Reconstruyendo el campo de los estudios en evaluación de Políticas Públicas en las universidades públicas españolas

In January 2023, the Law for the Institutionalisation of Public Policy Evaluation in the General StateAdministration came into force in Spain. This law takes an important step by establishing the evaluationof public policies (EPP) as an instrument to improve the effective and efficient use of public resourcesand to make the decision-making process more transparent. This requires trained personnel to carry outevaluations. The aim of this article is to present how university education in EPP is structured in thepublic universities of Spain and how the various university degrees linked mainly to Political Science incorporatecourses on public policy analysis and evaluation. Based on the observation and analysis of thepresence of these courses in universities, this study shows in the development of political science studies,EPP is at an incipient stage, this being a relatively young approach in Spain within the realm of PoliticalScience and partially limited to a few universities. The proportion of academic credits in public policyanalysis and evaluation out of the overall volume of courses is marginal. This implies that in terms of theskillset attained at the end of university education and its transfer to the workplace, it vastly depends oncertain universities and the completion of their coursework.En enero de 2023 entró en vigor en España la Ley de Institucionalización de la Evaluación de PolíticasPúblicas en la Administración General del Estado. Esta ley da un paso importante al establecer la evaluaciónde políticas públicas (EPP) como elemento para mejorar el uso eficaz y eficiente de los recursospúblicos y dotar de una mayor transparencia al proceso de toma de decisiones. Para ello es necesariocontar con personal capacitado para realizar las evaluaciones. El objetivo de este artículo es presentarcómo se estructura la formación universitaria dentro de las universidades públicas españolas en EPP ycómo los diferentes grados universitarios vinculados mayoritariamente a la Ciencia Política introducenla formación en análisis y evaluación de políticas públicas. A partir de la observación y análisis de lapresencia de estas formaciones en las universidades, este estudio muestra cómo la EPP se encuentra enuna fase bastante incipiente en el desarrollo dentro de los estudios de ciencia política, siendo un enfoquerelativamente joven en España dentro de la Ciencia Política y parcialmente limitado a unas cuantasuniversidades. El volumen de créditos formativos en análisis y evaluación de políticas públicas sobre eltotal de la formación es marginal. Esto significa que, en términos de competencias alcanzadas al final dela formación universitaria y de la transferencia de esos aprendizajes al puesto de trabajo, depende de larealización de la formación universitaria en determinadas universidades

Explicando el activismo entre los miembros de las juventudes de los partidos políticos

This article focuses on the activism of members of youth party organisations (YPO). The purpose is to explore the explanatory power of three different models of party activism: civic voluntarism model, general incentives model and socio-psychological model. The original dataset used is members of youth sections in Spain (n=2144) including demographic items, social background and some measures of attitudes, motivations and party activism. The findings reveal: (i) some similarity among members of youth sections in relation to activism levels and in a great number of the independent variables used; (ii) a positive impact on party membership and party activism of associationism and expressive attachment to the youth section; (iii) passive and active modalities of activism are related to the possession of money (having a job); and (iv) a good fit of the socio-psychological model with regard to civic voluntarism and general incentive models in active modalities of activism.Este trabajo se centra en el activismo de los miembros de las organizaciones juveniles de los partidos políticos. El propósito es examinar tres diferentes modelos de activismo partidista: voluntarismo cívico, incentivos generales y socio-psicológco. Se utiliza una encuesta original realizada a los miembros de las organizaciones juveniles de los partidos políticos españoles (n=2144) con información sociodemográfica, antecedentes sociales y medidas sobre actitudes, motivaciones y activismo partidista. Los hallazgos revelan: (i) cierta similitud entre los miembros de las organizaciones juveniles en relación a los niveles de activismo y en el mayor número de variables independientes contempladas; (ii) un impacto positivo en la afiliación y activismo del asociacionsimo y de la identificación con la organización política juvenil; (iii) las modalidades de activismo, pasivo y activo, están relacionadas con la posesión de recursos como dinero (vía empleo), y (iv) un buen desempeño del modelo socio-psicologico en comparación con el modelo de voluntarismo cívico y el de incentivos generales en la explicación en las modalidades de activismo activo

Explicando el activismo entre los miembros de las juventudes de los partidos políticos

