Does employment affect productivity?

We investigate the trade-off between employment and labour productivity in a panel of OECD countries in 1970-2003. The endogeneity of employment is shown to matter crucially for assessing its effect on productivity. Estimating a structural model with 3SLS, where employment depends on demographic variables and labour market institutions, we find that employment tends to boost productivity. Literature ignoring the endogeneity of employment, including our own OLS results, incorrectly finds a negative or insignificant effect from employment on productivity. The productivity gain is, however, not a guaranteed by-product of additional employment, as regressions with rolling windows reveal.

Will corporate tax consolidation improve efficiency in the EU?

Consolidation of the tax base in the European Union is expected to curve compliance costs and reduce profit shifting. A number of proposals for consolidation from the European Commission are simulated with the applied general equilibrium model CORTAX. We show that the benefits from consolidation are offset by two weaknesses in the proposals for a common consolidated tax base. Formula apportionment, which is needed to allocate the consolidated taxable profits across jurisdictions, creates new tax planning possibilities for MNEs and allows them to benefit from existing tax rate differentials in the European Union. In addition, it triggers tax competition as member states may attract foreign investment by reducing their tax rates. The second distortion is an unlevel playing field, which is introduced if only part of the firms participate in the consolidation. The gains from consolidation can be fully grasped if it is obliged for all firms and if it is accompanied by a harmonisation of the tax rate.

Crowdsourcing as production model that uses collective intelligence, the collaborative culture and the formation of communities

Purpose – It has been verified that companies are using crowdsourcing to carry out tasks related with the market, concentrating on three main areas: product development, advertising and promotion and market research. This study aims to carry out qualitative research using the case study method. The analysis unit that will be used will be marketing activities based on crowdsourcing. Finally, the study subjects used to understand the phenomenon are Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Netflix and Amazon. Design/methodology/approach – For this study, the decision was made to use the case study method due to its qualitative character. Thus, the analysis unit of the study is composed of the activities of the company investigated related to the activities of the marketing information system. For this study, a unique case study was used. The object companies were Coca Cola, PepsiCo, Netflix and Amazon. Findings – A significant number of advantages are therefore perceived for companies that adopt mass collaboration practices in the research and development of products. The strategic importance of this concept for companies that launch themselves into these surprising endeavors is ever more clear and consolidated in their planning. It is up to those sectors that are responsible for communication to think of strategies that incorporate the collaborative work of consumers into their actions. Research limitations/implications – The study presents some limitations that give rise to the opportunity to embark on future studies. As it is an exploratory study, there was no validation of causality between variables, which may diminish the empirical value of the findings. In this context, the sample is small and non-probabilistic, which on one hand made applying the interviews in the field study viable, but on the other does not enable the results to be generalized. Practical implications – The transfer of power to crowds of consumers has led to a reduction in costs. This combination of innovative and cost reduction constitutes value innovation, a basic factor for customer retention, standing apart from the competition and obtaining appreciable results, thus reducing mortality. Social implications – A collaborative action is an integrated marketing and communication action. In the same way, using bloggers to evaluate products today is a basic form of research and development, networking and communication with consumers, who become co-creators of products and services, as well as interlocutors with those responsible for corporate communication. Originality/value – A significant number of advantages are therefore perceived for companies that adopt mass collaboration practices in the research and development of products. The strategic importance of this concept for companies that launch themselves into these surprising endeavors is even more clear and consolidated in their planning. It is up to those sectors that are responsible for communication to think of strategies that incorporate the collaborative work of consumers into their actions

An Explainable AI Approach to Process Data in Mixed Reality Environments for Field Service Operations

