Financial forecasts of SMEs in IPOs: fact or fiction?

Este artículo valora el proceso de previsión financiera de las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYME) en sus salidas a bolsa. Específicamente, se analiza la calidad de las previsiones de beneficios realizadas y se exploran los factores que determinan la precisión de tales previsiones. Este estudio considera todas las empresas que han salido a cotizar al Mercado Alternativo Bursátil español (MAB). Los resultados muestran que los directivos de las empresas del MAB han sido mayoritariamente optimistas y altamente imprecisos en la estimación de los beneficios futuros.This article assesses the financial forecasts of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their process of initial public offering (IPO). In particular, the quality of earnings forecasts is analysed and the determinants of accuracy of earning forecasts are explored. To this end, the empirical study considers all the companies listed on the Spanish Alternative Stock Market (MAB). The results show that managers of newly listed Spanish SMEs have mostly been optimistic and highly inaccurate when estimating their future earnings

Conocimientos, Actitudes y Prácticas sobre Lactancia Materna Exclusiva de las madres de niños menores de seis meses atendidos en el Centro de Salud Leonel Rugama.Estelí. Departamento De Estelí Noviembre 2015

Se trata de un estudio el cual abordo el nivel de conocimiento, actitudes y prácticas en Lactancia Materna Exclusiva que presentaban las madres con niños menores de 6 meses que asistieron en el Centro De Salud Leonel Rugama, en el mes de Noviembre del 2015, con el propósito de poner de manifiesto puntos vulnerables de dichos conocimiento y orientar estrategias dirigidas a fortalecer, principalmente por la importancia que tienen la Lactancia Materna Exclusiva para el buen desarrollo, Sico social del niño, mejorando así los indicadores de salud, además de proporcionar una base de información más completa con el propósito de incrementar la promoción, educación continua de dicha comunidad. Al finalizar el estudio encontramos y concluimos que en la población estudiada predominaron las mujeres jóvenes de 20 a 24 años, de procedencia urbana, que se encontraban casadas, con un nivel de escolaridad aceptable. Se obtuvieron respuestas muy variadas con respecto a la Lactancia Materna Exclusiva a partir de los informantes claves en cuanto al tiempo de amamantamiento refiriendo algunos que debe hacerse por tres meses y otros por seis meses, y otros sobre las técnicas de amamantamiento en donde unas respondieron que el agarre del pecho por el bebe ser pezón y areola y otros solo pezón, al igual que el inicio de la introducción de otros alimentos distintos a la leche materna respondiendo algunas que se debe hacer antes de los seis meses y otras que después de los seis meses. De forma general las madres presentan un buen nivel de conocimiento en Lactancia Materna Exclusiva. Este grupo de madres pertenecientes a esta comunidad presentan una buena actitud en la promoción de la Lactancia Materna Exclusiva y que la mayoría de las madres tenían una buena práctica. Tomando en cuenta esta situación recomendamos que lleven a cabo una serie de estrategias, siendo las más destacadas: conformar un plan educativo sobre Lactancia Materna Exclusiva dirigido a la población para que esto pueda influir en las buenas prácticas; así como también promocionar o difundir, las ventajas y beneficios a través de los medios de comunicación, programas y publicidad. De igual manera respaldar las acciones contra las causas de la suspensión de la Lactancia Materna Exclusiva para lograr que un mayor índice de las madres dicha práctic

The Socialization Function of Sport in the Election Manifestos of Spanish Political Parties: General Election 2011

