Los efectos del contexto educativo en el desarrollo del uso del pronombre personal sujeto en español como segunda lengua

Existe una amplia literatura que manifiesta las ganancias lingüísticas por aprendices de español en un contexto de estudios en el extranjero. Aunque la mayoría de estos estudios muestra cierto éxito a nivel lingüístico (gramatical, fonológico, sociolingüístico, etc.), tenemos escaso conocimiento que documente el aprendizaje en el plano pragmático de la lengua. Por tanto, la presente investigación estudia el desarrollo del uso de pronombre personal sujeto a nivel discursivo por aprendices de español como segunda lengua. Con el objeto de entender mejor el impacto del contexto educativo en el desarrollo del sistema interlingüístico, este estudio presenta una comparación de escenario: aula ordinaria en Estados Unidos y aula de inmersión social, cultural y educativa en España. Este trabajo no contribuye únicamente al campo de la investigación que evidencia el impacto del contexto de aprendizaje, sino que los resultados también reflejan la existencia de similares tendencias del aprendizaje del sujeto a nivel discursivo en ambos escenarios. Si bien los resultados indican que ambos grupos de aprendices perfeccionan la expresión de pronombre personal sujeto al final del periodo de intervención, la comparación intergrupal revela que el grupo de inmersión en el extranjero alcanza un mayor nivel de competencia en el dominio del sujeto pronominal

Comparación de dos protocolos de intervención basados en la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso y Entrenamiento en Mindfulness en personas con Trastorno Mental Crónico

Las Terapias Contextuales se están mostrando como una alternativa eficaz en el tratamiento de los problemas de salud mental y en especial de aquellos que implican alto nivel de cronificación. En la presente investigación treinta y seis participantes con importante disfunción social fueron asignados aleatoriamente a tres intervenciones, una basada en la Terapia de Aceptación y Compromiso (ACT), otra basada en el Entrenamiento en Mindfulness (MIND) y un grupo de control en lista de espera que siguió tratamiento habitual (TAU). Se utilizaron medidas de autoinforme y medidas cumplimentadas por personal ajeno y ciego al estudio. Los resultados tanto del grupo ACT como de MIND fueron en la dirección deseada respecto a TAU al post-test. Sin embargo, en los seguimientos, el grupo de ACT obtuvo resultados significativos en la mayoría de las medidas principales del estudio mientras que en el grupo de MIND, los resultados iniciales se fueron diluyendo a lo largo del tiempo. Esta diferente evolución entre grupos necesita de un análisis posteriorContextual Therapies are proving to be an effective alternative in the treatment of mental health problems, especially those involving high level chronicity. In this research thirty-six participants with significant social dysfunction were randomly assigned to three interventions, one based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), one based on Mindfulness training (MIND) and a control group on the waiting list who continued their usual treatment (TAU). Self-report measures and measures completed by anyone and blind to the study personnel were used. The results of both ACT, MIND scored were in the expected direction from TAU at the post-test. In follow-ups, however the ACT group obtained significant results in most of the main measures of the study while in the group of MIND, the initial results were diluting the over time. This different evolution between groups requires further analysi

How Happiness and Optimism Relate to Smoking

Cigarette smoking decreases health and increases mortality. Researchers have devoted much attention to factors that promote smoking (e.g., depression), but have paid little attention to factors that buffer against smoking. Positive psychology may provide a useful framework to complement our current knowledge of cigarette smoking and treatment. The current study investigated the relation between positive psychology constructs (i.e., happiness and optimism) and smoking status, smoker type, and cessation success using path analysis with data from college students (SONA) and an online sample (MTurk). Data from 1,292 (NSONA = 582, NMTurk = 710) participants showed that most pasticipants were female (66.3%), single (59.4%) or married (24.1%), and Caucasian (67.2%) or African American (23.1%). Approximately 17% were current smokers, 62.8% were non-smokers, 6.5% were light smokers, 5.6% were heavy smokers, 12.1% were stable ex-smokers, and 2.7% were recent ex-smokers. Due to the significant differences between SONA and MTurk samples, analyses were performed separately. Path analysis for SONA showed non-significant relations or were inconclusive possibly due to the small sample sizes. Path analysis for MTurk revealed a significant relation between depression and dispositional optimism and cessation success. Dispositional optimism was a stronger predictor of cessation success relative to depression. However, dispositional optimism and depression predicted a higher likelihood of being a recent (vs. stable) ex-smoker. Future research should establish the relation between positive constructs and smoking by including larger and more diverse samples, applying sophisticated statistical methos, evaluating pilot studies, and comparing positive psychology models with other traditional models of addiction

Reducing the variability in random-phase initialized Gerchberg-Saxton Algorithm

Gerchberg-Saxton Algorithm is a common tool for designing Computer Generated Holograms. There exist some standard functions for evaluating the quality of the final results. However, the use of randomized initial guess leads to different results, increasing the variability of the evaluation functions values. This fact is especially detrimental when the computing time is elevated. In this work, a new tool is presented, able to describe the fidelity of the results with a notably reduced variability after multiple attempts of the Gerchberg-Saxton Algorithm. This new tool results very helpful for topical fields such as 3D digital holography

Impact of the quantitative easing programs on North American equity market

Mestrado em Economia Monetária e FinanceiraThe aim of this research is to assess how the unconventional monetary policy instruments used by the Federal Reserve impacted on the North American Stock Market from the period between January 2009 and September 2012. We present the economic theory concerning the transmission mechanism of the monetary policy to the Economy, the channels through which this transmission becomes effective and, in particular, the functioning of the stock price transmission channel. We also present the economic theory on how unconventional monetary policy instruments, the Quantitative Easing programs, impact on assets and particularly on the stock prices. In the spirit of the Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) we develop a GARCH model in order to assess which macroeconomic, financial and conventional and unconventional monetary variables impacted on the evolution of the North-American Stock market in the period referred above. We observe that almost all of the variables chosen in this study tend to impact on the equity prices in the long run, but they have no impact in a period of financial distress such as the one between January 2009 and September 2012. We also found no evidence that the Quantitative Easing programs launched by the Federal Reserve after January 2009 had a permanent and direct impact on the recovery of the North American Markets until September 2012.O presente trabalho tem como objectivo avaliar se a política monetária não convencional, levada a cabo pela Reserva Federal Norte-Americana (FED) entre Janeiro de 2009 e Setembro de 2012, teve impacto na recuperação do Mercado Accionista dos Estados Unidos da América no referido período. Em primeiro lugar, começamos por apresentar a teoria económica referente à transmissão da política monetária para os restantes agregados macroeconómicos, os canais através dos quais essa transmissão se processa e, em particular, através do canal do mercado accionista. Apresentamos, também, a teoria relativa ao modo como os programas de Quantitative Easing afectam os diversos activos financeiros e, em especial, a evolução do mercado accionista. Em seguida, e no espírito da Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT), desenvolvemos um modelo GARCH que nos permite avaliar quais as variáveis macroeconómicas, financeiras e de política monetária convencional e não convencional, que influenciaram a evolução do mercado accionista norte-americano no período supra referido. Verificamos que a quase totalidade das variáveis consideradas têm um impacto estatisticamente significativo no mercado accionista quando consideramos períodos temporais longos, mas aparentam não ter impacto em períodos de instabilidade financeira, como os vividos entre Janeiro de 2009 e Setembro de 2012. De referir, também, que não encontramos evidência empírica de que os programas de Quantitative Easing, lançados pela FED após Janeiro de 2009, tivessem tido um impacto directo e permanente na recuperação do mercado accionista norte-americano