This article focuses on the activism of members of youth party organisations (YPO). The purpose is to explore the explanatory power of three different models of party activism: civic voluntarism model, general incentives model and socio-psychological model. The original dataset used is members of youth sections in Spain (n=2144) including demographic items, social background and some measures of attitudes, motivations and party activism. The findings reveal: (i) some similarity among members of youth sections in relation to activism levels and in a great number of the independent variables used; (ii) a positive impact on party membership and party activism of associationism and expressive attachment to the youth section; (iii) passive and active modalities of activism are related to the possession of money (having a job); and (iv) a good fit of the socio-psychological model with regard to civic voluntarism and general incentive models in active modalities of activism.Este trabajo se centra en el activismo de los miembros de las organizaciones juveniles de los partidos políticos. El propósito es examinar tres diferentes modelos de activismo partidista: voluntarismo cívico, incentivos generales y socio-psicológco. Se utiliza una encuesta original realizada a los miembros de las organizaciones juveniles de los partidos políticos españoles (n=2144) con información sociodemográfica, antecedentes sociales y medidas sobre actitudes, motivaciones y activismo partidista. Los hallazgos revelan: (i) cierta similitud entre los miembros de las organizaciones juveniles en relación a los niveles de activismo y en el mayor número de variables independientes contempladas; (ii) un impacto positivo en la afiliación y activismo del asociacionsimo y de la identificación con la orga-nización política juvenil; (iii) las modalidades de activismo, pasivo y activo, están relacionadas con la posesión de re-cursos como dinero (vía empleo), y (iv) un buen desem-peño del modelo socio-psicologico en comparación con el modelo de voluntarismo cívico y el de incentivos generales en la explicación en las modalidades de activismo activo

Independent origins for powered flight in paravian dinosaurs?

Política de acceso abierto tomada de:https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies-and-standards/open-access-licenses/userFeathered dinosaurs discovered during the last decades have illuminated the transition from land to air in these animals, underscoring a significant degree of experimentation in wing-assisted locomotion around the origin of birds. Such evolutionary experimentation led to lineages achieving either wing-assisted running, four-winged gliding, or membrane-winged gliding. Birds are widely accepted as the only dinosaur lineage that achieved powered flight, a key innovation for their evolutionary success. However, in a recent paper in Current Biology, Pei and colleagues1 disputed this view. They concluded that three other lineages of paravian dinosaurs (those more closely related to birds than to oviraptorosaurs) — Unenlagiinae, Microraptorinae and Anchiornithinae — could have evolved powered flight independently. While we praise the detailed phylogenetic framework of Pei and colleagues1 and welcome a new attempt to understand the onset of flight in dinosaurs, we here expose a set of arguments that significantly weaken their evidence supporting a multiple origin of powered flight. Specifically, we maintain that the two proxies used by Pei and colleagues1 to assess powered flight potential in non-avian paravians — wing loading and specific lift — fail to discriminate between powered flight (thrust generated by flapping) and passive flight (gliding)

Ecomorfología y evolución del aparato volador aviano: Implicaciones aerodinámicas en el vuelo de las aves basales

El descubrimiento de gran cantidad de fósiles de Aves de la era Mesozoica en los últimos años, está permitiendo un avance importante en el conocimiento de numerosos aspectos paleobiológicos de estas aves extintas y de los dinosaurios terópodos con los que están emparentados. En este sentido, el origen del vuelo y cómo evolucionó este mecanismo de locomoción hasta la diversidad de formas que pueden encontrarse en las aves modernas, son temas de amplia repercusión mediática y muy discutidos en la actualidad entre los paleontólogos. Un estudio morfofuncional comparado entre el esqueleto poscraneal de las aves modernas (cuyo modo de vuelo es conocido) y las extintas, permite caracterizar el modo en que estas primeras aves volaban. Además, teniendo en cuenta las relaciones filogenéticas publicadas más recientemente, pueden identificarse patrones macroevolutivos en el cambio morfológico dentro del linaje

Does Emotion Regulation Predict Gains in Exercise-Induced Fitness? A Prospective Mixed-Effects Study with Elite Helicopter Pilots

The authors deeply thank the collaboration of the pilots of BHELA-1; their commanders, specially Lieutenant-Colonel Santiago Juan Fenández Ortiz-Repiso and commander Alberto José Cherino Muñoz; and the personnel of MADOC (Army of Spain), especially Lieutenant-Colonel Lorenzo Rebollo Gómez.Emotion regulation (ER) is a strong predictor of different aspects of mental health and wellbeing. However, only recently has ER been examined in relation to physical activity and its effects on fitness. In the present study, 26 elite helicopter pilots, serving in the Spanish Air Force, were physically trained for 6 months, and their level of fitness (maximum oxygen consumption and time to exhaustion in a treadmill-running test) was assessed before and after that period. Additionally, two indices of emotion regulation (general adaptiveness of ER strategies, as measured by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and negative urgency, as measured by the UPPS-P questionnaire) measured at baseline were used as prospective predictors of fitness improvement. After controlling for individual features, baseline fitness, and type of training, better emotion regulation strategies (more cognitive reappraisal plus less expressive suppression) predicted larger fitness gains (p = 0.028). Incidental emotion regulation, as measured by the negative urgency index, failed to predict pre–post-fitness changes (p = 0.734). These results suggest that fostering emotion regulation skills may improve the effectiveness of fitness training programs.Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain DEP2013-48211-RSpanish Government (Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Secretaria de Estado de Investigacion, Desarrollo e Innovacion) PSI2017-85488-PSpanish Government (Convocatoria 2017 de Proyectos I+D de Excelencia, Spain) PSI2017-85488-PEuropean Union (EU) PSI2017-85488-

