Sports anglicisms in Spanish dictionaries and corpora

For references, please quote the full paper as published in the above journal.

Mapping the awareness of inequalities in health programs in Spanish communities: moving forward together

The aim of this study is to map the awareness of gender, socioeconomic, immigrant and ethnic health inequalities in health at schools, maternal health and traffic injury health prevention programs. The study was conducted in the 19 health descentralized areas in Spain, 17 autonomous community (ACs) and the 2 autonomous cities (ACities). The data were collected from May 2008 to January 2009. The unit of analysis was the collection of policy documents setting out the programs mentioned above and the related support material in each AC. A reading guide was used to analyze the awareness of inequalities. With regard to health at schools, 2 of 10 programs show a high awareness of inequalities and include many specific proposals to be implemented at the local level. Regarding maternal health, 13 ACs have prepared support material with high awareness of inequalities to be implemented. A traffic injury program has been created in two ACs. We map the whole situation in Spain regarding the health programs that we have used as examples and their awareness of inequalities. We can conclude that there are differences between the regions studied in Spain and in general, the awareness of inequalities is low.

Recognizing and tagging temporal expressions in Spanish

This paper shows a system about the recognition of temporal expressions in Spanish and the resolution of their temporal reference. For the identification and recognition of temporal expressions we have based on a temporal expression grammar and for the resolution on an inference engine, where we have the information necessary to do the date operation based on the recognized expressions. For further information treatment, the output is proposed by means of XML tags in order to add standard information of the resolution obtained. Different kinds of annotation of temporal expressions are explained in another articles [WILSON2001][KATZ2001]. In the evaluation of our proposal we have obtained successful results.

Empirical study of the anaphoric accessibility space in Spanish dialogues

This paper shows an empirical study about the anaphoric accessibility space in Spanish dialogues. According to this study, antecedents of pronominal and adjectival anaphors can almost always (95.9%) be found in the noun phrases set taken from spaces defined using a structure based on adjacency pairs. Furthermore, a proposal of a reliable annotation scheme for Spanish dialogues is presented in order to define this anaphoric accessibility space. Using this annotation scheme, anaphora resolution algorithms can locate the adequate set of anaphor antecedent candidates.

Computational approach to anaphora resolution in Spanish dialogues

This paper presents an algorithm for identifying noun-phrase antecedents of pronouns and adjectival anaphors in Spanish dialogues. We believe that anaphora resolution requires numerous sources of information in order to find the correct antecedent of the anaphor. These sources can be of different kinds, e.g., linguistic information, discourse/dialogue structure information, or topic information. For this reason, our algorithm uses various different kinds of information (hybrid information). The algorithm is based on linguistic constraints and preferences and uses an anaphoric accessibility space within which the algorithm finds the noun phrase. We present some experiments related to this algorithm and this space using a corpus of 204 dialogues. The algorithm is implemented in Prolog. According to this study, 95.9% of antecedents were located in the proposed space, a precision of 81.3% was obtained for pronominal anaphora resolution, and 81.5% for adjectival anaphora.

A structural model of cognitive-motivational variables as explanatory factors of academic achievement in Spanish Language and Mathematics

In recent years, several explanatory models have been developed which attempt to analyse the predictive worth of various factors in relation to academic achievement, as well as the direct and indirect effects that they produce. The aim of this study was to examine a structural model incorporating various cognitive and motivational variables which influence student achievement in the two basic core skills in the Spanish curriculum: Spanish Language and Mathematics. These variables included differential aptitudes, specific self-concept, goal orientations, effort and learning strategies. The sample comprised 341 Spanish students in their first year of Compulsory Secondary Education. Various tests and questionnaires were used to assess each student, and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed to study the relationships in the initial model. The proposed model obtained a satisfactory fit for the two subjects studied, and all the relationships hypothesised were significant. The variable with the most explanatory power regarding academic achievement was mathematical and verbal aptitude. Also notable was the direct influence of specific self-concept on achievement, goal-orientation and effort, as was the mediatory effect that effort and learning strategies had between academic goals and final achievement.

