A factor model of term structure slopes in eurocurrency markets

This paper departs from previous research in dealing with dimensionality reduction in the space of international term structure slopes. Recent empirical work has documented the existence of information in the slope of the term structure which is relevant to forecast future changes in economic activity, and it is additional to information in past economic activity, inflation, or in any leading indicator index [see Estrella and Hardouvelis (1991), Stock and Watson (1988), Hardouvelis (1994) and Plosser and Rouwenhorst (1994), among others]. This implies that a good forecasting model of term structure slopes could be helpful to anticipate changes in economic activity with an even longer anticipation.Term structure of interest rates, Term structure slope, Principal components, Eurocurrencies.

Dynamic correlations and forecasting of term structure slopes in eurocurrency market

Using monthly data on Euro-rates for 1979-1998, we examine the extent to which crosscountry information on term structure slopes can be used to improve upon univariate slope forecasts. This is interesting from the point of view of forecasting economic activity, since term structure slopes are known to anticipate fluctuations in the real economy. Additionally, the Expectations Hypothesis states that the term structure slope summarizes the available information which is relevant for forecasting future short-term interest rates, so that improved slope forecasts might also lead to better forecasts of future interest rates. We find ample evidence of significant explanatory power in term structure slopes across countries. Besides, we document that this information content leads to improved forecasts of the term structure slope in some countries, using a foreign slope as indicator.Term structure of interest rates, Term structure slope, Expectations hypothesis, Eurocurrencies.

Can forward rates be used to improve interest rate forecasts?".

We evaluate the extent to which the explanatory power detected in the term structure in different markets and countries can actually be used to produce sensible forecasts of future short-term interest rates. Specifically, in spite of the forecasting connotation of the unbiasedness property of forward rates, actual evaluation of their forecasting performance has received scant attention in the literature on the term structure. We use monthly data for 1978-1998 on interest rates on Eurodeposits on the US dollar, yen, Deutsche mark, British pound, Spanish peseta, French franc, Italian lira and Swiss franc, comparing forecasts obtained from forward rates to those obtained from univariate autoregressions. By themselves, forward rates produce better one-step ahead forecasts, as well as better once-and-for all forecasts of 1-month interest rates over a full year horizon than those obtained from the own past of interest rates. The gain in one-step ahead forecasting disappears for longer maturities, although forward rates still produce better once-and-for all predictions of 3- and 6-month interest rates than univariate autoregressions for a number of currencies.Expectations hypothesis, Term structure, Forward rates

Roy Campbell: Hero or Villain?

Roy Campbell was a South African poet whose literary production was mostly published between the First and the Second World Wars. According to T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell, Campbell was one of the best British poets of the 20th century but his strong character, his original South-African condition and, above all, his Spanish Catholic conversion in 1935 and support to Nationalists´ Spanish moral and values during the Spanish Civil War led him to collect a wide range of detractors and literary enemies in those countries he chose to live despite his efforts to get used to the local or national customs by going native. His poetic collections are a good example that can undoubtedly prove how literature can be defined by politics or religion rather than by any writer´s praised talent. Roy Campbell did not write for or from the Left and, so, he was blacklisted from present anthologies in English. Though a physically tough man, he was one of the humblest and kindest literary figures who loved any artistic expression of his highly varied surroundings he always tried to portray through impressive and vigorous verses in a poetry full of prodigious images

Review of Requirement Engineering Approaches for Software Product Lines

The Software Product Lines (SPL) paradigm is one of the most recent topics of interest for the software engineering community. On the one hand, the Software Product Lines is based on a reuse strategy with the aim to reduce the global time-to-market of the software product, to improve the software product quality, and to reduce the cost. On the other hand, traditional Requirement Engineering approaches could not be appropriated to deal with the new challenges that arises the SPL adoption. In the last years, several approaches have been proposed to cover this limitation. This technical report presents an analysis of specific approaches used in the development of SPL to provide solutions to model variability and to deal with the requirements engineering activities. The obtained results show that most of the research in this context is focused on the Domain Engineering, covering mainly the Feature Modeling and the Scenario Modeling. Among the studied approaches, only one of them supported the delta identification; this fact implies that new mechanisms to incorporate new deltas in the Domain specification are needed. Regarding the SPL adoption strategy, most of the approaches support a proactive strategy. However, this strategy is the most expensive and risk-prone. Finally, most of the approaches were based on modeling requirements with feature models giving less support to other important activities in the requirements engineering process such as elicitation, validation, or verification of requirements. The results of this study provide a wide view of the current state of research in requirements engineering for SPL and also highlight possible research gaps that may be of interest for researchers and practitioners.Blanes Domínguez, D.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE. (2011). Review of Requirement Engineering Approaches for Software Product Lines. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/1023

When leaders forgive: encouraging radical innovation in more altruistic organizations

Purpose There is general agreement on the importance of innovation to improve business performance and competitiveness. In recent years, many studies have sought to unravel what conditions are conducive to innovation. Following this trend, the present study seeks to broaden the understanding of the antecedents of radical innovation. To this end, and drawing on positive organizational psychology, the study focuses on the role of leaders and the importance of improving working conditions within companies, favoring innovation in more respectful and prosocial organizations. Design/methodology/approach The study provides, through structural equations, empirical evidence of the relationship between leader's forgiveness and radical innovation, using altruism as an explanatory variable. The study was conducted in a population of 11,594 Spanish companies. A sample frame of 554 questionnaires from 277 different firms was obtained. Findings Results confirm the hypotheses proposed in the model. Forgiveness, analyzed as a leader behavior, promotes altruism within companies and, in turn, radical innovation. Originality/value This is one of the few empirical studies that analyzes the consequences of leader's forgiveness in the organizational context

