The Impact of Regulation on Pricing Behavior in the Spanish Electricity Market

In this paper we measure the impact of regulatory measures which affected the Spanish electricity wholesale market in the period 2002-2005. Our approach is based on the fact that regulation changes firms' incentives and therefore their market behavior. In the absence of any regulation firms would choose profit- maximizing prices on their residual demands so that the observed gap between optimal and actual prices provides a measure of the effect of regulation. Our results indicate that regulation has decreased wholesale prices considerably, but became less effective at the end of the sample period which explains the change of regulatory regime introduced in 2006.

Strategic Behavior and Collusion: An Application to the Spanish Electricity Market

The paper has two major contributions to the theory of repeated games. First, we build a supergame oligopoly model where firms compete in supply functions, we show how collusion sustainability is affected by the presence of a convex cost function, the magnitude of both the slope of demand market, and the number of rivals. Then, we compare the results with those of the traditional Cournot reversion under the same structural characteristics. We find how depending on the number of firms and the slope of the linear demand, collusion sustainability is easier under supply function than under Cournot competition. The conclusions of the models are simulated with data from the Spanish wholesale electricity market to predict lower bounds of the discount factors.

Coalitional games with veto players: Myopic and farsighted behavior

This paper studies an allocation procedure for coalitional games with veto players. The procedure is similar to the one presented by Dagan et al. (1997) for bankruptcy problems. According to it, a player, the proposer, makes a proposal that the remaining players must accept or reject, and con ict is solved bilaterally between the rejector and the proposer. We allow the proposer to make sequential proposals over several periods. If responders are myopic maximizers (i.e. consider each period in isolation), the only equilibrium outcome is the serial rule of Arin and Feltkamp (2012) regardless of the order of moves. If all players are farsighted, the serial rule still arises as the unique subgame perfect equilibrium outcome if the order of moves is such that stronger players respond to the proposal after weaker ones.

De curas, frailes y monjas: disciplina y regulación del comportamiento del clero en el obispado de Calahorra, 1500-1700

25 p.

Estudio de la metodología para la medida de la exposición EM debida a sistemas LTE

[ES]En este documento se presenta el Trabajo Fin de Grado llevado a cabo con el objetivo de realizar el estudio de la metodología adecuada para medir la exposición electromagnética (EM) de sistemas LTE (Long Term Evolution). La exposición EM es un aspecto importante para la población, la cual es consciente de los potenciales efectos que pueden causar dichas radiaciones. Para alcanzar los objetivos de este trabajo, se ha analizado el estado del arte asociado a dicho sistema, con el fin de distinguir el comportamiento de la señal LTE y así, realizar el estudio de los parámetros relevantes en la configuración de los equipos. Se ha logrado definir una metodología que permite diferenciar adecuadamente los momentos de actividad y no actividad, observándose las franjas horarias asociadas. Además, empleando la metodología definida, se han realizado medidas de la exposición en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Bilbao comparando los datos obtenidos con el nivel de referencia permitido para validar el cumplimiento de la normativa vigente.

Compliance verification methodology for renewable generation integration. Application to island power grids

261 p.

Modeling habits as self-sustaining patterns of sensorimotor behavior

In the recent history of psychology and cognitive neuroscience, the notion of habit has been reduced to a stimulus-triggered response probability correlation. In this paper we use a computational model to present an alternative theoretical view (with some philosophical implications), where habits are seen as self-maintaining patterns of behavior that share properties in common with self-maintaining biological processes, and that inhabit a complex ecological context, including the presence and influence of other habits. Far from mechanical automatisms, this organismic and self-organizing concept of habit can overcome the dominating atomistic and statistical conceptions, and the high temporal resolution effects of situatedness, embodiment and sensorimotor loops emerge as playing a more central, subtle and complex role in the organization of behavior. The model is based on a novel "iterant deformable sensorimotor medium (IDSM)," designed such that trajectories taken through sensorimotor-space increase the likelihood that in the future, similar trajectories will be taken. We couple the IDSM to sensors and motors of a simulated robot, and show that under certain conditions, the IDSM conditions, the IDSM forms self-maintaining patterns of activity that operate across the IDSM, the robot's body, and the environment. We present various environments and the resulting habits that form in them. The model acts as an abstraction of habits at a much needed sensorimotor "meso-scale" between microscopic neuron-based models and macroscopic descriptions of behavior. Finally, we discuss how this model and extensions of it can help us understand aspects of behavioral self-organization, historicity and autonomy that remain out of the scope of contemporary representationalist frameworks.

