Social determinants of self-perceived discrimination in Spain

Objectives: To analyse the association between self-perceived discrimination and social determinants (social class, gender, country of origin) in Spain, and further to describe contextual factors which contribute to self-perceived discrimination. Methods: Cross-sectional design using data from the Spanish National Health Survey (2006). The dependent variable was self-perceived discrimination, and independent and stratifying variables were sociodemographic characteristics (e.g. sex, social class, country of origin, educational level). Logistic regression was used. Results: The prevalence of self-perceived discrimination was 4.2% for men and 6.3% for women. The likelihood of self-perceived discrimination was higher in people who originated from low-income countries: men, odds ratio (OR) 5.59 [95% confidence interval (CI) 4.55–6.87]; women, OR 4.06 (95% CI 3.42–4.83). Women were more likely to report self-perceived discrimination by their partner at home than men [OR 8.35 (95% CI 4.70–14.84)]. The likelihood of self-perceived discrimination when seeking work was higher among people who originated from low-income countries than their Spanish counterparts: men, OR 13.65 (95% CI 9.62–19.35); women, OR 10.64 (95% CI 8.31–13.62). In comparison with Spaniards, male white-collar workers who originated from low-income countries [OR 11.93 (95% CI 8.26–17.23)] and female blue-collar workers who originated from low-income countries (OR 1.6 (95% CI 1.08–2.39)] reported higher levels of self-perceived discrimination. Conclusions: Self-perceived discrimination is distributed unevenly in Spain and interacts with social inequalities. This particularly affects women and immigrants.

Importancia de los procesos de validación topológica en la gestión de alteraciones catastrales

Las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación están consiguiendo que la información geográfica sea asequible a un mayor número de profesionales a través de las Tecnologías de la Información Geográfica. La intervención multidisciplinar en el territorio enriquece la investigación y las formas de aplicación de este tipo de recursos tecnológicos. Pero esta facilidad tecnológica puede suponer el riesgo de un uso inadecuado, por falta de conocimientos técnicos adecuados a la complejidad de la información geográfica o por el mal uso de las aplicaciones informáticas. El trabajo catastral puede beneficiarse mucho del empleo de estas tecnologías de información geográfica, al facilitar el uso, la comunicación y su administración electrónica, pero el desconocimiento de las propiedades geométricas y topológicas de la información geográfica puede llevar a cometer errores de graves consecuencias a profesionales no especializados. En este artículo ofrecemos el resultado de la investigación del trabajo de diversos juristas y técnicos, con el objetivo de desarrollar métodos automatizados y aplicaciones informáticas que permitan a los especialistas no expertos en Cartografía usar este tipo de información con garantías de exactitud al más alto nivel, como una solución eficaz para que la información geográfica con calidad topológica enriquezca la seguridad jurídica en el tráfico inmobiliario.

Production of nanoTiC–graphite composites using Ti-doped self-sintering carbon mesophase powder

This work reports the synthesis of nanoTiC–graphite composites using mesophase pitch containing titanium as TiC or TiO2 nanoparticles. NanoTiC–graphite composites have been prepared using Ti-doped self-sintering mesophase powders as starting materials without using any binders or a metal carbide-carbon mixing stage. The effect of manufacture variables on the graphite compacts properties was studied. Graphites were characterised using XRD and Raman spectroscopy, SEM and TEM, as well as by their mechanical, electrical and thermal properties. The presence of TiC promotes graphitisation producing materials with larger crystal sizes. The kind of titanium source and mesophase content of the starting pitch affects to the final properties. Mesophase pitch with higher amount of mesophase content produces graphites with higher degree of graphitisation. The incorporation of TiC nanoparticles to the graphites composites improved thermal conductivity more than four times, and mechanical properties are not significantly modified by the presence of TiC.

