An Atkinson-Gini family of social evaluation functions

We investigate the properties of a family of social evaluation functions and inequality indices which merge the features of the family of Atkinson (1970) and S-Gini (Donaldson and Weymark (1980, 1983), Yitzhaki (1983) and Kakwani (1980)) indices. Income inequality aversion is captured by decreasing marginal utilities, and aversion to rank inequality is captured by rank-dependent ethical weights, thus providing an ethically-flexible dual basis for the assessment of inequality and equity. These ocial evaluation functions can be interpreted as average utility corrected for the illfare of relative deprivation. They can alternatively be understood as averages of altruistic well-being in a population. They moreover have a simple graphical interpretation.

Parental education and family characteristics: educational opportunities across cohorts in Italy and Spain

Drawing on data contained in the 2005 EU-SILC, this paper investigates the disparities in educational opportunities in Italy and Spain. Its main objective is to analyse the predicted probabilities of successfully completing upper-secondary and tertiary education for individuals with different parental backgrounds, and the changes in these probabilities across birth cohorts extending from 1940 to 1980. The results suggest that the disparities in tertiary education opportunities in Italy tend to increase over time. By contrast, the gap in educational opportunity in Spain shows a marked decrease across the cohorts. Moreover, by using an intuitive decomposition strategy, the paper shows that a large part of the educational gap between individuals of different backgrounds is “composed” of the difference in the endowment of family characteristics. Specifically, it seems that more highly educated parents are more able to endow their children with a better composition of family characteristics, which accounts for a significant proportion of the disparities in educational opportunity.

Did the cooperative start life as a Joint-Stock company? business law and cooperatives in Spain, 1869–1931

Studies of Spanish cooperatives date their spread from the Law on Agrarian Syndicates of 1906. But the first legislative appearance of cooperatives is an 1869 measure that permitted general incorporation for lending companies. The 1931 general law on cooperatives, which was the first act permitting the formation of cooperatives in any activity, reflects the gradual disappearance of the cooperative’s "business" characteristics. In this paper we trace the Spanish cooperative’s legal roots in business law and its connections to broader questions of the freedom of association, the formation of joint-stock enterprises, and the liability of investors in business and cooperative entities. Our account underscores the similarities of the organizational problems approach by cooperatives and business firms, while at the same time respecting the distinctive purposes cooperatives served.

An approximate solution method for boundary layer flow of a power law fluid over a flat plate

The work in this paper deals with the development of momentum and thermal boundary layers when a power law fluid flows over a flat plate. At the plate we impose either constant temperature, constant flux or a Newton cooling condition. The problem is analysed using similarity solutions, integral momentum and energy equations and an approximation technique which is a form of the Heat Balance Integral Method. The fluid properties are assumed to be independent of temperature, hence the momentum equation uncouples from the thermal problem. We first derive the similarity equations for the velocity and present exact solutions for the case where the power law index n = 2. The similarity solutions are used to validate the new approximation method. This new technique is then applied to the thermal boundary layer, where a similarity solution can only be obtained for the case n = 1.

Telomere characterization in the Asteraceae family

Asteraceae or Compositae constitute one of the largest families of the angiosperms, distributed over all continents but in Antarctica, particularly well represented in temperate zones and less frequent in tropical regions. The Asteraceae have been the object of a great deal of attention from all viewpoints for their scientific as well as economic interest. Telomeres sequences are highly conservated at the ends of chromosomes across the eukaryotes. In plants, generally are formed by tandemly repeated sequences named Arabidopsis type but several exceptions have been described. The objective of the present work is to study the telomeric characterization along the whole Asteraceae family and to find, if any, the relationships between these results and the evolutionary history in this family.

