An estimate of necessary effort in the development of software projects

International Workshop on Intelligent Technologies for Software Engineering (WITSE'04). 19th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (Linz, Austria, September 20th - 25th, 2004)The estimated of the effort in the development of software projects has already been studied in the field of software engineering. For this purpose different ways of measurement such as Unes of code and function points, generally addressed to relate software size with project cost (effort) have been used. In this work we are presenting a research project that deals with this field, us'mg machine learning techniques to predict the software project cost. Several public set of data are used. The analysed sets of data only relate the effort invested in the development of software projects and the size of the resultant code. For this reason, we can say that the data used are poor. Despite that, the results obtained are good, because they improve the ones obtained in previous analyses. In order to get results closer to reality we should find data sets of a bigger size that take into account more variables, thus offering more possibilities to obtain solutions in a more efficient way.Publicad

Implementación del Balanced Scorecard en las agencias públicas: una experiencia en los servicios municipales deportivos

The public sector is involved in a context of change. Decentralization, performance measurement and a greater emphasis on outputs are some of the main changes. To give public sector managers efficient tools, the adoption of what is considered to be private sector management styles and techniques is now becoming commonplace. The Balanced Scorecard approach has emerged as a new tool that meets many of the above-mentioned challenges faced by public organizations. Nonetheless, few reports of detailed experience in public sector entities are available. This research paper offers an insight into the process of elaborating the Balanced Scorecard for a public sector agency of sport services.El sector público está inmerso en un contexto de cambios, entre ellos la descentralización, la medición de la ejecución y un mayor énfasis en los resultados. Para dar a los gestores del sector público herramientas eficientes, la adopción de estilos y técnicas del sector privado se está convirtiendo en una práctica común. El Balanced Scorecard ha emergido en las administraciones públicas como una nueva herramienta que satisface las necesidades de información y gestión de muchos de los cambios mencionados. No obstante, es poca la literatura disponible sobre su aplicación en las entidades del sector público. Esta investigación ofrece una visión del proceso de elaboración de un Balanced Scorecard para una agencia pública de servicios deportivos.This research was carried out with financial support from the Spanish National R&D Plan through research project number SEJ2007-67441-ECON-FEDER (Ministry of Science and Innovation) and from the Regional Government of Andalusia (Spain), Centre of Andalusian Studies (PRI160/09) and from the Department of Innovation, Science and Enterprise (Research project number P09-SEJ-5395)

El Diablo en "Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora" de Gonzalo de Berceo

El objeto de este articulo es el análisis de la figura del Diablo en la obra cumbre de Berceo; a través de «Los Milagros» podemos conocer rasgos sobre sus características físicas y psíquicas, su forma de intervenir y su papel en la vida cotidiana y en el más allá, o la organización del infierno, con claros paralelismos con las instituciones medievales; asi, podemos estudiar la concepción que se tiene sobre el mismo en sus diferentes variantes popular o más teológica durante el periodo medieval, siendo el Diablo de Berceo un punto intermedio entre ambos. Al estudio de esos rasgos queda consagrado el presente artículo.The purpose of this article is the analysis of the Devil's figure in the masterpiece of Berceo; through «The Miracles» it is possible to know the features about his physical and psychical characteristics, the way he acts, his role in the everyday life and in the beyond, or the organization in Hell, with clear parallelisms with the medieval institutions; thus, we can study the idea about him from the different versions, popular or more theological, during the medieval period, being The Devil of Berceo the intermediate point between both. This article studies these features

Reseña Bibliográfica: "Hernández de Miguel, C. (2015). Los últimos españoles de Mauthausen. Barcelona: S.A. Ediciones B. 576 pp."

Es una reseña al reciente libro de C. Hernández de Miguel

Which Are the Main Factors Influencing Corporate Social Responsibility Information Disclosures on Universities’Websites

Universities are now becoming more active in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Nevertheless, they do not appear to be granting the same degree of importance to the dissemination of these activities. This article analyses the voluntary corporate social responsibility information disclosed by leading USA universities. We created several indexes of corporate social responsibility information disclosure and examined main universities’ characteristics that affect corporate social responsibility disclosure by these entities. The findings obtained show that the universities are strongly committed to the dissemination of corporate social responsibility information, and that a university’s size, affiliation, public/private status and ranking position are the factors most significantly affecting its online disclosure of general corporate social responsibility information. These findings could be useful for university administrators, especially those in public universities, highlighting the importance of developing and supporting policies and incentives to promote CSR disclosure and thus attract new students and meet social expectations about the ethical behaviour of universities

Trends of e-government research: contextualization and research opportunities

E-Government is a broad research field in which researchers are currently involved in a range of different research projects. Our purpose in this paper is to assist researchers in the development and direction of future analyses, identifying trends in terms of research and the methodology used. Universities and departments that make the main scientific contributions are identified, in order to locate and contextualize the research carried out into e-Government and to enhance intercommunication among researchers and thus knowledge in this field. To achieve this goal, we examined periodical publications listed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in the fields of Public Administration and Information Science, during the period 2000-2009. Knowledge gaps and research opportunities have been derived, highlighting the need to use quantitative methodologies and to identify key factors to promote a theoretical framework to enhance the efficient implementation of e-Government, as well as identification the main universities where the researchers can complete their doctoral academic training

Financial determinants for improving public sector accountability: a meta-analytic study

The economic crisis has highlighted the need to pay close attention to the disclosure of financial information by public administration institutions; this is an element contributing to the control, accountability and responsibility and thus to achieving greater financial stability and sustainability. Although the disclosure of public financial information has traditionally been linked with financial variables, previous researches in this respect have been somewhat inconsistent in their findings, and conclusive evidence has yet to be provided regarding these factors and their influence on the level of disclosure. The present meta-analysis tries to reveal the existence of a statistically significant association between certain financial variables and the disclosure of public financial information, although the strength and sign of this association will depend on the context under analysis. The results obtained indicate that, depending on the context in which public managers are operating, they may have different attitudes toward the disclosure of public financial information; the medium employed for the dissemination and public indebtedness are also significant factors to this disclosure. Therefore, results reveal a variable degree of predisposition among public managers to adopt policies aimed at increasing the disclosure of public financial information

Histoplasma capsulatum in the bone marrow of an HIV-infected patient

A 41-year-old man was admitted to the emergency department with a 1-month history of weight loss, intermittent fever, and malaise. Generalized pallor, mild dehydration, and a temperature of 37.5 �C were found on physical examination. Initial blood workup revealed pancytopenia, elevated lactate dehydrogenase, and hypoalbuminemia. A fourth-generation HIV ELISA test was positive. His HIV-1 RNA viral load was 13 800 copies/ml and the CD4+ T-cell count was 3 cells/mm3 . Urine, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid cultures were without microbiological isolatio