Digital Twins is a concept that describes how physical objects can be represented and connected to the virtual world, the main goal of a Digital Twin is to centralise all the available information of an object of interest in a single virtual model. The Digital Twin consist of three main components: the physical object, a virtual representation of that object (typically a 3D model), and a real-time connection between both objects so that any change can be communicated to the other part. The possibility of understanding, visualising, and interacting with physical objects through a virtual environment is, at a very high level, the main benefit of using Digital Twins. The adoption of this concept has grown a lot in the recent years in industries such as the manufacturing, construction, health, and energy. Utility companies in the telecommunication industry, water services, and gas services are still falling behind in the adoption of these new concepts. The potential benefit for these sectors is huge where some of these benefits are real-time remote monitoring, predictive maintenance, scenario and risk assessment, better collaboration between stakeholders (internal and external), and better documentation. Existing Mixed Reality, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies can help with the interaction and visualisation of the virtual twin. The different levels of reality in combination with the digital twins will help with different tasks, for example, Virtual Reality is useful for remote tasks were most of the interaction happens with the virtual twin and Augmented Reality will help bringing the virtual twin and all its information to onsite tasks to help field engineers. However, there are different challenges when trying to connect all the different components and some of these challenges did slow down the adoption of these technologies by the utility companies. The research work in this thesis will focus on two main challenges: the cost of creating these digital twins from existing sources of information and the lack of an explainable AI approach that can be used as an enabler for the interaction between human and Digital Twin in the mixed reality environment. To address the challenge of automating the creation of digital representations at a low cost, two interval type-2 Fuzzy Rule-based Systems are presented as the best explainable AI alternatives to the opaque AI models for processing images and extracting information of the objects of interest. One of them was used to extract information about trees in a satellite image and generate a 3D representation of the geographic area combined with terrain data. This will be used for remote scenario and risk assessment and prediction of the telecommunication equipment getting damaged by natural elements like trees. The proposed approach achieved an 86.90% of accuracy, 3.5% better than the type-1 but 3.0% worse than the opaque Multilayer Perceptron model. The second interval type-2 Fuzzy Rule-based System is an explainable AI model that incorporates the use of context information in its rule to process 2D floor plan images, identify elements of interest and create a 3D digital representation of the building floors. This will benefit the telecommunication company by automating, at a low cost, the process of creating a more detailed in-building map with the telecommunication assets and improve the collaboration with external stakeholders like contractors for maintenance tasks or construction companies for any works in the building. The proposed method achieved a 97.5% Intersection over Union metric value which was comparable to the 99.3% Intersection over Union of the opaque Convolutional Neural Network model, however our proposed solution is highly interpretable and augmentable by human experts which cannot be achieved via opaque box AI models. Additionally, another interval type-2 Fuzzy Rule-based System for hand gesture classification is also presented in this thesis. This rule-based system achieved a 96.4% accuracy, and it is an easily adjustable model that can be modified to include more hand gestures, the opaque model alternative, a K-Nearest Neighbour algorithm achieved a 98.9% accuracy, however, this model cannot be easily modified by a human expert and re-training is needed which results in a cost of time. This hand gesture recognition model, alongside another fuzzy rule-based system, will help to address the challenge of the interaction between human and digital twin objects in Mixed Reality environments

Determinación y análisis de los factores micro sísmicos en el barrio manantiales del distrito de Challhuahuacho-2022

De la presente investigación determinación y análisis de los factores micro sísmicos en el barrio manantiales distrito de challhuahuacho 2022, se identifico que las principales actividades que afectan al barrio son el minado por la proximidad al que se encuentra esta de la empresa y sus operaciones, así como también el transito de vehículos pesados que circulan para transportar el concentrado de cobre, estos generan vibraciones que pueden ser notados al sentido humano, de los estudios de recolección de datos se puede denotar que estas vibraciones son tienen partículas de velocidad pico dispersos elevados con valores de 18.00 mm/s vibración máxima por transito pesado, del control de fecha 22 de marzo del 2022 y 15.90 mm/s por vibraciones de minado, ya que estos superan los permitidos para viviendas habitacionales y estando dentro del rango de edificios industriales, y de los análisis de los resultados de las vibraciones máximas, del control de fecha 23 de marzo del 2022 los valores de velocidad pico dispersos elevados son de 32.48 mm/s en un rango de 50-100 Hz, así como 14.13 mm/s por minado los cuales están dentro de los parámetros permisibles para viviendas habitacionales dentro de 50- 100 Hz. De las viviendas analizadas que se ubican próximos a la vía se puede apreciar que los índices de vulnerabilidad son en un 45% media, mas aun si estas son construcciones con defectos. De acuerdo al estudio realizado se tienen tránsitos de vehículos hasta de 145 vh/día el cual es un volumen alto solo de vehículos pesados sin considerar los vehículos de ingreso con carga pesada como son los combustibles y demás insumos necesarios para las actividade

