Valoración económica de los beneficios ambientales de la recuperación del río segura (España)

La Directiva Marco del Agua de la Unión Europea establece la necesidad de alcanzar el buen estadoecológico de las masas de agua para el año 2015. Esto requiere la aplicación de diferentes medidas, entrelas que destacan los planes de restauración ambiental de ríos. Además, esta Directiva integra el usode instrumentos económicos para justificar aquellas medidas diseñadas para conseguir el buen estadode una masa de agua. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo valorar en términos monetarios los beneficiosambientales de la recuperación ambiental de un ecosistema natural, el río Segura, mediante el método devaloración contingente. Los resultados muestran que los beneficios generados por el río tras su recuperaciónascenderían a los siete millones de euros anuales. Este valor debería ser considerado en los análisiscosto - beneficio de las actuaciones emprendidas en el río Segura con el fin de justificar su rentabilidadsocial desde una óptica económica

Working Environment in Nursing: Needs Improvement?

Background: Knowing the quality of life of professionals is important because it is related to job performance, better results, and greater productivity, which results in better patient care. Objective: To know the Professional Quality of Life perceived by the nurses at the Geriatric Hospital of Toledo (Spain). Method: A descriptive cross-section study was employed to measure the Professional Quality of Life of all healthcare nurses (69 in total) at the Geriatric Hospital of Toledo. The questionnaire used as a measuring instrument was the Professional Quality of Life - 35. The data obtained was analyzed by means of: descriptive statistics, single-factor ANOVA variance analysis, T Student tests, and simple and multiple regression analysis. The study was approved by both the research commission and the ethics commission at the Hospital Complex of Toledo. Participation in the study on behalf of the nursing staff was voluntary. Results: In total, 45 responses were obtained (65.2%). The overall mean score measured the perceived Professional Quality of Life to be low. In relation to the three dimensions evaluated in the study, the highest average found was in “intrinsic motivation,” followed by “workload”, and then “management support.” In the multivariate analysis, “management support” was shown as the most influential factor in the Professional Quality of Life with a 23% influence (P<0.001), followed by workload with 9% (P = 0.01). Conclusions: The professionals at the participating center perceive their workplace as having an elevated degree of responsibility, a large quantity of work, a high occurrence of rushes and fatigue, and all this with little support on behalf of management. Promotions are scarce or the policies for receiving a promotion are inadequate. The perception of Professional Quality of Life in nursing is low. The obtained results indicate a need for an organizing cultural change based on participation, motivation, and increased management support

Escala de evaluación de habilidades tecnológicas para futuros docentes con alumnos con necesidades educativas especiales

En los últimos años ha habido un desarrollo importante de las nuevas tecnologías en nuestra sociedad: aparición de software y hardware para PC, programas de estimulación cognitiva, dispositivos táctiles, etc. que han permitido los alumnos que presentan necesidades educativas especiales pueda acceder al mundo de la información. Del mismo modo, los profesionales de la educación se han validado de estas nuevas tecnologías como elemento motivador para estimular diferentes habilidades en el alumno. El objetivo de este estudio es analizar las diferencias en habilidades tecnológicas de una muestra de alumnos con necesidades educativas especiales tras implantar un programa para el aprendizaje de habilidades informáticas. Para la evaluación de estas capacidades ideamos una escala de Evaluación de las habilidades informáticas que será muy útil a los docentes. Dicha escala fue cumplimentada por el tutor antes y después de implementar el programa. La escala permite obtener una puntuación global y de dos sub-escalas: habilidades en el dominio del PC y habilidades relacionadas con el dominio de Internet. Futuros estudios tendrán que estudiar las propiedades psicométricas de esta escala con una muestra mayor de alumnos

Hodge polynomials of some moduli spaces of Coherent Systems

When $k<n$, we study the coherent systems that come from a BGN extension in which the quotient bundle is strictly semistable. In this case we describe a stratification of the moduli space of coherent systems. We also describe the strata as complements of determinantal varieties and we prove that these are irreducible and smooth. These descriptions allow us to compute the Hodge polynomials of this moduli space in some cases. In particular, we give explicit computations for the cases in which $(n,d,k)=(3,d,1)$ and $d$ is even, obtaining from them the usual Poincar\'e polynomials.Comment: Formerly entitled: "A stratification of some moduli spaces of coherent systems on algebraic curves and their Hodge--Poincar\'e polynomials". The paper has been substantially shorten. Theorem 8.20 has been revised and corrected. Final version accepted for publication in International Journal of Mathematics. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:math/0407523 by other author

Valoración económica de los beneficios ambientales de la recuperación del río segura (España)