PHORA: a system to solve the anaphora in Spanish

In this paper we present a whole Natural Language Processing (NLP) system for Spanish. The core of this system is the parser, which uses the grammatical formalism Lexical-Functional Grammars (LFG). Another important component of this system is the anaphora resolution module. To solve the anaphora, this module contains a method based on linguistic information (lexical, morphological, syntactic and semantic), structural information (anaphoric accessibility space in which the anaphor obtains the antecedent) and statistical information. This method is based on constraints and preferences and solves pronouns and definite descriptions. Moreover, this system fits dialogue and non-dialogue discourse features. The anaphora resolution module uses several resources, such as a lexical database (Spanish WordNet) to provide semantic information and a POS tagger providing the part of speech for each word and its root to make this resolution process easier.

Testing reference dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity in Spanish tourism

Based on Tversky and Kahneman’s Prospect Theory, we test the existence of reference dependence, loss aversion and diminishing sensitivity in Spanish tourism. To do this, we incorporate the reference-dependent model into a Multinomial Logit Model with Random Parameters -which controls for heterogeneity- and apply it to a sample of vacation choices made by Spaniards. We find that the difference between reference price and actual price is considered to make decisions, confirming that reference dependence exists; that people react more strongly to price increases than to price decreases relative to their reference price, which represents evidence in favor of the loss aversion phenomenon; and that there is diminishing sensitivity for losses only, showing convexity for these negative values.

Differences in exposure to occupational health risks in Spanish and foreign-born workers in Spain (Itsal Project)

Migrant workers usually show higher rates of work-related health problems than natives. However, little information is available about their exposure to occupational risks. We describe self-reported working exposure in Spanish and foreign-born workers. A cross-sectional survey was conducted as part of the ITSAL Project. Data on sociodemographic and self-reported occupational exposure in 1,841 foreign-born and 509 Spanish workers were collected through face-to-face interviews. Prevalence and adjusted odds ratios-aOR- (by age, education, type of contract) were calculated. Foreign-born men in non-services sectors and those in manual occupations perceived exposure to occupational risks with lower prevalence than Spanish workers. Foreign-born women reported higher prevalence of exposure than Spanish female workers. By occupation, foreign-born female workers were more likely than Spanish workers to report working many hours/day (aOR2.68; 95 % CI 1.06–6.78) and exposure to extreme temperatures (aOR2.19; 95 % CI 1.10–4.38). Some groups of migrant workers may need increased protection regarding some occupational exposures.

Third-party complaints and firm performance: an application in Spanish banking

This article focuses on the impact of third-party complaints on firm performance. We propose two research hypotheses, which are developed from the literature of dissatisfaction, emotions, and economics. The methodology is based on an event study to estimate variation in firm share returns in the stock market due to the publication of the Annual Complaints Service Report by the Bank of Spain; as well as a regression analysis to examine the impact of the number of complaints per branch on the variation obtained. The empirical focus is on a sample of eleven banks to which complaints were made and which were quoted on the Spanish Stock Exchange between 1992 and 2001. The results show a negative impact of the publication of these annual complaint reports on the share returns of the banks concerned. Additionally, these returns have a negative relationship with the number of complaints per branch.

A reassessment of traditional lexicographical tools in the light of new corpora: sports Anglicisms in Spanish

There is no question nowadays as to the international and powerful status of English at a global scale and, consequently, as to its presence in non-English speaking countries at different levels. Linguistically speaking, English is one of the languages which have mostly influenced Spanish throughout its history and especially from the late 1960s. In this study, the impact of English on Spanish is considered in the language of sports; particularly, sports Anglicisms and false Anglicisms are analysed. Due attention is paid to the different forms that an Anglicism may adopt and to which of those forms are more widely accepted or rejected by prescriptivists and speakers at large, in the light of a contrastive analysis of their appearance in the Nuevo diccionario de anglicismos, the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española and the Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual.

