Pensions and procrastination : how can employers help their employees save for the future?

In this paper I show that employees tend to procrastinate when they are expected to decide whether or not they would like to save using the defined contribution pension scheme offered by their employer. By auto-enrolling the employees or asking them to decide before a given deadline, employers can mitigate some of the problems caused by employee procrastination. However both of these mechanisms present their own problems, caused by default stickiness and other issues, so I discuss how employers can decide which is the right mechanism to use depending on the characteristics of their employees, and how to minimize the problems these mechanisms can cause.

An insight into co-operativism

The concept of co-operativism is analysed in this report. As an introduction to the subject, the values that socially friendly businesses work with are mentioned, as well as, the basic differences with regard to capitalist companies. In order to broaden the model, seven basic principles that drive such companies are analysed. Recently, due to the economic crisis, many capitalist companies have changed their way of running the business and have opted for cooperatives. Therefore, the steps they have to follow to become part of this view will be considered. So as to introduce a more critical view, benefits and drawbacks of cooperative companies will be borne in mind. In addition, no theoretical model is complete if real examples are not provided, thus in the final part, four companies will be studied. The first one being a company that has always been part of a group of cooperatives and which has enjoyed positive results all over; the second one, a company that has experienced the benefits of leaving the group; the third one, the cornerstone of such group, whose effort to relaunch the company have failed; and the final one, an acquired company whose future is uncertain due to its parent company's decline. To conclude, the final section is going to be devoted to heighten the problems that cooperatives have and which may have compromised their status as alternative models to capitalism.

Partial correlation : Network analysis

The final year project came to us as an opportunity to get involved in a topic which has appeared to be attractive during the learning process of majoring in economics: statistics and its application to the analysis of economic data, i.e. econometrics.Moreover, the combination of econometrics and computer science is a very hot topic nowadays, given the Information Technologies boom in the last decades and the consequent exponential increase in the amount of data collected and stored day by day. Data analysts able to deal with Big Data and to find useful results from it are verydemanded in these days and, according to our understanding, the work they do, although sometimes controversial in terms of ethics, is a clear source of value added both for private corporations and the public sector. For these reasons, the essence of this project is the study of a statistical instrument valid for the analysis of large datasets which is directly related to computer science: Partial Correlation Networks.The structure of the project has been determined by our objectives through the development of it. At first, the characteristics of the studied instrument are explained, from the basic ideas up to the features of the model behind it, with the final goal of presenting SPACE model as a tool for estimating interconnections in between elements in large data sets. Afterwards, an illustrated simulation is performed in order to show the power and efficiency of the model presented. And at last, the model is put into practice by analyzing a relatively large data set of real world data, with the objective of assessing whether the proposed statistical instrument is valid and useful when applied to a real multivariate time series. In short, our main goals are to present the model and evaluate if Partial Correlation Network Analysis is an effective, useful instrument and allows finding valuable results from Big Data.As a result, the findings all along this project suggest the Partial Correlation Estimation by Joint Sparse Regression Models approach presented by Peng et al. (2009) to work well under the assumption of sparsity of data. Moreover, partial correlation networks are shown to be a very valid tool to represent cross-sectional interconnections in between elements in large data sets.The scope of this project is however limited, as there are some sections in which deeper analysis would have been appropriate. Considering intertemporal connections in between elements, the choice of the tuning parameter lambda, or a deeper analysis of the results in the real data application are examples of aspects in which this project could be completed.To sum up, the analyzed statistical tool has been proved to be a very useful instrument to find relationships that connect the elements present in a large data set. And after all, partial correlation networks allow the owner of this set to observe and analyze the existing linkages that could have been omitted otherwise.

Treball de Fi de Grau

Podeu consultar la Setena trobada de professorat de Ciències de la Salut completa a: http://hdl.handle.net/2445/43352

Treball de Fi de Grau

Podeu consultar la Setena trobada de professorat de Ciències de la Salut completa a: http://hdl.handle.net/2445/43352

Treball de Fi de Grau

Podeu consultar la Setena trobada de professorat de Ciències de la Salut completa a: http://hdl.handle.net/2445/43352

Treball de Fi de Grau

Podeu consultar la Setena trobada de professorat de Ciències de la Salut completa a: http://hdl.handle.net/2445/43352

