Efficient Partnership Dissolution under Buy/Sell Clauses

When a partnership comes to an end partners have to determine the terms of the dissolution. A well known way to do so is by enforcing a buy/sell option. Under its rules one partner has to offer a price for the partnership and the other agent can choose whether she wants to sell her share or buy her partner's share at this price. It is well known that in a model with private valuations this dissolution rule may generate inefficient allocations. However, we here show that if partners negotiate for the advantage of being chooser, then this buy/ sell provision results in an ex-post efficient outcome. This result helps to explain why such provisions are so widely introduced in partnership contractsmechanism design, partnerships

Preserving Liveness Guarantees from Synchronous Communication to Asynchronous Unstructured Low-Level Languages

In the implementation of abstract synchronous communication in asynchronous unstructured low-level languages, e.g. using shared variables, the preservation of safety and especially liveness properties is a hitherto open problem due to inherently different abstraction levels. Our approach to overcome this problem is threefold: First, we present our notion of handshake refinement with which we formally prove the correctness of the implementation relation of a handshake protocol. Second, we verify the soundness of our handshake refinement, i.e., all safety and liveness properties are preserved to the lower level. Third, we apply our handshake refinement to show the correctness of all implementations that realize the abstract synchronous communication with the handshake protocol. To this end, we employ an exemplary language with asynchronous shared variable communication. Our approach is scalable and closes the verification gap between different abstraction levels of communication

Numerical Simulation of Electric Currents through Insulating Materials

A numerical simulation of electric currents is carried out through solid dielectrics from a model based on the local polarization. A degradation of material was considered to be produced from one of the electrodes and we simulated it by admitting modifications in the chemical structure of the material, which implies an alteration in the value of the corresponding dipole moments that characterize the material, as well as the concentration of the latest. Different simulations are achieved according to the ratio of the degraded thickness and the temperature

Modelling landscape management scenarios for equitable and sustainable futures in rural areas based on ecosystem services

Scenario analysis is a useful technique to inform landscape planning of social-ecological systems by modelling future trends in ecosystem service supply and distribution. This is especially critical in floodplain agroecosystems of rural areas, which are at risk of losing riparian forest corridors due to increasing land use conversion for agricultural production and other ecosystem services due to rural abandonment. However, few studies investigating the effects of land management combine social and ecological modelling in scenario analyses. We estimated the supply of 16 ecosystem services under five alternative scenarios along two gradients: agricultural intensification of the floodplain and active ecological restoration of the riparian forest. We used redundancy analyses to detect ecosystem service bundles and interviews to identify societal gains and losses associated with each management scenario. Our results show how land management influences both the supply and distribution of ecosystem services. Scenarios promoting active ecological restoration supplied more services and benefited a larger range of societal sectors than scenarios focused on provisioning services. We also found two consistent bundles across scenarios, one related to less intensive food supply and another one related to outdoor activities. Interestingly, additional services were included in these bundles in the different scenarios, reflecting land management effects. Landscape scale management promoting both the conservation of ecosystem functioning and the sustainable use of provisioning services could supply a more balanced set of ecosystem services and benefit a larger number of societal sectors, contributing to more equitable and sustainable futures in rural areas

Evaluación de las fortalezas y debilidades del proceso educativo en centros de infantil, primaria y secundaria desde una perspectiva inclusiva

Este artículo presenta el estudio llevado a cabo en cinco centros educativos (cuatro de educación infantil y primaria y uno de educación secundaria) con el objetivo de evaluar, desde la perspectiva del profesorado de educación infantil, primaria y secundaria, las fortalezas y debilidades del proceso educativo para establecer propuestas de mejora educativa. El diseño de investigación utilizado fue cuantitativo no experimental de corte descriptivo incluyendo como variables influyentes en el proceso educativo la planificación y organización de la enseñanza, implicación activa del alumnado e interacción entre los alumnos, entre otras. Para la recogida de la información se utilizó el instrumento “Autoevaluación de Centros para la Atención a la Diversidad desde la Inclusión” (ACADI) en su dimensión C referida al Proceso Educativo, cumplimentado por 97 docentes de centros públicos de la Región de Murcia. Los resultados muestran que las principales fortalezas que encuentra el profesorado en su quehacer educativo son las referidas al respeto a los estilos de aprendizaje, planificación y organización de la enseñanza, implicación activa del alumnado en su propio aprendizaje, evaluación tolerante, organización de la acción tutorial, interacción entre los alumnos, y relaciones centro-contexto social. En cambio la atención a los ritmos de aprendizaje y a las características del alumnado son las que reciben las puntuaciones más bajas en todos los centros. Al comparar los resultados de los centros de infantil y primaria con el de secundaria, los docentes de infantil y primaria discrepan de forma significativa con los profesores de secundaria en la organización de la acción tutorial, mientras que en otros aspectos como diversidad metodológica, apoyo colaborativo, conocimiento de los objetivos y contenidos del curriculum por parte del alumnado, las discrepancias no son tan significativas.Educació

On the Unification of Process Semantics: Logical Semantics

We continue with the task of obtaining a unifying view of process semantics by considering in this case the logical characterization of the semantics. We start by considering the classic linear time-branching time spectrum developed by R.J. van Glabbeek. He provided a logical characterization of most of the semantics in his spectrum but, without following a unique pattern. In this paper, we present a uniform logical characterization of all the semantics in the enlarged spectrum. The common structure of the formulas that constitute all the corresponding logics gives us a much clearer picture of the spectrum, clarifying the relations between the different semantics, and allows us to develop generic proofs of some general properties of the semantics.Comment: In Proceedings SOS 2011, arXiv:1108.279

COVID-19: The Conjunction of Events Leading to the Coronavirus Pandemic and Lessons to Learn for Future Threats

Originally identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, SARS-CoV-2 has become a pandemic owing to a long period of incubation, a high number of asymptomatic cases, and high international mobility. Here we consider the unique conjunction of events that allowed this new coronavirus to emerge and create a pandemic. We urge governments to learn from SARS and COVID-19 and to implement preparedness for pandemics to come