Educational Performance and Spatial Convergence in Peru

While an enormous and growing literature exists on the topic of regional income convergence, other aspects of socioeconomic well-being and development have attracted much less attention. Social indicators are a valuable complement to economic indicators when analyzing spatial patterns in a given geographic region, and can often yield a more comprehensive view about regional socioeconomic behavior. In poorer nations dominated by many low income areas that exhibit similar economic performance, social indicators may reveal further insight into the differences among regions. This paper explores the issue of educational convergence in Peru over the period 1993 to 2005. Using both exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial econometrics, the study is conducted at province level in order to uncover potential spatial patterns that help explain variation in educational performance over time, among regions, and across different terrain.

EDUCATIONAL PERFORMANCE AND SPATIAL CONVERGENCE IN PERU

While an enormous and growing literature exists on the topic of re-gional income convergence, other aspects of socioeconomic well-being and development have attracted much less attention. Social indicators are a valuable complement to economic indicators when analyzing spatial patterns in a given geographic region, and can often yield a more comprehensive view about re-gional socioeconomic behavior. In poorer nations dominated by many low in-come areas that exhibit similar economic performance, social indicators may reveal further insight into the differences among regions. This paper explores the issue of educational convergence in Peru over the period 1993 to 2005. Using both exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial econometrics, the study is conducted at province level in order to uncover potential spatial patterns that help explain variation in educational performance over time, among regions, and across different terrain.SPATIAL CONVERGENCE, EDUCATION, PERU

ON THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SPATIAL CLUSTERING, INEQUALITY, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE UNITED STATES : 1969-2000

The literature on economic development has been divided as to the nature of the relationship between inequality and growth. Recent exploratory work in the field has provided evidence that the dynamic and spatial relationships between the two may be far more complicated than previously thought. This paper provides an spatial econometric specification for the analysis of economic growth, that allows for simultaneity as it relates to inequality. Furthermore, attention is given to the possible impacts of local clustering on the performance of individual economies in a global setting. The new methodology is applied to the US states from 1969–2000, where the counties are used for the local inequality and clustering estimates.ECONOMIC GROWTH, INEQUALITY, SIMULTANEITY, SPATIAL CLUSTERING

Spatial Clustering, Inequality and Income Convergence

This paper examines the relationship between spatial clustering and inequality at the county scale with overall state per capita income in the U.S. over the period 1969-2000. For each of the 48 coterminous states we examine measures of inequality and spatial clustering and explore how a state's overall income level may be influenced by, or influence, these measures. Our exploratory analysis utilizes the open- source package Space-Time Analysis of Regional Systems (STARS) to illustrate some new techniques for analyzing regional income dynamics. The results provide insight into the possible relationships between inequality, clustering and relative income levels, and generates a number of interesting avenues for future research.spatial clustering; spatial dependence; inequality; convergence; geocomputation

Dynamic Manipulation of Spatial Weights Using Web Services

Spatial analytical tools are mostly provided in a desktop environment, which tends to restrict user access to the tools. This project intends to exploit up-to-date web technologies to extend user accessibility to spatial analytic tools. The first step is to develop web services for widely used spatial analysis such as spatial weights manipulation and provide easy-to-use web-based user interface to the services. Users can create, transform, and convert spatial weights for their data sets on web browsers without installing any specialized software.

Beyond forgiveness and suicidal behaviour in adolescence: the moderating role of gender

With the development of positive psychology, forgiveness has received increasing attention among psychologists from different social science fields . Empirical evidences have suggested associations between forgiveness and suicidal ideation and behaviours, but moderator’s role of gender has been scarcely studied. The aim of the present study was to test the role of gender as a potential moderating factor in the relationship between forgiveness and suicidal behaviour in adolescence. A total of 586 Spanish adolescents from three different high school centres took part in this study. Their average age was 15.51 (SD= 1.17) and 51.2% were men. We conducted moderation analyses and used age and personality factors as control variables. First, we found negative association between forgiveness and risk suicide. Moreover, results showed that gender moderated the relationship between forgiveness and suicidal ideation. Specifically, males compared to females were found to show significantly higher tendency of suicidal behaviour depending on their level of forgiveness. Thus, males who showed higher scores on forgiveness tend to report lower levels of suicidal behaviour, whereas males who reported lower scores on forgiveness showed greater levels of risk suicide. Our findings suggest that forgiveness may operate as a key buffering factor against suicidal risk underlying the importance of examining gender differences in this association. These findings provide therapeutic targets to reduce risk of suicide in this high-risk group of adolescent males with lower levels of forgiveness. Our results are discussed in terms of the need of using gender perspectives in positive psychology intervention programs.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Effects of Irregular Topology in Spherical Self-Organizing Maps

