What lies behind the devaluation of educational credentials?

Applying fixed-effects models to EULFS data on Spain from 1998 to2006, the paper explores the effects of educational expansion on theoccupational returns to education across different levels of education.We build an indicator of the positional value of education, based on theidea that the value of a given educational credential partly depends onthe percentage of labour market entrants who have reached that level atthe time when individuals enter the labour market -- it is higher whenfewer individuals have reached it, lower otherwise. Our analysis for theSpanish case shows that the decrease in the occupational returns toeducation goes in parallel with the decrease in the positional value ofeducation, but this devaluation of credentials has been stronger ingeneral education (e.g., in humanities or social sciences universitydegrees, or in upper secondary general education) than in specializededucation (e.g., in technical fields in the university, or in uppervocational training). We argue that the reason for this is most likely thatgeneral education provides a more diffuse signal of candidates’ skillsthan specialized education. We also find that this devaluation ofcredentials has been stronger in fields accessed by women in largernumbers in last decades.

Mentoring, educational services, and economic incentives longer-term evidence on risky behaviors from a randomized trial

This paper is the first to use a randomized trial in the US to analyze the short- and long- term impacts of an afterschool program that offered disadvantaged high-school youth: mentoring, educational services, and financial rewards to attend program activities, complete high-school and enroll in post-secondary education on youths' engagement in risky behaviors, such as substance abuse, criminal activity, and teenage childbearing. Outcomes were measured at three different points in time, when youths were in their late-teens, and when they were in their early- and their latetwenties. Overall the program was unsuccessful at reducing risky behaviors. Heterogeneity matters in that perverse effects are concentrated among certain subgroups, such as males, older youths, and youths from sites where youths received higher amount of stipends. We claim that this evidence is consistent with different models of youths' behavioral response to economic incentives. In addition, beneficial effects found in those sites in which QOP youths represented a large fraction of the entering class of 9th graders provides hope for these type of programs when operated in small communities and supports the hypothesis of peer effects.

R&D cooperation between Spanish firms and scientific partners: what is the role of tertiary education?

This paper explores the factors that determine firm’s R&D cooperation with different partners, paying special attention on the role of tertiary education (degree and PhDs level) in facilitating the connection between the firms and the to scientific bodies (technology centres, public research centres and universities). Here, we attempt to answer two questions. First, are innovative firms that carry out internal and external R&D activities more likely to cooperate on R&D projects with other partners? Second, do Spanish innovative firms with a high participation of researchers with degrees or PhDs tend to cooperate more with scientific partners? To answer both questions we apply a three-dimensional approach on a firm level Panel Data with a sample of 4.998 manufacturing and services Spanish firms. First, we run a complementary test between external R&D acquisition and skilled research workers and find that firms which carry out external R&D activities obtain a greater return on R&D cooperation when they have skilled workers in R&D, especially in high-tech manufactures and KIS services. Second, we carry out a 2-step tobit model to estimate, in the first stage, the determinants that explain whether Spanish innovative firms cooperate or not; and in the second stage the factors that affect the choice of partners. And third, we apply an ordered probit model to test the marginal effects of explanatory variables on the different partners. Here we contrast some of the most interesting empirical hypotheses of previous studies, and which emphasize the role of employees with degrees and PhDs in facilitating cooperative R&D between firms and scientific partners.

R&D cooperation between Spanish firms and scientific partners: what is the role of tertiary education?

This paper explores the factors that determine firm’s R&D cooperation with different partners, paying special attention on the role of tertiary education (degree and PhDs level) in facilitating the connection between the firms and the to scientific bodies (technology centres, public research centres and universities). Here, we attempt to answer two questions. First, are innovative firms that carry out internal and external R&D activities more likely to cooperate on R&D projects with other partners? Second, do Spanish innovative firms with a high participation of researchers with degrees or PhDs tend to cooperate more with scientific partners? To answer both questions we apply a three-dimensional approach on a firm level Panel Data with a sample of 4.998 manufacturing and services Spanish firms. First, we run a complementary test between external R&D acquisition and skilled research workers and find that firms which carry out external R&D activities obtain a greater return on R&D cooperation when they have skilled workers in R&D, especially in high-tech manufactures and KIS services. Second, we carry out a 2-step tobit model to estimate, in the first stage, the determinants that explain whether Spanish innovative firms cooperate or not; and in the second stage the factors that affect the choice of partners. And third, we apply an ordered probit model to test the marginal effects of explanatory variables on the different partners. Here we contrast some of the most interesting empirical hypotheses of previous studies, and which emphasize the role of employees with degrees and PhDs in facilitating cooperative R&D between firms and scientific partners. JEL classification: O31, O33, O38. Key words: Determinants R&D cooperation, industry-university flows, PhD research workers.

