Buy-and-Hold Strategies and Comonotonic Approximations

[cat] En aquest article estudiem estratègies “comprar i mantenir” per a problemes d’optimitzar la riquesa final en un context multi-període. Com que la riquesa final és una suma de variables aleatòries dependents, on cadascuna d’aquestes correspon a una quantitat de capital que s’ha invertit en un actiu particular en una data determinada, en primer lloc considerem aproximacions que redueixen l’aleatorietat multivariant al cas univariant. A continuació, aquestes aproximacions es fan servir per determinar les estratègies “comprar i mantenir” que optimitzen, per a un nivell de probabilitat donat, el VaR i el CLTE de la funció de distribució de la riquesa final. Aquest article complementa el treball de Dhaene et al. (2005), on es van considerar estratègies de reequilibri constant.

Deciding the sale of a life policy in the viatical market: Implications on individual welfare

[cat] En aquest article, es presenta un model econòmic que permet determinar la venda o no d'una pòlissa de vida (total o en part) per part d'un assegurat malalt terminal en el mercat dels viatical settlements. Aquest mercat va aparèixer a finals de la dècada dels 80 a conseqüència de l'epidèmia de la SIDA. Actualment, representa una part del mercat dels life settlements. Les pòlisses que es comercialitzen en el mercat dels viaticals són aquelles on l'assegurat és malalt terminal amb una esperança de vida de dos anys o menys. El model és discret i considera només dos períodes (anys), ja que aquesta és la vida residual màxima que contempla el mercat. L'agent posseix una riquesa inicial que ha de repartir entre consum i herència. S'introdueix en primer lloc la funció d'utilitat esperada del decisor i, utilitzant programació dinàmica, es dedueix l'estratègia que reporta una utilitat més gran (no vendre/vendre (en part) la pòlissa en el moment zero/vendre (en part) la pòlissa en el moment ú). L'òptim depèn del preu de la pòlissa venuda i de paràmetres personals de l'individu. Es troba una expressió analítica per l'estratègia òptima i es realitza un anàlisi de sensibilitat.

Prospects of doubling global wheat yields

While an adequate supply of food can be achieved at present for the current global population, sustaining this into the future will be difficult in the face of a steadily increasing population, increased wealth and a diminishing availability of fertile land and water for agriculture. This problem will be compounded by the new uses of agricultural products, for example, as biofuels. Wheat alone provides ≥20% of the calories and the protein for the world's population, and the value and need to increase the production is recognized widely. Currently, the world average wheat yield is around 3 t/ha but there is considerable variation between countries, with region-specific factors limiting yield, each requiring individual solutions. Delivering increased yields in any situation is a complex challenge that is unlikely to be solved by single approaches and a multidisciplinary integrated approach to crop improvement is required. There are three specific major challenges: increasing yield potential, protecting yield potential, and increasing resource use efficiency to ensure sustainability. Since the green revolution, yields at the farm gate have stagnated in many countries, or are increasing at less than half the rate required to meet the projected demand. In some countries, large gains can still be achieved by improvements in agronomy, but in many others the yield gains will only be achieved by further genetic improvement. In this overview, the problems and potential solutions for increased wheat yields are discussed, in the context of specific geographic regions, with a particular emphasis on China. The importance and the prospects for improvement of individual traits are presented. It is concluded that there are opportunities for yield increase but a major challenge will be avoiding a simultaneous increase in resource requirements.

