Student graduation: to what extent does university expenditure matter?

Human capital is one of the most important channels via which universities positively affect regional development. This paper analyzes the relationship between university characteristics and graduation rates, and the role of regional characteristics in this process. We assemble a dataset for the entire public university system in Spain over the last decade. Observing the same university over several years helps us address the problem of unobserved heterogeneity. The main findings that can be drawn from our results are that university features, such as expenditure, student-teacher ratio and financial-aid to students are important in accounting for graduation rates. Likewise, regional characteristics such as labour market conditions appear to matter when generating graduate students.Universities, graduation, human capital, regional economy

Do universities affect firms’ location decisions? Evidence from Spain

Human capital, scientific research, and technology are the three chief mechanisms promoting knowledge spillovers from universities to firms. Based on a study of the impact of Spain’s 1983 University Reform Act (LRU), which opened the door to the foundation of new universities and faculties, this paper examines whether university (or faculty) location affects the creation of new firms within a given province. We conclude that the foundation of science and social science faculties has had a marked impact on the creation of firms.universities, firm location, spillovers, poisson regression

Planning hand-arm grasping motions with human-like appearance

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting /republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other worksFinalista de l’IROS Best Application Paper Award a la 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, ICROS.This paper addresses the problem of obtaining human-like motions on hand-arm robotic systems performing pick-and-place actions. The focus is set on the coordinated movements of the robotic arm and the anthropomorphic mechanical hand, with which the arm is equipped. For this, human movements performing different grasps are captured and mapped to the robot in order to compute the human hand synergies. These synergies are used to reduce the complexity of the planning phase by reducing the dimension of the search space. In addition, the paper proposes a sampling-based planner, which guides the motion planning ollowing the synergies. The introduced approach is tested in an application example and thoroughly compared with other state-of-the-art planning algorithms, obtaining better results.Peer ReviewedAward-winningPostprint (author's final draft

Villes-spectacles et villes paranoïaques

L’évolution récente des villes, et particulièrement des mégapoles, se fait en fonction de deux directions contradictoires : d’un côté, on assiste à la mise en relief de villes spectaculaires, qui sont attirantes du point de vue de tout ce qu’elles peuvent offrir comme symboles d’un ordre mondial capitaliste et prospère ; d’un autre côté, on repère des villes qui sont l’antithèse de ce développement, et où il semble que ce soit au contraire les signes de la décrépitude, du sous-développement et de la menace qui sont mis en évidence. Une telle fracture semble séparer le développement des mégapoles d’Amérique latine par rapport aux mégapoles du reste de l’Amérique du Nord ou de l’Europe. À Mexico, qui a connu un développement urbanistique et démographique fulgurant ces cinquante dernières années, on retrouve les traces de ces deux tendances ; d’une part, les images journalistiques d’un photographe comme Enrique Metinides présentent des signes de la ville menaçante, alors que, d’autre part, les images de la publicité ouverte des affiches géantes présentent des signes de la ville invitante. Ces deux tendances sont présentes comme des forces qui structurent la perception que l’on peut se faire de l’évolution prochaine des mégapoles, particulièrement en Amérique latine, en tant que ces dernières présentent l’alternative entre la ville-spectacle et la ville paranoïaque.The recent evolution of cities, and the megalopolis in particular, Is taking two opposite directions : on the one hand, we are witnessing the emergence of spectacle cities that are attractive on account of all they have to offer in the way of symbols of a capitalist and prosperous world order ; on the other, we note cities that are the antithesis of this development, and where, on the contrary the signs of decay, underdevelopment and threat seem to predominate. Such a split seems to separate the development of the megalopolis of Latin America as compared with those of the rest of North America and Europe. In Mexico, which has experienced exploding urban and demographic development over the last fifty or so years, the traces of both these trends can be found - first, the journalistic-style images of a photographer like Enrique Metinides present signs of the threatening city, whereas the pictures shown in the huge advertising posters present signs of the inviting city. Both these trends are present as forces that structure the way people may view the future development of the megalopolis, especially in Latin America, insofar as these mega cities present the alternative between the spectacle-city and the paranoid city.La reciente evolución de las ciudades, y especialmente de las megalópolis, se hace en función de dos direcciones contradictorias : por una parte, se asiste a la puesta en relieve de ciudades espectaculares, que son atractivas desde el punto de vista de todo lo que pueden ofrecer como símbolo de un orden mundial capitalista y próspero ; por otra parte, se encuentran ciudades que son la antítesis de este desarrollo, y donde parece que esto sea al contrario los signos de la decrepitud, el subdesarrollo y la amenaza que se ponen de relieve. Una tal fractura parece separar el desarrollo de las megalópolis de América Latina con relación a las megalópolis del resto de Norteamérica o de Europa. México, que ha conocido un desarrollo urbanístico y demográfico fulgurante en estos últimos cincuenta años, se encuentran los rastros de estas dos tendencias ; por una parte, las imágenes periodísticas de un fotógrafo como Enrique Metinides presentan signos de la ciudad amenazante, mientras que por otra parte las imágenes de la publicidad abierta de los carteles gigantes presentan señales de la ciudad que invitan. Estas dos tendencias están presentes como fuerzas que estructuran la percepción que puede hacerse de la próxima evolución de las megalópolis, especialmente en América Latina, en tanto que estas últimas presentan la alternativa entre la ciudad-espectáculo y la ciudad paranoica

