Identification of the local productive systems in Spain: a new approach

Paper submitted to the 44th European Congress of the European Regional Science Association, Porto, 25-29 August 2004.

An evolutive approach for the delineation of local labour markets

This paper presents a new approach to the delineation of local labour markets based on evolutionary computation. The main objective is the regionalisation of a given territory into functional regions based on commuting flows. According to the relevant literature, such regions are defined so that (a) their boundaries are rarely crossed in daily journeys to work, and (b) a high degree of intra-area movement exists. This proposal merges municipalities into functional regions by maximizing a fitness function that measures aggregate intra-region interaction under constraints of inter-region separation and minimum size. Real results are presented based on the latest database from the Census of Population in the Region of Valencia. Comparison between the results obtained through the official method which currently is most widely used (that of British Travel-to-Work Areas) and those from our approach is also presented, showing important improvements in terms of both the number of different market areas identified that meet the statistical criteria and the degree of aggregate intra-market interaction.

An evolutionary approach to the delineation of functional areas based on travel-to-work flows

This paper presents a new approach to the delineation of local labor markets based on evolutionary computation. The aim of the exercise is the division of a given territory into functional regions based on travel-to-work flows. Such regions are defined so that a high degree of inter-regional separation and of intra-regional integration in both cases in terms of commuting flows is guaranteed. Additional requirements include the absence of overlap between delineated regions and the exhaustive coverage of the whole territory. The procedure is based on the maximization of a fitness function that measures aggregate intra-region interaction under constraints of inter-region separation and minimum size. In the experimentation stage, two variations of the fitness function are used, and the process is also applied as a final stage for the optimization of the results from one of the most successful existing methods, which are used by the British authorities for the delineation of travel-to-work areas (TTWAs). The empirical exercise is conducted using real data for a sufficiently large territory that is considered to be representative given the density and variety of travel-to-work patterns that it embraces. The paper includes the quantitative comparison with alternative traditional methods, the assessment of the performance of the set of operators which has been specifically designed to handle the regionalization problem and the evaluation of the convergence process. The robustness of the solutions, something crucial in a research and policy-making context, is also discussed in the paper.

The comparative effectiveness of rodents and dung beetles as local seed dispersers in Mediterranean oak forests

The process of seed dispersal of many animal-dispersed plants is frequently mediated by a small set of biotic agents. However, the contribution that each of these dispersers makes to the overall recruitment may differ largely, with important ecological and management implications for the population viability and dynamics of the species implied in these interactions. In this paper, we compared the relative contribution of two local guilds of scatter-hoarding animals with contrasting metabolic requirements and foraging behaviours (rodents and dung beetles) to the overall recruitment of two Quercus species co-occurring in the forests of southern Spain. For this purpose, we considered not only the quantity of dispersed seeds but also the quality of the seed dispersal process. The suitability for recruitment of the microhabitats where the seeds were deposited was evaluated in a multi-stage demographic approach. The highest rates of seed handling and predation occurred in those microhabitats located under shrubs, mostly due to the foraging activity of rodents. However, the probability of a seed being successfully cached was higher in microhabitats located beneath a tree canopy as a result of the feeding behaviour of beetles. Rodents and beetles showed remarkable differences in their effectiveness as local acorn dispersers. Quantitatively, rodents were much more important than beetles because they dispersed the vast majority of acorns. However, they were qualitatively less effective because they consumed a high proportion of them (over 95%), and seeds were mostly dispersed under shrubs, a less suitable microhabitat for short-term recruitment of the two oak species. Our findings demonstrate that certain species of dung beetles (such as Thorectes lusitanicus), despite being quantitatively less important than rodents, can act as effective local seed dispersers of Mediterranean oak species. Changes in the abundance of beetle populations could thus have profound implications for oak recruitment and community dynamics.

Acciones públicas de sensibilización de género: el esfuerzo de la administración regional y local en comunicación publicitaria (1999-2007)

El artículo analiza las iniciativas de comunicación relacionadas con la igualdad de oportunidades entre mujeres y hombres. El objetivo es analizar con enfoque de género las acciones realizadas por parte de las instituciones públicas regionales y locales para sensibilizar y promover la conciliación entre la vida familiar y laboral de seis comunidades autónomas (Andalucía, Cataluña, Comunidad Valenciana, Galicia, Madrid y País Vasco) y de sus capitales, desde 1999 (cuando se aprueba la ley de conciliación) hasta 2007 (se aprueba la ley de igualdad). La información sobre publicidad convencional fue proporcionada por Infoadex. Para la recogida de otro tipo de iniciativas a través de medios menos convencionales se acudió a cuatro fuentes institucionales: 1) Ayuntamientos de las capitales, como fuente estrictamente local, 2) Diputaciones de la capital de la Comunidad Autónoma, como fuente provincial, 3) Direcciones Generales de la Mujer o instituciones análogas como fuente de información a nivel regional o autonómico y, por último, 4) otras concejalías vinculadas al tema de la corresponsabilidad, cuyo radio de acción también es autonómico. Los resultados, aunque con diferencias entre regiones, reflejan carencias en la cobertura de las acciones que llevan a cuestionar la falta de estrategia política en términos de comunicación, pese a la introducción sistemática de estos objetivos en la agenda internacional (ONU y UE) y del gobierno español. En consecuencia, las campañas publicitarias e iniciativas recogidas contribuyen a la visibilización del problema y al empoderamiento, pero no tanto al objetivo de la paridad.