Knowing What to Respond in the Future Does Not Cancel the Influence of Past Events

Everyday tasks seldom involve isolate actions but sequences of them. We can see whether previous actions influence the current one by exploring the response time to controlled sequences of stimuli. Specifically, depending on the response-stimulus temporal interval (RSI), different mechanisms have been proposed to explain sequential effects in two-choice serial response tasks. Whereas an automatic facilitation mechanism is thought to produce a benefit for response repetitions at short RSIs, subjective expectancies are considered to replace the automatic facilitation at longer RSIs, producing a cost-benefit pattern: repetitions are faster after other repetitions but they are slower after alternations. However, there is not direct evidence showing the impact of subjective expectancies on sequential effects. By using a fixed sequence, the results of the reported experiment showed that the repetition effect was enhanced in participants who acquired complete knowledge of the order. Nevertheless, a similar cost-benefit pattern was observed in all participants and in all learning blocks. Therefore, results of the experiment suggest that sequential effects, including the cost-benefit pattern, are the consequence of automatic mechanisms which operate independently of (and simultaneously with) explicit knowledge of the sequence or other subjective expectancies.

FROM TOTAL INSTITUTION TO EXTITUTION? Discussions on the future of monastic life in the Benedictine women’s monasteries of Catalonia (Spain

On the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Federation of Benedictine Women’s Monasteries of Catalonia (Spain), the five monasteries represented are discussing the following question: what will monastic life be like in the future? This question is added to the debate about “new forms of monasticism”, “urban monastic life” and, in a more general sense, to the modernisations and “the opening up” of the precepts and practices of monastic life at this time. Faced with the ambitious monastic questioning, the author responds with five deliberately provocative debates developed out of a consideration of various chapters of the Rule of St. Benedict that raise profound questions when it comes to responding to the question presented here. Having described these five debates, by way of a summary, the article presents three ideal types of monastery in relation to the current processes of deinstitutionalisation that represent, in an overall way, three provisional responses and serve as a focus for the question discussed here.

The Key party in the catalan government

This paper analyzes the different compositions of the catalan governing coalitions during the current democratic period, and offers some predictions about the coalitions that can be expected in the future. During this period, in catalan politics, there have been two main political issues over which the different parties have taken positions: rightist versus leftist with respect to economic policy, and sovereign versus centralist with respect to the power distribution within the state. I find that for any allocation of parliament seats there is a key party: a party that has a clear advantage in terms of being able to decide the composition of the governing coalition. I show the features that allow a party to become the key party and those that affect the size of the advantage of the key party.

Improving the risk concept: a revision of Arrow-Pratt theory in the context of controlled dynamic stochastic environments

In the literature on risk, one generally assume that uncertainty is uniformly distributed over the entire working horizon, when the absolute risk-aversion index is negative and constant. From this perspective, the risk is totally exogenous, and thus independent of endogenous risks. The classic procedure is "myopic" with regard to potential changes in the future behavior of the agent due to inherent random fluctuations of the system. The agent's attitude to risk is rigid. Although often criticized, the most widely used hypothesis for the analysis of economic behavior is risk-neutrality. This borderline case must be envisaged with prudence in a dynamic stochastic context. The traditional measures of risk-aversion are generally too weak for making comparisons between risky situations, given the dynamic �complexity of the environment. This can be highlighted in concrete problems in finance and insurance, context for which the Arrow-Pratt measures (in the small) give ambiguous.

Differences in the evolutionary history of disease genes affected by dominant or recessive mutations

Background: Global analyses of human disease genes by computational methods have yielded important advances in the understanding of human diseases. Generally these studies have treated the group of disease genes uniformly, thus ignoring the type of disease-causing mutations (dominant or recessive). In this report we present a comprehensive study of the evolutionary history of autosomal disease genes separated by mode of inheritance.Results: We examine differences in protein and coding sequence conservation between dominant and recessive human disease genes. Our analysis shows that disease genes affected by dominant mutations are more conserved than those affected by recessive mutations. This could be a consequence of the fact that recessive mutations remain hidden from selection while heterozygous. Furthermore, we employ functional annotation analysis and investigations into disease severity to support this hypothesis. Conclusion: This study elucidates important differences between dominantly- and recessively-acting disease genes in terms of protein and DNA sequence conservation, paralogy and essentiality. We propose that the division of disease genes by mode of inheritance will enhance both understanding of the disease process and prediction of candidate disease genes in the future.

Mentoring in the acquisition of professional skills through practices in companies by degree students

Abstract This work has had as objective to analyze the skills acquired through internships in business companies by students of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University Pompeu Fabra. The internship is a basic item in order to obtain a hard connection between the University and social-economic world where University and Enterprises develop their activity. In this study we want to know about two aspects. The first one, we want to know the profit that is obtained from the Student as a consequence of internship and mentoring. Also, we want to study about the importance of mentoring as a principal element that establishes the relationship between the Student and the Company. Moreover, it has sought to analyze if certain factors such as the size of the company where the practices has been performed, the study rank level that was achieved or the fact of being a man or a woman, were among the determining factors at the time of acquiring the skills. The results presented here indicate that the size of the company that have been making the practices and the gender of the student are related to the acquisition of certain skills. There was not a statistically significant relationship related to the rank level have by the students in the practice. In the future we are going to study if the labor market Integration is easier if the Student has performed work placement. Keywords Skills; employability; internship; meatoring.

