Annual record of science and industry.

1875

Annual record of science and industry.

1873

Motor and cognitive development of selected Egyptian and German primary school aged children : a cross-cultural study

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Humanwiss., Diss., 2013

American spiders and their spinningwork. A natural history of the orbweaving spiders of the United States, with special regard to their industry and habits. By Henry C. McCook.

v.1 1889

Inventory of seeds and plants imported / U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry.

62-73, 1923-1924

External sources of innovation and industry-university interaction:evidence from Spanish firms

This paper is about the firm innovation process and the cooperation of the innovative firms with other firms and public institutions. A special attention is paid to the cooperation with universities. We use the Technological Innovation Survey (TIS) from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (Spain) in order to obtain data for 4,159 innovative firms. Our results show that firm's cooperation activities are closely linked to the characteristics of the industry and the firm as well as to the origin of public funds for R&D activities. Key words: Innovation, universities, Spanish economy. JEL code: O31, I20, L60

Constrained school choice

Recently, several school districts in the US have adopted or consider adopting the Student-Optimal Stable Mechanism or the Top Trading Cycles Mechanism to assign children to public schools. There is clear evidence that for school districts that employ (variants of) the so-called Boston Mechanism the transition would lead to efficiency gains. The first two mechanisms are strategy-proof, but in practice student assignment procedures impede students to submit a preference list that contains all their acceptable schools. Therefore, any desirable property of the mechanisms is likely toget distorted. We study the non trivial preference revelation game where students can only declare up to a fixed number (quota) of schools to be acceptable. We focus on the stability of the Nash equilibrium outcomes. Our main results identify rather stringent necessary and sufficient conditions on the priorities to guaranteestability. This stands in sharp contrast with the Boston Mechanism which yields stable Nash equilibrium outcomes, independently of the quota. Hence, the transition to any of the two mechanisms is likely to come with a higher risk that students seek legal actionas lower priority students may occupy more preferred schools.

New business formation and employment growth: some evidence for the Spanish manufacturing industry

This paper explores the effects of new business formation on employment growth in Spanish manufacturing industries. New firms are believed to make an important contribution to economic growth but the extent of this contribution is unclear. We consider time lags of new firm formation as explanatory variables of employment change and identify how long the effect of new firm entries on employment lasts. Our main results show that the effects of new business formation are positive in the short term, negative in the medium term and positive in the long term, thus confirming the existence of indirect supply-side effects found in similar studies for other countries. Key words: regional growth, firm entry, time lags and Spanish economy. JEL classifications: L00, L60, R11, R12

Transferring QTL technology to the pig breeding industry (PigQTech) - a demonstration project

The aim of the project has been to demonstrate how the farm animal breeding industry can utilise gene mapping technology to accelerate genetic improvement. Previous theoretical studies had suggested that the use of marker assisted selection could potentially increase the annual improvement for quantitative traits like backfat with about 10% and for more difficult traits such as meat quality and reproduction by as much as 40-60% compared with existing technology. The work has comprised two major tasks: 1. Commercially relevant populations have been screened for segregation at QTLs identified in experimental populations. The aim has been to establish optimal strategies for QTL detection in commercial pig populations and the extent to which QTLs explaining major phenotypic differences between divergent lines used in experimental studies also explain quantitative variation within commercial lines. The results are important for specifying future strategies for finding economically valuable QTLs. 2. Marker assisted backcrossing has been used to demonstrate how a QTL allele can be introgressed from one breed to another. The work has focused on the major fatness QTL on pig chromosome 4 previously identified in a wild pig/Large White intercross. The end result was not designed to be a commercially viable product in its own right, but the process has validated a number of points of major importance for the exploitation of QTLs in livestock.

Increasing the scalability and the speedup of a fish school distributed simulator

El present treball fa un anàlisi i desenvolupament sobre les millores en la velocitat i en l’escalabilitat d'un simulador distribuït de grups de peixos. Aquests resultats s’han obtingut fent servir una nova estratègia de comunicació per als processos lògics (LPs) i canvis en l'algoritme de selecció de veïns que s'aplica a cadascun dels peixos en cada pas de simulació. L’idea proposada permet que cada procés lògic anticipi futures necessitats de dades pels seus veïns reduint el temps de comunicació al limitar la quantitat de missatges intercanviats entre els LPs. El nou algoritme de selecció dels veïns es va desenvolupar amb l'objectiu d'evitar treball innecessari permetent la disminució de les instruccions executades en cada pas de simulació i per cadascun del peixos simulats reduint de forma significativa el temps de simulació.

