Unemployment and Time Use: Evidence from the Spanish Time Use Survey

In this paper we use a time use approach to analyze the average effect of aggregate unemployment on the daily life of individuals, focusing on the relationship between reduced market work and additional household production of unemployed individuals. Using the Spanish Time Use Survey 2002-2003, we find that, in general, the unemployed devote most of the reduced market time to additional leisure, and only a small proportion of time is devoted to household production activities. However, we find that the relationship between market work and household production with unemployment of individuals depends on regional unemployment rates, since in areas with high unemployment rates reduced market work is made up by additional time spent in household production. Our paper sheds light on the relationship between individuals’ time allocation decisions and aggregate macroeconomic variables.Unemployment, Time Use, Aggregate Unemployment, Enjoyment Data

¿Dios en el cerebro? La experiencia religiosa desde la neurociencia

El objetivo de este trabajo es plantearnos por qué preguntas como la que se exponen en el título de esta contribución pueden surgirdesde el ámbito de la Neurociencia y están en condiciones, a su vez, de interesar también mucho a la Teología. Esta tarea bidireccional nos lleva a enfatizar en la importancia de la interdisciplinariedad en la ciencia experimental, y a suscitar una reflexión profunda sobre el papel de la Teología en su relación con las ciencias experimentales y en su función rectora como exigencia del pensamiento

Neurociencia y libertad. Una aproximación interdisciplinar

Para muchos neurocientíficos y filósofos de la mente, el fenómeno de la libertad puede ser explicado totalmente por la Neurociencia. En este trabajo se intenta mostrar que un estudio cuidadoso de la situación y perspectivas de la Neurociencia revela hasta qué punto esta tesis es problemática. Para ello, exploramos algunos aspectos relacionados con el conocimiento, la integración afectivo-emocional, las funciones de la memoria y la autoconciencia, que se vinculan al ejercicio del libre albedrío. Señalamos, en primer lugar, que las nuevas técnicas de neuroimagen no han conseguido mostrar el funcionamiento de nuestro cerebro en su conjunto y de manera unitaria, ni desde el punto de vista cognitivo ni en el campo de la afectividad o la memoria. Esto invita a considerar las conclusiones de sus análisis como altamente hipotéticas. A continuación, nos adentramos en el fenómeno de la autoconciencia, decisivo para indagar sobre la autodeterminación y el libre albedrío. Se muestra aquí también cómo este aspecto de nuestra constitución psicológica excede los recursos de una neurobiología reduccionista. Se concluye, por tanto, que aunque el ejercicio de la libertad humana precisa del adecuado funcionamiento de nuestra constitución cerebral, esto no excluye el componente de inmaterialidad que supone conocer y decidir

Notes on the combined use of V-VIP and DAB peroxidase substrates for the detection of colocalising antigens

The purpose of the present report was to investigate to what extent the new peroxidase substrate Vector VIP (V-VIP) can be used in combination with DAB chromogen for the unequivocal and permanent detection of colocalising antigens within a single neurone, according to a two-colour paradigm. With this aim, retrograde tract-tracing with cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) or fluoro-gold (FG) was performed to disclose individual, identified subpopulations of neurones in the primate substantia nigra projecting to the caudate nucleus or to the putamen, respectively. Each tracer was detected by means of a PAP procedure and finally stained brown using DAB as a chromogen. Subsequently, both series of sections were processed for the immunocytochemical detection of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH). TH-immunoreactive neurones were stained purple with the peroxidase substrate V-VIP. As a result of the present procedure, several cell bodies of projection neurones, stained brown, can easily be identified within the primate substantia nigra. Some of these neurones additionally displayed purple TH immunoreaction product located in the neuronal dendrites. By contrast, CTB- or FG-unlabelled neurones only show the typical purple precipitate that belongs to V-VIP substrate, both in the cell body as well as in the dendrites

Mente y cerebro en la Neurociencia contemporánea. Una aproximación a su estudio interdisciplinar.

