The European Union in North Korea: Current Realities and Paths for Future Engagement – A Qualitative and Quantitative Study

Malgrat la rellevància estratègica i el paper desestabilitzador de Corea del Nord a la regió econòmicament més dinàmica del món, la UE no compta amb cap estratègia clara per involucrar-se amb aquest país. Combinant tècniques d’anàlisi qualitatives i quantitatives, aquest treball pretén descobrir possibles contradiccions internes que impedeixin la definició d'una política exterior europea coherent i efectiva amb respecte a Corea del Nord, així com discrepàncies entre les percepcions d’actors interns de la UE i les d’actors externs. S'han detectat importants diferències d’expectatives i mancances en termes de coherència, tant entre les visions expressades pels actors interns com entre les opinions d’aquests actors i les dels futurs líders sudcoreans enquestats – diferències que fins i tot afecten la promoció dels drets humans

Escola i diversitat lingüística i cultural: desafiaments i oportunitats. El paper d'un Servei Educatiu de Zona com a agent d'innovació i canvi

Davant dels nous reptes educatius que planteja l’augment de la diversitat lingüística i cultural al conjunt del Sistema Educatiu Català, el present treball descriu els resultats i experiències obtinguts en les tres primeres fases d’un projecte de recerca centrat en la identificació d’indicadors vàlids que permetin dissenyar i implementar estratègies educatives inclusives adequades per atendre la diversitat lingüística i cultural present als nostres centres. La part central de la memòria descriu les primeres dades d’un estudi quantitatiu , realitzat en diferents moments del període d’escolarització (Pàrvuls 5 anys , segon i sisè de Primària i segon d’ESO) a quatre centres públics de Vilafranca del Penedès a finals del curs 2009-2010 , sobre el coneixement de català i de castellà i les possibles influències que en aquest hi juguen els factors de diversitat lingüística i cultural. El segon bloc d’aquest projecte presenta un seguit d’experiències i propostes d’assessorament centrades en el procés de sensibilització inicial sobre les implicacions educatives a nivell d’aula i de centre de la diversitat lingüística i cultural. També es presenta, com a annex final, un recull dels principals materials emprats en aquest procés d’intervenció en centre. A la part final del treball, s’hi desenvolupa una reflexió sobre les condicions que poden afavorir la implementació d’aquestes estratègies a nivell de centre i de sistema educatiu; i sobre el paper que , en aquests processos de canvi i millora educativa , hi podrien jugar els Serveis Educatius de Zona del Departament d’Ensenyament de la Generalitat de Catalunya.

Hospitals i promoció d'exercici saludable mitjançant xarxes socials

L'objectiu d'aquest article és detectar el nivell d'ús de les xarxes socials que fan els hospitals d'Estats Units per a promocionar l'activitat física saludable i quin tipus d'informació és la dominant en el conjunt de les xarxes socials. Per a tal finalitat es procedí a realitzar un estudi quantitatiu on es revisaren la totalitat de comunicacions enviades i acumulades a les xarxes Facebook, Twitter i YouTube en un termini de tres anys per part d'un grup de 14 Hospitals dels Estats Units.

Random diffusion and leverage effect in financial markets

We prove that Brownian market models with random diffusion coefficients provide an exact measure of the leverage effect [J-P. Bouchaud et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 228701 (2001)]. This empirical fact asserts that past returns are anticorrelated with future diffusion coefficient. Several models with random diffusion have been suggested but without a quantitative study of the leverage effect. Our analysis lets us to fully estimate all parameters involved and allows a deeper study of correlated random diffusion models that may have practical implications for many aspects of financial markets.

