Majoritarian electoral systems are more prone to gerrymandering than proportional systems

Gerrymandering, the practice of redrawing electoral boundaries in order to benefit one or more electoral actor, has a long and infamous history. Here, Ferran Martinez i Coma and Ignacio Lago look at the under-explored area of gerrymandering in a comparative perspective and what link there is between its prevelence and the electoral system in use, finding it more likely to take place in majoritarian systems such as First Past the Post – the system used in UK General Elections

The 2004 election in Spain : terrorism, accountability, and voting

In this paper the electoral consequences of the Islamist terrorist attacks on March 11, 2004 are analysed. According to a quantitative analysis based on a post-electoral survey, we show the causal mechanisms that transform voters' reactions to the bombings into a particular electoral behaviour and estimate their relevance in the electoral results on March 14, 200

D7.1. Plan for disseminating and communication of the project's results

The Dissemination and Communication Plan will set out the details of the different types of dissemination activities to be undertaken during the project lifetime. In addition to the dissemination approach that will be applied, this deliverable also provides the necessary guidance for an efficient dissemination strategy. The Plan identifies communicating objectives and goals, the target audience, the message, medium and means and the timeline for communicating actions. D7.1 is a way to reinforce this activity in GEOSS (http://www.geo-tasks.org/geoss_portfolio) by trying to stimulate the ENEON to participate in it

From cosmic deceleration to acceleration: new constraints from SN Ia and BAO/CMB

We use type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) data in combination with recent baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) and cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations to constrain a kink-like parametrization of the deceleration parameter ($q$). This $q$-parametrization can be written in terms of the initial ($q_i$) and present ($q_0$) values of the deceleration parameter, the redshift of the cosmic transition from deceleration to acceleration ($z_t$) and the redshift width of such transition ($\tau$). By assuming a flat space geometry, $q_i=1/2$ and adopting a likelihood approach to deal with the SN Ia data we obtain, at the 68% confidence level (C.L.), that: $z_t=0.56^{+0.13}_{-0.10}$, $\tau=0.47^{+0.16}_{-0.20}$ and $q_0=-0.31^{+0.11}_{-0.11}$ when we combine BAO/CMB observations with SN Ia data processed with the MLCS2k2 light-curve fitter. When in this combination we use the SALT2 fitter we get instead, at the same C.L.: $z_t=0.64^{+0.13}_{-0.07}$, $\tau=0.36^{+0.11}_{-0.17}$ and $q_0=-0.53^{+0.17}_{-0.13}$. Our results indicate, with a quite general and model independent approach, that MLCS2k2 favors Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati-like cosmological models, while SALT2 favors $\Lambda$CDM-like ones. Progress in determining the transition redshift and/or the present value of the deceleration parameter depends crucially on solving the issue of the difference obtained when using these two light-curve fitters.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure

Towards a European master programme on global software engineering

This paper presents a European Master programme on global software engineering (SE), being put forward by four leading institutions from Sweden, UK, Netherlands and Italy. The Global SE European Master (GSEEM) programme aims to provide students with an excellence in SE based on sound theoretical foundations and practical experience, as well as prepare them to participate in global development of complex and large software systems. GSEEM has been designed with three noteworthy aspects: 1) Three specialization profiles in which the consortium excels: Software Architecting, Real-time Embedded Systems Engineering, and Web Systems and Services Engineering. 2) Two market-driven routes: "professional" to work as professionals, and "scientific" to continue the education towards research degrees. 3) An innovative concept of "shared modules", delivered together by multiple institutions. Four types of shared modules are foreseen: "parallel" twin modules which run remotely between universities, "shifted" modules which teach SE concepts incrementally with shifts in study locations and timeline ,"complementary" modules in which complementary SE concepts are taught in parallel through shared projects, and "common" modules which share the presentations and the project. The profiles realize "integrated knowledge" by complementing partial knowledge available at partner institutions. The paper explains how GSEEM achieves the objectives of educating global software engineers

The Power of Non-Determinism in Higher-Order Implicit Complexity

We investigate the power of non-determinism in purely functional programming languages with higher-order types. Specifically, we consider cons-free programs of varying data orders, equipped with explicit non-deterministic choice. Cons-freeness roughly means that data constructors cannot occur in function bodies and all manipulation of storage space thus has to happen indirectly using the call stack. While cons-free programs have previously been used by several authors to characterise complexity classes, the work on non-deterministic programs has almost exclusively considered programs of data order 0. Previous work has shown that adding explicit non-determinism to cons-free programs taking data of order 0 does not increase expressivity; we prove that this - dramatically - is not the case for higher data orders: adding non-determinism to programs with data order at least 1 allows for a characterisation of the entire class of elementary-time decidable sets. Finally we show how, even with non-deterministic choice, the original hierarchy of characterisations is restored by imposing different restrictions.Comment: pre-edition version of a paper accepted for publication at ESOP'1

Relaxation Properties of Small-World Networks

Recently, Watts and Strogatz introduced the so-called small-world networks in order to describe systems which combine simultaneously properties of regular and of random lattices. In this work we study diffusion processes defined on such structures by considering explicitly the probability for a random walker to be present at the origin. The results are intermediate between the corresponding ones for fractals and for Cayley trees.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Atividades e práticas em coletivos de trabalho - mutirões - em agroflorestas agroecológicas do litoral do Paraná, Brasil.