El Pigmalión de Shaw, manifiesto teatral de la lingüística

La comedia Pigmalión, que Bernard Shaw escribió en 1912 y estrenó al año siguiente, es una proclamación artística de la lingüística. A pesar de la popularidad de la obra, es un acontecimiento que se conoce como una anécdota extravagante. El extraordinario mérito de Pigmalión ha pasado desapercibido para la historia de la lingüística. Su mérito estriba en la calidad teatral, la capacidad prospectiva de Shaw y la intención social de su mensaje. Shaw anuncia la utilidad de la lingüística en facetas que, décadas después, se conocerán como sociolingüística, planificación lingüística y logopedia. Por otra parte, se ha relacionado de modo simplista el personaje del profesor Higgins al fonetista H. Sweet. The play Pygmalion, that Bernard Shaw wrote in 1912 and released the following year, is an artistic proclamation of Linguistics. Despite the popularity of the play, this event is known as an extravagant story. The History of Linguistics does not recognize the extraordinary merit of Pygmalion. Its merit lays in the theatrical quality ant the social intention of the message. Shaw announces the usefulness of Linguistics in facets that will be known as Sociolinguistics, Language Planning and Speech Therapy. And furthermore, in a simplistic way, the character of Professor Higgins has been linked to the phonetician H. Sweet.

Gene-disease network analysis reveals functional modules in mendelian, complex and environmental diseases

AbstractBACKGROUND: Scientists have been trying to understand the molecular mechanisms of diseases to design preventive and therapeutic strategies for a long time. For some diseases, it has become evident that it is not enough to obtain a catalogue of the disease-related genes but to uncover how disruptions of molecular networks in the cell give rise to disease phenotypes. Moreover, with the unprecedented wealth of information available, even obtaining such catalogue is extremely difficult.PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We developed a comprehensive gene-disease association database by integrating associations from several sources that cover different biomedical aspects of diseases. In particular, we focus on the current knowledge of human genetic diseases including mendelian, complex and environmental diseases. To assess the concept of modularity of human diseases, we performed a systematic study of the emergent properties of human gene-disease networks by means of network topology and functional annotation analysis. The results indicate a highly shared genetic origin of human diseases and show that for most diseases, including mendelian, complex and environmental diseases, functional modules exist. Moreover, a core set of biological pathways is found to be associated with most human diseases. We obtained similar results when studying clusters of diseases, suggesting that related diseases might arise due to dysfunction of common biological processes in the cell.CONCLUSIONS: For the first time, we include mendelian, complex and environmental diseases in an integrated gene-disease association database and show that the concept of modularity applies for all of them. We furthermore provide a functional analysis of disease-related modules providing important new biological insights, which might not be discovered when considering each of the gene-disease association repositories independently. Hence, we present a suitable framework for the study of how genetic and environmental factors, such as drugs, contribute to diseases.AVAILABILITY: The gene-disease networks used in this study and part of the analysis are available at http://ibi.imim.es/DisGeNET/DisGeNETweb.html#Download

The EU-ADR Web Platform: delivering advanced pharmacovigilance tools

PURPOSE: Pharmacovigilance methods have advanced greatly during the last decades, making post-market drug assessment an essential drug evaluation component. These methods mainly rely on the use of spontaneous reporting systems and health information databases to collect expertise from huge amounts of real-world reports. The EU-ADR Web Platform was built to further facilitate accessing, monitoring and exploring these data, enabling an in-depth analysis of adverse drug reactions risks.METHODS: The EU-ADR Web Platform exploits the wealth of data collected within a large-scale European initiative, the EU-ADR project. Millions of electronic health records, provided by national health agencies, are mined for specific drug events, which are correlated with literature, protein and pathway data, resulting in a rich drug-event dataset. Next, advanced distributed computing methods are tailored to coordinate the execution of data-mining and statistical analysis tasks. This permits obtaining a ranked drug-event list, removing spurious entries and highlighting relationships with high risk potential.RESULTS: The EU-ADR Web Platform is an open workspace for the integrated analysis of pharmacovigilance datasets. Using this software, researchers can access a variety of tools provided by distinct partners in a single centralized environment. Besides performing standalone drug-event assessments, they can also control the pipeline for an improved batch analysis of custom datasets. Drug-event pairs can be substantiated and statistically analysed within the platform's innovative working environment.CONCLUSIONS: A pioneering workspace that helps in explaining the biological path of adverse drug reactions was developed within the EU-ADR project consortium. This tool, targeted at the pharmacovigilance community, is available online at https://bioinformatics.ua.pt/euadr/. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

La utilidad del Estado de Cambios en el Patrimonio Neto para los empresarios

Las cuentas anuales del actual Plan General de Contabilidad (PGC07) incluyen un nuevo documento contable: el Estado de Cgmbios en el Patrimonio Neto (ECPN) que deben presentar todas las empresas. En este trabajo se detalla la utilidad y razon de ser de este estado contable que pretende reflejar el resultado global, la riqueza y las garantras empresariales que presenta la empresa. Estas.informaciones son consecuencia del desplazamiento del objetivo de los estados financieros hacia la valoracion del patrimonio en detrimento del calculo del resultado.

