Rural credit cooperatives in spain (1890‐1935): a good start was not enough

The spread of agrarian credit cooperativism in Spain (1890‐1934) was done under a variety of ideological and economic orientations. This article focuses on the construction of a few tools and indicators to explain the characteristics of agricultural credit cooperatives. An analysis of financial operations of rural savings banks is related with socio‐political aspects that influenced their development; this analysis helps us to explain the relative success of German credit cooperative models adopted in the context of Spanish agriculture, as happened on European periphery.Agrarian credit cooperativism, rural savings banks, denominational movement.

An Integral Representation and Pointwise Inequality for the Fractional Laplace-Beltrami Operator

Tesis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Matemáticas. Fecha de lectura: 22-06-201

A structural approach including the behavior of collagen cross-links to model patient-specific human carotid arteries

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10439-014-0995-7The objective of this work is to develop a remodeling model for biological matter coupling two different processes in a 3D framework: reorientation of the preferential direction of a given fibered structure and reorientation of the fibrils or filaments that make up such a structure. This work uses the microsphere-based approach to take into account the micro mechanics involved in biological fibered structures regarding both their passive behavior and the reorientation of their micro constituents. Moreover, the macro behavior of the material as a whole is obtained by means of homogenizing the underlying micro response. We associate the orientation space of the integration directions to the physical space of micro-fibrils. To approximate the directional distribution of the fibrils within each fiber bundle, a Bingham probability orientation density function is introduced into the Helmholtz energy function. With all these assumptions, the problem is studied from an energetic point of view, describing the dissipation inherent to remodeling processes, and the evolution equations for both reorientations (change in preferential direction of the network and change in shape of the fibril distribution) re obtained. The model is included in a finite element code which allows computing different geometries and boundary value problems. This results in a complete methodology for characterizing the reorientation evolution of different fibered biological structures, such as cells. Our results show remodeling of fibered structures in two different scales, presenting a qualitatively good agreement with experimental findings in cell mechanics. Hierarchical structures align in the direction of the maximum principal direction of the considered stimulus and narrow in the perpendicular direction. The dissipation rates follows predictable trends although there are no experimental findings to date for comparison. The incorporation of metabolic processes and an insight into cell-oriented mechano-sensing processes can help to overcome the limitations involved.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Black Box of Mutual Fund Fees

This paper re-examines the determinants of mutual fund fees paid by mutual fund shareholders for management costs and other expenses. There are two novelties with respect to previous studies. First, each type of fee is explained separately. Second, the paper employs a new dataset consisting of Spanish mutual funds, making it the second paper to study mutual fund fees outside the US market. Furthermore, the Spanish market has three interesting characteristics: (i) both distribution and management are highly dominated by banks and savings banks, which points towards potential conflicts of interest; (ii) Spanish mutual fund law imposes caps on all types of fees; and (iii) Spain ranks first in terms of average mutual fund fees among similar countries. We find significant differences in mutual fund fees not explained by the fund’s investment objective. For instance, management companies owned by banks and savings banks charge higher management fees and redemption fees to nonguaranteed funds. Also, investors in older non-guaranteed funds and non-guaranteed funds with a lower average investment are more likely to end up paying higher management fees. Moreover, there is clear evidence that some mutual funds enjoy better conditions from custodial institutions than others. In contrast to evidence from the US market, larger funds are not associated with lower fees, but with higher custody fees for guaranteed funds and higher redemption fees for both types of funds. Finally, fee-setting by mutual funds is not related to fund before-fee performance.mutual fund, fee caps, censored data

On the testability of WCAG 2.0 for beginners

Web accessibility for people with disabilities is a highly visible area of research in the field of ICT accessibility, including many policy activities across many countries. The commonly accepted guidelines for web accessibility (WCAG 1.0) were published in 1999 and have been extensively used by designers, evaluators and legislators. W3C-WAI published a new version of these guidelines (WCAG 2.0) in December 2008. One of the main goals of WCAG 2.0 was testability, that is, WCAG 2.0 should be either machine testable or reliably human testable. In this paper we present an educational experiment performed during an intensive web accessibility course. The goal of the experiment was to assess the testability of the 25 level-A success criteria of WCAG 2.0 by beginners. To do this, the students had to manually evaluate the accessibility of the same web page. The result was that only eight success criteria could be considered to be reliably human testable when evaluators were beginners. We also compare our experiment with a similar study published recently. Our work is not a conclusive experiment, but it does suggest some parts of WCAG 2.0 to which special attention should be paid when training accessibility evaluator