Posibles causas de la reducción de la población penitenciaria en España y Cataluña entre 2010 y 2013 : Efecto de la Ley Orgánica 5/2010 sobre esta reducción

Desde 1980 hasta 2010, la población penitenciaria no dejó de crecer. Sin embargo, desde 2010 esta tasa se está reduciendo. En este trabajo se trata de buscar una serie de explicaciones para este aumento, y para la posterior reducción. Se pone especialatención en la entrada en vigor de la Ley Orgánica 5/2010, que supuso una extensa reforma del Código Penal. Con esta Ley Orgánica, se introdujo la posibilidad de reducir en un grado ciertas conductas contra la salud pública, en forma de subtipo atenuado.Esto puede haber supuesto un efecto considerable sobre la reducción de las tasas de encarcelamiento. Para estudiar el efecto de este nuevo subtipo, se realiza una pequeña investigación cuantitativa sobre una muestra de sentencias por delitos contra la saludpública. Después, se muestran los resultados y se proponen nuevas líneas de investigación.

La asimetria informativa en el sistema bancari i la seva regulació : anàlisi teòric, modelització del problema i proposta de regulació

La crisi financera actual ha posat de manifest les conseqüències de no tractar correctament les fallides de mercat en el sector bancari. Aquestes fallides de mercat, que són un element intrínsec de la pròpia activitat bancària, són un element imprescindible per entendre els desequilibris que han desencadenat crisi.El treball analitza una de les fallides de mercat del sector bancari que més incidència ha tingut en el desenvolupament de la crisi financera actual: la asimetria informativa. L’objectiu de l’estudi és identificar els problemes de selecció adversa i risc moral que es van produir en els anys previs a la crisi bancaria i fer-ne unanàlisi detallat.La hipòtesi del treball és que la asimetria informativa impedeix al sector bancari assolir un equilibri Paretoeficient en absència d'una regulació adequada.Per donar una resposta satisfactòria a la nostra hipòtesi, cal demostrar que la multitud de distorsions que la asimetria informativa va generar tingueren un impacte significatiu en el desenvolupament de la crisi. Amb aquest objectiu, volem mostrar quines han estat les causes i conseqüències d'aquestes distorsions, per què s'han produït i com s’haguessin pogut evitar en un entorn de regulació adequada.L'estructura del treball és la següent: en primer lloc oferim el context històric que ha motivat aquest treball, és a dir, una breu explicació sobre les causes i conseqüències de la crisi econòmica, establint paral·lelismes amb els casos de asimetria informativa que tractem. En segon lloc, analitzem el paper que ha tingut laasimetria informativa en la crisi actual i les raons que ens indiquen que el seu impacte ha estat fonamentalpel desenvolupament de la crisi. En tercer lloc, oferim dos models econòmics, un d’ells d’elaboració pròpia, amb l'objectiu de, no només identificar els diversos problemes de asimetria informativa transcorreguts anteriorment a la crisi bancària, sinó també per donar-hi una resposta econòmicament viable i satisfactòria.En quart lloc, exposem les mesures reguladores que considerem que poden solucionar els diferents casos de asimetria informativa analitzats. Finalment, oferim les conclusions més rellevants del treball.

The economics of infertility

Infertility is a growing issue that affects thousands of Spanish couples; increasingly there are more and more people who cannot raise a family by themselves. Instead they have to resort to ART, adoption -local or international- or surrogacy abroad, a practice that many couples consider but that isn’t legalized in Spain. In this paper we have broken down each option in detail by analysing the market, differentiating its variants and specific steps, calculating its “price” and suggesting possible improvements that could be made from an economic perspective. We end our paper with the “SWOT” analysis of a hypothetical surrogacy market in Spain by calculating an estimated price, using the US as a reference, and the degree of acceptance it would have, based on the results of random surveys.

