Identifying the factors governing attitude towards the e-Agriservice among dairy farmers in Maharashtra, India

Information and communication technology (ICT) projects have a great potential to revolutionise the information delivery system by bridging the gap between farmers and extension personnel. aAQUA (Almost All Questions Answered) portal was launched by the Developmental Informatics Laboratory (DIL) at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India in 2003 as an information providing system to deliver technology options and tailored information for the problems and queries raised by Indian dairy farmers. To measure the effectiveness of this service the attitudinal dimensions of the users of aAQUA e-Agriservice were investigated using a 22 item scale. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 120 dairy farmers from which data were collected and subjected to factor analysis to identify the underlying constructs in this research. From the attitude items, four components were extracted and named as the pessimistic, utility, technical and efficacy perspective, which influenced the development of varied level of attitudinal inclination towards the e-Agriservice. These components explained 64.40 per cent of variation in the attitude of the users towards the aAQUA e-Agriservice. This study provides a framework for technically efficient service provision that might help to reduce the pessimistic attitude of target population to adopt e-Agriservice in their farming system. The results should also be helpful for researchers, academics, ICT based service providers and policy makers to consider these perspectives while planning and implementing ICT projects.

La inocencia robada: juventud, multinacionales y política cultural = Stealing innocence: Corporate culture's war on children

Este libro es una recopilación de diversos ensayos de su autor y, aunque en la contraportada se sugiere que hay un hilo conductor, una simple ojeada al índice ofrece una estructura bien extraña, carente de un capítulo final con reflexiones que globalicen, sinteticen o resuman lo expuesto, que lleven al lector a algún tipo de conclusión

Corporate human rights obligations and international investment law

La globalización permeó las fronteras artificiales existentes entre la economía y la sociedad alrededor del mundo. Las actividades empresariales en este ambiente globalizado ha servido como catalizador de las violaciones de derechos humanos como consecuencia de la ausencia de la protección institucional algunas empresas han explotado los vacíos jurídicos y la falta de protección de los derechos humanos. Al respecto, para lograr un cambio paradigmático requiere un fuerte énfasis en los derechos y las obligaciones de las empresas. Este artículo presenta un análisis crítico de las obligaciones de las empresas en material de derechos humanos frente a la falta de cláusulas de estabilización en los contratos de inversión extranjera. En primer lugar, estas cláusulas son examinadas en relación con la responsabilidad en las obligaciones corporativas con relación a los derechos humanos fundamentales. De acuerdo con lo anterior, se analizan las dimensiones sustantivas y procesales de las cláusulas de estabilización. En segundo lugar, apelando a los ejemplos concretos del Acuerdo para el desarrollo de la Minería entre Mittal Steel y el Gobierno de Liberia, así como el proyecto del Oleoducto de Baku‐Tblisi‐Ceyhan como casos de análisis, este artículo busca la aplicación de las cláusulas de estabilidad en las inversiones extranjeras con relación a la protección de los derechos humanos por parte de los Estados y de las empresas. En tercer lugar, se propone una modificación a la forma como se introduce la cláusula relativa a los derechos humanos. En este orden de ideas, los derechos humanos de los inversionistas, específicamente de las empresas, deben ser incluidos en los acuerdos de inversión extranjera.

Attitude in students of Health Sciences toward scientific knowledge

Educating health professionals implies the challenge of creating and developing an inquiring mind, ready to be in a state of permanent questioning. For this purpose, it is fundamental to generate a positive attitude toward the generation of knowledge and science. Objective: to determine the attitude toward science and the scientific method in undergraduate students of health sciences. Materials and methods: a cross-sectional study was made by applying a self-administered survey, excluding those who were transferred from other universities and repeated. The attitude toward science and the scientific method were valued using the scale validated and published by Hren, which contains three domains: value of scientific knowledge, value of scientific methodology, and value of science for health professions. Results: 362 students were included, 86,6% of them graded the attitude toward scientific knowledge above 135 points, neutral scale value. Similar scores were registered in the domains value of scientific knowlede for the human dimension of the students and value of science for health professions. 91,4% of the students graded the value of scientific methodology below 48 points. Conclusions: the favorable attitude of the students can be explained by the contact that they have with the scientific method since the beginning of their studies and its concordance with the evolution of science. The domain value of scientific methodology obtained the lowest grade on the part of the students, which could be related to the lack of knowledge about scientific methodology.

