Should Workers Care About Firm Size?

The question of wage differentials by firm size has been studied for several decades with no commonly accepted explanations for why large firms pay more. In this paper, we reexamine the relationship between firm size and wage outcomes by estimating the returns to unmeasured ability between large and small firms. Our empirical methodology, based on non- linear instrumental variable estimations, allows us to directly estimate the returns to unmeasured ability by firm size and, therefore, to test the two main theories of wage determination proposed to explain the relationship between firm size and wages, namely ability sorting and job screening. We use data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID), which provides longitudinal information on workers' and firms' characteristics, including establishment and firm size. We find significant differences in the returns to unmeasured ability across firm size. In particular, we find that the returns to unmeasured ability seem to follow a non-linear pattern. The returns to unmeasured ability are significantly higher in medium size (above 500, but below 1000 workers) firms relative to small firms. However, the returns to unmeasured ability are not significantly greater in large firms relative to medium or small firms. Overall, it seems that ability sorting dominates for moves from small to medium size firms in that ability is more productive and, therefore, more rewarded in the latter than the former. On the other hand, when firms become "too large," the monitoring costs hypothesis seems to dominate in that ability is not more rewarded than in smaller firms.Firm Size, Comparative Advantage, Self-selection, Job Screening, Ability Sorting

Characterization of sex, age, and breed for a population of canine leishmaniosis diseased dogs.

Our study of a large canine population investigated whether the development of symptomatic canine leishmaniosis revealed any predilection for sex, age, or breed. Included in the study were 390 leishmaniosis-affected dogs that had been treated at the Hospital Clínic Veterinari attached to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Of the diseased dogs, 238 were male (61%) and 152 were females (39%), whereas percentages for males and females in the overall reference population of dogs treated at this unit were 53% and 47%, respectively, (P<0.05). Age distribution was bimodal, with the highest prevalence of the disease occurring at 2-4 years of age and a secondary peak occurring at seven years or over. The over represented breeds were the German shepherd (13.6% versus 6.35%, P<0.001), the Rottweiler (13.1% versus 3.0%, P<0.001), and the Boxer (7.9% versus 4.7%, P=0.002), whereas the underrepresented breeds were the Yorkshire terrier (0.5% versus 6.5%, P<0.001), and the Poodle (0.3% versus 3.0%, P<0.001)

Of Mice and Men: Reflexiones sobre la ética de la experimentación animal

En el presente artículo se sostiene que la experimentación con animales es necesaria para generar una parte de los avances en los conocimientos médicos, pero sin ignorar el difícil e ineludible dilema moral que supone el imponer sufrimiento a unos seres a cambio de beneficios para otros que son, en esencia, muy similares a los primeros, tanto física como mentalmente. La similitud, cada vez más constatada por la ciencia, es rechazada por muchas personas para no tener mala conciencia por los numerosos usos y abusos que se hacen de los animales en la sociedad. Este rechazo encuentra reflejo en el ámbito legal y en el religioso, en los que se ha consolidado la equiparación de los animales a las cosas. Pero tal equiparación se revela cada vez menos plausible, y el trato hacia ellos dispensado cada vez menos justificable, con las crecientes evidencias sobre los sentimientos y la capacidad de raciocinio de los animales. La experimentación médica con animales es un caso especial, no obstante, por los importantes beneficios que reporta, que son reconocidos incluso por muchas personas preocupadas por la protección de los animales. Sin embargo, no pocos ciudadanos se manifiestan contrarios a estas prácticas al tiempo que desean beneficiarse de los avances médicos. Esta incoherente actitud puede deberse, por un lado, a que la sociedad no comprende la ciencia, y por otro al impacto de algunas campañas sensacionalistas en contra de la experimentación. Frente a todo esto, el autor plantea una serie de recomendaciones para el desarrollo de la actividad investigadora con animales basadas en la transparencia, la información, el reconocimiento del dilema ético y la participación en el debate que suscita, siempre con el objetivo de causar el menor sufrimiento posible.This essay argues that research on animals is necessary for the unhindered advancement of medical knowledge, but at the same time it recognises the moral dilemma of inflicting suffering on some beings for the benefit of others who are, in essence, very similar to them physically and mentally. The likeness, for which there is increasing scientific evidence, is rejected by many in order not to have bad conscience over the extensive use and abuse of animals in society. Such deeply rooted denial has been woven into most legal and religious traditions, which regard animals as things. This conception of animals is becoming increasingly implausible, and our poor treatment of them decreasingly justifiable, in the light of the amounting evidence regarding the existence and nature of their feelings and rationality. Medical research is a special case, however, because of the important benefits it provides, which many animal advocates are ready to admit. Nevertheless, a portion of society is against medical research on animals while still wanting to benefit from the medical advances. Such inconsistent attitudes may be due, on one hand, to the fact that people generally do not understand science, and on the other, to the impact of campaigns that selectively use very graphic examples of experiments. In this context the author proposes a set of recommendations for carrying out medical research on animals emphasising transparency, openness, recognition of the moral dilemma and participation in the debate it gives rise to, always keeping sight on the goal of minimising suffering

