Nature of the Hydrogen Bond Enhanced Halogen Bond

The factors responsible for the enhancement of the halogen bond by an adjacent hydrogen bond have been quantitatively explored by means of state-of-the-art computational methods. It is found that the strength of a halogen bond is enhanced by ca. 3 kcal/mol when the halogen donor simultaneously operates as a halogen bond donor and a hydrogen bond acceptor. This enhancement is the result of both stronger electrostatic and orbital interactions between the XB donor and the XB acceptor, which indicates a significant degree of covalency in these halogen bonds. In addition, the halogen bond strength can be easily tuned by modifying the electron density of the aryl group of the XB donor as well as the acidity of the hydrogen atoms responsible for the hydrogen bond.Depto. de Química OrgánicaFac. de Ciencias QuímicasTRUEMINECO and MICIINpu

Is Sustainable Performance Explained by Firm Effect in Small Business?

To what extent a firm’s resources (firm effect) and the structure of the sector (industry effect) are sources of a firm’s competitiveness has been debated for years in strategic management. Most of the empirical studies carried out have focused on large firms and have used static performance measures, and in them the firm effect generally outweighs the industry effect. This research contributes to this debate in trying to verify whether the competitive advantage that relies on the firm’s resources is sustainable, especially in small firms. We used a sample of almost 15,000 Spanish firms to test the impact that the firm and the industry effects have on sustainable performance, for both small and large firms, applying hierarchical linear modelling with a variable measured through time-varying parameters. Our results confirm the absolute importance of the firm effect on sustainable organizational performance, regardless the firm size, and show that, even though the industry effect has little weight in explaining sustainability, it is significantly higher in the case of small firms. This means that managers must concentrate efforts on providing their firm with the necessary resources to achieve a competitive advantage while choosing a good sector to position itselfS

A firm-industry analysis of services versus manufacturing

[Abstract]: In the literature on the firm-industry debate to explain organizational performance the firm effect has been more supported than the industry effect by empirical studies, mainly focused on manufacturing firms and long time periods. Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to the service sector. In this paper we study separately manufacturing and services in a broad sample of Spanish companies. We observe that in manufacturing the firm effect outweighs the industry effect while in services the opposite is the case in a ten-year period. However, when we split the time horizon into two five-year sub-periods, this behavior only remains in the second one, of moderate economic growth. In the first one, of strong economic growth, the firm effect prevails for both manufacturing and services. These findings underline the importance of the industry effect for services, suggesting that such effect may have been underestimated in the literature, as well as that of the level of economic growth specially for the decision-making of practitioners

Evaluación de desempeño a la cooperativa Manglaralto en la provincia de Santa Elena, año 2020

La evaluación del desempeño dentro de la cooperativa Manglaralto, será de gran ayuda, pues servirá para buscar estrategias de mejora dentro de la misma, dicha cooperativa no cuenta con esta evaluación, pues cree que se genera un gasto, cuando en realidad es una inversión, y el presente trabajo tiene como objetivo la comprobar la evaluación del desempeño mediante análisis interno dentro de la organización, el cual se lo va a realizar con una investigación de carácter exploratorio, realizando encuestas a los choferes de dicha cooperativa, verificando dicha información que se va a necesitar en la investigación. Como conclusión, la investigación permitió evidenciar que mediante una excelente evaluación de desempeño a los colaboradores de la cooperativa de transporte “Manglaralto”, lo cual se recomienda aplicar y capacitar a los choferes, del mismo modo el tomar en cuenta la evaluación de desempeño como técnica de mejora dentro de la cooperativa de transporte “Manglaralto”

Functional activation and connectivity of the left inferior frontal gyrus during lexical and phonological retrieval

