Demographic change, pension reform and redistribution in Spain

Recent demographic changes have spurred pension reforms aimed at restoring the financial sustainability of PAYG systems. In Spain, the most significant reforms were undertaken in 1997 and in 2002, entailing an increase in the length of the averaging period in the pension formula, an increase in the penalties for early retirement and for retirement with short contributive records, a bonus for retirement after the age of 65, and a change in the eligibility conditions. In this paper we use an Applied General Equilibrium model populated by two-earners households to evaluate the redistributive impact of the pension system and the financial and welfare consequences of these reforms on households that differ in their education, region of residence and year of birth. The initial redistribution is assessed by comparing the internal rate of return provided to different households. We find that they vary considerable depending on education and cohort. Regarding the reforms, we find an increase in the implicit debt of the pension system after the reforms, and important changes in welfare. Households up to secondary education born between 1935 and 1975 are predicted to benefit from the reform, while the welfare of younger cohorts will be hit by higher taxes and unfavorable macroeconomic changes.Social Security, Pension Reform, Applied General Equilibrium, Redistribution

Software para la corrección de las posibles imperfecciones existentes en los sensores de imagen

En este trabajo se indica la técnica utilizada para conseguir una buena corrección de las posibles deficiencias presentadas por los dispositivos de adquisición de imágenes. Se presenta la herramienta informática que ha sido desarrollada para este fin y que permite localizar la mejor corrección posible. También se puede evaluar, tanto objetiva como subjetivamente, la mejora conseguida con la corrección

Demographic change, pension reform and redistribution in Spain.

Recent demographic changes have spurred pension reforms aimed at restoring the financial sustainability of PAYG systems. In Spain, the most significant reforms were undertaken in 1997 and in 2002, entailing an increase in the length of the averaging period in the pension formula, an increase in the penalties for early retirement and for retirement with short contributive records, a bonus for retirement after the age of 65, and a change in the eligibility conditions. In this paper we use an Applied General Equilibrium model populated by two-earners households to evaluate the redistributive impact of the pension system and the financial and welfare consequences of these reforms on households that differ in their education, region of residence and year of birth. The initial redistribution is assessed by comparing the internal rate of return provided to different households. We find that they vary considerable depending on education and cohort. Regarding the reforms, we find an increase in the implicit debt of the pension system after the reforms, and important changes in welfare. Households up to secondary education born between 1935 and 1975 are predicted to benefit from the reform, while the welfare of younger cohorts will be hit by higher taxes and unfavorable macroeconomic changes

A Generalized Window Approach for Designing Transmultiplexers

This paper proposes a computational, very efficient, approach for designing a novel family of M-channel maximally decimated nearly perfect-reconstruction cosine-modulated transmultiplexers. This approach is referred to as the generalized windowing method for transmultiplexers because after knowing the transmission channel a proper weighted sum of the inter-channel and inter-symbol interferences can be properly taken into account in the optimization of the window function, unlike in other existing windowing techniques. The proposed approach has also the following two advantages. First, independent of the number of subchannels and the common order of the subchannel filters, the number of unknowns is only four. Second, the overall optimization procedure is made considerably fast by estimating the above-mentioned sum in terms of two novel measures, namely, the signal to inter-symbol and the signal to inter-channel interferences, which are very easy to evaluate. Furthermore, when the transmission channel is not considered in the design, a table is provided, which contains the parameters for designing the prototype filter directly by using the windowing method without any time-consuming optimization. When comparing the resulting transmultiplexers with the corresponding perfect-reconstruction designs (the same number of subchannels and same prototype filter order), the levels of interferences are practically the same. However, when the system is affected by a strong narrowband interference, the proposed transmultiplexers outperform their PR counterparts. Design examples are included illustrating the efficiency of the proposed design approach over other existing techniques based on the use of the windowing method

A regional newspaper archive: the evolution of Levante-EMV

Summary of the historical evolution of document management processes in the Spanish regional newspaper Levante-EMV from its privatization in 1984 to the present. First, it points out the historical stages that have been traditionally identified in print media archives, overlaid with the evolution of Levante-EMV. It then details the methods of document management that have been used in the newspaper archive, from manual document management to the integration of the archive in digital production process

Epidemiología del cáncer de colon en un Plan de Salud de un Hospital de Comunidad. Estudio de cohorte retrospectivo.

