Financial Globalization and Labor: Employee Shareholding or Labor Regression?

The authors review from a critical perspective the ‘patrimonial capitalism’ approach, as well as its analysis of wage-labor transformations in developed economies during the last thirty years. For this purpose, they take the economies of France and the United States as study cases. According to this approach, patrimonial financialization of working households has involved a radical transformation of the wage-labor nexus, paradigmatically exemplified by the concept of employee shareholding. The authors point out weaknesses of this approach, theoretical as well as empirical. Furthermore, they focus on an alternative interpretation that characterizes the nature of wage-labor nexus transformation in the French and U.S. economies as a wage adjustment. This wage adjustment is the result of the neoliberal policies developed to restore capital profitability after the crisis of the 1970s, and has caused an erosion of salary and social conquests attained by labor after the Second World War. Finances have acted as a lever of social reorganization among classes to achieve the objective of profitability recovery.patrimonial capitalism, financial globalization, employee shareholding, crisis, wage adjustment, USA, France

Condiciones de trabajo en Venezuela en el período 1999-2005: un balance de la cuestión laboral en el proceso bolivariano

En esta ponencia trataremos de aportar algunos elementos que contribuyan al balance de la evolución de las condiciones laborales de los trabajadores venezolanos durante los años de proceso bolivariano. Para ello, abordaremos la cuestión sindical, así como la configuración del nuevo marco legal que regula las relaciones laborales en el país. A continuación analizaremos tres aspectos básicos: la informalidad, el desempleo, y los salarios directos. Su situación actual así como su evolución a lo largo de los siete años analizados nos permitirán extraer alguna conclusión, parcial y preliminar, que colabore en el balance que nos proponemos.Condiciones laborales ; sindicalismo ; informalidad ; desempleo ; salarios

Salomanía: la construcción imaginaria de la danza oriental

En este artículo se analiza la asociación establecida en el imaginario occidental entre danza oriental y la danza de Salomé, enmarcada en el Orientalismo producido por la expansión colonial europea. Para ello se han estudiado los fragmentos que se refieren a esta danza en las obras de Gustave Flaubert, “Herodias”, y Oscar Wilde, Salomé. Tras el estreno de esta última se desencadenó la Salomanía, moda que a comienzos del siglo XX popularizó las representaciones de la danza de Salomé tanto en teatro como en cine por su reclamo exótico y erótico. Posteriormente, en algunas capitales de Medio Oriente, aún bajo el dominio colonial, se desarrolló la disciplina que hoy se conoce como danza oriental, adaptando las pautas del cabaret y el cine metropolitanos a las manifestaciones tradicionales de danza, aquéllas mismas que previamente habían inspirado las fantasías orientales europeas y americanas

Feature selection in machine learning with Google's PageRank

Des de l'aparició del famós algoritme que està darrere del motor de cerca de Google, l'algoritme PageRank ha estat utilitzat en molts camps diferents més enllà de la web. Aquests camps han anat des de la neurociència fins a la literatura. Aquest treball de final de grau elaborat a la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya pretén portar l'algoritme de PageRank a un altre camp totalment diferent de la web. En concret, pretén desenvolupar un algoritme de selecció d'atributs, per entrenar models predictius, basat en PageRank i estudiar el seu rendiment. La selecció d'atributs és un dels problemes més rellevants del camp de la ciència de les cades. Aquest projecte estudiarà la selecció d'atributs des d'una perspectiva poc convencional: la de l'algoritme de PageRank.Since the development of the famous algorithm behind Google's Search Engine, PageRank has been used in many other fields beyond the web. These fields go from neuroscience to literature. This thesis elaborated in the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya wants to port the PageRank algorithm to another field completely different from the web. More specifically, it will develop a feature selection algorithm based on PageRank and study its performance. Feature selection in machine learning is one of the most relevant problems in the field of Data Science. This project will study the feature selection problem from an unconventional approach: Google's PageRank algorithm

La influencia de la financiación sobre el gobierno corporativo de la empresa : el papel de los inversores institucionales