Diseño de un sistema de comunicaciones para satélite de órbita baja basado en modulaciones de fase contínua

Los pequeños satélites han estado presentes desde los comienzos de la era espacial. Pero ahora, los avances en la microelectrónica, en especial los microprocesadores, y el menor coste de lanzamiento que los satélites geoestacionarios (GEO) tradicionales, han hecho que los pequeños satélites de órbita baja [LEO) sean una alternativa viable y atractiva. No sólo desarrollos científicos y militares, sino además aplicaciones comerciales en el campo de las comunicaciones personales y móviles basadas en estos sistemas son ahora una realidad. Las ventajas que supone el uso de este tipo de satélites se pueden resumir con el eslogan "más rápido, mejor, más pequeño y más barato". El gran desarrollo que han sufrido en los últimos años los sistemas de comunicaciones basados en pequeños satélites de órbita baja ha provocado el aumento tanto del número de proyectos orientados ai lanzamiento de constelaciones de satélites que proporcionen comunicaciones globales a lo largo de la Tierra como del número de servicios ofrecidos por estos satélites, uno de los cuales es el de mensajería diferida. Así, se han concedido licencias para constelaciones que ofrecerán comunicaciones que no son en tiempo real, llamadas "pequeños sistemas LEO', en las bandas VHFy UHF, y que planean proporcionar una variedad de servicios adecuados para satélites pequeños y baratos. Fruto del interés por estos sistemas surge esta tesis, centrada fundamentalmente en el diseño e implementación eficiente de un módem para un sistema de comunicaciones por satélite de órbita baja. Actualmente, y gracias a la rápida evolución de los procesadores digitales de señal {DSPs), la tendencia es la de implementar de forma digital todos los algoritmos que deben llevarse a cabo en un módem. Es el punto de vista conocido como "software radio", consistente en reducir los componentes analógicos en la medida de lo posible y acercar las técnicas digitales lo más posible a la antena. La implementación eficiente de algoritmos software para modems, reduce al máximo el número de funciones que se realizan de forma analógica. Esto supone conocer en profundidad los aspectos teóricos que rodean al conjunto de funciones implementadas en el módem. Es necesario, en primer lugar, el estudio del canal de comunicaciones, lo que nos permitirá conocer qué clases de efectos, interferencias y perturbaciones se producirán sobre la señal transmitida y elegir los esquemas de transmisión y recuperación de datos más adecuados en el demodulador. En nuestro caso, se realiza un análisis de las modulaciones de fase continua CPM, así como de los algoritmos empleados en el receptor para demodular la señal, incluyendo la recuperación de los sinaonismos dé bit y portadora. El uso de técnicas de procesado digital de señal permite una gran versatilidad en el diseño de algoritmos óptimos que realicen las funciones del módem. La importancia que han adquirido los diseños hardware cuyo corazón es un: procesador digital de señales (DSPs) hace necesario el conocimiento de la metodología existente para la realización de este tipo de desarrollos software-hardware basados en el procesado digital de señales. Así, se presenta un prototipo hardware del módem de comunicaciones en el que se han reducido al máximo el coste y el consumo de cada uno de los componentes, de acuerdo siempre con la tendencia actual en las comunicaciones por satélite. La tesis finaliza con la evaluación experimental de los estudios realizados sobre la simulación y la plataforma hardware implementada. Se trata de evaluar el sistema en tiempo real, introduciendo los algoritmos en el procesador digital de señal y efectuando un conjunto de pruebas al módem digital para verificar su funcionamiento. Este ha sido otro de los objetivos fundamentales de la tesis, el verificar que los algoritmos estudiados son válidos y son capaces de adaptarse a las condiciones del canal de comunicaciones de forma eficiente y verificando las especificaciones

Gilles Deleuze i la història de la filosofia: una relació complexa explicada en termes formals (primera part)

Gilles Deleuze had based a significant part of his bibliographic production speaking about some of the occidental philosophy authors. From this singular historical pathway 'Deleuze check out the bibliography of important authors such as Hume, Bergson, Kant, Spinoza o Nietzsche', each person form its own philosophical system in which are mixed up elements coming from a tradition together with original new elements. In this case, we can analyze the principles that explain Deleuze's historiographic work, looking specifically at the innovative and experimental character of such work