Percepción del empresariado de las competencias y características relevantes para el empleo

ABSTRACTThe economic crisis in Spain has meant that a large number of young people are either unemployed or have little job security. The knowledge society is excluding people with low educational attainment from the labor market. The article has two aims: a) To identify the competences most valued by employers when hiring a new worker b) To investigate employers’ opinions about hiring workers with low educational levels. The research involved 292 small and medium-sized local businesses selected by random sampling. The selection took into account the sector of activity and size of the enterprise. The data were obtained by means of: a) a questionnaire designed ad hoc for research b) a focus group with entrepreneurs and representatives of the Association of Women Entrepreneurs. The results show that the employers: 1) above all value responsibility, positive attitude towards work, initiative, adaptability and teamwork in personnel selection. 2) Relegate traditional factors such as experience or the ability to manage people when they hire a new worker. 3) Consider the formation of a job candidate an added value, but this is not one of the key issues when hiring. 4) Do not find it difficult to train newly hired workers with low educational levels. In conclusion, the entrepreneurs prioritize the personal qualities of workers and place less importance on the knowledge acquired in the formal education systemRESUMEN La crisis económica en España provocó que los jóvenes tuvieran niveles elevados de desempleo o de precariedad laboral. Al mismo tiempo la sociedad del conocimiento está excluyendo al colectivo con bajo nivel educativo del mercado laboral. El artículo tiene una doble finalidad: a) Conocer cuáles son las competencias más valoradas por las empresas cuando  contratan a un nuevo trabajador. b) Indagar su opinión sobre la contratación de trabajadores con bajos niveles educativos. En la investigación participaron 292 pequeñas y medianas empresas canarias seleccionadas mediante un muestreo aleatorio simple. Los datos se han obtenido a través de: a) un cuestionario diseñado ad hoc para la investigación y b) un grupo de discusión con empresarios y representantes de la Asociación de Mujeres Empresarias. Entre los resultados cabría destacar que las empresas cuando realizan la selección de personal: 1) Valoran la responsabilidad, la actitud positiva ante el trabajo, la iniciativa, la adaptabilidad y el trabajo en equipo. 2) Relegan a un segundo plano factores tradicionales como la experiencia o la capacidad de mando. 3) Consideran la formación del candidato a un empleo un valor añadido, pero no es uno de los aspectos principales para contratar. 4) Cuando contratan a trabajadores con bajos niveles educativos no les resulta difícil formarlos en la propia empresa. En definitiva, las empresas priorizan las cualidades personales de los trabajadores. En segundo plano sitúan los conocimientos previos adquiridos en el sistema educativo formal. ABSTRACT The economic crisis inSpainhas meant that a large number of young people are either unemployed or have little job security. The knowledge society is excluding people with low educational attainment from the labor market. The article has two aims: a) To identify the competences most valued by employers when hiring a new worker b) To investigate employers’ opinions about hiring workers with low educational levels. The research involved 292 small and medium-sized local businesses selected by random sampling. The selection took into account the sector of activity and size of the enterprise. The data were obtained by means of: a) a questionnaire designed ad hoc for research b) a focus group with entrepreneurs and representatives of the Association of Women Entrepreneurs. The results show that the employers: 1) above all value responsibility, positive attitude towards work, initiative, adaptability and teamwork in personnel selection. 2) Relegate traditional factors such as experience or the ability to manage people when they hire a new worker. 3) Consider the formation of a job candidate an added value, but this is not one of the key issues when hiring. 4) Do not find it difficult to train newly hired workers with low educational levels. In conclusion, the entrepreneurs prioritize the personal qualities of workers and place less importance on the knowledge acquired in the formal education system.