Trinocular ystem for 3D motion and dense structure estimation

The relief of the seafloor is an important source of data for many scientists. In this paper we present an optical system to deal with underwater 3D reconstruction. This system is formed by three cameras that take images synchronously in a constant frame rate scheme. We use the images taken by these cameras to compute dense 3D reconstructions. We use Bundle Adjustment to estimate the motion of the trinocular rig. Given the path followed by the system, we get a dense map of the observed scene by registering the different dense local reconstructions in a unique and bigger one.Peer Reviewe

Teaching architectural design through creative practices

[EN] This article provides investigation details of teaching architectural design as a fundamental part of the architectural discipline. This line of research delves into learning about the most creative action of the architectural production process, design, taking into account that creativity must be complemented by disciplinary training that combines both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Considering these observations, this text provides information about the experience accomplished by four teachers from the School of Architecture of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (ETSA-UPV) on the subject of Design Studio 1 for the first-year studies. The propaedeutic character of this subject shows additional difficulties given the complexity of introducing the students into the field of architectural design. The article begins with a description of the historical background of teaching architecture, contextualizing the object of study and also the different processes used as reference during the accomplishment of the teaching experience. The second section includes a description of basic methodology of the specific case of the first-year subject taught in the ETSA-UPV. It provides analysis of its evolution, detection of the problems and suggested variations of the learning method in order to improve the final results. The canonical teaching method is based on a linear process starting with the theory, followed by architectural analysis, finishing with project synthesis, which generates important doubts for the first-year students when implementing the theory in the project phase. Therefore, resuming the cycle of circular learning studied by David Kolb, several creative practices have been introduced into the subject, where the order of the stages depends on the particular characteristics of each individual and learning takes place by combining practices of perception and comprehension. Keeping in mind the main goal of the new teaching approach, the third part of the text includes a description of several activities. They are designed using a methodology capable to promote the transfer of knowledge between the analysis phase and the project phase. Creative practices are based on the learning by doing process, where reflection, conceptualization and experimentation are carried out with two basic tools: hand drawing and the three-dimensional model. With the practices and these two manual tools we seek a triple objective for students: to acquire a greater creative capacity, to develop spatial vision and to recognize how materiality affects the definition and perception of space. The methodology of the practices includes thinking with the hands, folding the space, inhabiting the space and building the space, and it is compared to the results obtained during the academic year 2017-2018. Finally, these results, together with the surveys completed by the students, lead to following conclusions: introducing creative activities in the first year of architectural design has shown a substantial improvement of the work carried out by students and has allowed settling the acquired theoretical knowledge. It helps to understand it not only as concepts that can be observed and analysed in reality, but also as tools of the creative process itself. On the one hand, the construction of models supports intuitive learning, allowing the students to directly recognize the consequences of their actions during the constructive process and its implications in the final result. On the other hand, the activities developed using hand drawing techniques confirm the value of the drawn plans as a tool to define the results and verify their correctness. Experiencing architecture with the hands implicitly involves a work of reflection through which the students are able to understand that space is the actual key element of the architectural project.Lizondo Sevilla, L.; Bosch Roig, L.; Ferrer Ribera, MC.; Alapont-Ramón, J. (2019). Teaching architectural design through creative practices. Journal of the Faculty of Architecture. 36(1):41-59. https://doi.org/10.4305/METU.JFA.2019.1.8S415936