Localitzador gràfic d'adreces IP

Internet s'ha convertit en una font extraordinària de recursos per una audiència en constant creixement arreu el món. A l'igual que en altres activitats de la nostra societat, el coneixement de la localització geogràfica d'aquests recursos i de la gent que hi accedeix és útil tant pels usuaris com pels proveïdors d'informació. La geolocalització IP, però, pot donar informació errònia o amb un nivell de precisió que no vagi més enllà de la referència a un país.Aquest treball recull els diferents actors que formen part de la geolocalització IP i s'ha analitzat el paper que juguen en aquest procés així com la seva influència en el nivell de fiabilitat i exactitud final. Amb aquests sòlids fonaments s'ha desenvolupat una aplicació per representar gràficament en un mapa la geolocalització IP d'un dispositiu i la dels nodes que formen el camí realitzat fins arribar-hi, així com tota la informació addicional que de cada IP s'ha pogut obtenir.El resultat ha estat una memòria tècnica de tot el treball de recerca juntament amb una aplicació que s'executa en l'entorn de Microsoft Windows i plataforma .NET, caracteritzada per la seva facilitat d'ús gràcies a un disseny simple molt intuïtiu i efectiu, la rapidesa d'execució per què aprofita la programació de fils, i un positiu impacte visual ja que fa servir l'API de Google Maps per a la representació visual de la traça.

Promotion of learning skills in the study of economics. pilot project in the subject area of

This communication is part of a larger teaching innovation project financed by the University ofBarcelona, whose objective is to develop and evaluate transversal competences of the UB, learningability and responsibility. The competence is divided into several sub-competencies being the ability toanalyze and synthesis the most intensely worked in the first year. The work presented here part fromthe results obtained in phase 1 and 2 previously implemented in other subjects (Mathematics andHistory) in the first year of the degree of Business Administration Degree. In these subjects’ previousexperiences there were deficiencies in the acquisition of learning skills by the students. The work inthe subject of Mathematics facilitated that students become aware of the deficit. The work on thesubject of History insisted on developing readings schemes and with the practical exercises wassought to go deeply in the development of this competence.The third phase presented here is developed in the framework of the second year degree, in the WorldEconomy subject. The objective of this phase is the development and evaluation of the same crosscompetence of the previous phases, from a practice that includes both, quantitative analysis andcritical reflection. Specifically the practice focuses on the study of the dynamic relationship betweeneconomic growth and the dynamics in the distribution of wealth. The activity design as well as theselection of materials to make it, has been directed to address gaps in the ability to analyze andsynthesize detected in the subjects of the first year in the previous phases of the project.The realization of the practical case is considered adequate methodology to improve the acquisition ofcompetence of the students, then it is also proposed how to evaluate the acquisition of suchcompetence. The practice is evaluated based on a rubric developed in the framework of the projectobjectives. Thus at the end of phase 3 we can analyze the process that have followed the students,detect where they have had major difficulties and identify those aspects of teaching that can help toimprove the acquisition of skills by the students. The interest of this phase resides in the possibility tovalue whether tracing of learning through competences, organized in a collaborative way, is a goodtool to develop the acquisition of these skills and facilitate their evaluation.