La salut reproductiva de la dona immigrant: una anàlisi des de la influència cultural

El progressiu increment del flux migratori en els darrers anys a Catalunya genera un major percentatge de dones en estat fèrtil que requereixen d’una atenció vinculada a la seva salut reproductiva. D’aquesta manera, els professionals sanitaris es veuen sotmesos a treballar sota una diversitat cultural que moltes vegades genera un “xoc intercultural” dificultant la relació assistencial entre professional i usuari. Per aquest motiu, el següent estudi pretén donar una aproximació de la influència cultural de la dona immigrant (marroquina i subsahariana) en quatre àmbits: embaràs, part, post-part i maternitat.Hipòtesis: S’identifiquen necessitats bàsiques assistencials no resoltes satisfactòriament en el grup de dones immigrants (marroquines i subsaharianes) en el període del part, puerperi immediat i intermedi, a més d’un impacte intercultural associat.Objectiu principal: Conèixer les vivències, percepcions i conductes de les dones marroquines i subsaharianes en l’embaràs, el part, el post-part, la maternitat dins el seu marc cultural i com influeixen en l’atenció sanitària del nostre país.Material i mètodes: S’ha realitzat un estudi de disseny mixt. Per una banda s’ha disposat d’una metodologia qualitativa descriptiva que utilitza la teoria fonamentada “Grounded Theory” com a instrument metodològic, i per l’altra, s’ha optat per una metodologia quantitativa per analitzar les dades clíniques i epidemiològiques de gestants immigrants que havien donat a llum al Servei d’Obstetrícia-Sala de Parts de l’Hospital Sta. Caterina (Girona), durant el període comprès entre el mes de novembre de 2012 i gener de 2013.La recollida de dades s’ha realitzat sota una entrevista semiestructurada i una observació participant com a instruments qualitatius, i el suport del “carnet de l’embaràs” i la “història obstètrica” de cada dona per elaborar l’estudi quantitatiu. Pel que fa a l’anàlisi de les dades en l’estudi qualitatiu s’ha seguit el procés analític plantejat per la Teoria fonamentada i en el cas de l’estudi quantitatiu, s’ha comptatamb el suport d’una tesi doctoral per comparar els resultats amb els de les dones autòctones, dels quals fa referència la tesi.Resultats: En l’estudi qualitatiu, s’han trobat especificitats culturals en relació a la percepció del part, desenvolupament del part ( a nivell conductual), implicació en el post-part, valoració de l’atenció sanitària rebuda i el concepte de maternitat. Pel que fa a l’estudi quantitatiu comparatiu, s’han indentificat diferències entre el col·lectiu de la mostra estudiada i les dones autòctones referent als antecedents obstètrics i paritat, al control gestacional i al desenvolupament del part ( a nivell fisiològic)

Detección Precoz de los factores de riesgo cardiovasculares en los Centros de Atención Primaria de Cataluña Central

Las enfermedades cardiovasculares son actualmente la principal causa de muerte prematura, por lo que es necesario controlar los factores que podrían reducir el riesgo cardiovascular. El presente estudio se centra en la ejecución de los protocolos de prevención cardiovascular en los Centros de Atención Primaria de Cataluña central, ya que se cree que una prevención adecuada podría reducir significativamente la mortalidad por esta enfermedad. Para lograr este objetivo, se propone utilizar una muestra poblacional de 100 individuos entre 45 y 65 años y realizar un estudio cuantitativo descriptivo. Basándose éste, en el control de las diferentes variables que afectan en poseer factores de riesgo cardiovascular: el alcohol, el tabaco, la obesidad, la inactividad física, la diabetes y el colesterol.

¿Islamofobia o currículo nulo? La representación del Islam, las culturas musulmanas y los inmigrantes musulmanes en los libros de texto de Cataluña

