Modelling official and parallel exchange rates in Colombia under alternative regimes: a non-linear approach

We examine the long-run relationship between the parallel and the official exchange rate in Colombia over two regimes; a crawling peg period and a more flexible crawling band one. The short-run adjustment process of the parallel rate is examined both in a linear and a nonlinear context. We find that the change from the crawling peg to the crawling band regime did not affect the long-run relationship between the official and parallel exchange rates, but altered the short-run dynamics. Non-linear adjustment seems appropriate for the first period, mainly due to strict foreign controls that cause distortions in the transition back to equilibrium once disequilibrium occurs

Estado situacional de los algoritmos genéticos en los negocios internacionales

La computación evolutiva y muy especialmente los algoritmos genéticos son cada vez más empleados en las organizaciones para resolver sus problemas de gestión y toma de decisiones (Apoteker & Barthelemy, 2000). La literatura al respecto es creciente y algunos estados del arte han sido publicados. A pesar de esto, no hay un trabajo explícito que evalúe de forma sistemática el uso de los algoritmos genéticos en problemas específicos de los negocios internacionales (ejemplos de ello son la logística internacional, el comercio internacional, el mercadeo internacional, las finanzas internacionales o estrategia internacional). El propósito de este trabajo de grado es, por lo tanto, realizar un estado situacional de las aplicaciones de los algoritmos genéticos en los negocios internacionales.

A teaching/learning support tool for introductory programming courses

In This work we present a Web-based tool developed with the aim of reinforcing teaching and learning of introductory programming courses. This tool provides support for teaching and learning. From the teacher's perspective the system introduces important gains with respect to the classical teaching methodology. It reinforces lecture and laboratory sessions, makes it possible to give personalized attention to the student, assesses the degree of participation of the students and most importantly, performs a continuous assessment of the student's progress. From the student's perspective it provides a learning framework, consisting in a help environment and a correction environment, which facilitates their personal work. With this tool students are more motivated to do programming

El cinema i la constitució d'un públic popular a Barcelona. El cas del Paral·lel

Between 1895 and 1910 Barcelona saw a whole range of social, political and cultural changes due to the increasingly important emergence of the working masses. At the same time, the cinema arrived in Catalonia, becoming very quickly one of the favorite entertainments of the urban laboring population which was about creating a new culture opposed to the modernist and nineteenth-century elite .This is, broadly speaking, the context that serves as a starting point for a study of the role of cinema in shaping a mass audience in Barcelona, an analysis centered on new urban spaces intended for the leisure of the lower classes emerged with the birth of modern Barcelona, especially the “Paral•lel” avenue, whose opening in 1894 made even more apparent the great social tensions and existing inequalities in Barcelona’s society at the end of the century.

Does the Stockholm Programme matter? The struggles over ownership of AFSJ multiannual programming. CEPS Paper in Liberty and Security No. 51/December 2012

Does the 2009 Stockholm Programme matter? This paper addresses the controversies experienced at EU institutional levels as to ‘who’ should have ownership of the contours of the EU’s policy and legislative multiannual programming in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) in a post-Lisbon Treaty landscape. It examines the struggles around the third multiannual programme on the AFSJ, i.e. the Stockholm Programme, and the dilemmas affecting its implementation. The latest affair to emerge relates to the lack of fulfilment by the European Commission of the commitment to provide a mid-term evaluation of the Stockholm Programme’s implementation by mid-2012, as requested by both the Council and the European Parliament. This paper shifts the focus to a broader perspective and raises the following questions: Is the Stockholm Programme actually relevant? What do the discussions behind its implementation tell us about the new institutional dynamics affecting European integration on the AFSJ? Does the EU actually need a new (post- Stockholm) multiannual programme for the period 2015–20? And last, what role should the EP play in legislative and policy programming in order to further strengthen the democratic accountability and legitimacy of the EU’s AFSJ?

The effectiveness of assessment learning objects produced using pair programming

Pair Programming is a technique from the software development method eXtreme Programming (XP) whereby two programmers work closely together to develop a piece of software. A similar approach has been used to develop a set of Assessment Learning Objects (ALO). Three members of academic staff have developed a set of ALOs for a total of three different modules (two with overlapping content). In each case a pair programming approach was taken to the development of the ALO. In addition to demonstrating the efficiency of this approach in terms of staff time spent developing the ALOs, a statistical analysis of the outcomes for students who made use of the ALOs is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ALOs produced via this method.