Dysbiosis in a canine model of human fistulizing Crohn\u27s disease

Crohn\u27s disease (CD) is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory condition caused by the loss of mucosal tolerance toward the commensal microbiota. On average, 29.5% and 42.7% CD patients experience perianal complications at 10 and 20 y after diagnosis, respectively. Perianal CD (pCD) result in high disease burden, diminished quality of life, and elevated health-care costs. Overall pCD are predictors of poor long-term outcomes. Animal models of gut inflammation have failed to fully recapitulate the human manifestations of fistulizing CD. Here, we evaluated dogs with spontaneous canine anal furunculosis (CAF), a disease with clinical similarities to pCD, as a surrogate model for understanding the microbial contribution of human pCD pathophysiology. By comparing the gut microbiomes between dogs suffering from CAF (CAF dogs) and healthy dogs, we show CAF-dog microbiomes are either very dissimilar (dysbiotic) or similar (healthy-like), yet unique, to healthy dog\u27s microbiomes. Compared to healthy or healthy-like CAF microbiomes, dysbiotic CAF microbiomes showed an increased abundance of Bacteroides vulgatus and Escherichia coli and a decreased abundance of Megamonas species and Prevotella copri. Our results mirror what have been reported in previous microbiome studies of patients with CD; particularly, CAF dogs exhibited two distinct microbiome composition: dysbiotic and healthy-like, with determinant bacterial taxa such as E. coli and P. copri that overlap what it has been found on their human counterpart. Thus, our results support the use of CAF dogs as a surrogate model to advance our understanding of microbial dynamics in pCD

Differences in acoustic features of cough by pneumonia severity in patients with COVID-19: a cross-sectional study

BackgroundAcute respiratory syndrome due to coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is characterised by heterogeneous levels of disease severity. It is not necessarily apparent whether a patient will develop a severe disease or not. This cross-sectional study explores whether acoustic properties of the cough sound of patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2, correlate with their disease and pneumonia severity, with the aim of identifying patients with a severe disease.MethodsVoluntary cough sounds were recorded using a smartphone in 70 COVID-19 patients within the first 24 h of their hospital arrival, between April 2020 and May 2021. Based on gas exchange abnormalities, patients were classified as mild, moderate, or severe. Time- and frequency-based variables were obtained from each cough effort and analysed using a linear mixed-effects modelling approach.ResultsRecords from 62 patients (37% female) were eligible for inclusion in the analysis, with mild, moderate, and severe groups consisting of 31, 14 and 17 patients respectively. 5 of the parameters examined were found to be significantly different in the cough of patients at different disease levels of severity, with a further 2 parameters found to be affected differently by the disease severity in men and women.ConclusionsWe suggest that all these differences reflect the progressive pathophysiological alterations occurring in the respiratory system of COVID-19 patients, and potentially would provide an easy and cost-effective way to initially stratify patients, identifying those with more severe disease, and thereby most effectively allocate healthcare resources

Repurposing clinically approved cephalosporins for tuberculosis therapy

While modern cephalosporins developed for broad spectrum antibacterial activities have never been pursued for tuberculosis (TB) therapy, we identified first generation cephalosporins having clinically relevant inhibitory concentrations, both alone and in synergistic drug combinations. Common chemical patterns required for activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis were identified using structure-activity relationships (SAR) studies. Numerous cephalosporins were synergistic with rifampicin, the cornerstone drug for TB therapy and ethambutol, a first-line anti-TB drug. Synergy was observed even under intracellular growth conditions where beta-lactams typically have limited activities. Cephalosporins and rifampicin were 4- to 64-fold more active in combination than either drug alone; however, limited synergy was observed with rifapentine or rifabutin. Clavulanate was a key synergistic partner in triple combinations. Cephalosporins (and other beta-lactams) together with clavulanate rescued the activity of rifampicin against a rifampicin resistant strain. Synergy was not due exclusively to increased rifampicin accumulation within the mycobacterial cells. Cephalosporins were also synergistic with new anti-TB drugs such as bedaquiline and delamanid. Studies will be needed to validate their in vivo activities. However, the fact that cephalosporins are orally bioavailable with good safety profiles, together with their anti-mycobacterial activities reported here, suggest that they could be repurposed within new combinatorial TB therapies.This work was supported by grants from the British Columbia Lung Association and The Canadian Institute of Health Research (MOP-82855) to C.J.T. and from a Grand Challenges Canada - Stars in Global Health (0030-01-04-01-01) and a People Programme (Marie Skłodowska Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under REA agreement no. 291799 (Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation - COFUND programme) to S.R.-G