Being language a paradigm of structural and functional asymmetry in cognitive processing, the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus has been consistently related to speech production. In fact, it has been considered a key node in cortical networks responsible for different components of naming. However, isolating these components (e.g., lexical, syntactic, and phonological retrieval) in neuroimaging studies is difficult due to the use of different baselines and tasks. In the present study, functional activation and connectivity of the left inferior frontal gyrus was explored using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants performed a covert naming task (pressing a button based on a phonological characteristic). Two conditions were compared: drawings of objects and single letters (baseline condition). Differences in activation and functional connectivity were obtained for objects and letters in different areas of the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus. The pars triangularis was involved in the retrieval of lexical-phonological information, showing a pattern of connectivity with temporal areas in the search for the name of objects and with perisylvanian areas for letters. Selection of phonological information seems to involve the pars opercularis both to letters and objects but recruiting supramarginal and superior temporal areas to letters, probably related to orthographicphonological conversion. The results support the notion of the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus as a buffer forwarding neural information across cortical networks responsible for different components of speech productionThis research was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Grant number: PSI2013 43594-R), Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, Xunta de Galicia (Grant number: ED431C-2021/04, from the EDRF/FEDER) and by a post-doctoral fellowship from Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, Xunta de Galicia (Grant number: ED481B2016/078-0). The funding sources were not involved in any aspect of the research or the submission of this studyS

La comunicación oral como competencia transversal de los estudiantes de Pedagogía y Magisterio: presentación del diseño metodológico de una innovación para su trabajo en el aula

El presente trabajo pretende dar a conocer la experiencia de innovación desarrollada por el grupo de investigación ASOCED del Departamento de Ciencias de la Educación de la Univer - sidad de Oviedo en varias asignaturas de las titulaciones de Pedagogía y diversas especialidades de la Diplomatura de Magisterio, con el objetivo de trabajar dentro de las aulas la competencia de la comunicación oral. Se presentan para ello las diferentes fases llevadas a cabo en el desarrollo del proyecto, así como los instrumentos y el tipo de evaluación previstaThe present work presents the innovation experience developed by the research group ASOCED. This group has been constituted by several teachers of the Educational Sciences Department at the University of Oviedo. The project has affected several subjects with the aim to promote oral communication competence inside the classrooms. This paper copes with the different phases carried out in the development of the project, as well as with the instruments and the type of foreseen evaluatio

Relación entre la madurez vocacional y la motivación hacia el aprendizaje académico

Currently, the demands, responsibilities and obligations to enter the workforce are greater and the vocational decision-making process becomes increasingly difficult, therefore, it is necessary to encourage schools to seek guidance strategies that facilitate tools and a adequate advice to students.Vocational Maturity is defined as the degree to which a person adopts a decision based on the knowledge of their academic and professional alternatives, after analyzing their values, goals, interests, abilities and personal and social conditioning factors (Lucas and Carbonero, 2003).There are many motivational dimensions that influence academic commitment and that must be taken into account in order to influence student academic performance (Rodríguez, 2009). From this study, it is considered that one of these variables is vocational maturity and therefore, the objective is to know if there is a relationship between Vocational Maturity and the motivation towards learning in a total sample of 1540 subjects belonging to 27 Centers Educational Secondary Education of the provinces of Badajoz and Cáceres, with ages between 15 and 19 years.The methodology used in this study is descriptive through a quantitative paradigm by means of two survey-type instruments: to measure the Motivation towards Learning, the MAPE I questionnaire was used by the authors Jesús Alonso Tapia and Javier Sánchez Ferrer (1992 ), and for the measurement of the Vocational Maturity the CMV questionnaire adapted from Rosa (2015) was used.The results obtained show that there is a relationship between both variables for the three dimensions studied in the Motivation towards Learning.Actualmente, las exigencias, responsabilidades y obligaciones para incorporarse al mundo laboral son mayores y el proceso de toma de decisiones vocacional se torna cada vez más difícil, por ello, resulta necesario animar a los centros educativos a buscar estrategias de orientación que faciliten herramientas y un asesoramiento adecuado al alumnado.La Madurez Vocacional se define como el grado en que una persona adopta una decisión basada en el conocimiento de sus alternativas académicas y profesionales, previo análisis de sus valores, metas, intereses, habilidades y condicionantes personales y sociales (Lucas y Carbonero, 2003).Son muchas las dimensiones motivacionales que influyen en el compromiso académico y que deben tenerse en cuenta para incidir sobre el rendimiento académico del alumnado (Rodríguez, 2009). Desde este estudio, se considera que una de estas variables es la madurez vocacional y por ello, el objetivo que se plantea es conocer si existe relación entre la Madurez Vocacional y la motivación hacia el aprendizaje en una muestra total de 1540 sujetos pertenecientes a 27 Centros Educativos de Educación Secundaria de las provincias de Badajoz y Cáceres, con edades comprendidas entre 15 y 19 años.La metodología utilizada en este estudio es de corte descriptivo a través de un paradigma cuantitativo mediante dos instrumentos de tipo encuesta: para la medida de la Motivación hacia el Aprendizaje se utilizó el cuestionario MAPE I de los autores Jesús Alonso Tapia y Javier Sánchez Ferrer (1992), y para la medida de la Madurez Vocacional se utilizó el cuestionario CMV adaptado de Rosa (2015).Los resultados obtenidos muestran que si existe relación entre ambas variables para las tres dimensiones que se estudian en la Motivación hacia el Aprendizaje