El objetivo de nuestro artículo es analizar la presentación del Islam, de los musulmanes y de las culturas árabe y musulmana en los libros de texto. Nos basamos en un enfoque metodológico complementario, entre cuantitativo y cualitativo. En el estudio cuantitativo, se han analizado 246 documentos (el 84,1% de los cuales son manuales y libros de texto; el 10,2%, libros de ejercicios; el 4,2%, documentos de acompañamiento y el 1,1%, guías del profesor) que incluyen la totalidad de las asignaturas de la enseñanza no universitaria de Cataluña. Una primera aproximación a los resultados nos permite observar el predominio de referencias en la asignatura de Historia de Bachillerato con diferencias estadísticamente significativas respecto a los porcentajes que se dan en otras disciplinas. Otras asignaturas de ciencias sociales como el Conocimiento del Medio en Primaria (11,7%) o las Ciencias Sociales en ESO (8%) también muestran una buena proporción de representaciones. En el resto de materias, las referencias presentan porcentajes que oscilan entre el 1% y el 5%. Por otra parte, en el 46,2% de los textos analizados no se ha encontrado ni una sola referencia. En el estudio cualitativo (análisis del discurso), que hemos desarrollado a partir de la revisión de un centenar de libros de texto de ciencias sociales correspondientes a los niveles educativos de ESO y Bachillerato, se han seleccionado diez extractos (seis de contenido verbal y cuatro de representaciones icónicas). En esta segunda revisión, se comprueba que solo algo menos de los dos tercios de los textos (64%) contiene alguna alusión –ya sea verbal o icónica– a las culturas musulmanas o al resto de los temas anteriormente citados. Los datos que hemos obtenido ponen de manifiesto la necesidad de revisar y actualizar los contenidos de nuestros libros escolares con respecto a las omisiones y deformaciones del tratamiento del Islam, las culturas musulmanas y la presencia de musulmanes en nuestra sociedad.

Condiciones de trabajo psicosociales y desgaste psíquico en trabajadores de diversos sectores empresariales de centro-oriente, suroccidente y región Caribe en Colombia

Objetivo: Determinar la percepción de trabajadores de distintos sectores empresariales de Colombia sobre los factores psicosociales presentes en su entorno laboral y la relación entre los factores psicosociales nocivos y los síntomas subjetivos y alteraciones de la salud. Materiales y métodos: Estudio no experimental, transversal y cuantitativo. Participaron 370 trabajadores, de diferentes sectores empresariales de Colombia (Centro-Oriente, Suroccidente y región Caribe). Instrumento: batería para el estudio de las condiciones de trabajo de carácter psicosocial (CTCPS-MAC), validada para población iberoamericana, permite evaluar cuatro dimensiones: Contexto de trabajo, Contenido de trabajo, Factores individuales y Desgaste psíquico e incluye catorce factores psicosociales. Los datos se analizaron con IBM SPSS statistics 21. Se realizó análisis bivariado y regresión logística multivariante de factores psicosociales nocivos y desgaste psíquico. Resultados: Los factores formación, baja médica, contexto de trabajo, contenido de trabajo y factores individuales están asociados en este estudio con desgaste psíquico. El contexto de trabajo es la variable que infiere mayor riesgo (p=0.000; Exp (B)= 5.355) para provocar desgaste psíquico, seguida de la formación técnica o superior y del contenido del trabajo. Conclusiones: Si bien aquellos trabajadores cuya percepción nociva del contexto de trabajo (interrelación trabajo-vida familiar/personal, cultura de la organización, gestión de la empresa, etc.), del contenido de trabajo (concepción tareas, carga y ritmo de trabajo, etc.) y los que tienen formación técnica o superior tienen mayor probabilidad de padecer desgaste psíquico, se observan aspectos positivos de las condiciones de trabajo psicosocial y su influencia en los trabajadores y en las organizaciones.

Study and implementation of some quantitative trading models

Quantitative or algorithmic trading is the automatization of investments decisions obeying a fixed or dynamic sets of rules to determine trading orders. It has increasingly made its way up to 70% of the trading volume of one of the biggest financial markets such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). However, there is not a signi cant amount of academic literature devoted to it due to the private nature of investment banks and hedge funds. This projects aims to review the literature and discuss the models available in a subject that publications are scarce and infrequently. We review the basic and fundamental mathematical concepts needed for modeling financial markets such as: stochastic processes, stochastic integration and basic models for prices and spreads dynamics necessary for building quantitative strategies. We also contrast these models with real market data with minutely sampling frequency from the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Quantitative strategies try to exploit two types of behavior: trend following or mean reversion. The former is grouped in the so-called technical models and the later in the so-called pairs trading. Technical models have been discarded by financial theoreticians but we show that they can be properly cast into a well defined scientific predictor if the signal generated by them pass the test of being a Markov time. That is, we can tell if the signal has occurred or not by examining the information up to the current time; or more technically, if the event is F_t-measurable. On the other hand the concept of pairs trading or market neutral strategy is fairly simple. However it can be cast in a variety of mathematical models ranging from a method based on a simple euclidean distance, in a co-integration framework or involving stochastic differential equations such as the well-known Ornstein-Uhlenbeck mean reversal ODE and its variations. A model for forecasting any economic or financial magnitude could be properly defined with scientific rigor but it could also lack of any economical value and be considered useless from a practical point of view. This is why this project could not be complete without a backtesting of the mentioned strategies. Conducting a useful and realistic backtesting is by no means a trivial exercise since the \laws" that govern financial markets are constantly evolving in time. This is the reason because we make emphasis in the calibration process of the strategies' parameters to adapt the given market conditions. We find out that the parameters from technical models are more volatile than their counterpart form market neutral strategies and calibration must be done in a high-frequency sampling manner to constantly track the currently market situation. As a whole, the goal of this project is to provide an overview of a quantitative approach to investment reviewing basic strategies and illustrating them by means of a back-testing with real financial market data. The sources of the data used in this project are Bloomberg for intraday time series and Yahoo! for daily prices. All numeric computations and graphics used and shown in this project were implemented in MATLAB^R scratch from scratch as a part of this thesis. No other mathematical or statistical software was used.