La Directiva Marco del Agua de la Unión Europea establece la necesidad de alcanzar el buen estadoecológico de las masas de agua para el año 2015. Esto requiere la aplicación de diferentes medidas, entrelas que destacan los planes de restauración ambiental de ríos. Además, esta Directiva integra el usode instrumentos económicos para justificar aquellas medidas diseñadas para conseguir el buen estadode una masa de agua. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo valorar en términos monetarios los beneficiosambientales de la recuperación ambiental de un ecosistema natural, el río Segura, mediante el método devaloración contingente. Los resultados muestran que los beneficios generados por el río tras su recuperaciónascenderían a los siete millones de euros anuales. Este valor debería ser considerado en los análisiscosto - beneficio de las actuaciones emprendidas en el río Segura con el fin de justificar su rentabilidadsocial desde una óptica económica

La eficiencia en Educación Secundaria y el entorno social del alumnado. Un estudio frontera a nivel de centro

En este trabajo se presentan los resultados obtenidos de una investigación realizada con el objetivo general de analizar la eficiencia de la educación secundaria en Andalucía. Se efectúa, asimismo, una aproximación a algunos aspectos relacionados con el entorno social del alumnado correspondiente, que a su vez se relacionan con dicha eficiencia, sobre la base de la relación existente entre ambos. Aplicando métodos no paramétricos de estimación de función frontera, que incorporan variables de entorno, aplicando un método en tres etapas, se estima una eficiencia técnica media del 78%, con una posibilidad media de mejora de resultados en torno al 40%. Las nuevas tecnologías resultan no asociadas con el nivel de eficiencia con lo que las pautas de medidas a tomar deben de ir en relación a las variables encontradas como incidentes en la productividad. En base a esto, podemos concluir que los esfuerzos a realizar por parte de la Administración Publica, deben de ir encaminados a mejorar tanto la actitud del alumnado ante el estudio, como su nivel de bienestar socia

A Petal of the Sunflower: Photometry of the Stellar Tidal Stream in the Halo of Messier 63 (NGC 5055)

We present surface photometry of a very faint, giant arc feature in the halo of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 5055 (M63) that is consistent with being a part of a stellar stream resulting from the disruption of a dwarf satellite galaxy. This faint feature was first detected in early photographic studies by van der Kruit (1979); more recently by Mart\'inez-Delgado et al. (2010) and as presented in this work, the loop has been realized to be the result of a recent minor merger through evidence obtained by deep images taken with a telescope of only 0.16 m aperture. The stellar stream is confirmed in additional images taken with the 0.5 m of the BlackBird Remote Observatory and the 0.8 m of the McDonald Observatory. This low surface brightness structure around the disk of the galaxy extends ~29 kpc from its center, with a projected width of 3.3 kpc. The stream's morphology is consistent with that of the visible part of a "great-circle" stellar stream originating from the accretion of a ~10^8 M_sun dwarf satellite in the last few Gyr. The progenitor satellite's current position and fate are not conclusive from our data. The color of the stream's stars is consistent with Local Group dwarfs and is similar to the outer regions of M63's disk and stellar halo. We detect other low surface brightness "plumes"; some of these may be extended spiral features related to the galaxy's complex spiral structure and others may be tidal debris associated with the disruption of the galaxy's outer stellar disk as a result of the accretion event. We differentiate between features related to the tidal stream and faint, blue features in the outskirts of the galaxy's disk previously detected by the GALEX satellite. With its highly warped HI gaseous disk (~20 deg), M63 represents one of several examples of an isolated spiral galaxy with a warped disk showing strong evidence of an ongoing minor merger.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables, Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

A probabilistic risk assessment of the national economic impacts of regulatory drought management on irrigated agriculture

Drought frequency and intensity is expected to increase in many regions worldwide, and water shortages could become more extreme, even in humid temperate climates. To protect the environment and secure water supplies, water abstraction for irrigation can be mandatorily reduced by environmental regulators. Such abstraction restrictions can result in economic impacts on irrigated agriculture. This study provides a novel approach for the probabilistic risk assessment of potential future economic losses in irrigated agriculture arising from the interaction of climate change and regulatory drought management, with an application to England and Wales. Hydro‐meteorological variability is considered within a synthetic dataset of daily rainfall and river flows for a baseline period (1977‐2004), and for projections for near (2022‐2049) and far (2072‐2099) futures. The probability, magnitude and timing of abstraction restrictions are derived by applying rainfall and river flow triggers in 129 catchments. The risk of economic losses at the catchment level is then obtained from the occurrences of abstraction restrictions combined with spatially distributed crop‐specific economic losses. Results show that restrictions will become more severe, frequent and longer in the future. The highest economic risks are projected where drought‐sensitive crops with a high financial value are concentrated in catchments with increasingly uncertain water supply. This research highlights the significant economic losses associated with mandatory drought restrictions experienced by the agricultural sector and supports the need for environmental regulators and irrigators to collaboratively manage scarce water resources to balance environmental and economic considerations