Estructura de la justificació epistèmica

Estudi realitzat a partir d’una estada a la Uniersity de Sheffield, Gran Bretanya, entre octubre del 2007 i febrer del 2008. El treball ha estat centrat en el debat entre liberals i conservadors sobre l’estructura de la justificació perceptiva. Avuí en dia hi ha molts filòsofs que retornen al dogmatisme del sentit comú proclamat per G.E. Moore i la seva Prova sobre el Món Extern: I-Hi ha alguna cosa que sembla una mà; II-Hi ha una mà; III-Hi ha un món extern. És àmpliament acceptat que aquesta prova no constitueix una resposta satisfactòria a l’escepticisme sobre el nostre dret a dir que sabem, però quan es tracta de caracteritzar per què no és satisfactòria hi ha desacord. Això ha dut a encetar el debat entre liberals i conservadors pel qu fa a l’estructura de la justificació perceptiva.

Canvi tecnològic i desenvolupament econòmic durant la segona revolució industrial: la transferència tecnològica del sector tèxtil entre Anglaterra i Catalunya

Projecte de recerca elaborat a partir d’una estada a la University of Sussex, Gran Bretanya, entre març i juliol del 2008. L’estada ha estat centrada en obtenir fonts documentals primàries, per avançar en el projecte d’investigació sobre la transferència de tecnologia entre Catalunya i Anglaterra durant la Segona Revolució Industrial. Això ha estat possible gràcies a la consulta de les patents britàniques (Business & Intellectual Property Centre at the British Library). Així mateix, l’obtenció dels recursos documentals especialitzats de diverses biblioteques de referència situades al campus de la University of Sussex (Keith Pavitt Libray (SPRU), Library of Sussex, British Library of Development Studies) i a Ruddignton Framework Knitters’ Library a Nottingham han estat fonamentals, tal i com es pot veure en la relació detallada que es presenta.

Land use regulation and productivity - Land matters: Evidence from a UK Supermarket chain

We use store-specific data for a major UK supermarket chain to estimate the impact of planning on store output. Using the quasi-natural experiment of the variation in policies between England and other UK countries, we isolate the impact of Town Centre First policies. We find that space contributes directly to store productivity; and planning policies in England directly reduce output both by reducing store sizes and forcing stores onto less productive sites. We estimate that since the late 1980s planning policies have imposed a loss of output of at least 18.3 to 24.9% - more than a “lost decade’s” growth. JEL codes: D2, L51, L81, R32.

Informe comparatiu del curs de formació bàsica de la policia a Europa. Els casos d'Anglaterra, Alemanya, Bèlgica, França i Holanda

L’informe que a continuació es presenta és una comparativa del Curs de formació bàsica (CFB) de cinc escoles de policia europees. Per a això hem comptat amb la col·laboració de l’Escola de la Policia Metropolitana de Londres (Anglaterra), la d’Hessen (Alemanya), la de Bèlgica, l’Escola Nacional Superior de la Policia Nacional de França i l’Acadèmia de Policia d’Holanda. Per a l’elaboració de l’informe es va utilitzar la informació de què ja disposava l’Àrea de Recerca i Cooperació Internacional de l’Institut fruit de la seva pròpia activitat i, a més, es va enviar un qüestionari a les diferents escoles.

La titulatura faraònica dels emperadors romans: un cas particular de la imitatio Alexandri

Estudi realitzat a partir d’una estada a la University of Oxford, Gran Bretanya, entre 2010 i 2012. Durant l’estada postdoctoral a la University of Oxford s’han efectuat dos estudis relacionats amb l’onomàstica dels faraons d’Egipte i que constitueixen una continuació de l’anàlisi de la titulatura d’Alexandre el Gran realitzada prèviament per l’investigador en la seva recerca doctoral. El primer estudi examina la titulatura faraònica dels emperadors romans en comparació amb la d’Alexandre i, en especial, la significació ideològica i política dels paral•lelismes onomàstics existents entre elles, els quals han estat analitzats en el marc de la imitatio-aemulatio-comparatio Alexandri. Per al cas d’August, s’ha arribat a la conclusió que l’adopció de determinats apel•latius egipcis utilitzats anteriorment per Alexandre pot ser interpretada com un exemple local o estrictament egipci d’imitatio Alexandri, mentre que, en relació amb la resta d’emperadors, atès que les seves titulatures faraòniques es basen o imiten la del primer emperador, aquestes represes han de ser vistes més aviat com un exemple d’imitatio (o comparatio) Augusti. El segon estudi versa sobre la titulatura faraònica egípcia i la tradició annalística. A partir d’una anàlisi comparativa dels protocols onomàstics dels fundadores de cadascuna de les dinasties, s’ha intentat determinar si determinats noms o epítets s’empren de forma recurrent i d’una manera deliberada per tal de senyalar canvis dinàstics, és a dir, noves realitats polítiques. En concret, s’ha pretès establir fins a quin punt determinats recursos onomàstics tenen el seu reflex en la divisió en dinasties de Manetó i, alhora, determinar en quina mesura l’estudi de l’onomàstica faraònica pot contribuir al coneixement de com els egipcis conceptualitzaren i organitzaren el seu propi passat.

