms of cultural heritage both as regional density of locally defined monuments, cultural landscapes and museums, and as number of cultural sites listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites international programme. Using a Bayesian multilevel gravity model, we find that UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites are associated with an increase of 6,000 (one site) to 60,000 (eight sites) international tourists from each European country to an average European region. On the other hand, regionally or nationally defined tangible forms of heritage play a more limited role as pull-factors for international tourism. Moreover, we show that the presence of UNESCO sites reduces the distance decay effect. International tourists are willing to travel longer distance if a destination is endowed with UNESCO cultural World Heritage Sites