We explore the effect of different topologies on properties of self-organizing maps (SOM). We suggest several diagnostics for measuring topology-induced errors in SOM and use these in a comparison of four different topologies. The results show that SOM is less sensitive to localized irregularities in the network structure than the literature may otherwise suggest. Further, the results support the use of spherical topologies as a solution to the boundary problem in traditional SOM.

Dealing with teachers’ role stressors and depressive symptomatology: does gender impact on the buffering effect of emotion regulation ability?

Certain work-related stressors as role ambiguity and role conflict have been traditionally linked to negative outcomes such as mental health problems. Previous studies have focused on the moderating effect of personal resources in the association between role stressors and work attitudes. Emotion regulation ability (ERA) has showed robust associations with numerous mental health outcomes, with significant gender differences in this relationship.. The purpose of our study was twofold. Firstly, to examine the moderating effect of ERA in the association among role ambiguity/conflict and depressive symptomatology in a teacher sample. Secondly, we aimed to test whether gender would affect the impact of ERA. Participants were 337 Spanish teachers (54.89% were female) from different grade level taught in Malaga. Results showed that ERA moderated the relationship between role ambiguity and depressive symptoms, whereas did not moderate the effect of role conflict. Indeed, gender-specific analysis revealed a three-way interaction of role ambiguity, ERA and gender on depressive symptomatology showing a significant moderation effect only for males. These results suggest underlying processes by which ERA would differently buffer the association between role clarity and depressive symptoms in teachers. Our resultsmay shed some light on showing on testing gender-specific models including work-related factors, emotional abilities, mental health and well-being outcomes in teaching. Finally, these findings might provide guidance in developing further stress management programmes and emotional training considering gender perspectives.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Uncertainty in Integrated Regional Models

This paper examines the nature of uncertainty in integrated econometric+input-output (ECIO) regional models. We focus on three sources of uncertainty: [a] econometric model parameter uncertainty; [b] econometric disturbance term uncertainty; and [c] input-output coefficient uncertainty. Through a series of Monte Carlo simulations we analyze the relative importance of each component as well as the question of how their interaction may propagate through the integrated model to affect the distributions of the endogenous variables. Our results suggest that there is no simple answer to the question of which source of uncertainty is most important in an integrated model. Instead, that answer is conditioned upon the focus of the analysis and whether the industry specific or macro level variables are of central concerns.regional econometric model, input-output, integrated, uncertainty

Science journalism: the importance of shaping the communication channel between scientists and the general public

Não importa o quão útil, complexa ou surpreendente seja uma descoberta relacionada com o cérebro, ela afeta magicamente a opinião pública. Para além do entendimento dos mecanismos neurais estão a cura de doenças neurológicas e psiquiátricas e, ainda mais atraente, o poder de compreender e modificar o comportamento das pessoas. Enquanto os avanços têm sido informados à comunidade científica através de meios tradicionais, o público em geral receber estas notícias através da mídia. Neste trabalho, analisamos diferentes casos paradigmáticos em que estratégias inadequadas de comunicação e suas consequências tiveram um impacto negativo na sociedade. Junto com a apresentação desses casos, aconselhamos sobre a necessidade de incorporar os jornalistas ao círculo de descoberta e comunicação, a fim de garantir a compreensão, pelo público em geral, das descobertas e progresso da neurociênciaNo matter how useful, complex or astonishing a discovery related to the brain is, it impacts magically on public opinion. Beyond the pure understanding of the brain mechanisms are the cure of neurological and psychiatric disorders and, even more attractive, the power to understand and modify people’s behaviour. While breakthroughs have been communicated to the scientific community by traditional means, general public receive these news through the media. In this work we analyse different paradigmatic cases where wrong communicative strategies and their consequences impacted negatively on the society. Along with the presentation of those cases, we advise over the necessity of incorporating journalists to the scientific loop of discovery and communication, in order to guarantee the general public understanding of neuroscience discoveries and progres