Science in Western Islam. The circulation of knowledge in Mediterranean region

La Mediterrània ha estat gresol de la circulació d¿idees i persones des de fa mil·lennis. Durant l¿edat mitjana, però, el moviment més rellevant va ser, tal vegada, el que es va produirentre l¿Orient (Maixriq) i l¿Occident (Magrib) islàmics. Els viatges d¿estudis, íntimament units a les prescripcions religioses,varen convertir els científics musulmans en membres especialment actius en la difusió dels coneixements i dels avenços ques¿anaven adquirint a la capital de l¿imperi, Bagdad. Lluny de ser mers «transportistes» de la ciència, el nivell cultural assolit durantl'edat d'or abbassí els va convertir en un dels clímaxs intel·lectuals de la història. Al principi, tot i restar en un discret segonpla, els científics del nord d¿Àfrica i, especialment, els científicsd'al-Andalus varen tenir un paper essencial en la transmissióde la ciència oriental cap a una Europa que en va recollir el testimoni.Per això l¿aportació de la cultura araboislàmica és un esglaó sense el qual és impossible entendre la ciència posterior.Els camps conreats foren diversos: medicina, agronomia,òptica... però l¿àmbit que presidí la ciència fou, sens dubte,l¿astronomia (relacionada, al seu torn, amb les matemàtiques i la geografia). Els noms dels astrònoms més rellevants (desd¿al-Khwarizmi fins a Azarquiel) i les fites que varen assolir justifiquen que fossin coneguts per un públic ampli. Malgrat tot, continuen essent uns grans desconeguts.

Genetic homogeneity of dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) in the western Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic

Dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus) is an epipelagic, highly migratory species distributed worldwide in tropical and temperate waters including the Mediterranean Sea. Protein electrophoresis analyses can provide knowledge of the genetic population structure of the species and therefore be used as a tool for fishery management. Areas sampled include the islands of Majorca and Sicily in the western Mediterranean and the Canary Islands in the eastern Atlantic. The results of the protein electrophoresis reveal a level of genetic variability similar to other highly migratory species. No differences were found among locations, and it was not possible to reject the null hypothesis of one panmictic population in the area studied

Hollywood Films in the Non-Western World: What Are the Criteria Followed by the Chinese Government When Choosing Hollywood Film Imports?

This dissertation argues that the Government of the People’s Republic of China, when it made the decision to import a quota of Hollywood films in 1994 to revive the failing domestic film industry, had different possible criteria in mind. This project has studied four of them: first, importing films that gave a negative image of the United States; second, importing films that featured Chinese talent or themes; third, importing films that were box office hits in the United States; and fourth, importing films with a strong technological innovation ingredient. In order to find out the most important criteria for the Chinese Government, this dissertation offers a dataset that analyzes a population of 262 Hollywood films released in the PRC between 1994 and 2010. For each unit, a method has been developed to compile data that will determine whether the film reflects any of the four criteria, and findings in the form of yearly percentages have been drawn. Results show that, out of the four studied criteria, the two predominant reasons for China to import films were technological innovation and box office hits. This tells us that, at this point, the Chinese Government shows more interest in obtaining big revenues and learning from technically innovative American films than in delivering underlying political messages. This dissertation contributes to the existing literature by analyzing the content of all the films imported by China between 1994 and 2010, while integrating in the analysis variables based on the existing knowledge.

Eliciting and fostering learners' metacognitive knowledge about language learning in self-directed learning programs: a review of data collection methods and procedures

Són molts els estudis que avui en dia incideixen en la necessitat d’oferir un suport metodològic i psicològic als aprenents que treballen de manera autònoma. L’objectiu d’aquest suport és ajudar-los a desenvolupar les destreses que necessiten per dirigir el seu aprenentatge així com una actitud positiva i una major conscienciació envers aquest aprenentatge. En definitiva, aquests dos tipus de preparació es consideren essencials per ajudar els aprenents a esdevenir més autònoms i més eficients en el seu propi aprenentatge. Malgrat això, si bé és freqüent trobar estudis que exemplifiquen aplicacions del suport metodològic dins els seus programes, principalment en la formació d’estratègies o ajudant els aprenents a desenvolupar un pla de treball, aquest no és el cas quan es tracta de la seva preparació psicològica. Amb rares excepcions, trobem estudis que documentin com s’incideix en les actituds i en les creences dels aprenents, també coneguts com a coneixement metacognitiu (CM), en programes que fomenten l’autonomia en l’aprenentatge. Els objectius d’aquest treball son dos: a) oferir una revisió d’estudis que han utilitzat diferents mitjans per incidir en el CM dels aprenents i b) descriure les febleses i avantatges dels procediments i instruments que utilitzen, tal com han estat valorats en estudis de recerca, ja que ens permetrà establir criteris objectius sobre com i quan utilitzar-los en programes que fomentin l’aprenentatge autodirigit.

Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy. Part 2. Asssessment at the EU country level.

This report is an extension and partial update of de la Fuente and Ciccone (2002). It constructs estimates of the private and social rates of return on schooling for fourteen EU countries using microeconometric estimates of Mincerian wage equations, the results of cross-country growth regressions and OECD data on educational expenditures, tax rates and social benefits. The results are used to draw some tentative conclusions regarding the optimality of observed investment patterns and educational subsidy levels.