Epidemiología del cáncer de colon en un Plan de Salud de un Hospital de Comunidad. Estudio de cohorte retrospectivo. Introducción: el CCR ocupa el 4to lugar en ambos sexos y todas las edades (19.5 casos por 100.000 habitantes) y ocupa el 2do lugar en luego del cáncer de pulmón. Objetivo: Describir la incidencia y sobrevida del cáncer de colon en un hospital de comunidad con Plan de salud (PS) Métodos: Estudio de cohorte retrospectivo (Aprobado por el comité de ética). Se incluyeron todos los afiliados al Plan de Salud (PS) de 20 años o más entre 2009-2019. Se identificaron los casos por patología. Se calcularon las tasas de incidencia tasa cruda, sexo, usando como denominador el tiempo en riesgo desde la afiliación al PS hasta el diagnóstico o censura (baja administrativa)(x 100000 afiliados/año). Se presentan las variables numéricas como mediana y rango intercuartílico(RIC) y las categóricas n y porcentaje(%). Se realizó curva de Kaplan Meyer y se comparó según estadío TNM regresión de Cox. Tasas y HR se presentan con intervalos de confianza del 95%(IC95%); p Resultados: Incluimos 11827, 44,97%(n=5319) sexo femenino, 50,78(17,15)años. Hubo 90 nuevos cánceres; incidencia cruda fue 61,7 (43-88); en hombres 77,62 (48,25 - 124,86) y en mujeres 48,66 (28,25-83,8).De los casos 52,2%(n=47) eran hombres, 69.3 (64-76) años al diagnóstico. La mediana de seguimiento fue de 3,02 (0,98-6,60)años. La mortalidad global fue 40% (n=36). La sobrevida global fue de 0,70 (IC 95% 0,58 -0,79), con una mediana de tiempo a la muerte fue de 2,98. El riesgo de muerte fue mayor en los estadios mayores según TNM, aún ajustado por edad y sexo. El HR crudo fue 3,06 (2-4,66) y el HR ajustado por edad y sexo 3,33 (2,19-5,08) Discusión: Los resultados de incidencia son consistentes con datos nacionales e internacionales. La sobrevida es menor en esta cohorte, pero cuando se ajusta por TNM es similar a otros reportes. Limitaciones relacionada a uso bases administrativas y a representatividad por ser único centro; esto mismo nos da la fortaleza de poder tener un seguimiento completo y la certeza diagnóstica

The Outcomes of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus after a Telecare Approach Are Not Inferior to Traditional Outpatient Clinic Visits

Objective. To evaluate the feasibility of a telemedicine system based on Internet and a short message service in pregnancy and its influence on delivery and neonatal outcomes of women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Methods. 100 women diagnosed of GDM were randomized into two parallel groups, a control group based on traditional face-to-face outpatient clinic visits and an intervention group, which was provided with a Telemedicine system for the transmission of capillary glucose data and short text messages with weekly professional feedback. 97 women completed the study (48/49, resp.). Main Outcomes Measured. The percentage of women achieving HbA1c values <5.8%, normal vaginal delivery and having a large for-gestational-age newborn were evaluated. Results. Despite a significant reduction in outpatient clinic visits in the experimental group, particularly in insulin-treated women (2.4 versus 4.6 hours per insulin-treated woman resp.; P < .001), no significant differences were found between the experimental and traditional groups regarding HbA1c levels (all women had HbA1c <5.8% during pregnancy), normal vaginal delivery (40.8% versus 54.2%, resp.; P > .05) and large-for-gestational-age newborns (6.1% versus 8.3%, resp.; P > .05). Conclusions. The system significantly reduces the need for outpatient clinic visits and achieves similar pregnancy, delivery, and newborn outcomes

YODA Kinase Controls a Novel Immune Pathway of Tomato Conferring Enhanced Disease Resistance to the Bacterium Pseudomonas syringae

© 2020 Téllez, Muñoz-Barrios, Sopeña-Torres, Martín-Forero, Ortega, Pérez, Sanz, Borja, de Marcos, Nicolas, Jahrmann, Mena, Jordá and Molina.Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) play pivotal roles in transducing developmental cues and environmental signals into cellular responses through pathways initiated by MAPK kinase kinases (MAP3K). AtYODA is a MAP3K of Arabidopsis thaliana that controls stomatal development and non-canonical immune responses. Arabidopsis plants overexpressing a constitutively active YODA protein (AtCA-YDA) show broad-spectrum disease resistance and constitutive expression of defensive genes. We tested YDA function in crops immunity by heterologously overexpressing AtCA-YDA in Solanum lycopersicum. We found that these tomato AtCA-YDA plants do not show developmental phenotypes and fitness alterations, except a reduction in stomatal index, as reported in Arabidopsis AtCA-YDA plants. Notably, AtCA-YDA tomato plants show enhanced resistance to the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 and constitutive upregulation of defense-associated genes, corroborating the functionality of YDA in tomato immunity. This function was further supported by generating CRISPR/Cas9-edited tomato mutants impaired in the closest orthologs of AtYDA [Solyc08g081210 (SlYDA1) and Solyc03g025360 (SlYDA2)]. Slyda1 and Slyda2 mutants are highly susceptible to P. syringae pv. tomato DC3000 in comparison to wild-type plants but only Slyda2 shows altered stomatal index. These results indicate that tomato orthologs have specialized functions and support that YDA also regulates immune responses in tomato and may be a trait for breeding disease resistance.This work was supported by grants BIO2015-64077-R of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), RTI2018-096975-B-I00 of Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, and grant P190050072 of Plant Response Biotech SL to AMo. Research in the Montaña Mena’s laboratory is supported by the MINECO (PPII10-0194-4164) and the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha (SBPLY/17/180501/000394), complemented with EU FEDER funds. JT was financially supported by a PhD fellow of the FPI program from MINECO (BES-2016-076708). AM-F and AO were recipients of research and PhD fellowships from JCCM