Ralstonia solanacearum, a widespread bacterial plant pathogen in the post-genomic era

Ralstonia solanacearum is a soil-borne bacterium causing the widespread disease known as bacterial wilt. Ralstonia solanacearum is also the causal agent of Moko disease of banana and brown rot of potato. Since the last R. solanacearum pathogen profile was published 10 years ago, studies concerning this plant pathogen have taken a genomic and post-genomic direction. This was pioneered by the first sequenced and annotated genome for a major plant bacterial pathogen and followed by many more genomes in subsequent years. All molecular features studied now have a genomic flavour. In the future, this will help in connecting the classical field of pathology and diversity studies with the gene content of specific strains. In this review, we summarize the recent research on this bacterial pathogen, including strain classification, host range, pathogenicity determinants, regulation of virulence genes, type III effector repertoire, effector-triggered immunity, plant signalling in response to R. solanacearum, as well as a review of different new pathosystems.

Histological Study of the Sex-Change in the Skunk Clownfish Amphiprion akallopisos

Sex change in the protandrous fish Amphiprion akallopisos Bleeker, 1853 (F.Pomacentridae) has been analysed. Experiments consisted of placing males together after being separated from their mates, and observe changes in gonad histology at different periods, in order to identify signs of the sex change process. The presence of a first invagination on the male gonad wall, and the observation of the first cortical alveoli oocytes as an indication of the beginning of the vitellogenesis process, was the first symptom of the sex change, which has been detected after 18 days in one of the males. Period needed for the sex changing process was size independent. The process by which wall invagination is converted into ovarian lumen in the future mature ovary is also described

The Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona in 1992: Good points and bad points. Lessons for the Future

This text was presented at the Symposium “Olympic Arts and Culture Festivals: Recent Experiences and Future Design”, held in Chicago on the 23-24 June 2008. It provides with an analysis of good and bad points of the Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona’92 in order to discover, from that past experience, any lessons for future Cultural Olympiads and Olympic Movement cultural policy in general, as well as to rethink, in a critical way, Catalan cultural policies.

Why Catalonia will see its energy metabolism increase in the near future: an application of MuSIASEM

This paper applies the so-called Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) to the economy of the Spanish region of Catalonia. By applying Georgescu-Roegen's fund-flow model, it arrives at the conclusion that within a context of the end of cheap oil, the current development model based on the growth of low productivity sectors such as services and construction must change. The change is needed not only because of the increasing scarcity of affordable energy carriers, or because of the increasing environmental impact that the present development represents, but also because of an ageing population that demands labour productivity gains. This will imply industry requiring more energy consumption per worker in order to increase its productivity, and therefore its competitiveness. Thus, we conclude that energy intensity, and exosomatic energy metabolism of Catalonia will increase dramatically in the near future unless major conservation efforts are implemented in both the household and transport sectors.

Future trends of the World Wide Web in the food and beverage sector in Spain

Extended abstract.

Comparing Governmental Agendas: Evolution of the Prioritization of Issues in the USA and Spain

This paper is the first step in a long term project investigating policy stability and change in Spain from an agenda setting perspective and comparing the Spanish policy agenda to that of other advanced democracies. Here we begin to compare the allocation of issue attention in Spain and the USA by comparing the substance of annual President and Prime Minister speeches from 1982 to 2005. Existing research argues that the public agenda has become more crowded, competitive and volatile in recent years. We find that in both countries there has been a transformation of the political agenda towards an increasing diversity of issues. However, most of the volatility in executive attention seems to be explained by salient events rather than by issue crowding. We conclude by discussing some limitations of executive speeches as a measure of governmental issue attention and directions for future research.

Olympic education experiences: the sponsorship in the promotion of Olympic values

This text was presented at the 16th International Seminar on Olympic Studies for Postgraduate Students that was organised by the International Olympic Academy in Ancient Olympia, from 1st to 30th July 2008. First here are reported, fundamental concepts on Olympics such as the Olympic values and the educational mandate of Pierre de Coubertin, the Olympic brand and symbols, the sponsorship and the Olympic partner programme. Then there is a chapter regarding the Top sponsors educational initiatives on Olympic values, and specially, describing the Olympic sponsors involvement in education and Top sponsors educational activities. And finally, the author analyses the sponsorship role in the promotion of Olympic Values Education, providing conclusions, comments on future and perspectives and some recommendations.

Economic effects of road accessibility in the Pyrenees: user perspective

At present, Spain faces one of the key moments in planning the future design of the infrastructure network. As a consequence of the critical role played by haulage in intra-European trade, the most important investments are those that guarantee that road haulage traffic can move freely at the borders. That is why it is necessary to make serious evaluations of the economic and social profitability of these investments. Normally the most significant social benefit of investment projects in transport infrastructure is time saving, which in turn changes traffic intensity. In this article we analyse the changes in the user excess caused by public investment in transport infrastructure planned by the Spanish government and which will be located on the border between Spain and France. In particular, we study the increase in network user surplus for HGV traffic in the Spanish and French border zones in the Pyrenees.