Hardware Project Development using Scrum in the Interactive Technologies Degree

[EN] Learning electronics in the fourth-wave industrial age requires an extra effort to motivate students. They often feel frustrated so they do not spend enough time to acquire in depth-knowledge. To enhance student's motivation and engagement, instructional methods of teaching and learning are being tested in some Universities [1]. Among these methods, project based learning (PBL) has proven to be useful to overcome frustration and improve student engagement. This methodology is even more successful if it is implemented using an agile approach, like Scrum. This paper describes a new way to teach electronics based on the use of PBL and Scrum and presents results of its application regarding to the acquisition level of some competences.This work has been partially finance by UPV-Innovation Project PIME-I 1776 (2022-2024).Pérez Pascual, MA.; Toledo Alarcón, JF.; Marín-Roig Ramón, J.; Azulay, E. (2022). Hardware Project Development using Scrum in the Interactive Technologies Degree. IEEE. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAEE54169.2022.98405611

Shape at the cross-roads: Homoplasy and history in the evolution of the carnivoran skull towards herbivory

Patterns of skull shape in Carnivora provide examples of parallel and convergent evolution for similar ecomorphological adaptations. However, although most researchers report on skull homoplasies among hypercarnivorous taxa, evolutionary trends towards herbivory remain largely unexplored. In this study, we analyse the skull of the living herbivorous carnivorans to evaluate the importance of natural selection and phylogenetic legacy in shaping the skulls of these peculiar species. We quantitatively estimated shape variability using geometric morphometrics. A principal components analysis of skull shape incorporating all families of arctoid carnivorans recognized several common adaptations towards herbivory. Ancestral state reconstructions of skull shape and the reconstructed phylogenetic history of morphospace occupation more explicitly reveal the true patterns of homoplasy among the herbivorous carnivorans. Our results indicate that both historical constraints and adaptation have interplayed in the evolution towards herbivory of the carnivoran skull, which has resulted in repeated patterns of biomechanical homoplasy

Inferring flight parameters of Mesozoic avians through multivariate analyses of forelimb elements in their living relatives

Our knowledge of the diversity, ecology, and phylogeny of Mesozoic birds has increased significantly during recent decades, yet our understanding of their flight competence remains poor. Wing loading (WL) and aspect ratio (AR) are two aerodynamically relevant parameters, as they relate to energy costs of aerial locomotion and flight maneuverability. They can be calculated in living birds (i.e., Neornithes) from body mass (BM), wingspan (B), and lift surface (S L). However, the estimates for extinct birds can be subject to biases from statistical issues, phylogeny, locomotor adaptations, and diagenetic compaction. Here we develop a sequential approach for generating reliable multivariate models that allow estimation of measurements necessary to determine WL and AR in the main clades of non-neornithine Mesozoic birds. The strength of our predictions is supported by the use of those variables that show similar scaling patterns in modern and stem taxa (i.e., non-neornithine birds) and the similarity of our predictions with measurements obtained from fossils preserving wing outlines. In addition, although our WL and AR values are based on estimates (BM, B, and S L) that have an associated error, there is no cumulative error in their calculation, and both parameters show low prediction errors. Therefore, we present the first taxonomically broad, error-calibrated estimation of these two important aerodynamic parameters in non-neornithine birds. Such estimates show that the WL and AR of the non-neornithine birds here analyzed fall within the range of variation of modern birds (i.e., Neornithes). Our results indicate that most modern flight modes (e.g., continuous flapping, flap and gliding, flap and bounding, thermal soaring) were possible for the wide range of non-neornithine avian taxa; we found no evidence for the presence of dynamic soaring among these early birds

Morphological Disparity of the Humerus in Modern Birds

From a functional standpoint, the humerus is a key element in the skeleton of vertebrates as it is the forelimb's bone that connects with the pectoral girdle. In most birds, the humerus receives both the forces exerted by the main flight muscles and the aerodynamical stresses exerted upon the wing during locomotion. Despite this functional preeminence, broad scale studies of the morphological disparity of the humerus in the crown group of birds (Neornithes) are lacking. Here, we explore the variation in shape of the humeral outline in modern birds and its evolutionary relationship with size and the evolution of different functional regimes, including several flight strategies, wing propelled diving and complete loss of wing locomotory function. Our findings suggest that most neornithines evolved repeatedly towards a general humeral morphology linked with functional advantages related with more efficient flapping. Lineages evolving high-stress locomotion such as hyperaeriality (e.g., swifts), hovering (e.g., hummingbirds) and wing-propelled diving (e.g., penguins) greatly deviate from this general trend, each exploring different morphologies. Secondarily flightless birds deviate to a lesser degree from their parent clades in humeral morphology likely as a result of the release from constraints related with wing-based locomotion. Furthermore, these taxa show a different allometric trend that flighted birds. Our results reveal that the constraints of aerial and aquatic locomotion are main factors shaping the macroevolution of humeral morphology in modern birds