The Socio-Economic Evaluation of a European Project: The Diylab Case

This paper builds on the results of a 3-year long European project, the main aim of which was to deeply and sustainably transform teaching and learning practice in primary and secondary schools and higher education, by introducing Do it Yourself (DIY) philosophy in order to expand digital competence and foster students' agency and collaborative learning. Three universities and three primary and secondary schools have been involved in a Collaborative Action Research (CAR) process in order to analyse their current institutional context and perceive needs, strengths and weaknesses; to undertake professional development activities and the design of DIYLabs; implement DIYLabs in the selected courses; and reflect upon ways of improving the institution's performance. This paper offers a global vision of the research and implementation processes and the results achieved, from the perspective of the socio-economic dimensions involved in a project aiming to make a difference in teaching and learning to meet the challenges of a society highly permeated by digital technology (DT). Keywords: educational change; digital competence; DIY digital objects; autonomous learning; action research; student agency; collaborative researc

Recent evolution of poverty in the European countries

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of poverty in the 15 countries of E.U., whose household income data is available through the information contained in the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). Several indicators have been proposed in economic literature for measuring poverty, but they may produce different orderings when cases are compared. In this work, a set of poverty one-dimensional indicators are chosen, which best verify some desirable properties. A modification of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is proposed to calculate synthetic cross-sectional measures of poverty using this set of indicators. In order to obtain comparable values throughout time, in addition to cross-sectional sense, joint consideration of single poverty indicators is proposed, independently of their temporary period of reference. Therefore, applying common space analysis to these cross-sectional synthetic measures, a common frame of comparison and a homogeneous weighting structure are obtained, which are stable throughout time. This powerful tool allows static as well as dynamic comparisons, among the EU countries. Furthermore, the determination of groups of countries according to their characteristics in poverty will be accomplished.

Differential Evolution Algorithm in the Construction of Interpretable Classification Models

In this chapter, the application of a differential evolution-based approach to induce oblique decision trees (DTs) is described. This type of decision trees uses a linear combination of attributes to build oblique hyperplanes dividing the instance space. Oblique decision trees are more compact and accurate than the traditional univariate decision trees. On the other hand, as differential evolution (DE) is an efficient evolutionary algorithm (EA) designed to solve optimization problems with real-valued parameters, and since finding an optimal hyperplane is a hard computing task, this metaheuristic (MH) is chosen to conduct an intelligent search of a near-optimal solution. Two methods are described in this chapter: one implementing a recursive partitioning strategy to find the most suitable oblique hyperplane of each internal node of a decision tree, and the other conducting a global search of a near-optimal oblique decision tree. A statistical analysis of the experimental results suggests that these methods show better performance as decision tree induction procedures in comparison with other supervised learning approaches

Aspectos relevantes para el diseño de planes de salud sostenibles orientados a los grupos de interés. Una propuesta basada en la Guía ISO 26000: 2010

Fundamentos : Los planes de salud de las comunidades autónomas pue- den incorporar criterios de desarrollo sostenible en su elaboración. No se han realizado análisis al respecto o propuestas de elaboración e indicadores. El objetivo fue la elaboración de un panel de indicadores de seguimiento orientados al desarrollo sostenible que contribuyan a gestionar los impactos económicos, sociales y medioambientales de los sistemas sanitarios. Método: Se utilizó una variación del método RAND/UCLA o técnica de Delphi modificada. El proceso consistió en un análisis bibliográfico y de contexto de las materias y asuntos relacionados con sanidad y responsabi- lidad social tomando como base ISO 26000:2010. Se realizó una encuesta mediante muestreo intencional a una selección de 70 miembros expertos de los grupos de interés identificados y un grupo de discusión para determinar el consenso sobre los asuntos tratados en la encuesta. La investigación fue realizada en 2015. Resultados: De la revisión bibliográfica se obtuvieron 33 asuntos rela - cionados con sanidad incluidos en ISO 26000:2010. De la encuesta, 7 resul- taron relevantes con alto consenso, 8 de relevancia y consenso medio y 18 con menor relevancia y alto nivel de disenso. El grupo de expertos excluyó 4 de los 18 asuntos con menor consenso. Conclusiones: 29 de los 33 asuntos incluidos en el trabajo, repartidos en las 7 materias fundamentales contenidas en la guía ISO 26000 de res- ponsabilidad social, resultaron relevantes para los grupos de interés en re- lación con su posible inclusión en los planes de salud. Se elaboró un panel de indicadoresBackground: Health plans of the Spanish autonomous communities can incorporate sustainable development criteria in its development. There have been no analysis or proposals about development and indicators. The goal is to add a contribution to help build better health plans aimed at sustainable de- velopment and help to manage economic, social and environmental impacts of health systems criteria. Methods: We used a variation of the RAND/UCLA or modified Delphi technique method. The process consisted of a bibliographical and context matters and issues related to health and social responsibility analysis based on ISO 26000: 2010. A survey by deliberately to a selection of 70 expert members of the identified stakeholders was carried out and a discussion group was held to determine the consensus on the issues addressed in the survey sample. The research was conducted in 2015. Results: From the literature review 33 health issues included in ISO 26000:2010 were obtained. 7 survey proved relevant high consensus, 8 re- levance and average consensus and 18 with less relevance and high level of dissent. The expert group excluded 4 of the 18 subjects with less consensus. Conclusions: 29 issues included 33 at work, divided into 7 subjects contained in the guide ISO 26000 of social responsibility, were relevant stakeholders regarding possible inclusion in health plans. Considering the direct relationship published by ISO (International Organization for Stan- dardization) among the issues ISO 26000 and the economic, social and envi- ronmental indicators in GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) in its G4 version, a panel with monitoring indicators related to relevant issues were elaborated.Los autores agradecen el apoyo recibido por la Universidad Jaume I (proyecto P1.1B2013-48) y el Máster en Sostenibilidad y Responsabilidad Social Corporativa (UJI-UNED)

La estructura interna de la fecundidad en la Comunidad de Madrid

L’article analyse l’evolution de la structure de la fécondité à la region de Madrid depuis 1975 jusqu’à 2001. Il montre la intensité de trois procèses: le vieillissement croissant du calendrier de la fécondité, la concentration des naissances dans unes grupes d'âge25-39 âges) et l’accroissement des naissances hors du marriage. Outre, l’article analyse les inégalités géographiques de la structure de la fécondité à moyenne et grand échelle au debut de XXIe siécle.En este artículo se estudian tres características que marcan la estructura interna de la fecundidad de Madrid en el cambio de siglo: el envejecimiento continuo del calendario de la fecundidad, la concentración creciente de los nacimientos en determinados grupos de edad y el aumento de la fecundidad extraconyugal. En el artículo se estudia la evolución de los tres procesos desde una prespectiva geográfica para poner de manifiesto las grandes desigualdades existentes a todas las escalas

La evolución de la población en la Comunidad de Madrid (199/-1996)

Sin resume

Internal and relative motions of the Taurus and Ophiuchus star-forming regions

We investigate the internal and relative motions of the Taurus and Ophiuchus star-forming regions using a sample of young stars with accurately measured radial velocities and proper motions. We find no evidence for expansion or contraction of the Taurus complex, but a clear indication for a global rotation, resulting in velocity gradients, this suggests a common origin, possibly related to that of Gould's Belt.Comment: 2 figure