Human capital in a global and knowledge-based economy

This document is a report prepared for the DG for Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission. It surveys the available evidence on the contribution of investment in human capital to aggregate productivity growth and on its impact on wages and other labour outcomes at the individual level. It also draws some tentative policy conclusions for an average European country.

Knowledge, networks of cities and growth in regional urban systems

The objective of this paper is to measure the impact of different kinds of knowledge and external economies on urban growth in an intraregional context. The main hypothesis is that knowledge leads to growth, and that this knowledge is related to the existence of agglomeration and network externalities in cities. We develop a three-tage methodology: first, we measure the amount and growth of knowledge in cities using the OCDE (2003) classification and employment data; second, we identify the spatial structure of the area of analysis (networks of cities); third, we combine the Glaeser - Henderson - De Lucio models with spatial econometric specifications in order to contrast the existence of spatially static (agglomeration) and spatially dynamic (network) external economies in an urban growth model. Results suggest that higher growth rates are associated to higher levels of technology and knowledge. The growth of the different kinds of knowledge is related to local and spatial factors (agglomeration and network externalities) and each knowledge intensity shows a particular response to these factors. These results have implications for policy design, since we can forecast and intervene on local knowledge development paths.

Trials, tricks and transparency: how disclosure rules affect clinical knowledge

Scandals of selective reporting of clinical trial results by pharmaceutical firms have underlined the need for more transparency in clinical trials. We provide a theoretical framework which reproduces incentives for selective reporting and yields three key implications concerning regulation. First, a compulsory clinical trial registry complemented through a voluntary clinical trial results database can implement full transparency (the existence of all trials as well as their results is known). Second, full transparency comes at a price. It has a deterrence effect on the incentives to conduct clinical trials, as it reduces the firms'gains from trials. Third, in principle, a voluntary clinical trial results database without a compulsory registry is a superior regulatory tool; but we provide some qualified support for additional compulsory registries when medical decision-makers cannot anticipate correctly the drug companies' decisions whether to conduct trials. Keywords: pharmaceutical firms, strategic information transmission, clinical trials, registries, results databases, scientific knowledge JEL classification: D72, I18, L15

Efficient knowledge retrieval to calibrate input variables in forest fire prediction

Forest fires are a serious threat to humans and nature from an ecological, social and economic point of view. Predicting their behaviour by simulation still delivers unreliable results and remains a challenging task. Latest approaches try to calibrate input variables, often tainted with imprecision, using optimisation techniques like Genetic Algorithms. To converge faster towards fitter solutions, the GA is guided with knowledge obtained from historical or synthetical fires. We developed a robust and efficient knowledge storage and retrieval method. Nearest neighbour search is applied to find the fire configuration from knowledge base most similar to the current configuration. Therefore, a distance measure was elaborated and implemented in several ways. Experiments show the performance of the different implementations regarding occupied storage and retrieval time with overly satisfactory results.

Innovation, R&D spillovers and productivity: the role of knowledge-intensive services

This paper analyses the performance of companies’ R&D and innovation and the effects of intra- and inter-industry R&D spillover on firms’ productivity in Catalonia. The paper deals simultaneously with the performance of manufacturing and service firms, with the aim of highlighting the growing role of knowledge-intensive services in promoting innovation and productivity gains. We find that intra-industry R&D spillovers have an important effect on the productivity level of manufacturing firms, and the inter-industrial R&D spillovers related to computer and software services also play an important role, especially in high-tech manufacturing industries. The main conclusion is that the traditional classification of manufactured goods and services no longer makes sense in the ‘knowledge economy’ and in Catalonia the regional policy makers will have to design policies that favour inter-industrial R&D flows, especially from high-tech services.

Learning to live together: an exploration and analysis of managing cultural diversity in ten early childhood development centres in South Africa

This study explores how South African Early Childhood Development (ECD) Practitioners and families meet the needs of the increasing number of children from diverse cultural backgrounds in their care. Research participants were identified through ten ECD centres located in two urban communities in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces of South Africa. The values and attitudes held by Practitioners and families vis-à-vis cultural diversity was investigated, along with the knowledge and strategies they employ to manage cultural diversity in ECD programmes. The intercultural education model provides the necessary tools to address the challenges identified.

Migration and trade: Theory with an Application to the Eastern- Western European Integration

The remarkable increase in trade flows and in migratory flows of highly educated people are two important features of globalization of the last decades. This paper extends a two-country model of inter- and intraindustry trade to a rich environment featuring technological differences, skill differences and the possibility of international labor mobility. The model is used to explain the patterns of trade and migration as countries remove barriers to trade and to labor mobility. We parameterize the model to match the features of the Western and Eastern European members of the EU and analyze first the effects of the trade liberalization which occured between 1989 and 2004, and then the gains and losses from migration which are expected to occur if legal barriers to labor mobility are substantially reduced. The lower barriers to migration would result in significant migration of skilled workers from Eastern European countries. Interestingly, this would not only benefit the migrants and most Western European workers but, via trade, it would also benefit the workers remaining in Eastern Europe. Key Words: Skilled Migration, Gains from Variety, Real Wages, Eastern-Western Europe. JEL Codes: F12, F22, J61.