LA ANSIEDAD Y SU RELACIÓN CON LA EXPRESIÓN ORAL EN EL APRENDIZAJE DE LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS : Una elaboración de revisión sistemática de la literatura

La importancia de la dimensión afectiva que acompaña el proceso de adquisición de lenguas extranjeras es indiscutible. Sin embargo, a pesar de esta realidad, y de la evolución de los enfoques comunicativos como métodos de enseñanza de idiomas, la literatura continúa asegurando la existencia de aprensión lingüística en el aula y su efecto debilitador en el proceso de aprendizaje de una nueva lengua. Este estudio tiene como objetivo examinar cómo el aprendiz experimenta la variable de la ansiedad al expresarse oralmente y en qué medida el profesorado de lenguas extranjeras puede lograr crear condiciones en la clase que reduzcan los niveles de ansiedad. En este trabajo utilizamos la revisión sistemática de literatura como estrategia de investigación, un método que constituye una buena herramienta, permitiéndonos sintetizar coherentemente, de forma rigurosa, los resultados de los estudios empíricos sobre el fenómeno de la ansiedad. Los análisis revelan, en primer lugar, que los síntomas experimentados por aprendices de una nueva lengua suelen manifestarse en cada uno de los niveles que integran al individuo, en un nivel emocional, psicológico, fisiológico, de comportamiento y psicopedagógico; en segundo lugar, los investigadores plantean diversas estrategias a nivel psicológico, pedagógico y socio ambiental con el objetivo principal de incrementar en el aprendiz una serie de recursos personales para hacer frente a la ansiedad. Comentamos las implicancias pedagógicas de estos resultados para una mejor comprensión de la ansiedad y del aprendizaje de una lengua extranjera.

Employment Protection Legislation and Firm Growth : Evidence from a Natural Experiment

A natural experiment is used to identify the causal relationship between employment protection legislation and fi…rm growth. The natural experiment occurred in Sweden in 2001, when an exemption made it possible for fi…rms with less than eleven employees to exclude two workers from the last-in-fi…rst-out principle when dismissing personnel. The estimated average treatment effect of the reform show that the number of employees increased with 0.135 percent in fi…rms with 5-9 employees relative to fi…rms with 10-15 employees, which corresponds to over 5,000 additional jobs per year created by the reform. Firms with ten employees, just below the size threshold, became 3.4 percent less likely to increase their workforce to a level surpassing the threshold, indicating that the last-in-…first-out rule prevented these …firms from growing. Thus, employment protection legislation seems to act as a growth barrier for small fi…rms.

Emergency department triage scales and their components : a systematic review of the scientific evidence

Emergency department (ED) triage is used to identify patients' level of urgency and treat them based on their triage level. The global advancement of triage scales in the past two decades has generated considerable research on the validity and reliability of these scales. This systematic review aims to investigate the scientific evidence for published ED triage scales. The following questions are addressed: 1. Does assessment of individual vital signs or chief complaints affect mortality during the hospital stay or within 30 days after arrival at the ED? 2. What is the level of agreement between clinicians' triage decisions compared to each other or to a gold standard for each scale (reliability)? 3. How valid is each triage scale in predicting hospitalization and hospital mortality? A systematic search of the international literature published from 1966 through March 31, 2009 explored the British Nursing Index, Business Source Premier, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, and PubMed. Inclusion was limited to controlled studies of adult patients (≥15 years) visiting EDs for somatic reasons. Outcome variables were death in ED or hospital and need for hospitalization (validity). Methodological quality and clinical relevance of each study were rated as high, medium, or low. The results from the studies that met the inclusion criteria and quality standards were synthesized applying the internationally developed GRADE system. Each conclusion was then assessed as having strong, moderately strong, limited, or insufficient scientific evidence. If studies were not available, this was also noted. We found ED triage scales to be supported, at best, by limited and often insufficient evidence. The ability of the individual vital signs included in the different scales to predict outcome is seldom, if at all, studied in the ED setting. The scientific evidence to assess interrater agreement (reliability) was limited for one triage scale and insufficient or lacking for all other scales. Two of the scales yielded limited scientific evidence, and one scale yielded insufficient evidence, on which to assess the risk of early death or hospitalization in patients assigned to the two lowest triage levels on a 5-level scale (validity).

Towards Presidential Rule in Ukraine : Hybrid Regime Dynamics under Semi-Presidentialism

This article sets out to analyse recent regime developments in Ukraine in relation to semi-presidentialism. The article asks: to what extent and in what ways theoretical arguments against semi-presidentialism (premier-presidential and president-parliamentary systems) are relevant for understanding the changing directions of the Ukrainian regime since the 1990s? The article also reviews the by now overwhelming evidence suggesting that President Yanukovych is turning Ukraine into a more authoritarian hybrid regime and raises the question to what extent the president-parliamentary system might serve this end. The article argues that both kinds of semi-presidentialism have, in different ways, exacerbated rather than mitigated institutional conflict and political stalemate. The return to the president-parliamentary system in 2010 – the constitutional arrangement with the most dismal record of democratisation – was a step in the wrong direction. The premier-presidential regime was by no means ideal, but it had at least two advantages. It weakened the presidential dominance and it explicitly anchored the survival of the government in parliament. The return to the 1996 constitution ties in well with the notion that President Viktor Yanukovych has embarked on an outright authoritarian path.

Performance determinants For Swedish Financial Monetary Institutions: Panel Data evidence between 2010-2014.

Due to the rapid changes that governs the Swedish financial sector such as financial deregulations and technological innovations, it is imperative to examine the extent to which the Swedish Financial institutions had performed amid these changes. For this to be accomplish, the work investigates what are the determinants of performance for Swedish Financial Monetary Institutions? Assumptions were derived from theoretical and empirical literatures to investigate the authenticity of this research question using seven explanatory variables. Two models were specified using Returns on Asset (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE) as the main performance indicators and for the sake of reliability and validity, three different estimators such as Ordinary Least Square (OLS), Generalized Least Square (GLS) and Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) were employed. The Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) was also used to verify which specification explains performance better while performing robustness check of parameter estimates was done by correcting for standard errors. Based on the findings, ROA specification proves to have the lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Standard errors compared to ROE specification. Under ROA, two variables; the profit margins and the Interest coverage ratio proves to be statistically significant while under ROE just the interest coverage ratio (ICR) for all the estimators proves significant. The result also shows that the FGLS is the most efficient estimator, then follows the GLS and the last OLS. when corrected for SE robust, the gearing ratio which measures the capital structure becomes significant under ROA and its estimate become positive under ROE robust. Conclusions were drawn that, within the period of study three variables (ICR, profit margins and gearing) shows significant and four variables were insignificant. The overall findings show that the institutions strive to their best to maximize returns but these returns were just normal to cover their costs of operation. Much should be done as per the ASC theory to avoid liquidity and credit risks problems. Again, estimated values of ICR and profit margins shows that a considerable amount of efforts with sound financial policies are required to increase performance by one percentage point. Areas of further research could be how the individual stochastic factors such as the Dupont model, repo rates, inflation, GDP etc. can influence performance.