AN UPDATE OF THE FRANCHISEE MOTIVATIONS: A STUDY IN SPAIN

This paper presents an empirical study of the motives for acquiring a franchise, based on a sample of franchisees operating in the Spanish market. The results are compared with the obtained in the previous studies. Although this topic has been studied previously, the spectacular progress of franchises throughout the world in the last decade may have changed franchisees� opinions about their motives. This manuscript establishes an update of motivational incentives for individuals to enter franchising from the previous studies. The results provide the following ranking: (1) Proven business format, (2) Start-up support, (3) Established name, (4) Training provided, (5) Faster development, and (6) Ongoing support. This study and the previous literature suggest there is a limited group of motives involved in the franchisee decision, but the ranking varies from study to study. It shows a different ranking of motives for selection of a franchisee from previous studies.franchising system, franchisee decision, motivation, incentives

Quasi-chemical approximation for polyatomics: Statistical thermodynamics of adsorption

The statistical thermodynamics of interacting polyatomic adsorbates (k-mers) on homogeneous surfaces was developed on a generalization in the spirit of the lattice-gas model and the quasi-chemical approximation (QCA). The new theoretical framework is obtained by combining (i) the exact analytical expression for the partition function of non-interacting linear k-mers adsorbed in one dimension and its extension to higher dimensions, and (ii) a generalization of the classical QCA in which the adsorbate can occupy more than one adsorption site. The coverage and temperature dependence of the Helmholtz free energy, chemical potential, configurational entropy, configurational energy, isosteric heat of adsorption and specific heat are given. The formalism reproduces the classical QCA for monomers, leads to the exact statistical thermodynamics of interacting k-mers adsorbed in one dimension, and provides a close approximation for two-dimensional systems accounting multisite occupancy. Comparisons with analytical data from Bragg-Williams approximation (BWA) and Monte Carlo simulations are performed in order to test the validity of the theoretical model. The resulting thermodynamic description is significantly better than the BWA and still mathematically handable.Fil: Dávila, M.. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro. Archivo Histórico del Centro Atómico Bariloche e Instituto Balseiro | Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Balseiro. Archivo Histórico del Centro Atómico Bariloche e Instituto Balseiro; ArgentinaFil: Romá, Federico José. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis; ArgentinaFil: Riccardo, Jose Luis. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis; ArgentinaFil: Ramirez Pastor, Antonio Jose. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis; Argentin

Chiral Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in the frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a pyrochlore slab

Ordering of the geometrically frustrated two-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a pyrochlore slab is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. In contrast to the kagom\'e Heisenberg antiferromagnet, the model exhibits locally non-coplanar spin structures at low temperatures, bearing nontrivial chiral degrees of freedom. Under certain conditions, the model exhibits a novel Kosterlitz-Thouless-type transition at a finite temperature associated with these chiral degrees of freedom

Artificial intelligent system for multimedia services in smart home environments

[EN] Internet of Things (IoT) has introduced new applications and environments. Smart Home provides new ways of communication and service consumption. In addition, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning have improved different services and tasks by automatizing them. In this field, reinforcement learning (RL) provides an unsupervised way to learn from the environment. In this paper, a new intelligent system based on RL and deep learning is proposed for Smart Home environments to guarantee good levels of QoE, focused on multimedia services. This system is aimed to reduce the impact on user experience when the classifying system achieves a low accuracy. The experiments performed show that the deep learning model proposed achieves better accuracy than the KNN algorithm and that the RL system increases the QoE of the user up to 3.8 on a scale of 10.This work has been partially supported by the "Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad" in the "Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnica de Excelencia, Subprograma Estatal de Generacion de Conocimiento" within the project under Grant TIN2017-84802-C2-1-P. This work has also been partially founded by the Universitat Polite`cnica de Vale`ncia through the postdoctoral PAID-10-20 program.Rego Mañez, A.; Gonzalez Ramirez, PL.; Jimenez, JM.; Lloret, J. (2022). Artificial intelligent system for multimedia services in smart home environments. Cluster Computing. 25(3):2085-2105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10586-021-03350-zS2085210525