Corporate valuation and governance: evidence from Colombia

We examine for the first time the association of different measures of ownership and control, and separation ratios with firm’s value and performance for 108 non-financial firms that traded their stock during the period 1998 to 2002. We found that large blockholders exert a positive influence upon firm’s valuation and performance, which validates the positive monitoring approach of large shareholders, but also found that this relation is not monotone implying that when separation of control and ownership tends to increase, a negative effect is exerted on firm’s valuation. Furthermore, we report first estimates of a survey of corporate governance practices conducted in 2004 for 43 Colombian non-financial companies. The index’s scores suggest that implementation of good governance in Colombian firms has been slow and poor as measured by the average of the Index that is below half the maximum attainable value. Regrettably, we did not find any support to recent theories that predict a positive association between good governance practices, measured by the CGI, and performance. At most there exists a positive relationship for sub-index but the results were not statistically significant in general.

La medida de la eficacia docente. Descripci??n y aplicaci??n del Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory : un instrumento predictor

Ofrecer una panor??mica que pretende incluir el fundamento de la evaluaci??n en general, su concreci??n en el ??mbito de la evaluaci??n del docente, es decir, de su eficacia describiendo modalidades e instrumentos de evaluaci??n y sus agentes. Analizar una de esas modalidades: Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory a partir de una experiencia concreta. Hip??tesis: A) La clasificaci??n ordinal atendiendo a los promedios obtenidos en las calificaciones de las asignaturas cursadas durante la carrera, no guardan correlaci??n significativa con las puntuaciones del Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory. B) Las calificaciones en la asignatura de Did??ctica obtenidas por los alumnos de segundo curso guardan correlaci??n con las puntuaciones en el MTAI. C) Las actitudes de los estudiantes de Magisterio frente a la Educaci??n, despu??s de haber realizado su per??odo largo de pr??cticas docentes -3 meses-, se modifican negativamente. Alumnos de los tres cursos de las Escuelas de Formaci??n del Profesorado de EGB de Barcelona y Tarragona (oficiales) y Blanquerna de Barcelona (no oficial), durante el mes de mayo de 1979. Definidos los planteamientos te??ricos se aplica el MTAI despu??s de haberle hecho unas adaptaciones formales para poderlo aplicar a nuestro contexto y confeccionar una hoja de respuestas m??s operativa y ??til para la correcci??n manual con plantilla. En base a unas hip??tesis y disponiendo de unos datos se analizan los resultados y se extraen las conclusiones pertinentes. Consultas personales, textos, documentos y revistas educativas. MTAI (mide las actitudes, prev?? las relaciones que se establecen en la clase y la satisfacci??n que el futuro educador obtendr?? de la Ense??anza como profesi??n). Tabulaci??n de los datos mediante puntuaciones medias globales, pol??gonos de frecuencias, correlaciones graduales y correlaciones lineales. Las puntuaciones obtenidas no se corresponden con las de los baremos americanos, la media en el baremo es de 59.5 y la de nuestros estudiantes apenas sobrepasa el 30. Hay una necesidad de adaptaciones y validaciones completas para pruebas de prestigio en otras ??reas geogr??ficas. El instrumento es ??til para servirse de ??l como referencia, a pesar de las deficiencias que implica la aplicaci??n directa e inmediata tras la traducci??n del original.

Antecedents of the attitude towards inter-group reconciliation in a setting of armed conflict

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Psychometric properties of the Spanish Adaptation of the School Attitude Assessment Survey-Revised

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Adaptation of the Evidence-Based Practices Attitude Scale in Spanish child welfare professionals

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Understanding the seriousness of corporate crime: Some lessons for the new 'corporate manslaughter' offence

The measurement of public attitudes towards the criminal law has become an important area of research in recent years because of the perceived desirability of ensuring that the legal system reflects broader societal values. In particular, studies into public perceptions of crime seriousness have attempted to measure the degree of concordance that exists between law and public opinion in the organization and enforcement of criminal offences. These understandings of perceived crime seriousness are particularly important in relation to high-profile issues where public confidence in the law is central to the legal agenda, such as the enforcement of work-related fatality cases. A need to respond to public concern over this issue was cited as a primary justification for the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. This article will suggest that, although literature looking at the perceived seriousness of corporate crime and, particularly, health and safety offences is limited in volume and generalist in scope, important lessons can be gleaned from existing literature, and pressing questions are raised that demand further empirical investigation.