The objective of this work was to identify the manner in which the educational dimension of sport was dealt with in the election discourses of the manifestos of the political parties that stood candidates in the 2011 general elections in Spain. The theoretical perspective of this study is based on the concept that sports has integration and socialisation functions (García, Puig, Lagardera & Vilanova, 2017). A content analysis was used to examine the discourses in the manifestos. The study population comprised the 56 election manifestos of the parties that stood candidates, of these, 27 (48,2%) included some reference about the educational values of the sport. Data was processed using the SPSS 20 statistical package and the NVIVO 10 software. The political parties presented sport as an educational strategy for imparting positive values such as integral development, tolerance, etc. The ideas reflect a lack of ideological pluralism: concepts were generic and homogenous and there was a complete absence of specific educational measures aimed at fostering the social values of participation in sports activities. In conclusion, the sport is utilized as a mechanism of social control and normalization. This is possible because the social imaginary that sees sport as an excellent transmitter of social values. This work would advise political parties to include specify proposals and the intervention program on the promotion of sport in their manifestos as a means to stimulate the genuine improvement of social values. El objetivo de este trabajo fue identificar cómo fue mostrada la dimensión educativa del deporte en el discurso electoral de los programas de los partidos políticos que presentaron candidatura a las elecciones generales del 2011 en España. La perspectiva teórica del estudio parte de que el sistema deportivo tiene una función integradora y socializadora (García, Puig, Lagardera & Vilanova, 2017). Se utilizó el análisis de contenido para examinar el discurso de estos textos. Se utilizó el software NVIVO 10 y el SPSS 20. La población de estudio fue el conjunto de programas electorales de los partidos políticos que presentaron candidatura a las elecciones generales. La muestra fue de 56 programas electorales, de los cuales, 14 (25%) incluyeron alguna referencia sobre los valores educativos del deporte. Los partidos políticos presentaron al deporte en sus discursos de los programas electorales como una estrategia para la educación en valores positivos, tales como el desarrollo integral, la tolerancia, el afán de superación, la perseverancia, etc. Las ideas propuestas por los programas electorales reflejaron una falta de pluralidad ideológica, ya que fueron todas genéricas y homogéneas, prescindiendo de medidas educativas concretas para potenciar los valores sociales de la práctica deportiva.En conclusión, el deporte es utilizado como un mecanismo de control y normalización social. Esto es posible porque el imaginario social establece que el deporte es un excelente transmisor de valores sociales. Se recomienda la inclusión de propuestas educativas concretas de promoción deportiva por parte de los partidos políticos en sus programas electorales para desarrollar los valores sociales

Foraminiferal assemblages from the bajocian global stratotype section and point (GSSP) at Cape Mondego (Portugal)

A detailed study of the benthic foraminiferal assemblages at the Bajocian Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP— Murtinheira section, Lusitanian Basin, western Portugal) presented herein increases the correlation potential of this relevant global geological time reference. The recorded assemblages are relatively abundant and diverse, and are composed of wellpreserved taxa typical of the Boreal Realm. The most abundant suborders are Lagenina and Spirillinina. Representatives of the Suborder Textulariina are also abundant in some assemblages, while those of the suborders Robertinina and Rotaliina are scarce. Lenticulina specimens are the most abundant in all assemblages, but at the specific level, there are differences between Aalenian and Bajocian assemblages, with Lenticulina muensteri being most abundant in the former and Spirillina orbicula in the latter. Two biozones, based on calcareous foraminifers, have been established and calibrated to the standard ammonite zonation: 1) the Lenticulina quenstedti Zone, ranging from the upper part of the Gigantea Subzone, Bradfordensis Biozone, upper Aalenian, to the lower part of the Discites Biozone, lower Bajocian, and 2) the Ramulina spandeli Zone, beginning at the top of the preceeding zone and having an undefined upper boundary. In addition, 11 bioevents are defined on first occurrences, last occurrences, changes in abundances of some taxa, or changes in assemblage diversity. After a severe impoverishment at the Aalenian–Bajocian transition, an important foraminiferal turnover takes place in the early Bajocian, where some Lower Jurassic and Aalenian forms are replaced by typical Middle Jurassic tax

Re-engineering the ant colony optimization for CMP architectures

[EN] The ant colony optimization (ACO) is inspired by the behavior of real ants, and as a bioinspired method, its underlying computation is massively parallel by definition. This paper shows re-engineering strategies to migrate the ACO algorithm applied to the Traveling Salesman Problem to modern Intel-based multi- and many-core architectures in a step-by-step methodology. The paper provides detailed guidelines on how to optimize the algorithm for the intra-node (thread and vector) parallelization, showing the performance scalability along with the number of cores on different Intel architectures, reporting up to 5.5x speedup factor between the Intel Xeon Phi Knights Landing and Intel Xeon v2. Moreover, parallel efficiency is provided for all targeted architectures, finding that core load imbalance, memory bandwidth limitations, and NUMA effects on data placement are some of the key factors limiting performance. Finally, a distributed implementation is also presented, reaching up to 2.96x speedup factor when running the code on 3 nodes over the single-node counterpart version. In the latter case, the parallel efficiency is affected by the synchronization frequency, which also affects the quality of the solution found by the distributed implementation.This work was partially supported by the Fundación Séneca, Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnología de la Región de Murcia under Project 20813/PI/18, and by Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities as well as European Commission FEDER funds under Grants TIN2015-66972-C5-3-R, RTI2018-098156-B-C53, TIN2016-78799-P (AEI/FEDER, UE), and RTC-2017-6389-5. We acknowledge the excellent work done by Victor Montesinos while he was doing a research internship supported by the University of Murcia.Cecilia-Canales, JM.; García Carrasco, JM. (2020). Re-engineering the ant colony optimization for CMP architectures. 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Ostracods from the global stratotype section for de base of the Aalenian stage, Jurassic, at Fuentelsaz section (Cordillera Ibérica, Spain)