Comunicación de riesgo y sistemas de información en la Web: cinco modelos

Las administracionespúblicas de los países avanzadosestán llevando a caboiniciativas para gestionar lainformación y la comunicaciónde riesgo y emergencias mediantesitios web concebidos ydiseñados para ello. Estos sitiosestán pensados para facilitarinformación a los ciudadanosen caso de emergencias, perotambién contienen informaciónútil para los expertos y las autoridades.En este trabajo, y ala luz de la legislación españolasobre emergencias, se comparanlos sitios de la administraciónautonómica catalana y delgobierno de España con lossitios de tres países de referencia:Estados Unidos, Francia yReino Unido. Al mismo tiempose propone una metodologíasimple para llevar a cabo unacomparación que permita extraerconclusiones y plantearrecomendaciones en un aspectode la gestión de la información que puede resultar clave para salvar bienes materiales y vidas humanas.

Do women in female-dominated occupations exit the labour market more? Evidence from Italy, Spain, Denmark and the UK

Literature on sex occupational segregation has typically focused on the micro and macro determinants of it, on mobility patterns over the life course, on implications of segregation and mobility for gender inequalities. Rarely the link between sex-type occupations and women’s risk of labour market interruptions over family formation has been explored. In this piece of work we shall analyse whether women who are working in the female-dominated, male-dominated or integrated occupations have more or less chances to remain attached to the labour market, controlling for qualifications, class, sector and contract positions. By drawing from ECHP, and comparing Italy, Spain, Denmark and the UK, we shall in particular see whether such connection varies across countries with different institutional and cultural configurations.We find that, ceteris paribus, only in the UK the sex-composition of an occupation matters: women in female occupations are more likely to move to inactivity than women in mixed or male occupations. In the other countries considered the main cleavages lie elsewhere. In Italy what matters most is the sector of employment (public vs. private). In Spain the sector is relevant too, but also social class and the type of contract held (permanent vs. temporary). In Denmark women’s transitions to inactivity are largely independent of human capital and job characteristics.

Parental care time in four European countries: comparing types and contexts

The intensity of parental investments in child care time is expected to vary across families with different norms and time-constraints. Additionally, it should also differ across countries, since the abilities of parents to harmonize family and work vary by national context. In our opinion, however, this question remains inconclusive for two main reasons: 1) only some countries have been studied from a comparative approach; 2) previous studies have not paid enough attention to the analysis of how the conditional effects of education and employment affect parental investments.In this paper we used nationally representative time-use data from Denmark, Flanders, Spain and the United Kingdom (N=4,031) to explore how employment and education predict variations in child care time. IN Britain and Spain employment has a strong negative effect on fathers’ child care, but a weaker one in Flanders and particularly in Denmark. In contrast, maternal employment has a strong negative impact in all four countries. Education increases child care time significantly only among Spanish mothers and fathers, as well as British mothers. Nonetheless, we find that college-educated mothers under similar time-constraints increase substantially their expected child care time in Britain, Flanders and Spain; for fathers we find a more mixed picture. Routine child care activities are more sensitive to both maternal and paternal employment than interactive child care activities. Finally, we observe that working a public sector job generally increases a total time allocated to parental care, controlling for several demographic and socioeconomic variables.

Immigration and contested nation-building : explaining the political salience of immigration in multi-national societies

Multi-national societies present a complex setting for the politics of immigration, as migration’s linguistic, economic and cultural effects may coincide with existing contestation over nationhood between sub-units and the central state. Empirically, though, political actors only sometimes, and in some places, explicitly connect the politics of immigration to the stakes of multi-level politics. With reference to Canada, Belgium and the United Kingdom, this paper examines the conditions under which political leaders link immigration to ongoing debate about governance in multi-national societies. The paper argues that the distribution of policy competencies in the multi-level system is less important for shaping immigration and integration politics than is the perceived impact (positive or negative) on the sub-unit’s societal culture or its power relationship with the center. Immigration and integration are more often politicized where center and sub-unit hold divergent views on migration and its place in national identity.