El objeto de este trabajo es analizar cómo el proceso de financiarización vivido por la economía mundial durante estas últimas tres décadas, atendiendo en particular al desarrollo y auge de los mercados financieros internacionales, ha alterado los criterios de gestión empresarial de las grandes sociedades no financieras de los países de la OCDE. Para estudiar esta influencia sobre los criterios de gestión empresarial, analizamos el papel que han adquirido los inversores institucionales, así como su creciente presencia en la estructura accionarial de las empresas. La masiva presencia de estos inversores institucionales en el capital de las empresas ha propiciado la adopción y extensión de los criterios de gestión propios del corporate governance, posibilitando (a través de los nuevos instrumentos de control garantizados por la liquidez de los mercados internacionales) la primacía de los objetivos financieros en el interior de estas organizaciones._________________________The aim of this paper is to analyze how the financialization of the world economy during the last decades –in particular, the growth and expansion of international financial markets– has modified corporate governance of large non financial companies in OECD countries. To study the influence of international financial markets on corporate governance, we analyze the prominent role achieved by institutional investors, as well as their growing presence on the capital structure of large non financial companies. The massive presence of institutional investors in companies’ capital structure has implied the adoption and extension of corporate governance principles. The adoption of these principles has permitted –by means of the controlling capacity exerted by liquidity– the preeminence of financial objectives within non financial companies

Estructura y evolución geodinámica del extremo noreste del margen continental catalán durante el Neógeno

The neogene structure and geodynamic evolution of the continental margin between the Cape Bagur and the Cape Creus, has heen studied by means of multichannel seismic profiles. This structure is explained in a regional geodynarnic framework: the opening of the Western Mediterranean and the changes of the relative motion between the European and Afncan plates (NNE in the Latest Oligocene and NO in the Tortonian age). Major margin structures consist of a set of structural highs, grabens and semigrabens infilled by Neogene-Quaternary sediments, whose thicknesses range from 400 m near the coast to 4.000 m in the continental slope. This structures are associated to NE-SW to N-S and NWSE to WNW-ESE fault systems. The NE-SW to N-S system produces the structural configuration of the continental margin and the KW-SE to WNW-ESE is associated to the main basins: Rosas and Bagur. Three main units have been differenciated in the seismic profiles overlying a pre-Neogene basement: the two lowest units (Oligocene?- Lower Miocene and Middle-Upper Miocene units) are associated with the development of neogene deposits, whilst the third consist of post-Messinian deposits (Plio-Quaternary unit). The proposed geodynamic evolution of the area includes two stages: (1) latest Oligocene-Burdigalian rifting where extensión was accomodated by NE-SW normal faults and NW-SE transfer faults related to the Burdigalian drifting, (2) Tortonian to Present stage characterized by the blocking of the NE-SW faults and the extensional development of the NW-SE fault trend. Each stage involves a basin geometry and a style of faulting

UV Dichroism in Vertically Aligned Nematic Displays

Vertically aligned negative nematics are employed in high-end projection applications, where extremely high light fluxes are employed. Under these conditions, the UV photochemical stability of the material becomes an issue that must be included in the characterization process of such devices. Photochemical aging tests for vertically aligned microdisplay, however, must take into account the linear dichroism shown by the liquid crystal material upon switching. In this work a method to evaluate UV linear dichroism is described. The method is included in a comparative study of the electrooptical performance of two negative nematic mixtures, one experimental and one commercial

Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) of young palaeoflood sediments

Comunicación dada en el XIV Reunión Nacional de Cuaternario, 30 junio y 1-2 julio 2015, GranadaOptically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) of young palaeoflood sediments): The challenge of accurately estimating the deposition age of incompletely-bleached samples in luminescence dating has motivated developments in both measurement and analysis methods over the last few years. In this study, we compare the behaviour of CAM and IEU models when applied to dose distributions from a sequence of eight recent (40-1000 yr) flash flood deposits, potentially affected by incomplete bleaching. These dose distributions were obtained from quartz single grains and quartz small multigrain aliquots (~30 grains). Comparison was made between the different measuring and analysing techniques applied. The most suitable method was assessed by comparison of these results with those available from independent age control. It is shown that the measurement of multigrain aliquots in combination with the minimum age model IEU on OSL dose distributions is appropriate for the accurate dating of young flash flood deposits.Peer reviewe