Outsourcing and strategy in Spanish town halls: a field study

Purpose – This study seeks to analyse the links between strategies, structures and processes in the case of the largest Spanish town halls, using the Miles and Snow's models about organisational strategies, and asking the following questions: “What is the situation of municipal services' outsourcing in the largest Spanish town halls?”; “Do Spanish town halls follow the strategies suggested in Miles and Snow's model?”; and “Is there a relationship between the strategic position adopted by town halls and their stance on outsourcing?”. Design/methodology/approach – In order to achieve these aims a questionnaire was administered to the human resource managers in the town halls of the largest Spanish cities. Findings – The paper finds that outsourcing is a complement, which seeks to improve the services delivered, and local institutions do not resort to it due to a lack of internal resources but as a way to complement their own capabilities. Originality/value – The paper has identified three distinct strategic profiles in the town halls interviewed which coincide with the profiles that Miles and Snow call prospective, defensive and reactive strategies. It reveals that town halls which outsource to a greater extent are the ones which identify more with the prospective or reactive strategy, whereas those which outsource less are closer to the defensive strategy.

Cancer mortality inequalities in urban areas: a Bayesian small area analysis in Spanish cities

Background: Intra-urban inequalities in mortality have been infrequently analysed in European contexts. The aim of the present study was to analyse patterns of cancer mortality and their relationship with socioeconomic deprivation in small areas in 11 Spanish cities. Methods: It is a cross-sectional ecological design using mortality data (years 1996-2003). Units of analysis were the census tracts. A deprivation index was calculated for each census tract. In order to control the variability in estimating the risk of dying we used Bayesian models. We present the RR of the census tract with the highest deprivation vs. the census tract with the lowest deprivation. Results: In the case of men, socioeconomic inequalities are observed in total cancer mortality in all cities, except in Castellon, Cordoba and Vigo, while Barcelona (RR = 1.53 95%CI 1.42-1.67), Madrid (RR = 1.57 95%CI 1.49-1.65) and Seville (RR = 1.53 95%CI 1.36-1.74) present the greatest inequalities. In general Barcelona and Madrid, present inequalities for most types of cancer. Among women for total cancer mortality, inequalities have only been found in Barcelona and Zaragoza. The excess number of cancer deaths due to socioeconomic deprivation was 16,413 for men and 1,142 for women. Conclusion: This study has analysed inequalities in cancer mortality in small areas of cities in Spain, not only relating this mortality with socioeconomic deprivation, but also calculating the excess mortality which may be attributed to such deprivation. This knowledge is particularly useful to determine which geographical areas in each city need intersectorial policies in order to promote a healthy environment.

Automatic prediction of emotions from text in Spanish for expressive speech synthesis in the chat domain

This paper describes a module for the prediction of emotions in text chats in Spanish, oriented to its use in specific-domain text-to-speech systems. A general overview of the system is given, and the results of some evaluations carried out with two corpora of real chat messages are described. These results seem to indicate that this system offers a performance similar to other systems described in the literature, for a more complex task than other systems (identification of emotions and emotional intensity in the chat domain).

Psychometric properties of the School Anxiety Inventory-Short Version in Spanish secondary education students

Background: The School Anxiety Inventory (SAI) can be applied in different fields of psychology. However, due to the inventory’s administration time, it may not be useful in certain situations. To address this concern, the present study developed a short version of the SAI (the SAI-SV). Method: This study examined the reliability and validity evidence drawn from the scores of the School Anxiety Inventory-Short Version (SAI-SV) using a sample of 2,367 (47.91% boys) Spanish secondary school students, ranging from 12 to 18 years of age. To analyze the dimensional structure of the SAI-SV, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability were calculated for SAISV scores. Results: A correlated three-factor structure related to school situations (Anxiety about Aggression, Anxiety about Social Evaluation, and Anxiety about Academic Failure) and a three-factor structure related to the response systems of anxiety (Physiological Anxiety, Cognitive Anxiety, and Behavioral Anxiety) were identified and supported. The internal consistency and test-retest reliability were determined to be appropriate. Conclusions: The reliability and validity evidence based on the internal structure of SAI-SV scores was satisfactory.