The underestimation of compliance to direct help requests explained by adaptive sampling

Helping behavior is any intentional behavior that benefits another living being or group (Hogg & Vaughan, 2010). People tend to underestimate the probability that others will comply with their direct requests for help (Flynn & Lake, 2008). This implies that when they need help, they will assess the probability of getting it (De Paulo, 1982, cited in Flynn & Lake, 2008) and then they will tend to estimate one that is actually lower than the real chance, so they may not even consider worth asking for it. Existing explanations for this phenomenon attribute it to a mistaken cost computation by the help seeker, who will emphasize the instrumental cost of “saying yes”, ignoring that the potential helper also needs to take into account the social cost of saying “no”. And the truth is that, especially in face-to-face interactions, the discomfort caused by refusing to help can be very high. In short, help seekers tend to fail to realize that it might be more costly to refuse to comply with a help request rather than accepting. A similar effect has been observed when estimating trustworthiness of people. Fetchenhauer and Dunning (2010) showed that people also tend to underestimate it. This bias is reduced when, instead of asymmetric feedback (getting feedback only when deciding to trust the other person), symmetric feedback (always given) was provided. This cause could as well be applicable to help seeking as people only receive feedback when they actually make their request but not otherwise. Fazio, Shook, and Eiser (2004) studied something that could be reinforcing these outcomes: Learning asymmetries. By means of a computer game called BeanFest, they showed that people learn better about negatively valenced objects (beans in this case) than about positively valenced ones. This learning asymmetry esteemed from “information gain being contingent on approach behavior” (p. 293), which could be identified with what Fetchenhauer and Dunning mention as ‘asymmetric feedback’, and hence also with help requests. Fazio et al. also found a generalization asymmetry in favor of negative attitudes versus positive ones. They attributed it to a negativity bias that “weights resemblance to a known negative more heavily than resemblance to a positive” (p. 300). Applied to help seeking scenarios, this would mean that when facing an unknown situation, people would tend to generalize and infer that is more likely that they get a negative rather than a positive outcome from it, so, along with what it was said before, people will be more inclined to think that they will get a “no” when requesting help. Denrell and Le Mens (2011) present a different perspective when trying to explain judgment biases in general. They deviate from the classical inappropriate information processing (depicted among other by Fiske & Taylor, 2007, and Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) and explain this in terms of ‘adaptive sampling’. Adaptive sampling is a sampling mechanism in which the selection of sample items is conditioned by the values of the variable of interest previously observed (Thompson, 2011). Sampling adaptively allows individuals to safeguard themselves from experiences they went through once and turned out to lay negative outcomes. However, it also prevents them from giving a second chance to those experiences to get an updated outcome that could maybe turn into a positive one, a more positive one, or just one that regresses to the mean, whatever direction that implies. That, as Denrell and Le Mens (2011) explained, makes sense: If you go to a restaurant, and you did not like the food, you do not choose that restaurant again. This is what we think could be happening when asking for help: When we get a “no”, we stop asking. And here, we want to provide a complementary explanation for the underestimation of the probability that others comply with our direct help requests based on adaptive sampling. First, we will develop and explain a model that represents the theory. Later on, we will test it empirically by means of experiments, and will elaborate on the analysis of its results.

Neutralizing antibodies in Multiple Sclerosis a model-based analysis of Interferon beta signaling pathway in macrophages

Multiple Sclerosis is the most common non-traumatic cause of neurologicaldisability in young people. There is no cure yet, and until recently, few long-termtherapies existed. Interferon beta (IFNβ) was the first treatment, and remains the mostcommonly prescribed. One of the most significant problems of IFNβ therapy is theproduction of drug specific antibodies. Up to 45% of patients develop neutralizingantibodies (NAbs) to IFNβ products. The neutralizing antibody binds to the biologicalagent preventing its interaction with its receptor, inhibiting the biological action of theprotein, which abrogates the clinical efficacy of IFNβ treatment. Interferon-betamediates its response by binding to its high affinity cell surface receptor and initiatingthe JAK/STAT signalling cascade. In this project we have analyzed the IFNβ signalingpathway in macrophages when neutralizing antibodies are present. The response tothis pathway after IFNβ stimulation shows a transient oscillatory rhythm of STAT1phosphorylation, which varies as NAbs concentration increases. To improve ourunderstanding of that behavior, we extended an existing mathematical model based onnonlinear ordinary differential equations of JAK/STAT pathway by including IFN-NAbassociation and IFN-activation receptor. Combining our theoretical model withexperimental data we could study the role of neutralizing antibodies on the molecularresponse and determine its lifetime after cytokine stimulation.