The Toarcian/Aalenian Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) have been recently placed in the Fuentelsaz section, northeastern Spain. This paper is part of a long-term project that attempts to describe for the first time the fossil ostracod assemblages present in the Toarcian-Aalenian boundary GSSP, and to assess their palaeobiogeographical significance. The study of the Late Toarcian-Early Aalenian Turmiel and Casinos formations at the Fuentelsaz section has produced a detailed stratigraphy and a large collection of stratigraphically constrained ostracod faunas. Twenty benthic ostracod species have been identified and for the first time described in Spain. Higher part of the Mactra Subzone, Late Toarcian, have yielded abundant ostracod faunas, including mostly species of the genera Praeschuleridea, Cytherelloidea and Kinkelinella; fossiliferous marls of the Late Toarcian and part of the Early Aalenian and poorly fossiliferous marls at the beginning of the Opalinum Zone are dominated by Praeschuleridea and Cytherelloidea. The boundary between the Toarcian and Aalenian is not characterized by any radical change in the ostracod faunal composition. The Fuentelsaz sequence exhibits ostracod assemblages comparable to those recorded in western Europe, with many of their species having similar stratigraphical distributions

Seawater temperature and carbon isotope variations in belemnites linked to mass extinction during the Toarcian (Early Jurassic) in Central and Northern Spain. Comparison with other European sections

The Early Toarcian mass extinction marks one of the critical events in the history of the Earth. Many of these events have been linked to important climate changes. Two sections of the Toarcian showing high-resolution ammonite-based biostratigraphy are studied in Central and Northern Spain. Stable isotope datasets, based on the analysis of 192 diagenetically screened belemnite calcite and 41 bulk carbonates, allowed the construction of δ13C curves and a δ18O-based palaeotemperature. Comparison of the extinction pattern with other sections in Europe and northern Africa shows that the Early Toarcian mass extinction boundary occurred at the Tenuicostatum–Serpentinum transition, and that the organic-rich facies linked to the Oceanic Anoxic Event and the associated negative δ13C excursion are diachronous. From a latest Pliensbachian cooling interval, a first increment of seawater temperature averaging about 4.5 °C, started around the Pliensbachian–Toarcian boundary and developed during the earliest Toarcian Tenuicostatum Biochron, marking the beginning of the main extinction interval. From the Tenuicostatum–Serpentinum transition up to the Bifrons Biochron, a rise in seawater temperature averaging 5.7 °C to 7.8 °C was recorded. This warming interval, which started rapidly and which seems to be synchronous at least in Western Europe, is considered one of the main factors responsible for mass extinction. For some authors this rapid warming was probably due to a massive injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but it does not seem to be recorded in belemnite calcite, and the origin of these possible gases is largely debated in the literature. Additional isotope excursions were found in the studied sections in Spain during the Middle and Late Toarcian. A negative δ13Cbel excursion has been recorded at the latest Bifrons Biochron. Above this shift, the Illustris–Vitiosa subzones thermal peak, which represents a 2–3 °C ΔT, could be linked to one of the tectonomagmatic activity peaks recorded in the Karoo Basin. A renewal in the ammonite and brachipod faunas coincident with this climatic change has been recognized in NW Europe and Western Tethys. An interesting thermal peak has also been detected in belemnites of the Insigne Subzone. ΔT is in the order of 3 °C, and in both sections the thermal peak is included into a δ13Cbel negative excursion of about −1.5‰. Relative synchrony with the new age for the Karoo main magmatic activity (178–180 Ma) indicates that the δ13C negative anomaly and the warming interval could be caused by the release of volcanogenic greenhouse gases. At this short interval, noteworthy changes in the abundance and diversity of the recorded assemblages in several faunal groups of NW Europe and Tethys are observed. The uppermost Levesquei Subzone thermal peak has only been recognized in the deposits of the section located in Central Spain and coincides with a positive δ13C excursion