Bacteriophage endolysins as a response to emerging foodborne pathogens

Continuous reports on foodborne outbreaks and increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria call for the development of novel preservation techniques that assure the safety of food products. Bacteriophage endolysins are highly active antibacterial peptidoglycan hydrolases that have evolved over millions of years to become the ultimate weapon against bacteria, with potential to be used as a food preservative. We here give an overview of all distinct endolysins encountered so far, we discuss their inherent qualities and review their role in preventing and controlling foodborne pathogens, divulging their potential for future applications.This work was supported by a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology in the scope of the Projects PTDC/AGR-ALI/100492/2008 and PTDC/AGR-ALI/121057/2010. Hugo Oliveira is paid by the FCT grant SFRH/BD/63734/2009

Reflections on Communication, Collaboration, and Convergence: Strategic models for STEM education and research

This book explores over five years of research experience and practice around learning and education systems especially related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). It is a collection of ideas on how to Communicate with stakeholders to increase Collaboration and impact Convergence. The following collection of articles is based on primary empirical research, which, taken together, spans several years and numerous sponsored research endeavors, presents frameworks for thinking about STEM knowledge transfer and student character building as well as practical suggestions for everyday praxis. Through its pages, the reader will explore strategic models for STEM education and research, analyzing the communication processes and their relationship with language while considering their impact on Trans-Disciplinary Collaboration for innovation.https://digitalcommons.njit.edu/stemresources/1036/thumbnail.jp

Polarization shaping for control of nonlinear propagation

We study the nonlinear optical propagation of two different classes of space-varying polarized light beams -- radially symmetric vector beams and Poincar\'e beams with lemon and star topologies -- in a rubidium vapour cell. Unlike Laguerre-Gauss and other types of beams that experience modulational instabilities, we observe that their propagation is not marked by beam breakup while still exhibiting traits such as nonlinear confinement and self-focusing. Our results suggest that by tailoring the spatial structure of the polarization, the effects of nonlinear propagation can be effectively controlled. These findings provide a novel approach to transport high-power light beams in nonlinear media with controllable distortions to their spatial structure and polarization properties.Comment: 5 pages, and 4 figure

Comparación de la calidad del servicio de atención en línea y presencial en usuarios del Centro de Salud Santa, 2022

El objetivo del presente estudio fue Determinar las diferencias que existen en el nivel de percepción de la calidad de servicio de atención en línea y presencial en los usuarios del Centro de Salud Santa, 2022. Su metodología se enmarca en el enfoque cuantitativo, tipo de diseño no experimental, transversal y descriptiva comparativa. La muestra estuvo constituida por 80 usuarios que recibieron atención en la modalidad de atención en línea y 80 usuarios que recibieron atención en la modalidad de atención presencial. Para la recolección de datos se utilizó la técnica de la encuesta. Los resultados indican que el 73,8% de usuarios que evaluaron la calidad del servicio de atención tanto en línea como presencial, lo valoran en nivel bueno, a su vez el 23,8% y 26,3% en el nivel regular respectivamente. Concluyendo que no existen diferencias significativas (T de student =1828, p =0,069) en el nivel de percepción de la calidad del servicio de atención en línea y presencial en los usuarios del Centro de Salud Santa, 2022

El enfoque sistémico como propuesta de la investigación preparatoria en el proceso penal peruano

La tesis propuso -en el contexto del proceso penal- la aplicación del enfoque sistémico en la investigación preparatoria, construyo una tipología de dos enfoques -i) el enfoque sistémico y) el enfoque intuitivo o por convicción-, verificó en campo cómo se desarrollaron estos enfoques y planteo, los fundamentos, características y condiciones de aplicación del enfoque sistémico. Es decir, se buscó una pauta teórica a la investigación preparatoria para mejorar su efectividad en el proceso penal, lo que implicó analizar la mirada íntima y personalísima del fiscal y sintetizar la funcionalidad de los actos de investigación -sección teórica de la producción de la prueba-. Para ello, el trabajo se basó en el análisis de fuentes, bibliográficas, normativas, doctrinales y de opinión referidas a la teoría de sistemas -enfoque sistémico- y el proceso penal -investigación preparatoria-, además realizó una breve verificación en el campo sobre el empleo de esta tipología de enfoques, labor que comprometió un global de 24 meses. Al termino de esta tesis, el resultado más relevante se centra en la comprensión de la función y estructura de la investigación preparatoria dentro del sistema penal cuyo conocimiento concluye al proponer la averiguación de la verdad a través de una pauta “libre y sistémica”, traducida en actos de investigación fiscal que incluya una temática tripartita -elementos dogmáticos del delito, el objeto de la prueba y el rol fiscal-, rutas de conexión con el sistema penal