European 1 : a globally important clonal complex of Mycobacterium bovis

We have identified a globally important clonal complex of Mycobacterium bovis by deletion analysis of over one thousand strains from over 30 countries. We initially show that over 99% of the strains of M. bovis, the cause of bovine tuberculosis, isolated from cattle in the Republic of Ireland and the UK are closely related and are members of a single clonal complex marked by the deletion of chromosomal region RDEu1 and we named this clonal complex European 1 (Eu1). Eu1 strains were present at less than 14% of French, Portuguese and Spanish isolates of M. bovis but are rare in other mainland European countries and Iran. However, strains of the Eu1 clonal complex were found at high frequency in former trading partners of the UK (USA, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Canada). The Americas, with the exception of Brazil, are dominated by the Eu1 clonal complex which was at high frequency in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Mexico as well as North America. Eu1 was rare or absent in the African countries surveyed except South Africa. A small sample of strains from Taiwan were non-Eu1 but, surprisingly, isolates from Korea and Kazakhstan were members of the Eu1 clonal complex. The simplest explanation for much of the current distribution of the Eu1 clonal complex is that it was spread in infected cattle, such as Herefords, from the UK to former trading partners, although there is evidence of secondary dispersion since. This is the first identification of a globally dispersed clonal complex M. bovis and indicates that much of the current global distribution of this important veterinary pathogen has resulted from relatively recent International trade in cattle.This work was funded by: TBadapt project (LSHp-CT-2007-037919); B.M. received financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation; Swedish Research Council, Swedish Heart-Lung foundation, Swedish International Development Agency; Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Northern Ireland (project DARD0407); EU project TB-STEP (KBBE-2007-1-3-04, no. 212414); Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant No. 107559); Damien Foundation, Belgium; Commission Universitaire pour le Développement (CUD), University of Liege (Project PIC); The Wellcome Trust Livestock for Life and Animal Health in the Developing World initiatives (075833/A/04/Z); Chilean National Livestock Service -FONDOSAGC5-100-10-23 and CONICYT-FIC-R-EQU18 and by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK (project SB4020).http://www.elsevier.com/locate/meegidab2012ab2013 (Author correction

Genetic landscape of 6089 inherited retinal dystrophies affected cases in Spain and their therapeutic and extended epidemiological implications

Inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), defined by dysfunction or progressive loss of photoreceptors, are disorders characterized by elevated heterogeneity, both at the clinical and genetic levels. Our main goal was to address the genetic landscape of IRD in the largest cohort of Spanish patients reported to date. A retrospective hospital-based cross-sectional study was carried out on 6089 IRD affected individuals (from 4403 unrelated families), referred for genetic testing from all the Spanish autonomous communities. Clinical, demographic and familiar data were collected from each patient, including family pedigree, age of appearance of visual symptoms, presence of any systemic findings and geographical origin. Genetic studies were performed to the 3951 families with available DNA using different molecular techniques. Overall, 53.2% (2100/3951) of the studied families were genetically characterized, and 1549 different likely causative variants in 142 genes were identified. The most common phenotype encountered is retinitis pigmentosa (RP) (55.6% of families, 2447/4403). The most recurrently mutated genes were PRPH2, ABCA4 and RS1 in autosomal dominant (AD), autosomal recessive (AR) and X-linked (XL) NON-RP cases, respectively; RHO, USH2A and RPGR in AD, AR and XL for non-syndromic RP; and USH2A and MYO7A in syndromic IRD. Pathogenic variants c.3386G > T (p.Arg1129Leu) in ABCA4 and c.2276G > T (p.Cys759Phe) in USH2A were the most frequent variants identified. Our study provides the general landscape for IRD in Spain, reporting the largest cohort ever presented. Our results have important implications for genetic diagnosis, counselling and new therapeutic strategies to both the Spanish population and other related populations.This work was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) of the Spanish Ministry of Health (FIS; PI16/00425 and PI19/00321), Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red Enfermedades Raras (CIBERER, 06/07/0036), IIS-FJD BioBank (PT13/0010/0012), Comunidad de Madrid (CAM, RAREGenomics Project, B2017/BMD-3721), European Regional Development Fund (FEDER), the Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles (ONCE), Fundación Ramón Areces, Fundación Conchita Rábago and the University Chair UAM-IIS-FJD of Genomic Medicine. Irene Perea-Romero is supported by a PhD fellowship from the predoctoral Program from ISCIII (FI17/00192). Ionut F. Iancu is supported by a grant from the Comunidad de Madrid (CAM, PEJ-2017-AI/BMD7256). Marta del Pozo-Valero is supported by a PhD grant from the Fundación Conchita Rábago. Berta Almoguera is supported by a Juan Rodes program from ISCIII (JR17/00020). Pablo Minguez is supported by a Miguel Servet program from ISCIII (CP16/00116). Marta Corton is supported by a Miguel Servet program from ISCIII (CPII17/00006). The funders played no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, manuscript preparation and/or publication decisions