Virtual Library Services for a Virtual University : User-Oriented Virtual Sites in an Open Library

La llegada de las tecnologías de la información, y su uso cada vez mayor y generalizado que se está haciendo de ellas, ha permitido para que una nueva situación aparezca que, a su vez, ha originado - de hecho, que ha precipitado - una serie de cambios de gran importancia en todos los niveles, pero especialmente en los niveles sociales, económicos y culturales. Este nueva escena ha tenido una gran influencia en el entorno pedagógico. De hecho, la aparición de nuevos modelos educativos como resultado de este cambio ha estado sucediendo de una manera continuada e ininterrumpida durante la década pasada. Estos cambios recientes en los sistemas actuales de enseñanza y de aprendizaje han significado un aumento y un cambio en el tipo de demandas hechas desde las bibliotecas y los centros de documentación.

Virtual Library Services for a Virtual University

Es presenta el concepte de biblioteca virtual tal com es desenvolupa a la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya una institució d'educació a distància que proporciona educació universitària. La UOC basa l'organització del seu model educatiu en l'explotació del paradigma del Campus Virtual i en l'ús de les darreres tecnologies disponibles en telemàtica, ordinadors personals i multimèdia. En aquest context, la Biblioteca Virtual de la UOC s'ofereix com un nou model del servei de biblioteca, flexible i dissenyat de manera que els usuaris puguin aprofitar-se de les noves tecnologies de la informació i accedir a les dades registrades i emmagatzemades a qualsevol lloc del món.

Women in police services in the EU: facts and figures 2012

The Institute for Public Security of Catalonia (ISPC), the only state-funded education and research centre for police in Catalonia-Spain, developed in 2012 a comparative study on Gender diversity in police services in the European Union. The study is an update of the research Facts & Figures 2008 that was carried out by the European Network of Policewomen (ENP), a non-profit organization that works in partnership with colleagues from police and/or law enforcement organizations in its member countries to facilitate positive changes in the position of women in police services. To gather the 2012 data, the ISPC invited EU Member States’ police services to cooperate in the study answering a 10- ITEM questionnaire. The questionnaire was the same tool used in 2008 by the ENP. In February 2012, the ISPC sent the questionnaires through Cepol National Contact Points’ network. In order to include as many police services as possible in the study, the ENP also supported us to gather some of the data. Altogether we received questionnaires from 29 police services corresponding to 17 UE countries. Besides, we used data from open sources about England and Wales police services and the French National Police. In this document you can find: first, the tool we used to collect the data; second, the answers we gathered presented per country; finally, some comparative tables and graphics developed by the ISPC. Countries: Austria, Belgium Cyprus, Denmark, England, Wales, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Swden.

Traduir i interpretar les llengües de la immigració a Catalunya: cap a la formació i acreditació d’un perfil professional emergent

El projecte que sol•licitem és el resultat natural d’una recerca iniciada l’any 2008 pel grup de recerca MIRAS (Mediació i Interpretació: Recerca en l’Àmbit Social) de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. La recerca del grup MIRAS ha tingut com a objectiu general, durant els darrers dos anys, la definició del perfil professional del traductor/intèrpret als serveis públics. Aquesta figura emergent i encara poc reconeguda al nostre país va començar a sorgir a partir del boom migratori de les darreres dècades a Catalunya com a resposta als problemes de comunicació freqüents entre la població nouvinguda i els serveis públics locals. Per a assolir l’objectiu esmentat, la primera fase de la recerca del grup MIRAS s’ha centrat en el disseny, distribució, buidatge, anàlisi i creuament de dades de 250 qüestionaris semioberts dirigits als tres principals agents implicats en la interacció comunicativa que estudiem: els traductors/intèrprets, els usuaris i els proveïdors dels serveis. Els resultats d’aquest estudi han demostrat, entre d’altres qüestions rellevants, la manca d’una formació específica per als traductors/intèrprets als serveis públics, així com una absència de regulació de la professió que aquests exerceixen. Un cop realitzat aquest primer estudi pilot, i en vista dels resultats obtinguts, ens sembla doncs evident que el següent pas de la nostra recerca ha d’anar orientat cap a la formació i regulació professional dels traductors/intèrprets als serveis públics. En concret, en el projecte que sol•licitem ens proposem dissenyar una formació especialitzada per a traductors/intèrprets als serveis públics que compleixi amb els següents tres prerequisits: a) estar oberta a tot tipus de persones, independentment del seu nivell d’estudis; b) oferir un ampli ventall de llengües, principalment les llengües de la immigració a Catalunya (per a una primera selecció d’aquestes llengües, vegeu informe demogràfic de la SIM de l’1 de gener de 2010 i resultats de l’estudi pilot de MIRAS), i c) conduir a una acreditació nacional que reguli l’exercici de la professió de traductor/intèrpret als serveis públics de Catalunya. La implementació d’un sistema d’acreditació, segon objectiu del projecte que presentem, és essencial ja que no només permetrà la regulació d’una professió fins avui poc o mal definida, sinó que també garantirà la qualitat dels serveis oferts per aquests professionals en el futur.