Law and the practise of principle in diverse societies

Projecte de recerca elaborat a partir d’una estada a la London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom, entre 2007 i 2009. L’objecte principal del projecte ha estat analitzar les implicacions jurídico-polítiques i institucionals d’una teoria de la justícia i la igualtat liberals aplicada a societats multiculturals amb un marcat predomini de la diversitat cultural. L’anàlisi desenvolupa una línia d'investigació interdisciplinar - entre el dret i la teoria política - iniciada en una tesis doctoral sobre multiculturalisme i drets de les minories culturals (UPF, 2000) que va culminar en la publicació de Group Rights as Human Rights (Springer, 2006). La recerca adopta com a punt de partida les conclusions de l'esmentada obra, en especial, la rellevància del reconeixement de drets col•lectius; tanmateix, el tipus de qüestions plantejades, l’enfoc i la metodologia emprades són substancialment diferents. En concret, s'adrecen preguntes específiques sobre el model i aspiracions del constitucionalisme democràtic i el paper del dret en contextos multiculturals. També s’atorga un pes central a la dimensió institucional dels models de gestió de la diversitat que s’analitzen, prioritzant un enfocament comparatiu a partir de l’estudi de controvèrsies concretes. L’objectiu és superar algunes limitacions importants de la literatura actual, com ara la tendència a examinar en abstracte la compatibilitat de determinades demandes amb el constitucionalisme democràtic, sense abordar el funcionament d'estratègies de gestió de la diversitat cultural emprades en contextos concrets. Els treballs producte d'aquest projecte articulen les línies bàsiques d’un model pluralista, basat en principis més que en regles, que desafia els plantejaments dominants actualment. Aquest model es caracteritza pel compromís amb la legitimitat i igualtat comparatives, rebutjant el paternalisme i les visions liberals típiques sobre el paper de la regulació. La presumpció de l’“standing” moral dels grups identitaris és fonamental per tal de considerar-los interlocutors vàlids amb interessos genuïns. També s’argumenta que la integració social en contextos multiculturals no depèn tant de l’eliminació del conflicte sinó, sobre tot, d’una gestió eficient que eviti abusos de poder sistemàtics. El model defensa el rol del dret en la institucionalització del diàleg intercultural, però admet que el diàleg no necessàriament condueix a l’acord o a una estructura reguladora coherent i uniforme. Les aspiracions del ordre jurídic pluralista són més modestes: afavorir la negociació i resolució en cada conflicte, malgrat la persistència de la fragmentació i la provisionalitat dels acords. La manca d'un marc regulador comú esdevé una virtut en la mesura que permet la interacció de diferents subordres; una interacció governada per una multiplicitat de regles no necessàriament harmòniques. Els avantatges i problemes d’aquest model s'analitzen a partir de l'anàlisi de l’estructura fragmentària de l'ordre jurídic internacional i del règim Europeu de drets humans.

Family-based affirmative action? Subversion and resilience strategies of gay father families

The present doctoral dissertation is aimed at analyzing how and with what consequences gay father families and their children’s schools negotiate possible differences in the construction of family and gender at home and in the families’ social milieus. This objective fits in with the broader goal of researching how family-school interactons are influenced by the social context such as hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2002). The thesis is based on qualitative fieldwork carried out with 18 nonheterosexual parent families in Spain, comprising 30 interviews with 44 people. The principal participant group were 14 de novo (adoptive and surrogacy) gay father families with resident preadolescent children. The findings revealed that all the de novo families assumed open communication strategies at school with inclusive consequences: apart from incidental questions and reactions of surprise, the children did not suffer homophobic bullying. The analisis showed that the necessary condition for inclusion was not the open communication but rather illocutionary orientation (Habermas, 1984; Soler & Flecha, 2010), understood as the parents’ sensitivity to the attitudes of their children and schools. The schools received the families in an inclusive manner, which, however, was only receptive and not proactive, therefore some of the families (reconstituted ones), coerced by the social context, got excluded. Gender relations at home were predominantly androgynous, and outside home predominantly traditional, yet the children negotiated this difference with inclusive consequences. They participated in hegemonic collective practices, thus confirming the thesis on the similarity between homo- and heterosexual-parent families (Golombok, 2006). Consistently, also the families’ identity politics was “assimilationist” and non-queer. Admittedly, the analisis showed that such a politics was increased by social expectations. Still, the findings suggest that educational and other family policies should draw on broad agendas of gender and family diversity rather than on the politics of difference and the unique status of LGB families.

On a family of strongly regular graphs with λ = 1

Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt.

Health-related quality of life assessment in people with multiple sclerosis and their family caregivers. A multicenter study in Catalonia (Southern Europe)

Objectives: To measure the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and their caregivers, and to assess which factors can best describe HRQoL. Methods: A cross-sectional multicenter study of nine hospitals enrolled MS patients and their caregivers who attended outpatient clinics consecutively. The instruments used were the SF-36 for patients and the SF-12 and GHQ-12 for caregivers. Classification and regression tree analysis was used to analyze the explanatory factors of HRQoL. Results: A total of 705 patients (mean age 40.4 years, median Expanded Disability Status Scale 2.5, 77.8% with relapsing-remitting MS) and 551 caregivers (mean age 45.4 years) participated in the study. MS patients had significantly lower HRQoL than in the general population (physical SF-36: 39.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 39.1–40.6; mental SF-36: 44.4; 95% CI: 43.5–45.3). Caregivers also presented lower HRQoL than general population, especially in its mental domain (mental SF-12: 46.4; 95% CI: 45.5–47.3). Moreover, according to GHQ-12, 27% of caregivers presented probable psychological distress. Disability and co-morbidity in patients, and co-morbidity and employment status in caregivers, were the most important explanatory factors of their HRQoL. Conclusions: Not only the HRQoL of patients with MS, but also that of their caregivers, is indeed notably affected. Caregivers’ HRQoL is close to population of chronic illness even that the patients sample has a mild clinical severity and that caregiving role is a usual task in the study context

Social Determinants of Child Health in Colombia: Can Community Education Moderate the Effect of Family Characteristics?