Evolutionary analysis of genetic variants involved in rare diseases

Next-generation sequencing techniques such as exome sequencing can successfully detect all genetic variants in a human exome and it has been useful together with the implementation of variant filters to identify causing-disease mutations. Two filters aremainly used for the mutations identification: low allele frequency and the computational annotation of the genetic variant. Bioinformatic tools to predict the effect of a givenvariant may have errors due to the existing bias in databases and sometimes show a limited coincidence among them. Advances in functional and comparative genomics are needed in order to properly annotate these variants.The goal of this study is to: first, functionally annotate Common Variable Immunodeficiency disease (CVID) variants with the available bioinformatic methods in order to assess the reliability of these strategies. Sencondly, as the development of new methods to reduce the number of candidate genetic variants is an active and necessary field of research, we are exploring the utility of gene function information at organism level as a filter for rare disease genes identification. Recently, it has been proposed that only 10-15% of human genes are essential and therefore we would expect that severe rare diseases are mostly caused by mutations on them. Our goal is to determine whether or not these rare and severe diseases are caused by deleterious mutations in these essential genes. If this hypothesis were true, taking into account essential genes as a filter would be an interesting parameter to identify causingdisease mutations.

El tabaco y la reproducción masculina

Actualmente se estima la población infértil entre el 10%-15%, y el pronóstico es que vaya en ascenso; además los últimos datos muestran que en el mundo, hoy en día, existen un 47% de hombres fumadores. Por este motivo este trabajo tiene como objetivo determinar cómo afecta el hábito de fumar a la reproducción masculina, concretamente a los parámetros seminales, a las hormonas reproductoras y a la fragmentación del ADN espermático. Además, también hemos querido estudiar si el hábito de fumar provoca mutaciones y aneuploidías en la línea germinal, y si éstas, en caso de existir, pueden afectar a la descendencia.Para realizar esta revisión, la cual integra dos meta-análisis, se han utilizado diferentes bases de datos para poder recoger y estudiar artículos epidemiológicos, clínicos y experimentales. Los resultado obtenidos, a partir de un total de 28 estudios, muestran que existe una reducción porcentual media en la concentración de espermatozoides del 12,4% en los fumadores respecto a los no fumadores, en la movilidad espermática la reducción es del 10.3% y en la morfología del 13.6%. También se ha determinado que los fumadores presentan todas las hormonas reproductoras estudiadas incrementadas y que tienen un mayor porcentaje de fragmentación del ADN espermático. Además, mostramos que el tabaco causa aneuploidías y mutaciones en las células germinales, pudiendo causar enfermedades genéticas en la descendencia, como el cáncer.Concluimos que el hecho de no fumar o de dejar de fumar puede proporcionar beneficios en la fertilidad masculina y en la descendencia.

Eficàcia de les intervencions infermeres per a l'autocontrol de la tensió arterial en persones hipertenses

Fonaments: La hipertensió és una malaltia crònica amb alta prevalença al món. Els estils de vidasaludables es relacionen directament amb aquesta patologia pel que el rol de la infermeria és clauen el desenvolupament d'eines i intervencions per millorar l'autocontrol dels pacients hipertensosmitjançant l'educació sanitària.Objectiu: És valorar l'eficàcia de les intervencions en consultes d'infermera per a l'autocontrol dela tensió arterial en pacients amb hipertensió arterial respecte al seguiment habitual d'aquestspacients en consultes mèdiques.Mètode: S'estudiaran a 34 adults hipertensos mitjançant un assaig clínic aleatoritzat en dos grupsde 17 pacients hipertensos. El grup experimental serà objecte d'unes intervencions educativessobre la hipertensió i la repercussió dels estils de vida pel control d'aquesta patologia per partd'infermeria, a més a més, d'un control rutinari mèdic. Mentre que el grup control solamentassistirà als controls rutinaris mèdics sobre la hipertensió i no rebrà intervencions infermeres. Enl'avaluació de les dades es tindran en compte les variables de la mesura de la tensió arterial, ladieta, l'exercici físic i el seguiment del tractament, a més de diferents variablessociodemogràfiques com són l'edat, el gènere i el nivell socioeconòmic. Les dades s'analitzaranmitjançant Chi Cuadrat per a les variables qualitatives, la Correlació de Pearson i la de Spearmanper a les variables quantitatives i, finalment, la T de Student per a la comparació de la mitja de lesdues mostres independents.Conclusió: Amb l'assaig clínic es pretés demostrar que les intervencions d’infermeria en consultesmilloren l'autocontrol dels pacients amb hipertensió arterial, és a dir, són eficaces.