Leadership for sustainability: fostering organizational learning to achieve radical

Purpose – While concerns about the social and environmental impact that result from business activity continue to grow, a stream of research consolidates to understand the mechanisms that can favor more sustainable companies. The present study tries to expand the knowledge of the antecedents of radical innovation by analyzing the effects of alternative and understudied constructs. Grounded on stewardship and organizational learning theories, this paper analyzes how leaders that are concerned with sustainability and the social impact of their companies may boost this type of innovation by facilitating an organizational context that promotes experimentation, dialog, participative decision-making, risk-taking and interaction with the external environment. Design/methodology/approach – Through structural equation modeling, the study provides empirical evidence of the positive effect of stewardship leader behavior on radical innovation, using organizational learning capability as an explanatory variable. Findings – Results suggest that organizational learning capability fully mediates the relationship between stewardship leader behavior and radical innovation. Research limitations/implications – This research focuses on a sample frame of Spanish companies with recognized excellence in human resources management. Practical implications – In the context of a growing interest in sustainable development, and concern for the consequences of economic and business activities, this study highlights the role played by stewardship leader behavior to foster radical innovation and organizational learning capability which, in turn, represent essential tools to compete in a globalized and turbulent context. Originality/value – To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that analyzes the mediating effect of organizational learning capability in the relationship between stewardship leader behavior and radical innovation. This paper contributes to the understanding of how stewardship leader behavior affects radical innovation and the key role played by organizational learning capabilit

A Comparative Study on Model-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Product Lines

[EN] Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and Software Product Lines (SPL) are two software development paradigms that emphasize reusing. The former reuse domain knowledge is represented as models and model transformations for product development, and the latter reuse domain knowledge is represented as core assets to produce a family of products in a given domain. The adequate combination of both paradigms can bring together important advantages to the software development community. However, how to manage requirements during a model-driven product line development remains an open challenge. In particular, the Requirements Engineering (RE) activity must deal with specific properties such as variability and commonality for a whole family of products. This paper presents a comparative study of eleven approaches that perform a MDE strategy in the RE activity for SPL, with the aim of identify ing current practices and research gaps. In summary, most of the approaches are focused on the Domain Engineering phase of the SPL development, giving less attention to the Application Engineering phase. Moreover there is a lack of coverage of the Scoping activity, which defines the SPL boundaries. Several approaches apply some model transformations to obtain architectural and application requirements artifacts. Regarding the tool support for requirements specification and management, we found that most of the approaches use only academic prototypes. Regarding the validation of the approaches, the use of Case Studies as a proof of concept was the most commonly used method; however, there is a lack of well-defined case studies and empirical studies to improve the proposals.This research is part of the MULTIPLE project (with ref. TIN2009-13838).Blanes Domínguez, D.; Insfrán Pelozo, CE. (2012). A Comparative Study on Model-Driven Requirements Engineering for Software Product Lines. Revista de Sistemas e Computação. 2(1):3-13. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/43841S3132

La prevención de la alveolitis seca

La alveolitis seca representa una de las complicaciones más frecuentes de la extracción dentaria. La incidencia de esta patología varía del1% al4%, aunque en casuísticas en las que sólo se incluye la exéresis del tercer molar mandibular los porcentajes ascienden a l20-30%. De acuerdo con la etiopatogenia de la al veo litis seca podemos considerar como válidas las siguientes medidas de prevención: 1) Disminución de los factores de riesgo; 2) asepsia pre-y post-quirúrgica; 3) conducta operatoria meticulosa; 4)material de relleno alveolar; 5) uso de antibióticos; 6) uso de otras sustancias (antifibrinolíticas); y 7) métodos físicos (Soft-Láser). En nuestra experiencia, que incluye un gran número de exéresis en los terceros molares, el constante cumplimiento de los puntos 1, 2 y 3 y algunas veces de los 4 y 5, nos ha permitido constatar una incidencia muy baja de alveolitis seca (aproximadamente 1 %)

Análisis de la capacidad predictora de la estimulación vestibular calórica monotérmica sobre la estimulación calórica bitérmica

Falta palabras claveEn primer lugar, no existe consenso sobre la utilización de la estimulación calórica monotérmica para diagnosticar la paresia canalicular, a pesar de existir numerosas publicaciones acerca de la capacidad predictora al respecto. En segundo lugar, el conocimiento actual acerca de la estimulación calórica monotérmica se centra en predecir la existencia o inexistencia de una paresia canalicular, sin entrar en la magnitud de dicha paresia. Actualmente, hay nuevos métodos para el análisis de pruebas diagnósticas con los que se puede extraer más información de los resultados obtenidos. Con esos métodos, se puede establecer mejor cuál es el papel de la estimulación calórica monotérmica en el algoritmo diagnóstico del paciente con trastornos del sistema del equilibrio. En este sentido, las técnicas de revisión sistemática y el meta-análisis de pruebas diagnósticas permiten resumir los resultados de estudios aunque lleguen a conclusiones diferentes. Por otro lado, el uso de las curvas ROC permite medir la exactitud global de la prueba y ayudar a fijar criterios de decisión en función de las necesidades del clínico. Esta tesis doctoral pretende analizar las discrepancias en las publicaciones realizadas sobre este tema, proponer puntos de corte para la toma de decisiones basados en una muestra local y contribuir a aclarar cuál es el papel de la estimulación calórica monotérmica en la práctica diaria