Evaporation and coarsening dynamics with open boundaries

We present a study of the evaporation dynamics of a substance undergoing a coarsening process. The system is modeled by the Cahn-Hilliard equation with absorbing boundaries. We have found that the dynamics, although of a diffusive nature, is much slower than the usual one without coarsening. Analytical and simulation results are in reasonable agreement.

Open licensing's impact on higher education resources colombian and catalan approaches

A new initiative has sprung on the path created by the Open Access (OA) movement: Open Education (OE). The initiative's aim is to open up all educational resources at all learning levels. In order to achieve this goal, several international institutions, like UNESCO and the OECD, have published reports, surveys and documents to help educational institutions in this endeavor. This global initiative needs a legal framework; as a result, efforts thus far have usually resorted to Open Licensing (OL), especially Creative Commons (CC) licensing. In fact, as a response to this new movement, Creative Commons launched a new program, ccLearn , which recognizes open licensing's impact on education and directly supports the idea of open educational resources (OER). However, there still remain a good amount of open questions: What is happening locally with OL in higher education? How are educational institutions receiving the initiative? How is it that the OL initiative relates to educational resources? Are there local examples of open educational resources (OER)? How do these local instances incorporate CC into their educational frameworks?. To this effect, this analysis aims to focus on the legal approach and specifically on the way the educational sector is using open licenses outside the English speaking world. It will do so by looking at the current situation in two specific scenarios, the Colombian and the Catalan experiences with open educational projects at the higher education level.

Copyright issues related to the implementation of Open Access policies

The presentation provides an overview of the copyright issues related to the implementation of Open Access policies. It focuses on the need to obtain permission to reproduce and disseminate a copy of any published paper taking into account any copyright transfer signed by authors. This permission is needed to implement Green Open Access policies through repositories. Moreover it explores the use of open content licenses in repositories and journals to move to the Gold Open Access model that offers not only free access to full text but full reuse of contributions.

Explaining Open Courseware Europe

Since two years ago, five European universities are working together with Creative Commons and the Open Courseware Consortium in an EU funded project aimed at supporting student virtual mobility on the basis of OCW. During those two years, there have been several workshops dedicated to different topics and some documents have been produced, among them about the use of CC licenses. The final goal of the project is to establish an European branch of the OCW Consortium as the existing ones in other regions. More information about the project: http://opencourseware.eu/

La situació de l'Open Access a la Universitat de Barcelona

Comunicació presentada a: II Setmana Internacional de l'Accés Obert a la Universitat de Barcelona. Universitat de Barcelona, del 18 al 22 d'octubre de 2010

Guia d'Open Office Writer

Aquest document és una guia de recomanacions per crear contingut accessible amb el programa OpenOffice Writer 3.

The Impact of Cooperation on R&D, Innovation andProductivity: an Analysis of Spanish Manufacturing and Services Firms

This paper investigates relationships between cooperation, R&D, innovation and productivity in Spanish firms. It uses a large sample of firm-level micro-data and applies an extended structural model that aims to explain the effects of cooperation on R&D investment, of R&D investment on output innovation, and of innovation on firms’ productivity levels. It also analyses the determinants of R&D cooperation. Firms’ technology level is taken into account in order to analyse the differences between high-tech and low-tech firms, both in the industrial and service sectors. The database used was the Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC) for the period 2004-2010. Empirical results show that firms which cooperate in innovative activities are more likely to invest in R&D in subsequent years. As expected, R&D investment has a positive impact on the probability of generating an innovation, in terms of both product and process, for manufacturing firms. Finally, innovation output has a positive impact on firms’ productivity, being greater in process innovations.

