Manifesto for a better management a rational and humanistic view

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, a disastrous world economic crisis is creating a very difficult situation for many people. The causes of the crisis are many and complex. The reigning economism looks for mechanical causes (excessively low interest rates, "herd" behavior in the real estate and financial bubbles, etc.). Yet bad management by the people in charge of many of the institutions affected has been crucial. Paradoxically, management can be responsible both for great successes and for great failures. The same term, "management", can refer to very different concepts. The emphasis on immediate effectiveness in terms of financial results (which always turn out to be short-term) as the sole purpose betrays a pessimistic conception of human beings as creatures that react only to economic stimuli, thus neglecting other dimensions that are fundamental to good management, and leading us to the present crisis. In this paper we aim to establish the starting points for good management, explain why management is important for society, critically analyze the present economic crisis and the practices and concepts that led to it, and propose the foundations of a better conception of management for the future, rejecting the culture of shortsightedness. We therefore set forth: a) Which concepts of the company and of management are conducive to management practices that are good for society as a whole. b) Why management is important for the development of human societies in general. c) What is good and what is bad about the practices and theories that currently dominate the world of management. d) How to prevent bad theory and bad practice, including bad applications of good theory, from influencing the broader trends.humanistic management; economism; reorienting management; Crisis;

La informació econòmica a la televisió: tres visions

La informació econòmica a la televisió: tres vision

Three views on economic information on television

Three views on economic information on televisio

Potentiostatic infrared titration of 11-Mercaptoundecanoic acid monolayers

Acknowledgment This work was supported by the Spanish DGICYT under grant CTQ2008-00371 and by the Junta de Andalucía under grant P07-FQM-02492.Peer reviewedPostprin

Reducing Radiation Dose to the Female Breast during CT Coronary Angiography: A Simulation Study Comparing Breast Shielding, Angular Tube Current Modulation, Reduced kV, and Partial Angle Protocols Using an Unknown-location Signal-detectability Metric

Purpose: The authors compared the performance of five protocols intended to reduce dose to the breast during computed tomography (CT) coronary angiography scans using a model observer unknown-location signal-detectability metric. Methods: The authors simulated CT images of an anthropomorphic female thorax phantom for a 120 kV reference protocol and five “dose reduction” protocols intended to reduce dose to the breast: 120 kV partial angle (posteriorly centered), 120 kV tube-current modulated (TCM), 120 kV with shielded breasts, 80 kV, and 80 kV partial angle (posteriorly centered). Two image quality tasks were investigated: the detection and localization of 4-mm, 3.25 mg/ml and 1-mm, 6.0 mg/ml iodine contrast signals randomly located in the heart region. For each protocol, the authors plotted the signal detectability, as quantified by the area under the exponentially transformed free response characteristic curve estimator (AˆFE), as well as noise and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) versus breast and lung dose. In addition, the authors quantified each protocol\u27s dose performance as the percent difference in dose relative to the reference protocol achieved while maintaining equivalentAˆFE. Results: For the 4-mm signal-size task, the 80 kV full scan and 80 kV partial angle protocols decreased dose to the breast (80.5% and 85.3%, respectively) and lung (80.5% and 76.7%, respectively) withAˆFE= 0.96, but also resulted in an approximate three-fold increase in image noise. The 120 kV partial protocol reduced dose to the breast (17.6%) at the expense of increased lung dose (25.3%). The TCM algorithm decreased dose to the breast (6.0%) and lung (10.4%). Breast shielding increased breast dose (67.8%) and lung dose (103.4%). The 80 kV and 80 kV partial protocols demonstrated greater dose reductions for the 4-mm task than for the 1-mm task, and the shielded protocol showed a larger increase in dose for the 4-mm task than for the 1-mm task. In general, the CNR curves indicate a similar relative ranking of protocol performance as the correspondingAˆFEcurves, however, the CNR metric overestimated the performance of the shielded protocol for both tasks, leading to corresponding underestimates in the relative dose increases compared to those obtained when using theAˆFEmetric. Conclusions: The 80 kV and 80 kV partial angle protocols demonstrated the greatest reduction to breast and lung dose, however, the subsequent increase in image noise may be deemed clinically unacceptable. Tube output for these protocols can be adjusted to achieve a more desirable noise level with lesser breast dose savings. Breast shielding increased breast and lung dose when maintaining equivalentAˆFE. The results demonstrated that comparisons of dose performance depend on both the image quality metric and the specific task, and that CNR may not be a reliable metric of signal detectability

Los abandonos universitarios: retos ante el espacio europeo de educación superior

El artículo se centra en las razones de los estudiantes universitarios para tomar la decisión de abandonar los estudios, indagando en cuáles son sus razones y qué elementos o situaciones les han llevado a tal decisión. Los datos se obtuvieron el curso 2005-2006 a partir de una encuesta realizada a estudiantes universitarios que abandonaron sus estudios durante los cursos 1996-2003 de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. A partir de los datos se realizó una tipología de abandonos. Se concluye que la mayoría de estudiantes abandona los estudios debido a que no los habían elegido en primera opción. A pesar de ello, un porcentaje importante de los que abandonan empieza otros estudios

La délégation incertaine renforcée

La chambre commerciale de la Cour de cassation admet dans un arrêt du 11 avril 2012 qu’un délégué puisse opposer au délégataire la minoration de sa dette envers le délégant, alors même qu\u27il avait renoncé à se prévaloir des exceptions affectant cette obligation. Pour la Cour de cassation, la déduction ici opérée ne constituait pas une exception, inopposable au délégataire, « mais la méthode de détermination de la dette du délégué envers le déléguant ». La solution s’explique par l’idée qu’avait été mise en place ici une opération originale : une délégation incertaine renforcée

Le cautionnement, la mention manuscrite et le droit de gage général

International audienc

Current progress and challenges of nanoparticle-based therapeutics in pain management

Pain is a widespread and growing health problem worldwide that exerts a considerable social and economic impact on both patients and healthcare systems and, therefore, on society in general. Although current treatment modalities include a wide variety of pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches, due to the complexity of pain and individual differences in clinical response these options are not always effective in mitigating and relieving pain. In addition, some pain drugs such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), local anesthetics and opioids show several unfavorable side effects. Therefore, current research advances in this medical field are based on the development of potential treatments to address many of the unmet needs and to overcome the existing limitations in pain management. Nanoparticle drug delivery systems present an exciting opportunity as alternative platforms to improve efficacy and safety of medications currently in use. Herein, we review a broad range of nanoparticle formulations (organic nanostructures and inorganic nanoparticles), which have been developed to encapsulate an array of painkillers, paying special attention to the key advantages that these systems offer, (compared to the use of the free drug), as well as to the more relevant results of preclinical studies in animal models. Additionally, we will briefly discuss the impact of some of these nanoformulations in clinical trials