O objetivo desse trabalho é a caracterização, análise e discussão das ações praticadas nos mutirões do Grupo de Produtores Agroflorestais Gralha Azul, de Morretes-PR. Dezesseis mutirões do grupo foram acompanhados. As atividades realizadas foram: preparo de canteiro (12 mutirões) e plantio de frutíferas (4). Houve dois tipos de preparo de canteiro: mecanizado e não mecanizado. No mecanizado, com enxada rotativa, em média 7 agricultores em cerca de 6 horas fizeram 121,8 m² de canteiros com largura fixa de 1,20m. Já no não mecanizado, a média foi de 6 agricultores trabalhando cerca de 6 horas fazendo 65,3m² de canteiro com largura média de 0,56 m. Em média nos plantios de frutíferas 6 agricultores trabalharam cerca de 4 horas. A preferência por estas atividades é reflexo tanto do aproveitamento de mão de obra para trabalhos mais árduos quanto pelo fato que a agrofloresta é uma atividade recente. As práticas observadas são recomendações técnicas baseadas na troca de saberes que acontecem entre os técnicos e agricultores e seguem fundamentos agroecológicos.Edição dos resumos do 7º Congresso Brasileiro de Agroecologia, 2013, Porto Alegre

Analysis of the urine microbiological results and its impact on the protocol of the prophylaxis of the urology department in our area

Objetivos: Analizar cuáles son los microorganismos más frecuentemente aislados en los urinocultivos realizados en nuestro centro hospitalario. Estudiar el antibiograma de dichos gérmenes para definir cuál es la mejor profilaxis preoperatoria en la cirugía urológica en nuestro medio. Material y métodos: Se realizó un análisis retrospectivo de todos los urinocultivos de pacientes adultos recogidos en el Servicio de Microbiología de nuestro hospital durante el año 2015. La identificación y estudio de sensibilidad de los microorganismos aislados se realizó mediante el sistema automático Vitek 2 (BioMèrieux), seleccionando los antibióticos en función del microorganismo aislado. Se estudió el antibiograma comparándolo con las sugerencias recogidas en la última actualización de las Guías Europeas de Urología sobre infecciones urológicas, que recomiendan ampliamente el empleo de fluorquinolonas, cotrimoxazol, aminopenicilinas/betalactamasas y cefalosporinas en la cirugía limpia-contaminada, la más frecuente en nuestra actividad quirúrgica. Resultados: Se estudió un total de 11.987 muestras de orina, de las cuales 3.457 (28%) fueron positivas en la detección de microorganismos. Los más frecuentes aislados fueron Escherichia coli (46%%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (14%) y Enterococcus faecalis (11%). En el análisis de los antibiogramas se detectaron resistencias superiores al 30% en E.coli frente a los antibióticos recomendados en las Guías de referencia. De igual forma, E. faecalis, otro de los uropatógenos más frecuentes es intrínsecamente resistente a cefalosporinas. Conclusión: El empleo de guías clínicas con grados de recomendación es de vital importancia en la patología infecciosa urológica, debiéndose adecuar al entorno microbiológico de cada área. En nuestro caso, inferimos que tanto el empleo de amoxicilina-clavulánico como fosfomicina se perfilan como la mejor opción para la profilaxis preoperatoria en pacientes de bajo riesgo así, como para el manejo empírico en casos de infección urinaria.Object: To analyze which are the more often microorganism isolated in the urine cultures in our hospital. To study the antibiogram to define which is the best preoperative prophylaxis in our urological surgeries. Material and methods: We retrospective reviewed consecutive urine culture samples assembled in adult patients in the Service of Microbiology in our hospital during 2015. The identification and study of sensibility of the isolated microorganisms was realized by means of the automatic system Vitek 2 (BioMèrieux), selecting the antibiotics according to the isolated microorganism. The antibiogram was studied comparing the suggestions gathered in the last update of the European Guides of Urología in urological infections, that recommend employment extensively: fluoroquinolones, cotrimoxazole, aminopenicillins / beta-lactamases and cephalosporins in the clean-contaminated, most frequent surgery in our daily surgical practice. Results: In total 11.987 urine samples were evaluated, 3.457 (28%) were positive. The most frequent micro-organisms isolated were Escherichia coli (46%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (14%) and Enterococcus faecalis (11%). In the antibiogram analysis resistances was detected up to 30% in E. coli, opposite to the antibiotics recommendations in the Guides of reference. Even, E. faecalis, another of the most frequent uropathogens is intrinsically resistant to cefalosporins. Conclusions: The use of clinical guides with grade of recommendation it is of vital importance in the urological infection pathology, and they should be adapted to the microbiological environment of each area. In our case, we infer that the use of Amoxicillin-clavulanic and Fosfomycin are outlined like the best option for preoperative prophylaxis in low risk patients and for empirical handling in cases of urine infection