Intergovernmental Transfers and Elementary Education: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Brazil

Whether providing additional resources to local communities leads to improved public services and better outcomes more generally, given existing management capacity and incentive and accountability structures, is an unresolved yet important question for public policy. This paper uses a regression-discontinuity design to evaluate the effect of unrestricted fiscal transfers on local spending (including on education), schooling and learning in Brazil. Results show that transfers increase local public spending almost one for one with no evidence of crowding out own revenue or other revenue sources. Extra per capita transfers of 1000 Reais lead to about 0.42 additional years of elementary schooling and student literacy rates increase by about 5.6 percentage points on average. Part of this effect arises through higher teacher-student ratios in municipal elementary school systems. Results also suggest that additional resources have stronger effects in more rural and less developed parts of Brazil.

Specialization and rent-seeking in moral enforcement: The case of confession

Moral codes are produced and enforced by more or less specialized means and are subject to standard economic forces. This paper argues that the intermediary role played by the Catholic Church between God and Christians, a key difference from Protestantism, faces the standard trade-off of specialization benefits and agency costs. It applies this trade-off hypothesis to confession of sins to priests, an institution that epitomizes such intermediation, showing that this hypothesis fits cognitive, historical and econometric evidence better than a simpler rent-seeking story. In particular, Catholics who confess more often are observed to comply more with the moral code; however, no relationship is observed between mass attendance and moral compliance. The data also links the current decline in confession to the rise in education, which makes moral self-enforcement less costly, and to the productivity gap suffered by confession services, given its necessarily interpersonal nature.

Radial measures of public services deficit for regional allocation of public funds

The goal of this paper is to present an optimal resource allocation model for the regional allocation of public service inputs. Theproposed solution leads to maximise the relative public service availability in regions located below the best availability frontier, subject to exogenous budget restrictions and equality ofaccess for equal need criteria (equity-based notion of regional needs). The construction of non-parametric deficit indicators is proposed for public service availability by a novel application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models, whose results offer advantages for the evaluation and improvement of decentralised public resource allocation systems. The method introduced in this paper has relevance as a resource allocation guide for the majority of services centrally funded by the public sector in a given country, such as health care, basic and higher education, citizen safety, justice, transportation, environmental protection, leisure, culture, housing and city planning, etc.

Plan de seguridad y salud para el suministro y montaje del Parque Eólico Rancho Viejo en el T.M. de Medina-Sidonia (Cádiz)

No hace más de 3 años se podía leer en las revistas especializadas que España había pasado a ocupar el tercer puesto en el ranking mundial por potencia eólica instalada. La industria eólica española a su vez ha pasado a ocupar el tercer puesto en la fabricación e instalación de aerogeneradores, con una cuota de mercado del 13%, siendo así un sector con gran capacidad de exportación. Por otra parte, tras diez años de promulgación de la Ley 31/95, de 8 de noviembre, de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales, y después su desarrollo reglamentario, es un hecho incontestable que, pese a todo, y a los ingentes esfuerzos realizados por los distintos actores implicados en la prevención de riesgos laborales (Estado, Comunidades Autónomas, Agentes Sociales, Entidades especializadas, etcetera), existe un sector como el de la construcción que, constituyendo uno de los ejes del crecimiento económico de nuestro país, está sometido a unos riesgos especiales y continúa registrando una siniestralidad laboral muy notoria por sus cifras y gravedad. La legislación de prevención, los manuales sobre las distintas disciplinas preventivas, los libros especializados, los expertos... han abordado ya, con mayor o menor acierto, muchas de las cuestiones generales y específicas que afectan a la seguridad y salud: la evaluación de riesgos, las medidas higiénicas, los equipos de trabajo y equipos de protección individual, la planificación, la formación, los servicios de prevención , los sistemas de gestión de la prevención, las auditorías ... forman parte de los contenidos que se han ido creando en torno a este tema. No obstante, resulta de gran interés la elaboración de un estudio de Seguridad y Salud, en el que partiendo de un desarrollo técnico concreto, pero sobre todo integral, es decir, que comprenda todas las fases para el suministrp e instalación de aerogeneradores para un parque eólico, vayamos desgranando cada uno de los puntos desarrollados en su construcción. Entre las conclusiones más destacadas de este trabajo, se encuentra la definición de las condiciones relativas a la prevención de accidentes y enfermedades laborales durante la ejecución de los trabajos de suministro e instalación de un parque eólico y la gestión de su prevención, las características de las instalaciones preceptivas para higiene y bienestar de los trabajadores, así como directrices básicas mínimas, que deben reflejarse y desarrollarse en el Plan de Seguridad y Salud que las empresas contratistas deberán presentar para su aprobación por el director de obra, antes del comienzo de los trabajos, de forma que sea posible la disminución de accidentes laborales así como evitar las posibles sanciones administrativas y/o penales.

CRM and higher education : developing a monitoring system to improve relationships in e-learning environments

Peer-reviewed

A Multiagent System for Coordinating Ambulances for Emergency Medical Services

To coordinate ambulances for emergency medical services, a multiagent system uses an auction mechanism based on trust. Results of tests using real data show that this system can efficiently assign ambulances to patients, thereby reducing transportation time. Emergency transportation on specialized vehicles is needed when a person's health is in risk of irreparable damage. A patient can't benefit from sophisticated medical treatments and technologies if she or he isn't placed in a proper healthcare center with the appropriate medical team. For example, strokes are neurological emergencies involving a limited amount of time in which treatment measures are effective