The CerdàPlan for the Extension of Barcelona: A Constructivist Analysis of a Town-planning Controversy

Peer-reviewed

Regioselectividad en fullerenos, una visión computacional

Fullerenes are wonderful molecules that exhibit a wealth of interesting properties, which promises a major role for this family in the future in the (bio)medicine and nanotechnology fields. However, there are still many unknowns such as for instance the reactivity of these molecules and how this is affected by metals. These aspects are difficult to apprehend by experiments alone, for which reason there is a widespread interest in the description and simulation of them by theoretical chemistry. Here we briefly describe our results from the past five years and their future impact

Biogeochemical processes controlling oxygen and carbon isotopes of diatom silica in Late Glacial to Holocene lacustrine rhythmites

Biogeochemical cycles and sedimentary records in lakes are related to climate controls on hydrology and catchment processes. Changes in the isotopic imposition of the diatom frustules (δ 18 O diatom and δ 13 C diatom ) in lacustrine sediments can be used to reconstruct palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental changes. The Lago Chungará (Andean Altiplano, 18°15 ′ S, 69°10 ′ W, 4520 masl) diatomaceous laminated sediments are made up of white and green multiannual rhythmites. White laminae were formed during short-term diatom super-blooms, and are composed almost exclusively of large-sized Cyclostephanos andinus.These diatoms bloom during mixing events when recycled nutrients from the bottom waters are brought to the surface and/or when nutrients are introduced from the catchment during periods of strong runoff. Conversely, the green laminae are thought to have been deposited over several years and are composed of a mixture of diatoms (mainly smaller valves of C. andinus and Discostella stelligera ) and organic matter. These green laminae reflect the lake's hydrological recovery from a status favouring the diatom super-blooms (white laminae) towards baseline conditions. δ 18 O diatom and δ 13 C diatom from 11,990 to 11,530 cal years BP allow us to reconstruct shifts in the precipitation/evaporation ratio and changes in the lake water dissolved carbon concentration, respectively. δ 18 O diatom values indicate that white laminae formation occurred mainly during low lake level stages, whereas green laminae formation generally occurred during high lake level stages. The isotope and chronostratigraphical data together suggest that white laminae deposition is caused by extraordinary environmental events. El Niño-Southern Oscillation and changes in solar activity are the most likely climate forcing mechanisms that could trigger such events, favouring hydrological changes at interannual-to-decadal scale. This study demonstrates the potential for laminated lake sediments to document extreme pluriannual events.

In memoriam Antonio Prevosti (1919-2011), a pioneer of genetics of natural populations

Prof. Dr. Antonio Prevosti was born on the 15th of February, 1919, at Barcelona where he grew up and lived with his wife Maria Monclús and his family until his death. Between the years 1939 and 1942 he registered at the University of Barcelona and finished his studies there with the"University Degree in Natural Science" obtaining the extraordinary award of his promotion. Immediately afterwards he started his research about the growth rate of Barcelona school children from two very different social groups at the Anthropology Laboratory of the University of Barcelona. The obtained results were published in his Doctoral Thesis (1948). Further investigations on quantitative traits in human populations improved his knowledge of statistical analyses and provided the basis for a scholarship from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to work at the Institute of Statistical and Demographical Sciences in Rome directed by Prof. C. Gini.

Los espectaculos de la tradición romano-pagana en la obra de Paulino de Nola

In this paper we study the presence of elements related to Roman games in the work of the bishop Paulinus of Nola (355-431 AD). References to shows in his work are not as abundant as they occurs among his contemporaries. Nevertheless, many of these references possess a great importance for us. Certainly, they are similar to other allusions made by his contemporaries; however they express the opinion of one of the most famous and prestigious bishops of the Late Antiquity about these popular exhibitions. In his writings we can see his criticism of the waste of wealth in the organization of the Roman games, and also the use of a metaphorical language with ludical reminiscences whose origins go back to Paul of Tarsu

Magnetic properties of an Fe/Cu granular multilayer

A Cu/Fe granular film, formed from a multilayer film and composed of particles of Fe imbedded in Cu, has had several of its important properties investigated. Measurements include ferromagentic resonance, magnetoresistance, Mössbauer effect, magnetic viscosity, and magnetization. The two‐phase behavior of these immiscible alloy systems, and the effect of multilayering on the shape of the magnetic precipitates, can explain some of these properties. An explanation of the ferromagnetic resonance line shape is proffered. An extraordinary macroscopic quantum tunneling effect is found to govern the magnetic relaxation at the lowest temperatures.