Quantitative x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study of Al/AlOx bilayers

An x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of Nb/Al wedge bilayers, oxidized by both plasma and natural oxidation, is reported. The main goal is to show that the oxidation state¿i.e., O:(oxidize)Al ratio¿, structure and thickness of the surface oxide layer, as well as the thickness of the metallic Al leftover, as functions of the oxidation procedure, can be quantitatively evaluated from the XPS spectra. This is relevant to the detailed characterization of the insulating barriers in (magnetic) tunnel junctions

The ethnography of study abroad: what is study abroad as a cultural event?

Recent research in the field of study abroad shows that study abroad participation among all U.S. students increased 20% since 2001 and nearly 200,000 U.S. students currently go abroad each year. Additionally, about 8% of all undergraduate degree recipients receive part of their education abroad. Although quantitative studies have dominated research on study abroad, my research project calls for a qualitative approach since the goal is to understand what study abroad is as a cultural event, what authentic cultural immersion is, how program stakeholders understand and perceive cultural immersion, and how cultural immersion in programs can be improved. Following the tradition of ethnographic and case study approaches in study abroad research, my study also pivots on ethnography. As an ethnographer I collected data mainly through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. The study abroad participants were a group of undergraduate native speakers of English studying Spanish for seven weeks in Cádiz, a small costal city in southern Spain, as well as program coordinators, host community members, and professors. I also examined the specific program design features, particularly the in-class and out-of-class activities that students participated in. The goal was to understand if these features were conducive to authentic immersion in the language and culture. Eventually, I elaborated an ethnographic evaluation of the study abroad program and its design features suggesting improvements in order to enhance the significance and value of study abroad as a cultural event. Among other things, I discussed the difficulties that students had at the beginning of their sojourn to understand local people, get used to their host families’ small apartments, get adjusted to new schedules and eating habits, and venture out from the main group to individually explore the new social and cultural fabric and interact with the host community. The program evaluation revealed the need for carefully-designed pre-departure preparation sessions, pre-departure credit-bearing courses in intercultural communication, and additional language practice abroad and opportunities to come in contact with the local community through internships, volunteer or field work. My study gives an important contribution in study abroad research and education. It benefits students, teachers, and study abroad directors and coordinators in suggesting ideas on how to improve the program and optimize the students’ cultural experiences abroad. This study is also important because it investigated how US undergraduate learners studying the Spanish language and culture approach and perceive the study abroad experience in Spain.

Quantitative analysis of image factors in a cultural heritage tourist destination