El Portal de la Investigación de Catalunya, una suma de información de los CRIS y los repositorios institucionales

Comunicación presentada al XIV Workshop Rebiun de Poyectos Digitales / VI Jornadas OS-Repositorios (Córdoba, 11-13 de marzo de 2015)La importancia de mostrar públicamente y en acceso abierto los resultados de la investigación producida en una universidad o país ha provocado que en Catalunya se esté trabajando en crear el Portal de la Investigación de Catalunya. El proyecto empezó a gestarse en 2012 y pasado este tiempo ya estamos trabajando con resultados parciales. Coordinado por el Consorcio de Servicios Universitarios de Catalunya (CSUC), tiene la finalidad de visualizar y difundir desde un único sitio la actividad investigadora que se lleva a cabo en Catalunya en cuanto a investigadores, publicaciones, grupos y proyectos de investigación para la comunidad científica internacional, empresas, organizaciones financiadoras y público en general, facilitando así el acceso abierto a la producción científica. A largo plazo el objetivo es también simplificar los procesos de gestión y reforzar los de evaluación. El Portal se basa en la premisa de aprovechar el trabajo hecho por las universidades en sus sistemas de gestión de la investigación (CRIS). Además, se pretende que los trabajos para el Portal redunden en mejoras en la gestión de la información dentro de cada institución. Esto lo hacemos decidiendo conjuntamente acuerdos de disposición de los datos, capturando la información a través de formatos estándares y protocolos de interoperabilidad, usando identificadores comunes que eviten ambigüedades y favoreciendo el acceso abierto y el uso de los repositorios institucionales. El Portal sigue ejemplos y buenas prácticas internacionales como Narcis (holandés), HKU Scholars Hub (chino) y eScholarship (americano). Las áreas de trabajo en las que se basa la implementación del Portal de la Investigación de Catalunya son: - Datos: Definición de los apartados, elementos y tipología de publicaciones a incorporar en el Portal y en que fases - Protocolos, fuentes y formatos: Estudio y determinación de la fuente, formato y protocolo para capturar la información de las universidades - Identificadores comunes: Estudio de los sistemas de identificación para detectar duplicados entre los datos de las diferentes universidades - Construcción física del Portal: Programa seleccionado y funcionalidades básicas Los principales logros hasta la fecha son: - Creación de una estructura organizativa y de toma de decisiones, formada por un presidente, una comisión de Vicerrectores de investigación, una comisión técnica de trabajo y grupos de trabajo “ad hoc”. - Definición de los apartados, elementos y tipología de publicaciones que incluirá el Portal. En una primera fase los apartados serán: Universidades, Investigadores, Departamentos e Institutos, Grupos de investigación, Proyectos de investigación y publicaciones. Las publicaciones serán artículos, libros y tesis. - Determinada la Fuente, formato y protocolo para capturar la información de las universidades al Portal, siendo la fuente principal de información del Portal los sistemas de gestión de la investigación (CRIS), el formato el estándar CERIF- XML y el protocolo el OAI- PMH. - Firmado el convenio de cesión de datos con todas las universidades y realizadas las primera pruebas de la maqueta, del sistema de validación del Portal a partir de muestras de datos proporcionadas por las universidades y de una primera versión del diseño - Impulso y difusión del uso del código ORCID entre los investigadores de las universidades de Catalunya. Eso ha incluido elaborar un conjunto de buenas prácticas y solicitar a la Generalitat de Catalunya que lo incluyan en sus convocatorias de ayudas - Seleccionado e instalado el programa DSpace con funcionalidades de CRIS y desarrolladas diferentes herramientas para la ingesta de datos En esta comunicación se mostrará como lo estamos implementado, las áreas de trabajo que se han definido, los equipos de trabajo, los aprendizajes, los principales retos y las tareas para los próximos meses

La Celda Santa del glorioso padre y apostol valenciano S. Vicente Ferrer, venerada en su Real Convento de Predicadores de ... Valencia ...

Sign.: [calderón]-3[calderó]4, 4[calderón]2, A-T