Subjektu egozgarri eta arriskutsuen tratamendu penala

[ES]El presente Trabajo de Fin de Grado analiza el tratamiento penal de los sujetos imputables peligrosos que mantienen la peligrosidad criminal tras el cumplimiento de la pena de prisión. De esta manera, se investiga la regulación jurídica española dirigida a este colectivo, poniendo de manifiesto que hasta la entrada en vigor de la Ley Orgánica 5/2010 de reforma del Código Penal no había prevista ninguna medida de seguridad enfocada a este grupo específico y concluyendo que la medida de “libertad vigilada” introducida en dicha reforma no es del todo efectiva para alcanzar la reinserción del reo. Por todo ello, se argumenta que la política criminal llevada a cabo en los últimos años ha llevado la seguridad a un extremo tal que no se han podido garantizar del todo los derechos individuales del colectivo anteriormente mencionado. Asimismo, se investiga la “custodia de seguridad” vigente en la regulación alemana, haciendo notoria la importancia de la seguridad e inocuización. En síntesis, se estudia si el delincuente ha quedado subordinado al orden jurídico y a la seguridad, esclareciendo si han sido respetados los principios y garantías inherentes a un Estado Social y Democrático de Derecho.

A behavior model for blood donors and marketing strategies to retain and attract them

Objective: analyze and propose a theoretical model that describes blood donor decisions to help staff working in blood banks (nurses and others) in their efforts to capture and retain donors. Methods: analysis of several studies on the motivations to give blood in Spain over the last six years, as well as past literature on the topic, the authors' experiences in the last 25 years in over 15 Non Governmental Organizations with different levels of responsibilities, their experiences as blood donors and the informal interviews developed during those 25 years. Results: a model is proposed with different internal and external factors that influence blood donation, as well as the different stages of the decision-making process. Conclusion: the knowledge of the donation process permits the development of marketing strategies that help to increase donors and donations.

El compliance en la última reforma del Código Penal

La incorporación de la Responsabilidad Penal de las Personas Jurídicas a nuestro ordenamiento jurídico se produce con la publicación de la LO 5/2010, pero no ha sido hasta la nueva Ley Orgánica 1/2015 del pasado 31 de marzo en la que el legislador ha esclarecido los requisitos que la Persona Jurídica debe cumplir para poder eximir su responsabilidad. Se llevará a cabo un exhaustivo estudio en Castellano de los dos pilares fundamentales de la nueva reforma legislativa; los programas de prevención de delitos penales y el encargado de los mismos.

Studying the influence of substitutional elements on mechanical behavior of Alloy 718

In nickel-based superalloys, substitutional solute species have a strong impact on in service mechanical properties as well as on oxidation and corrosion resistances. In alloy 718, recent studies carried out by tensile tests highlighted the fact that refractory solute species are able to interact strongly with mobile dislocations during plastic deformation, generating dynamic strain ageing, and, in wide ranges of tests temperatures and strain rates, Portevin-Le Chatelier effect. The precise nature of the substitutional element responsible for such a dynamic interaction is still subject to debate. We addressed this question by means of mechanical spectroscopy studies of alloy 718 and various related alloys corresponding to monitored changes in the chemical composition. Only a single internal friction relaxation peak has been observed for all the studied alloys. By analyzing the damping behavior of these alloys at different imposed solicitation frequencies by sweeping a large temperatures range, the activation energies of the relaxation process and the type of mechanism involved have been determined. The process is a "Zener relaxation" in the alloys, i.e. a substitutional atoms dipole reorientation under applied stress. The results tend to prove that Niobium is not involved in the relaxation process whereas Molybdenum content seems to play an important role in the relaxation intensity.

Mild Hydrothermal Synthesis, Crystal Structure, Thermal Behavior, Spectroscopic and Magnetic Properties of (NH4)0.80Li0.20[Fe(AsO4)F]

postprint

Prosocial behavior and gender

This study revisits different experimental data sets that explore social behavior in economic games and uncovers that many treatment effects may be gender-specific. In general, men and women do not differ in "neutral" baselines. However, we find that social framing tends to reinforce prosocial behavior in women but not men, whereas encouraging reflection decreases the prosociality of males but not females. The treatment effects are sometimes statistically different across genders and sometimes not but never go in the opposite direction. These findings suggest that (i) the social behavior of both sexes is malleable but each gender responds to different aspects of the social context; and (ii) gender differences observed in some studies might be the result of particular features of the experimental design. Our results contribute to the literature on prosocial behavior and may improve our understanding of the origins of human prosociality. We discuss the possible link between the observed differential treatment effects across genders and the differing male and female brain network connectivity, documented in recent neural studies.