The tourism consumer’s purchase decision process is, to a great extent, conditioned by the image the tourist has of the different destinations that make up his or her choice set. In a highly competitive international tourist market, those responsible for destinations’ promotion and development policies seek differentiation strategies so that they may position the destinations in the most suitable market segments for their product in order to improve their attractiveness to visitors and increase or consolidate the economic benefits that tourism activity generates in their territory. To this end, the main objective we set ourselves in this paper is the empirical analysis of the factors that determine the image formation of Tarragona city as a cultural heritage destination. Without a doubt, UNESCO’s declaration of Tarragona’s artistic and monumental legacies as World Heritage site in the year 2000 meant important international recognition of the quality of the cultural and patrimonial elements offered by the city to the visitors who choose it as a tourist destination. It also represents a strategic opportunity to boost the city’s promotion of tourism and its consolidation as a unique destination given its cultural and patrimonial characteristics. Our work is based on the use of structured and unstructured techniques to identify the factors that determine Tarragona’s tourist destination image and that have a decisive influence on visitors’ process of choice of destination. In addition to being able to ascertain Tarragona’s global tourist image, we consider that the heterogeneity of its visitors requires a more detailed study that enables us to segment visitor typology. We consider that the information provided by these results may prove of great interest to those responsible for local tourism policy, both when designing products and when promoting the destination.

New insights on river water chemistry by using non-centred simplicial principal component analysis: a case study

The use of perturbation and power transformation operations permits the investigation of linear processes in the simplex as in a vectorial space. When the investigated geochemical processes can be constrained by the use of well-known starting point, the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix of a non-centred principalcomponent analysis allow to model compositional changes compared with a reference point.The results obtained for the chemistry of water collected in River Arno (central-northern Italy) have open new perspectives for considering relative changes of the analysed variables and to hypothesise the relative effect of different acting physical-chemical processes, thus posing the basis for a quantitative modelling

Automated Segmentation of Cerebral Vasculature with Aneurysms in 3DRA and TOF-MRA using Geodesic Active Regions: an Evaluation Study

Purpose: To evaluate the suitability of an improved version of an automatic segmentation method based on geodesic active regions (GAR) for segmenting cerebral vasculature with aneurysms from 3D X-ray reconstruc-tion angiography (3DRA) and time of °ight magnetic resonance angiography (TOF-MRA) images available in the clinical routine.Methods: Three aspects of the GAR method have been improved: execution time, robustness to variability in imaging protocols and robustness to variability in image spatial resolutions. The improved GAR was retrospectively evaluated on images from patients containing intracranial aneurysms in the area of the Circle of Willis and imaged with two modalities: 3DRA and TOF-MRA. Images were obtained from two clinical centers, each using di®erent imaging equipment. Evaluation included qualitative and quantitative analyses ofthe segmentation results on 20 images from 10 patients. The gold standard was built from 660 cross-sections (33 per image) of vessels and aneurysms, manually measured by interventional neuroradiologists. GAR has also been compared to an interactive segmentation method: iso-intensity surface extraction (ISE). In addition, since patients had been imaged with the two modalities, we performed an inter-modality agreement analysis with respect to both the manual measurements and each of the two segmentation methods. Results: Both GAR and ISE di®ered from the gold standard within acceptable limits compared to the imaging resolution. GAR (ISE, respectively) had an average accuracy of 0.20 (0.24) mm for 3DRA and 0.27 (0.30) mm for TOF-MRA, and had a repeatability of 0.05 (0.20) mm. Compared to ISE, GAR had a lower qualitative error in the vessel region and a lower quantitative error in the aneurysm region. The repeatabilityof GAR was superior to manual measurements and ISE. The inter-modality agreement was similar between GAR and the manual measurements. Conclusions: The improved GAR method outperformed ISE qualitatively as well as quantitatively and is suitable for segmenting 3DRA and TOF-MRA images from clinical routine.

Associationism and electoral participation: A multilevel study of 2000 Spanish general election

This work presents an application of the multilevel analysis techniques tothe study of the abstention in the 2000 Spanish general election. Theinterest of the study is both, substantive and methodological. From thesubstantive point of view the article intends to explain the causes ofabstention and analyze the impact of associationism on it. From themethodological point of view it is intended to analyze the interaction betweenindividual and context with a modelisation that takes into account thehierarchical structure of data. The multilevel study of this paper validatesthe one level results obtained in previous analysis of the abstention andshows that only a fraction of the differences in abstention are explained bythe individual characteristics of the electors. Another important fraction ofthese differences is due to the political and social characteristics of thecontext. Relating to associationism, the data suggest that individualparticipation in associations decrease the probability of abstention. However,better indicators are needed in order to catch more properly the effect ofassociationism in electoral behaviour.