Contextual effects on child health have been investigated extensively in previous research. However, few studies have considered the interplay between community characteristics and individual-level variables. This study examines the influence of community education and family socioeconomic characteristics on child health (as measured by height and weight-for-age Z-scores), as well as their interactions. We adapted the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) framework to the context of child health. Using data from the 2010 Colombian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), weighted multilevel models are fitted since the data are not self-weighting. The results show a positive impact of the level of education of other women in the community on child health, even after controlling for individual and family socioeconomic characteristics. Different pathways through which community education can substitute for the effect of family characteristics on child nutrition are found. The interaction terms highlight the importance of community education as a moderator of the impact of the mother’s own education and autonomy, on child health. In addition, the results reveal differences between height and weight-for-age indicators in their responsiveness to individual and contextual factors. Our findings suggest that community intervention programmes may have differential effects on child health. Therefore, their identification can contribute to a better targeting of child care policies.

Driven fragmentation of granular gases

The dynamics of homogeneously heated granular gases which fragment due to particle collisions is analyzed. We introduce a kinetic model which accounts for correlations induced at the grain collisions and analyze both the kinetics and relevant distribution functions these systems develop. The work combines analytical and numerical studies based on direct simulation Monte Carlo calculations. A broad family of fragmentation probabilities is considered, and its implications for the system kinetics are discussed. We show that generically these driven materials evolve asymptotically into a dynamical scaling regime. If the fragmentation probability tends to a constant, the grain number diverges at a finite time, leading to a shattering singularity. If the fragmentation probability vanishes, then the number of grains grows monotonously as a power law. We consider different homogeneous thermostats and show that the kinetics of these systems depends weakly on both the grain inelasticity and driving. We observe that fragmentation plays a relevant role in the shape of the velocity distribution of the particles. When the fragmentation is driven by local stochastic events, the longvelocity tail is essentially exponential independently of the heating frequency and the breaking rule. However, for a Lowe-Andersen thermostat, numerical evidence strongly supports the conjecture that the scaled velocity distribution follows a generalized exponential behavior f (c)~exp (−cⁿ), with n ≈1.2, regarding less the fragmentation mechanisms

Identification of potential small molecule binding pockets on Rho family GTPases

Rho GTPases are conformational switches that control a wide variety of signaling pathways critical for eukaryotic cell development and proliferation. They represent attractive targets for drug design as their aberrant function and deregulated activity is associated with many human diseases including cancer. Extensive high-resolution structures (.100) and recent mutagenesis studies have laid the foundation for the design of new structure-based chemotherapeutic strategies. Although the inhibition of Rho signaling with drug-like compounds is an active area of current research, very little attention has been devoted to directly inhibiting Rho by targeting potential allosteric non-nucleotide binding sites. By avoiding the nucleotide binding site, compounds may minimize the potential for undesirable off-target interactions with other ubiquitous GTP and ATP binding proteins. Here we describe the application of molecular dynamics simulations, principal component analysis, sequence conservation analysis, and ensemble small-molecule fragment mapping to provide an extensive mapping of potential small-molecule binding pockets on Rho family members. Characterized sites include novel pockets in the vicinity of the conformationaly responsive switch regions as well as distal sites that appear to be related to the conformations of the nucleotide binding region. Furthermore the use of accelerated molecular dynamics simulation, an advanced sampling method that extends the accessible time-scale of conventional simulations, is found to enhance the characterization of novel binding sites when conformational changes are important for the protein mechanism.

Gender inequality in health among elderly people in a combined framework of socioeconomic position, family characteristics and social support

This study analyses gender inequalities in health among elderly people in Catalonia (Spain) by adopting a conceptual framework that globally considers three dimensions of health determinants : socio-economic position, family characteristics and social support. Data came from the 2006 Catalonian Health Survey. For the purposes of this study a sub-sample of people aged 65–85 years with no paid job was selected (1,113 men and 1,484 women). The health outcomes analysed were self-perceived health status, poor mental health status and long-standing limiting illness. Multiple logistic regression models separated by sex were fitted and a hierarchical model was fitted in three steps. Health status among elderly women was poorer than among the men for the three outcomes analysed. Whereas living with disabled people was positively related to the three health outcomes and confidant social support was negatively associated with all of them in both sexes, there were gender differences in other social determinants of health. Our results emphasise the importance of using an integrated approach for the analysis of health inequalities among elderly people, simultaneously considering socio-economic position, family characteristics and social support, as well as different health indicators, in order fully to understand the social determinants of the health status of older men and women.