The biological function of the proto-oncogene Cot/tpl-2

Capítulo 2.-- Editor: Pedro A. Lazo.Cot, as well as its murine homologue tpl-2, was discovered in a COOH–terminal truncated form that unmasks the transformation capacity of the protein. The COOH-terminal domain of wt Cot contains an amino acid sequence that is a recognition signal for degradation via proteasome, besides, this domain of wt Cot is also an autoinhibitory domain of the specific activity of the wild type form. These data explain the transformation capacity of trunc-Cot/tpl-2, that when overexpressed is capable of activating several MAP kinases pathways as well as AP-1, NFAT, and NF-κB2 transcriptional activities. Earlier sobreexpression experiments lead to the proposal that Cot/tpl-2 could be involved in proliferative signalling, but the use of new technologies such as genetically modifies mice and interference RNA end up with the already accepted hypothesis that Cot/tpl-2 is involved in immune innate and adaptive processes. Cot/tpl-2 is activated in response to the activation of the TLR/IL-1 receptor superfamily as well as in response to the activation of some receptors of the TNF family. Independently of the cell system it is accepted that in resting cells Cot/tpl-2 forms a stable and inactive complex with p105 NF-κB among other proteins to protect it from degradation, adequate TLR/IL-1R stimulation induces the activation of the IKK complex that targets p105 NF-κB to be rapidly degraded by the proteasome pathway to p50 NF-κB, a subunit of the NF-κB transcription factor. Consequently Cot/tpl-2 is released from the complex and susceptible to transduce the activatory signal, leading to the activation of the MEK1-Erk1/Erk2 pathway. However, actually it is not completely understood all the requests that Cot/tpl-2 needs to be fully active and to this end it is also accepted that Cot/tpl2 requires to be phosphorylated. In addition the possibility that the requirements vary from cell system to cell system cannot be excluded. Physiologically, Cot/tpl-2 is involved in provoking innate immunity to establish adaptive immunity. In fact it is the unique MAP3K that activates Erk1/Erk2 when the TLRs/IL-1 receptors are activated and mediates the production of proinflammatory cytokines, such as TNFα, IL-1, or IL-6. More recently it has been shown that Cot/tpl-2 has the capacity to regulate the balance between Th1 and Th2 cytokines. All these data indicate that, although mutations in Cot gene result in the expression of a protein linked with cell malignancies, physiologically wt Cot/tpl-2 is involved in innate and adaptive immunity.Our research is supported by the Plan Nacional (SAF 2008-00819) and Mutua Madrileña.Peer Reviewe