QUANTIFYING THE IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION ON THE SPANISH WELFARE STATE

The Spanish population will experience a significant aging in the coming years. This demographic change will impose a heavy burden on the national budget. In particular, expenditure on pensions and health care will grow much faster than productivity. Some authors believe that immigration could alleviate the fiscal burden on future generations by making the Spanish population younger. We use the methodology of Generational Accounting to quantify the impact of immigration on the Spanish Welfare State, by simulating alternative scenarios according to different quotas of immigrants. Our results suggest that immigration could have a positive and significant effect.Immigration, ¿scal policy, generational accounting, Welfare State.

Perception on Poisoning Among Adult Urban Community Members

Household poisoning is a public health issue in developing countries. This study was conducted to determine the perceptions of residents in Pasay City towards household poisoning, using a quantitative descriptive design, through a survey-interview data collection method. The study found that 58% of the respondents perceived improper food preparation as the most common source of poisoning, while 14% reported the absence of poisonous substances in their homes. Only 64% reported seeking medical consult as a priority intervention. Lastly, 83% identified proper labeling as a prevention method for poisoning. The researchers recommend increased public awareness regarding household poisoning, more visibility of therole of NPMCC in the community, and a second interventional phase of the study

Fall Risk Among Urban Community Older Persons

The elderly should be screened in the community for risk for falls. It impacts significantly on their ability to still be active and productive even during aging. This study determined the risk for falls among Philippine urban community-dwellers 65 years old and above. Participants were ambulatory elderly peopleregistered in a government centre in one city. Data collection was done by interviewing elders and assessing fall risk factors. Data analyses were done using descriptive statistics and SPSS version 16 was used to correlate variables. Fall risk predictive factor is age. 63.3% of the participants are categorized as young-old to middle old. Protective factor fall risk is being married and/or living with family, which is 65.3% of this group. Confidence level in performance and completion of tasks were measured by Activity-Based Confidence (ABC), which showed 71.5% has moderate level of confidence. However, confidence level isinsufficiently-proven by literature to predict falls. Depression is statistically significant related factor for falls and was measured by Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). Results showed that 87.7% has mild depression. Functional mobility capacity of the participants, namely balance and gait, and flexibility were measured by Tinetti Balance and Gait Scores (TBGS) and Chair Sit-and-Reach Test (CSRT), respectively. TBGS yielded 46.9%, and CSRT yielded 67.3%, which is low risk for falls. Correlation between TBGS and GDS, and TBGS and ABC were arrived at by using Spearman Rho. It yielded a significant relationship (r = 0.358, p = 0.012) between balance and gait with a depressive state, and no significant relationship (r = -0.136, p = 0.352) between balance and gait with confidence level, respectivel

Un paso hacia la madurez lectora: análisis de dos cuentos de Ana María Matute

Este artículo recoge las conclusiones del análisis de dos cuentos de Ana María Matute, así como las líneas maestras de una propuesta de trabajo para iniciar a los alumnos de Secundaria y Bachillerato en el comentario de textos narrativos, con especial referencia a los elementos que configuran la estructura de los relatos.This article captures the conclusions obtained by the analysis of two tales by Ana Maria Matute, as well as the main ideas of an essay proposal to initiate High School and Secondary Education students in the construction of commentaries of narrative texts, giving special emphasis to those elements that build the structure of the story

“There is a New African in the World!” – Kwame Nkrumah and the Making of a “New African (Wo)Man” in Ghana 1957–1966