La función de la lengua en Pygmalion: Análisis y propuesta de traducción al español del idiolecto de Eliza Doolittle

El trabajo analiza la caracterización del personaje de Eliza en la obra inglesa Pygmalion (1916), de Bernard Shaw. Se establece una comparación con las soluciones que el traductor Julio Broutá aportó para una versión castellana en 1919. Finalmente, se ofrece una propuesta de traducción de un fragmento de la obra.

X-Munich : cas pràctic

Berneda S.A. és una “pime” familiar catalana no cotitzada que es va fundar l’any 1939. També coneguda per ser l’empresa posseïdora de la marca X-Munich, destaca per la seva capacitat d’autofinançament.Al llarg de la seva història Berneda S.A. ha sabut guanyar-se el mercat en diverses etapes i, tot i haver viscut períodes de menys facturació, des de l’any 2007 ha gaudit d’un boom de les seves vendes al mercat espanyol. Part d’aquest creixement del volum de vendes i ingressos està relacionat també amb la seva capacitat exportadors: actualment les seves sabatilles esportives es comercialitzen, entre d’altres, a Itàlia, Holanda, Japó, Gran Bretanya i Portugal.Berneda S.A. ha aprofitat el seu avantatge competitiu, la diferenciació, per a oferir al mercat un producte diferent i posicionar-se com a una marca de referencia en el sector.

Urban mobilities: the anglo-catalan production of the Barcelona model

The aim of the project was to gauge the extent to which the so-called ‘Barcelona Model’ of urban transformation has been ‘exported’ to Britain and whether Barcelona has learned from British cities. We engage with the literature on successive British governments’ strategies for cities, focused on collecting data on contemporary policy initiatives and debates in the UK, did interviews in Manchester, London Barcelona and participated in the official visit of Leeds to Barcelona in March. Our research findings to date suggest that there is a good deal of mobility and interaction between Barcelona and the UK. However, it is by no means certain that this has resulted in definite instances of policy transfer. While the ‘Barcelona model’ has indeed featured in oficial discourse on urban regeneration in the UK, it does not appear to be the preferred best practice ‘model’ – other North American and European cities figure discursively as much, if not more. Where Barcelona does feature in official discourse, it is usually as an example of good design and an appealing urban aesthetic, rather than in terms of economic or social policy best practice. Our research suggests that the Barcelona model is seen as non-transferable to the UK due to the relatively more centralised governance structure therein.In contrast, evidence collected suggests that the Barcelona model is not influenced by UK British cities experiences but there is small evidence of being influenced by UK-based professionals.

Sports and journalism ethics: the coverage of 2012 London Olympics in the British, North-American and Spanish press

Sports and journalism ethics: the coverage of 2012 London Olympics in the British, North-American and Spanish press is a research focused on analysing the treatment that the quality press of three countries (United Kingdom, United States of America and Spain) will carry out in the London Olympic Games. Through a solid methodological approach based on the combination of the qualitative content analysis and qualitative indepth interviews, the investigation will study if the media provide a quality coverage,that is, if they adequate their pieces to the fundamental principles of journalistic deontology (truth, justice, freedom and social responsibility). Furthermore, the research will assess if the selected media comply with the prescriptions established in the ethical codes, stylebooks, newsroom statutes and national and international recommendations about journalism ethics, ranging from each media’s guidelines to key transnational codes established by the UNESCO, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) orthe Council of Europe.

Term structure of interest rates. European financial integration

In this paper we estimate, analyze and compare the term structures of interest rates in six different countries over the period 1992-2004. We apply the Nelson-Siegel model to obtain the term structures of interest rates at weekly intervals. A total of 4,038 curves are estimated and analyzed. Four European Monetary Union countries¿Spain, France, Germany and Italy¿are included. The UK is also included as a European non-member of the Monetary Union. Finally the US completes the analysis. The goal is to determine the differences in the shapes of the term structure of interest rates among these countries. Likewise, we can determine the most usual term structure shapes that appear for each country.*****

The First World War and coal trade geography in Latin America and the Caribbean (1890-1930)

This paper aims to illustrate the dynamics of coal trade between Latin America and its main trade partners, i.e. the USA, Great Britain and Germany, before and after the enormous disruption caused by the First World War. The coal trade was used as an indicator of modernization for Latin American countries, given that oil was at that time of secondary importance. Energy imports have determined the possibilities of each Latin American country in its process of development. Here we address this question and place special emphasis on supply channels, concluding that the trade link with main suppliers was of key significance. Although this was very clear by the end of the period, the process had started well before the First World War, at least for the majority of LA&C countries. These points are developed through a gravity model applied to the bilateral coal trade. The importance of the market supplier share is addressed through cluster methodologies.