Una universidad donde confluyen la educación, la investigación y la ciudadanía

El projecte de recerca s'ha basat en el projecte Miquel Martí i Pol, que ha consistit en la creació i manteniment d'un jardí dedicat a la memòria del poeta, amb persones en situació d'exclusió social (per motius de malaltia mental, immigració, pobresa) i estudiants de teràpia ocupacional de la Universitat de Vic, des d'una sinergia única entre la Universitat de Vic i institucions públiques, socials i empresarials. La recerca ve a cobrir la falta de coneixement sobre l'impacte terapèutic de la jardineria, com afirmava Sempik al 2003. Així mateix, genera coneixements sobre l'ocupació humana, la ciutadania, les comunitats inclusives, les aliances estratègiques i sobre noves praxis educatives en el marc del nou Espai Europeu d'Educació Superior (EEES). El marc teòric s'ha basat en una visió transdisciplinària, des de l'educació, la filosofia, la psicologia, la sociologia, la teràpia ocupacional, la política, l'ecologia i l'antropologia. S'ha desenvolupat una recerca inspirada per la investigació acció participativa que ha aprofundit en el significat que ha tingut aquesta experiència per a les persones implicades en el procés de creació del jardí: les persones procedents de col•lectius en situació d'exclusió, els estudiants, així com els representants de les institucions públiques, socials, empresarials i la pròpia Universitat de Vic. Així es van desenvolupar una sèrie d'entrevistes a fons i formularis amb 5 jardiners; 2 estudiants; la Consellera d'Acció Social de l'Ajuntament de Vic; el Conseller d'Acció Social del Consell Comarcal d'Osona; el President de Caritas; la terapeuta ocupacional de la Fundació Centre Mèdic Psicopedagògic d'Osona; la Rectora de la Universitat de Vic; la Directora de l'EUCS i el President del Rotary Club. Els temes que han sorgit en la recerca són: La construcció de l'ocupació significativa; la jardineria com a font de benestar; un espai de bellesa; la dignitat de la ciutadania; la creació de comunitats inclusives; una Universitat al servei de la Humanitat: noves praxis educatives; l'art de les aliances estratègiques i de les sinergies. Els coneixements generats tenen relació amb els estudis de teràpia ocupacional, així com per a educació social, infermeria, psicologia i ciències ambientals. A més a més són una aposta per al desenvolupament de noves praxis educatives en el nou EEES. El treball ha estat qualificat com a excel•lent per unanimitat del tribunal.

Constrained school choice: an experimental study

The literature on school choice assumes that families can submit a preference list over all the schools they want to be assigned to. However, in many real-life instances families are only allowed to submit a list containing a limited number of schools. Subjects' incentives are drastically affected, as more individuals manipulate their preferences. Including a safety school in the constrained list explains most manipulations. Competitiveness across schools play an important role. Constraining choices increases segregation and affects the stability and efficiency of the final allocation. Remarkably, the constraint reduces significantly the proportion of subjects playing a dominated strategy.

Elevated blood pressure prevalence in children did not follow the increase in overweight: results from a school-based study in a rapidly developing country, 1998-2006

Background: Blood pressure (BP) is strongly associated with body weight and there is concern that the pediatric overweight epidemic could lead to an increase in children's mean BP. Objectives: We analyzed BP trends from 1998 to 2006 among children of the Seychelles, a rapidly developing middle-income country in Africa. Methods: Serial school-based surveys of weight, height and BP were conducted yearly between 1998-2006 among all students of the country in four school grades (kindergarten, 4th, 7th and 10th years of compulsory school). We used the CDC criteria to define "overweight" (BMI _95th sex-, and age-specific percentile) and the NHBPEP criteria for "elevated BP" (BP _95th sex-, age-, and height specific percentile). Methods for height, weight, and BP measurements were identical over the study period. The trends in mean BMI and mean systolic/diastolic BP were assessed with linear regression. Results: 27,703 children aged 4-18 years (participation rate: 79%) contributed 43,927 observations on weight, height, and BP. The prevalence of overweight increased from 5.1% in 1998-2000 to 8.1% in 2004-2006 among boys, and from 6.1% to 9.1% among girls, respectively. The prevalence of elevated BP was 8.4% in 1998-2000 and 6.9% in 2004-2006 among boys; 9.8% and 7.8% among girls, respectively. Over the 9-years study period, age-adjusted body mass index (BMI) increased by 0.078 kg/m2/year in boys and by 0.083 kg/m2/year in girls (both sexes, P_0.001). Age- and height-adjusted systolic BP decreased by -0.37 mmHg/year in boys and by -0.34 mmHg/year in girls (both sexes, P_0.001). Diastolic BP did not change in boys (-0.02 mmHg/year, P: 0.40) and slightly increased in girls (0.07 mmHg/year, P: 0.003). These trend estimates were altered modestly upon further adjustment for BMI or if analyses were based on median rather than mean values. Conclusion: Although body weight increased markedly between 1998 and 2006 in this population, systolic BP decreased and diastolic BP changed only marginally. This suggests that population increases in body weight are not necessarily associated with corresponding rises in BP in children.