Goal Orientation Profiles and Self-Concept of Secondary School Students

The objective of this study is to identify possible combinations of multiple goals that lead to different goal orientation profiles and to determine whether there are significant group differences in self-concept dimensions. The Achievement Goals Tendencies Questionnaire (AGTQ) and the Self-Description Questionnaire-II (SDQ-II) were administered to a sample of 2,022 students of Compulsory Secondary education, ranging in age from 12 to 16 years (M = 13.81, SD = 1.35). Cluster analysis identified four profiles of motivational goals: a group of students with a generalized high motivation profile, a group of students with generalized low motivation profile, a group of students with a predominance of learning goals and achievement goals, and a last group of students with a predominance of achievement goals and social reinforcement goals. Results reveal statistically significant differences among the profiles obtained regarding self-concept dimensions.

Feature selection by multi-objective optimisation: Application to network anomaly detection by hierarchical self-organising maps

Feature selection is an important and active issue in clustering and classification problems. By choosing an adequate feature subset, a dataset dimensionality reduction is allowed, thus contributing to decreasing the classification computational complexity, and to improving the classifier performance by avoiding redundant or irrelevant features. Although feature selection can be formally defined as an optimisation problem with only one objective, that is, the classification accuracy obtained by using the selected feature subset, in recent years, some multi-objective approaches to this problem have been proposed. These either select features that not only improve the classification accuracy, but also the generalisation capability in case of supervised classifiers, or counterbalance the bias toward lower or higher numbers of features that present some methods used to validate the clustering/classification in case of unsupervised classifiers. The main contribution of this paper is a multi-objective approach for feature selection and its application to an unsupervised clustering procedure based on Growing Hierarchical Self-Organising Maps (GHSOMs) that includes a new method for unit labelling and efficient determination of the winning unit. In the network anomaly detection problem here considered, this multi-objective approach makes it possible not only to differentiate between normal and anomalous traffic but also among different anomalies. The efficiency of our proposals has been evaluated by using the well-known DARPA/NSL-KDD datasets that contain extracted features and labelled attacks from around 2 million connections. The selected feature sets computed in our experiments provide detection rates up to 99.8% with normal traffic and up to 99.6% with anomalous traffic, as well as accuracy values up to 99.12%.

Motivational profiles Spanish students of Compulsory Secondary Education: Differential analysis of academic self-attributions

Academic goals and academic self-attributions are relevant variables in school settings. The objective of this study is to identify whether there are combinations of multiple goals that lead to different motivational profiles and to determine whether there are significant differences between the groups obtained regarding causal attributions of success and failure (ability, effort, or external causes) in Mathematics and Language and Literature, and in overall academic performance. The Goal Achievement Tendencies Questionnaire (AGTQ) and the Sydney Attribution Scale (SAS) were administered to a sample of 2022 students of compulsory secondary education, ranging in age from 12 to 16 years (M = 13.81, SD = 1.35). Cluster analysis identified four motivational profiles: a group of students with a high generalized motivation profile, a group of students with low generalized motivation profile, a group of students with predominance of learning goals and achievement goals, and a final group of students with predominance of social reinforcement goals. Results revealed statistically significant differences between the profiles obtained in academic self-attributions.

The Influence of Gender, Intellectual Ability, Academic Self-Concept, Self-Regulation, Learning Strategies, Popularity and Parent Involvement in Early Adolescence

The present study examined the predictive effects of gender, intellectual ability, self-concept, motivation, learning strategies, popularity and parent involvement on academic achievement. Hiearchical regression analysis were performed with six steps in which each variable was included, among a sample of 1398 high school students (mean age = 12.5; standard deviation = .67) of eight education centers from the province of Alicante (Spain). The results revealed significant predictive effects of all of the variables, explaining 59.1% of the total variance.

Body Percussion and Team Building through the BAPNE Method

BAPNE Method is a method based on cognitive stimulation integrating music and movement through body percussion. The aim of this research is to explore its whole potential as a tool to build teams. Team building is a philosophy for work design, and since over two decades ago, it defends that obtaining a high performance and organizing efficiency is more useful to perceive employees as interdependent members in a team of work than individuals ones. From this viewpoint, this research advocates that BAPNE Method’s body percussion practice will have an impact on this vision of team work directly. For its own characteristics, body percussion stimulates ways of contact in movement, which ease social ties and, especially, promote group cohesion. Through social, body and, affective dimension; BAPNE Method is capable of developing a shared vision and a single aim, to stimulate team work identity and an atmosphere of trust; and finally, to improve individual communication and satisfaction levels in group tasks.