The Impact of Cooperation on R&D, Innovation and Productivity: an Analysis of Spanish Manufacturing and Services Firms

This paper investigates relationships between cooperation, R&D, innovation and productivity in Spanish firms. It uses a large sample of firm-level micro-data and applies an extended structural model that aims to explain the effects of cooperation on R&D investment, of R&D investment on output innovation, and of innovation on firms’ productivity levels. It also analyses the determinants of R&D cooperation. Firms’ technology level is taken into account in order to analyse the differences between high-tech and low-tech firms, both in the industrial and service sectors. The database used was the Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC) for the period 2004-2010. Empirical results show that firms which cooperate in innovative activities are more likely to invest in R&D in subsequent years. As expected, R&D investment has a positive impact on the probability of generating an innovation, in terms of both product and process, for manufacturing firms. Finally, innovation output has a positive impact on firms’ productivity, being greater in process innovations. Keywords: innovation sources; productivity; R&D Cooperation

Open source software in translator training

La formació de traductors implica l´ús de procediments i eines que permetin els estudiants familiaritzar-se amb contextos professionals. El software lliure especialitzat inclou eines de qualitat professional i procediments accessibles per a les institucions acadèmiques i els estudiants a distància que treballen a casa seva. Els projectes reals que utilitzen software lliure i traducció col·laborativa (crowdsourcing) constitueixen recursos indispensables en la formació de traductors.

Accessing Legal Information in Catalonia. Open Acces to Legislation and Case Law

The article outlines free online legal resources to conduct research on Catalan and Spanish legislation and case-law. Most of these resources are primary sources made public by government bodies. The list shows how the Spanish and Catalan governments, in their attempt to promote equal access to legislation and case-law, cover the different jurisdictions. The text also mentions some resources to conduct historical legal research about legislation and case law, and some free legal private websites.

Application of theoretical models to financial innovation

The present paper is aimed at providing a general strategic overview of the existing theoretical models that have applications in the field of financial innovation. Whereas most financialdevelopments have relied upon traditional economic tools, a new stream of research is defining a novel paradigm in which mathematical models from diverse scientific disciplines are being applied to conceptualize and explain economic and financial behavior. Indeed, terms such as ‘econophysics’ or ‘quantum finance’ have recently appeared to embrace efforts in this direction. As a first contact with such research, the project will present a brief description of some of the main theoretical models that have applications in finance and economics, and will try to present, if possible, potential new applications to particular areas in financial analysis, or new applicable models. As a result, emphasiswill be put on the implications of this research for the financial sector and its future dynamics.

Multidimensional Adaptations for Open Learning Management Systems

Our work is focused on alleviating the workload for designers of adaptive courses on the complexity task of authoring adaptive learning designs adjusted to specific user characteristics and the user context. We propose an adaptation platform that consists in a set of intelligent agents where each agent carries out an independent adaptation task. The agents apply machine learning techniques to support the user modelling for the adaptation process

Bioavailability of sinking organic matter in the Blanes canyon and the adjacent open slope (NW Mediterranean Sea)

Submarine canyons are sites of intense energy and material exchange between the shelf and the deep adjacent basins. To test the hypothesis that active submarine canyons represent preferential conduits of available food for the deep-sea benthos, two mooring lines were deployed at 1200 m depth from November 2008 to November 2009 inside the Blanes canyon and on the adjacent open slope (Catalan Margin, NW Mediterranean Sea). We investigated the fluxes, biochemical composition and food quality of sinking organic carbon (OC). OC fluxes in the canyon and the open slope varied among sampling periods, though not onsistently in the two sites. In particular, while in the open slope the highest OC fluxes were observed in August 2009, in the canyon the highest OC fluxes occurred in AprilMay 2009. For almost the entire study period, the OC fluxes in the canyon were significantly higher than those in the open slope, whereas OC contents of sinking particles collected in the open slope were consistently higher than those in the canyon. This result confirms that submarine canyons are effective conveyors of OC to the deep sea. Particles transferred to the deep sea floor through the canyons are predominantly of inorganic origin, significantly higher than that reaching the open slope at a similar water depth. Using multivariate statistical tests, two major clusters of sampling periods were identified: one in the canyon that grouped trap samples collected in December 2008, oncurrently with the occurrence of a major storm at the sea surface, and associated with increased fluxes of nutritionally available particles from the upper shelf. Another cluster grouped samples from both the canyon and the open slope collected in March 2009, concurrently with the occurrence of the seasonal phytoplankton bloom at the sea surface, and associated with increased fluxes of total phytopigments. Our results confirm the key ecological role of submarine canyons for the functioning of deep-sea ecosystems, and highlight the importance of canyons in linking episodic storms and primary production occurring at the sea surface to the deep sea floor.