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

El uso escolar de las TIC desde la visión del alumnado de Educación Primaria, ESO y Bachillerato

En este artículo se presentan algunos de los resultados más destacables sobre la visión y opiniones que tienen los estudiantes de Educación Primaria, de la Educación Se- cundaria Obligatoria y el Bachillerado con relación al uso escolar de las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (TIC) en los centros educativos. Para ello se diseñó un estudio de encuesta en el que se utilizó como instrumento de recogida de datos un cuestionario online diseñado ad hoc. La muestra estuvo constituida por más de 4.000 estudiantes de todas las islas de Canarias. Hemos encontrado diferencias significativas en dichas visiones teniendo en cuenta la etapa educativa, el género, y la disponibilidad de tecnologías en el hogar de los estudiantes. Concluimos en que la inmensa mayoría del alumnado de Educación Primaria y Secundaria es una generación familiarizada con la tecnolo- gía digital, que está motivada y demanda el uso escolar continuado de las TIC, aun- que mantiene una visión crítica hacia las tareas escolares desarrolladas con las mis- mas y del grado de competencia digital de su profesorado.This article reports on the beliefs and opi- nions that the students of primary and secondary education have regarding the pedagogical use of Information and Com- munication Technologies (ICT) in schools. For this, a survey study was designed in which an online questionnaire designed ad hoc was used as the instrument for data collection. The sample consisted of more than 4,000 students from all the Canary Islands. We found significant differences regarding the educational stage, gender and the availability of technologies in the students’ homes. We concluded that the vast majority of students of Primary and Secondary Education are a generation familiar with digital technology, which is motivated and demands the continued use of ICT in schools, although it maintains a critical vision of the school tasks develo- ped with them and of the degree of digital competence of its teaching staff