Motion planning using synergies : application to anthropomorphic dual-arm robots

Motion planning is a traditional field in robotics, but new problems are nevertheless incessantly appearing, due to continuous advances in the robot developments. In order to solve these new problems, as well as to improve the existing solutions to classical problems, new approaches are being proposed. A paradigmatic case is the humanoid robotics, since the advances done in this field require motion planners not only to look efficiently for an optimal solution in the classic way, i.e. optimizing consumed energy or time in the plan execution, but also looking for human-like solutions, i.e. requiring the robot movements to be similar to those of the human beings. This anthropomorphism in the robot motion is desired not only for aesthetical reasons, but it is also needed to allow a better and safer human-robot collaboration: humans can predict more easily anthropomorphic robot motions thus avoiding collisions and enhancing the collaboration with the robot. Nevertheless, obtaining a satisfactory performance of these anthropomorphic robotic systems requires the automatic planning of the movements, which is still an arduous and non-evident task since the complexity of the planning problem increases exponentially with the number of degrees of freedom of the robotic system. This doctoral thesis tackles the problem of planning the motions of dual-arm anthropomorphic robots (optionally with mobile base). The main objective is twofold: obtaining robot motions both in an efficient and in a human-like fashion at the same time. Trying to mimic the human movements while reducing the complexity of the search space for planning purposes leads to the concept of synergies, which could be conceptually defined as correlations (in the joint configuration space as well as in the joint velocity space) between the degrees of freedom of the system. This work proposes new sampling-based motion-planning procedures that exploit the concept of synergies, both in the configuration and velocity space, coordinating the movements of the arms, the hands and the mobile base of mobile anthropomorphic dual-arm robots.La planificación de movimientos es un campo tradicional de la robótica, sin embargo aparecen incesantemente nuevos problemas debido a los continuos avances en el desarrollo de los robots. Para resolver esos nuevos problemas, así como para mejorar las soluciones existentes a los problemas clásicos, se están proponiendo nuevos enfoques. Un caso paradigmático es la robótica humanoide, ya que los avances realizados en este campo requieren que los algoritmos planificadores de movimientos no sólo encuentren eficientemente una solución óptima en el sentido clásico, es decir, optimizar el consumo de energía o el tiempo de ejecución de la trayectoria; sino que también busquen soluciones con apariencia humana, es decir, que el movimiento del robot sea similar al del ser humano. Este antropomorfismo en el movimiento del robot se busca no sólo por razones estéticas, sino porque también es necesario para permitir una colaboración mejor y más segura entre el robot y el operario: el ser humano puede predecir con mayor facilidad los movimientos del robot si éstos son antropomórficos, evitando así las colisiones y mejorando la colaboración humano robot. Sin embargo, para obtener un desempeño satisfactorio de estos sistemas robóticos antropomórficos se requiere una planificación automática de sus movimientos, lo que sigue siendo una tarea ardua y poco evidente, ya que la complejidad del problema aumenta exponencialmente con el número de grados de libertad del sistema robótico. Esta tesis doctoral aborda el problema de la planificación de movimientos en robots antropomorfos bibrazo (opcionalmente con base móvil). El objetivo aquí es doble: obtener movimientos robóticos de forma eficiente y, a la vez, que tengan apariencia humana. Intentar imitar los movimientos humanos mientras a la vez se reduce la complejidad del espacio de búsqueda conduce al concepto de sinergias, que podrían definirse conceptualmente como correlaciones (tanto en el espacio de configuraciones como en el espacio de velocidades de las articulaciones) entre los distintos grados de libertad del sistema. Este trabajo propone nuevos procedimientos de planificación de movimientos que explotan el concepto de sinergias, tanto en el espacio de configuraciones como en el espacio de velocidades, coordinando así los movimientos de los brazos, las manos y la base móvil de robots móviles, bibrazo y antropomórficos.Postprint (published version

The link between public support and private r&d effort: what is the optimal subsidy?

The effectiveness of R&D subsidies can vary substantially depending on their characteristics. Specifically, the amount and intensity of such subsidies are crucial issues in the design of public schemes supporting private R&D. Public agencies determine the intensities of R&D subsidies for firms in line with their eligibility criteria, although assessing the effects of R&D projects accurately is far from straightforward. The main aim of this paper is to examine whether there is an optimal intensity for R&D subsidies through an analysis of their impact on private R&D effort. We examine the decisions of a public agency to grant subsidies taking into account not only the characteristics of the firms but also, as few previous studies have done to date, those of the R&D projects. In determining the optimal subsidy we use both parametric and non-parametric techniques. The results show a non-linear relationship between the percentage of subsidy received and the firms’ R&D effort. These results have implications for technology policy, particularly for the design of R&D subsidies that ensure enhanced effectiveness.R&D, public subsidies, evaluation