An der Schwelle zu Ghanas Unabhängigkeit am 6. März 1957 wandte sich Kwame Nkrumah, Anführer der afrikanischen Regierung des Landes, mit seiner historischen Rede „Ghana is free forever“ an die Welt. Diese herausragende Figur der pan-afrikanischen Bewegung erklärte unter anderem: „[W]e shall no more go back to sleep […] [F]rom now on, there is a new African in the world[!]“ Wie unterschied er zwischen einem „neuen“ und einem „alten“ Afrikaner? Dieser Beitrag untersucht den Charakter dieser Vision eines „New African“. Nkrumah glaubte nicht an dessen Existenz per se. Vielmehr musste eine gezielte Homonisierung dieses neuen Wesens erfolgen. Daher fügte Nkrumah Folgendes hinzu: „[F]rom […] today, we [Ghanaians] must change our attitudes, our minds [and] realise that […] we are no more a colonial but a free and independent people!“ Veränderung bedeutete für ihn eine Anthropogenese, um der Welt zu zeigen, „that […] the African […] is somebody!“ und „capable of managing his [or her] own affairs.“ Nkrumahs Ansicht nach musste sich Ghana, das er bis 1966 regierte, für die vollständige Dekolonialisierung Afrikas, die Einheit des Kontinents, die Entwicklung des Geistes einer afrikanischen Persönlichkeit sowie für die Wiedererlangung der afrikanischen Selbstkontrolle und Kreativität einsetzen. Dies erforderte, dass die Hominisierung des „New African“ von Ghana ausging. Welche Initiativen und Prozesse wurden angestoßen, um diese Transformation der Einstellungen und eine intellektuelle Wiedergeburt in Ghana zu erreichen? Dieser Artikel bietet eine historische Untersuchung der Bildungs- und Kulturinitiativen sowie der politischideologischen Trainings und Kaderschulen, insbesondere des Ghana Young Pioneers Movement und des Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, die Nkrumah, Afrikas „Man of the Millennium“, mit dem Ziel ins Leben rief, die Herausbildung der Einstellungen und des Geistes eines „New African“ in Ghana im Zeitraum von 1957 bis 1966 voranzutreiben.On the eve of Ghana’s independence on 6 March 1957, Kwame Nkrumah, leader of the African government of that country, made his “Ghana is free forever” historic speech to the world. This Pan-Africanist extraordinaire declared, inter alia, that: “[W]e shall no more go back to sleep […] [F]rom now on, there is a new African in the world[!]” How did he differentiate between a new and old African? This study, interested in the character of this envisioned “new African,” perceives that Nkrumah did not think that this African already existed. Rather, a purposeful hominisation of this “new” being needed to occur. Hence, Nkrumah added that: “[F]rom […] today, we [Ghanaians] must change our attitudes, our minds [and] realise that […] we are no more a colonial but a free and independent people!” Change, as he emphasised, meant an anthropogenesis for the “new” being to “prove,” as Nkrumah added, “to the world that […] the African […] is somebody!” and “capable of managing his [or her] own affairs.” In Nkrumah’s view, Ghana, which he ruled until 1966, had to champion the total decolonization of Africa, continental unity, development of the spirit of African Personality and renaissance of African self-possession and creativity.This, therefore, required that the hominisation of the “New African” had to start from Ghana. What initiatives and processes were offered to engender this transformative attitudinal and intellectual rebirth in Ghana? This article offers a historical examination of the educational and cultural initiatives and political-ideological training movements and cadre schools, especially the Ghana Young Pioneers Movement and Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute, which Nkrumah, Africa’s “Man of the Millennium,” provided intentionally to help bring about the necessary attitudinal and intellectual moulding of a “New African” in Ghana from 1957–1966

Modeling the Dynamics of Online Learning Activity

People are increasingly relying on the Web and social media to find solutions to their problems in a wide range of domains. In this online setting, closely related problems often lead to the same characteristic learning pattern, in which people sharing these problems visit related pieces of information, perform almost identical queries or, more generally, take a series of similar actions. In this paper, we introduce a novel modeling framework for clustering continuous-time grouped streaming data, the hierarchical Dirichlet Hawkes process (HDHP), which allows us to automatically uncover a wide variety of learning patterns from detailed traces of learning activity. Our model allows for efficient inference, scaling to millions of actions taken by thousands of users. Experiments on real data gathered from Stack Overflow reveal that our framework can recover meaningful learning patterns in terms of both content and temporal dynamics, as well as accurately track users' interests and goals over time

Modeling the Dynamics of Online Learning Activity

People are increasingly relying on the Web and social media to find solutions to their problems in a wide range of domains. In this online setting, closely related problems often lead to the same characteristic learning pattern, in which people sharing these problems visit related pieces of information, perform almost identical queries or, more generally, take a series of similar actions. In this paper, we introduce a novel modeling framework for clustering continuous-time grouped streaming data, the hierarchical Dirichlet Hawkes process (HDHP), which allows us to automatically uncover a wide variety of learning patterns from detailed traces of learning activity. Our model allows for efficient inference, scaling to millions of actions taken by thousands of users. Experiments on real data gathered from Stack Overflow reveal that our framework can recover meaningful learning patterns in terms of both content and temporal dynamics, as well as accurately track users' interests and goals over time