Primary and Secondary Education students’ perspectives on the school use of ICT

Resumen: En este artículo se presentan algunos de los resultados más destacables sobre la visión y opiniones que tienen los estudiantes de Educación Primaria, de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y el Bachillerado con relación al uso escolar de las Tecnologías de Información y Comunicación (TIC) en los centros educativos. Para ello se diseñó un estudio de encuesta en el que se utilizó como instrumento de recogida de datos un cuestionario online diseñado ad hoc. La muestra estuvo constituida por más de 4.000 estudiantes de todas las islas de Canarias. Hemos encontrado diferencias significativas en dichas visiones teniendo en cuenta la etapa educativa, el género, y la disponibilidad de tecnologías en el hogar de los estudiantes. Concluimos en que la inmensa mayoría del alumnado de Educación Primaria y Secundaria es una generación familiarizada con la tecnología digital, que está motivada y demanda el uso escolar continuado de las TIC, aunque mantiene una visión crítica hacia las tareas escolares desarrolladas con las mismas y del grado de competencia digital de su profesorado.This article reports on the beliefs and opinions that the students of primary and secondary education have regarding the pedagogical use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in schools. For this, a survey study was designed in which an online questionnaire designed ad hoc was used as the instrument for data collection. The sample consisted of more than 4,000 students from all the Canary Islands. We found significant differences regarding the educational stage, gender and the availability of technologies in the students’ homes. We concluded that the vast majority of students of Primary and Secondary Education are a generation familiar with digital technology, which is motivated and demands the continued use of ICT in schools, although it maintains a critical vision of the school tasks developed with them and of the degree of digital competence of its teaching staff.Dans cet article, nous présentons les résultats les plus intéressants quant à la vision et l’opinion que les élèves de primaire et de secondaire ont sur l’utilisation en milieu scolaire des Technologies de l’Information et de Communication (TIC) dans les établissements éducatifs. Pour cela, nous avons mis en place une étude de recherche à partir d’un questionnaire en ligne élaboré ad hoc. L’échantillon cible est constitué de 4000 élèves provenant de toutes les îles des Canaries. Nous avons rencontré des différences significatives dans cette collecte de visions et d’opinions, tout en tenant compte du niveau d’études, du sexe et de la place des technologies dans le foyer de nos apprenants. Nous en avons conclu que pour la grande majorité, nous nous sommes trouvés face à des élèves de Primaire et de Secondaire qui constituent une génération totalement familiarisée avec la technologie numérique. Une génération motivée qui réclame l’utilisation continue des TIC, bien qu’elle maintienne une vision plutôt critique quant aux activités développées avec les technologies ainsi qu’envers le degré de compétence numérique de la part de leurs professeurs

Revista española de orientación y psicopedagogía

Resumen basado en el de la publicaciónLa crisis económica en España provocó que los jóvenes tuvieran niveles elevados de desempleo o de precariedad laboral y además se excluye al colectivo con bajo nivel educativo del mercado laboral. Se trata de conocer cuáles son las competencias más valoradas por las empresas cuando contratan a un nuevo trabajador e indagar sobre la contratación de trabajadores con bajos niveles educativos. En la investigación participaron 292 pequeñas y medianas empresas canarias seleccionadas mediante un muestreo aleatorio simple. Los datos se han obtenido a través de un cuestionario diseñado ad hoc para la investigación y un grupo de discusión con empresarios y representantes de la Asociación de Mujeres Empresarias. Entre los resultados cabría destacar que las empresas cuando realizan la selección de personal: 1) valoran la responsabilidad, la actitud positiva ante el trabajo, la iniciativa, la adaptabilidad y el trabajo en equipo. 2) Relegan a un segundo plano factores tradicionales como la experiencia o la capacidad de mando. 3) Consideran la formación del candidato a un empleo un valor añadido, pero no es uno de los aspectos principales para contratar. 4) Cuando contratan a trabajadores con bajos niveles educativos no les resulta difícil formarlos en la propia empresa. En definitiva, las empresas priorizan las cualidades personales de los trabajadores. En segundo plano sitúan los conocimientos previos adquiridos en el sistema educativo formal.ES

Cuadernos de pedagogía

Los autores forman parte del grupo de investigación GIOES. Departamento de Didáctica e investigación Educativa. Facultad de Educación de la Universidad de La Laguna (Santa Cruz de Tenerife).Proyecto ECLIPSE financiado con el apoyo de la Comisión Europea (517815-LLP-1-2011-1-IT COMENIUS-CMP).Resumen tomado de la publicación.Siete países europeos, entre ellos España, aplican en varios institutos el Proyecto ECLIPSE (European Citizenship Learning in a Programme for Secondary Education), dirigido a fomentar la construcción de la ciudadanía europea. Las actividades, conectadas con el contenido de diversas materias, favorecen la toma de conciencia de esta identidad, a la par que promueven la autonomía, la participación y el trabajo en equipo.Madrid (Comunidad Autónoma). Subdirección General de Formación del Profesorado. CRIF Las Acacias; Calle General Ricardos 179; 28025 Madrid; Tel. +34915250893; Fax +34914660991; [email protected]