Dramaturgia en la modernidad: alguna teoría y alguna práctica (Las últimas miradas de Vladímir)

Este trabajo se ocupa de la dramaturgia, la creación literaria en las artes escénicas. La investigación se divide en dos secciones, la primera teórica, la segunda práctica. El tema de este trabajo es un estudio de los principales elementos que caracterizan la teoría del teatro literario al final de la Modernidad. Parte uno: teoría y análisis La creación dramatúrgica, porque está escrita para ser leída y representada, tiene sus propios méritos como actividad literaria. La narrativa literaria en el teatro posee diferentes elementos, cada uno de los cuales se utiliza de una manera particular. Estas son la historia, los personajes, las Tres Unidades (acción, tiempo y espacio), la estructura del discurso y el género. Al examinar siete autores fundamentales, esta disertación discute las diversas formas en que se transforman estos conceptos diferentes. El resultado de esta transformación es lo que ahora se llama "teoría dramatúrgica en la modernidad". Entre estos autores, tres se consideran paradigmas fundamentales: Aristóteles, Frederich Hegel y Bertolt Brecht. Parte dos: el trabajo práctico En la primera parte de este trabajo, la investigación considera los elementos utilizados en su "praxis". Se presenta la obra de teatro del autor, The Last Look of Vladimir Maiakovski. Esta disertación va más allá de los comentarios técnicos de la Parte Uno para abrir una discusión conceptual cuya forma es simbólica. Dado que el personaje, Vladimir Maiakovski, así como la obra misma son metáforas, su objetivo es la discusión y expresión de los conflictos del hombre y del artista en estado de crisis en la Modernidad.Tesi

Lattice-gas Monte Carlo study of adsorption in pores

A lattice gas model of adsorption inside cylindrical pores is evaluated with Monte Carlo simulations. The model incorporates two kinds of site: (a line of) ``axial'' sites and surrounding ``cylindrical shell'' sites, in ratio 1:7. The adsorption isotherms are calculated in either the grand canonical or canonical ensembles. At low temperature, there occur quasi-transitions that would be genuine thermodynamic transitions in mean-field theory. Comparison between the exact and mean-field theory results for the heat capacity and adsorption isotherms are provided

Antioxidant Capacity and Antimicrobial Activity of Commercial Samples of Guava Leaves (\u3cem\u3ePsidium guajava\u3c/em\u3e)

Psidium guajava is a small tree native to South and Central America. Guava leaves have traditionally been used for treating different illnesses. These benefits can be attributed to phenolics and flavonoids produced by guava. The chemical composition of guava leaf extracts was correlated with biological activity. Total phenolics, total flavonoids, ABTS/DPPH, TZM-bl, plaque reduction, XTT, spectrophotometric and Kirby-Bauer assays were used to test phenols, flavonoids, antioxidant properties, antiviral activity, cytotoxicity, and antibacterial activity, respectively. The median cytotoxicity concentration and half-maximal effective concentration values were obtained in order to determine antiviral selectivity against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 and herpes simplex virus type 1. Antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis were evaluated using a spectrophotometric assay and Kirby-Bauer test. The guava leaf extracts had a high phenol (0.8 to 2.1 GAE mg/mL) and flavonoid (62.7 to 182.1 Rutin Eq mg/g DW) content that correlated with high antioxidant capacity and selective antiviral activity (therapeutic index values above 10). Results of antibacterial tests indicated that the extracts have activity against gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria

Circulating concentrations of free triiodothyronine are associated with central adiposity and cardiometabolic risk factors in young euthyroid adults

Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Granada/CBUA. This study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness via the Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria del Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI13/01393), by the Retos de la Sociedad program (DEP2016-79512-R), European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU13/04365), the Fundacion Iberoamericana de Nutricion (FINUT), the Redes Tematicas de Investigacion Cooperativa RETIC (Red SAMID RD16/0022), the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation, the University of Granada Plan Propio de Investigacion 2016-Excellence actions: Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES)-and Plan Propio de Investigacion 2018-the Programa Contratos-Puente and Contratos Perfeccionamiento de Doctores, the Junta de Andalucia, Consejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y Universidades (ERDF; ref. SOMM17/6107/UGR), and the Fundacion Alfonso Martin Escudero (grant awarded to GSD).Thyroid dysfunction is associated with classic cardiometabolic risk factors in humans. However, this relationship remains unclear in young euthyroid adults. The present work examines the associations of circulating thyroid hormones (THs) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) concentrations with body composition and cardiometabolic risk factors in young euthyroid adults. A total of 106 sedentary, euthyroid adults (72 women; 22 ± 2 years old) participated in this cross-sectional study. THs and TSH serum concentrations were determined in fasting conditions (6 h). Body composition (fat mass (FM), lean mass (LM), and visceral adipose tissue (VAT)) was determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, anthropometric parameters (weight, height, and waist circumference) were measured, and neck adipose tissue mass was quantified through computed tomography (CT) scanning. Cardiometabolic risk factors including fasting glucose and lipid metabolism markers, hepatic phosphatase and transaminases, and blood pressure were also assessed. Free triiodothyronine (FT3) concentration was positively associated with body mass index, LM, VAT, and waist circumference (all P ≤ 0.038). FT3 was also associated with glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, fatty liver index, and blood pressure (all P < 0.024). All the associations were attenuated when adjusting for sex. In contrast, we found no associations of TSH or free thyroxine with any body composition parameter or cardiometabolic risk factors. In conclusion, FT3 is associated with central adiposity and cardiometabolic risk factors including insulin resistance, fatty liver index, and mean, systolic and diastolic blood pressure in young euthyroid adults. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02365129.Universidad de Granada/CBUASpanish Government PI13/01393Retos de la Sociedad program DEP2016-79512-REuropean CommissionSpanish Government FPU13/04365Fundacion Iberoamericana de Nutricion (FINUT)Redes Tematicas de Investigacion Cooperativa RETIC Red SAMID RD16/0022AstraZenecaUniversity of Granada Plan Propio de Investigacion 2016-Excellence actions: Unit of Excellence on Exercise and Health (UCEES)Plan Propio de Investigacion 2018-the Programa Contratos-PuenteContratos Perfeccionamiento de DoctoresJunta de AndaluciaConsejeria de Conocimiento, Investigacion y Universidades (ERDF) SOMM17/6107/UGRFundacion Alfonso Martin Escuder

Social engagement within the facility increased life expectancy in nursing home residents [preprint]

Conjunto de datos disponible en: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12105/11202 y Artículo final en: https://repisalud.isciii.es/handle/20.500.12105/11382Social engagement (SE) has been consistently shown to improve survival among community- dwelling older people, but the evidence in nursing home residents is inconclusive and prone to short-term reverse causation and confounding by major health determinants. A representative cohort of 382 nursing home residents in Madrid without severe physical and cognitive impairments at baseline was followed up for 10-year all-cause mortality. Standardized cumulative mortality curves for residents with low/null, moderate, and high levels of SE at baseline were estimated using Kaplan-Meier methods and spline-based survival models with inverse probability of exposure weights conditional on baseline sociodemographic characteristics, facility features, comorbidity, and disability. Standardized 5-year mortality risks and median survival times were compared across levels of SE. The baseline prevalences of low/null, moderate, and high SE were 36.0%, 44.2%, and 19.8%, respectively. A total of 268 residents died during 2,305 person-years of follow-up. Compared with residents with low/null SE at baseline, the standardized differences (95% confidence intervals) in 5-year mortality risk were −2.3% (−14.6% to 10.0%) for moderately engaged residents and −18.4% (−33.8% to −2.9%) for highly engaged residents. The median survival time increased by 0.4 (−1.4 to 2.2) and 3.0 (0.8 to 5.2) years, respectively. Residents with high SE within the nursing home had substantially lower mortality risk and longer median survival than residents with similar health determinants but low/null SE. The development of intervention programs, aimed at increasing SE among nursing home residents, could improve their long-term survival with an inherent gain in quality of life.This work was supported by the Institute of Health Carlos III (Grant PI15CIII00037). The funding agencies had no role in study design, data analysis, interpretation of results, manuscript preparation, or in the decision to submit this manuscript for publicationN