El imponente desarrollo de la Neurociencia en los ultimos decenios ba puesto en evidencia su necesidad de recurrir a la interdisciplinariedad para abordar los desaffos que se le presentan. Entre ellos se encuentran aquellos que se refieren a cuestiones decisivas para la comprensidn del bombre. En este artfculo se defiende que, para abordarlas con eficacia, es preciso ampliar la cooperacidn entre las ciencias mas alld del ambito de las disciplinas experimentales. Como ilustracidn de esta tesis, tras una introduccidn sobre la importancia de la Neurociencia en nuestros dfas, se afronta uno de los aspectos mds relevantes para la comprensidn del papel que juega el cerebro en la vida y la conducta del bombre: el problema de la conciencia. La exposicion se estructura senalando el marco en que se plantea este problema, para despues explicar sumariamente cdmo lo ban tratado la Neurociencia y la Filosoffa. Finalmente, se presentan algunas sugerencias para desarrollar de forma fructffera un estudio interdisciplinar que permita a cada una de las ciencias implicadas realizar adecuadamente su propia aportación

Regional unemployment, gender and time allocation of the unemployed

This paper analyzes the relationship between time allocation decisions of the unemployed, gender, and regional unemployment rates. Using the Spanish Time Use Survey 2002-2003 and 2009-2010, we find that higher regional unemployment rates are associated with increases in the time devoted to study by men, and to household production by women, and with decreases in the time devoted to personal care by men and leisure by women. We also find evidence favoring consumption smoothing as the channel through which others' unemployment affects time allocation decisions of the unemployed. As higher regional unemployment rates imply a lower availability of jobs for the unemployed, it decreases the expectations individuals have of finding a job, and thus households may try to increase their time spent on household production to reduce the market expenditures needed to maintain their consumption. We interpret our results as evidence that others' unemployment has several effects that need to be considered in the analysis of the wellbeing of the unemployed during business cycles

Health Status and the Allocation of Time: Cross-Country Evidence from Europe

This paper analyzes the relationship between reported health status and time allocation decisions in six European countries. Using the Multinational Time Use Study, we find that a better perception of own health is associated with less time devoted to sleep, personal care, and non-market work, for both men and women, and with less time in leisure for men, while it is associated with more time in market work for both men and women. We also find that the relationship with activities is very similar across countries, and that market work has a relationship of substitution with sleep, personal care, non-market work, and leisure, with mixed evidence for the rest of the uses of time. These findings are consistent with prior results regarding health, market work, and leisure in the US. However, in contrast to the large positive correlation between health and home production in the US, we find a large negative correlation between these activities in the six European countries analyzed. This study represents a first step in understanding cross-country differences in the relationship between health status and time devoted to a range of activities, in contrast with other analyses that have mainly focused only on market work. A better understanding of these cross-country differences may help to identify the effects of public policies on individual uses of time

Voluntary Activities and Daily Happiness in the US

This paper analyzes differences in daily happiness between those individuals in the United States who perform voluntary activities during the day, and those who do not. Using the Well-Being Module of the American Time Use Survey 2010, we initially find that those who devote any time to voluntary activities during the day report higher levels of daily happiness than those who do not. Comparing the happiness obtained from a range of activities, we find that volunteering is among the most enjoyable, indicating that time spent on voluntary activities is utility-enhancing. But when the issue of reverse causality is taken into account, we find no differences in daily happiness between volunteers and non-volunteers, which indicates that happier individuals are also more likely to volunteer. We document that the effect of voluntary activities on the experienced utility of individuals can be decomposed into a "time-composition" effect and a "personality" effect, with the latter explaining between 11% and 46% of the observed difference

Entanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting codes from subfield subcodes of projective Reed-Solomon codes

We study the subfield subcodes of projective Reed-Solomon codes and their duals: we provide bases for these codes and estimate their parameters. With this knowledge, we can construct symmetric and asymmetric entanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting codes, which in many cases have new or better parameters than the ones available in the literature

Subfield subcodes of projective Reed-Muller codes

Explicit bases for the subfield subcodes of projective Reed-Muller codes over the projective plane and their duals are obtained. In particular, we provide a formula for the dimension of these codes. For the general case over the projective space, we are able to generalize the necessary tools to deal with this case as well: we obtain a universal Gr\"obner basis for the vanishing ideal of the set of standard representatives of the projective space and we are able to reduce any monomial with respect to this Gr\"obner basis. With respect to the parameters of these codes, by considering subfield subcodes of projective Reed-Muller codes we are able to obtain long linear codes with good parameters over a small finite field