France, Italy, and Spain: Culturally Similar Nations, Yet Drastically Different In Their Roles as European Union Nations

Since France, Italy and Spain are neighboring Western European countries, whose languages and cultures have descended from Latin, it is inevitable that these countries share similarities on many levels. France, Italy and Spain share similar lifestyles, religious values and cultural heritages. Throughout history France, Italy and Spain have experienced many of the same historical events because of their geographical proximity. Now that all three countries are members of the European Union they have become further united by occupying a common area without border controls, and sharing a common market, laws, and currency. While France, Italy and Spain share many commonalities, their opinions and relationships within the European Union are diverse. Although each nation struggles to balance its national identity with its European identity and to maintain its sovereignty while at the same time giving some of it up to the EU, each nation has its own ideas about how much its identity should change and how much sovereignty it should give up to the EU government. Each nation also has unique opinions about what it means to part of the European Union and what the requirements for becoming a member nation should be. Each nation has different goals it hopes to accomplish for its own country and for the European Union. The differing ideas amongst France, Italy and Spain are a result of the variance that exists amongst their political and economic relationships and institutions, which have been molded by the historical experiences of each nation. The focus of this paper will be examining why France, Spain and Italy share many cultural similarities, yet differ so greatly in their roles as members of the European Union. After a brief background on the European Union, I will discuss the cultural similarities France, Italy and Spain share. I will then mention several economic and political differences between the three countries and use supporting evidence to explain why and in what context these differences have arisen

Knowledge Management and Leadership in the Higher Education: A First Approach

Today, it is more and more important to develop competences in the learning process of the university students (that is to say, to acquire knowledge but also skills, abilities, attitudes and values). This is because professional practice requires that the future graduates design and market products, defend the interests of their clients, be introduced in the Administration or, even, in the Politics. Universities must form professionals that become social and opinion leaders, consultants, advisory, entrepreneurs and, in short, people with capacity to solve problems. This paper offers a tool to evaluate the application for the professor of different styles of management in the process of the student’s learning. Its main contribution consists on advancing toward the setting in practice of a model that overcomes the limitations of the traditional practices based on the masterful class, and that it has been applied in Portugal and Spain.

Discriminant Analysis of Geographical Origin of Cork Planks and Stoppers by Near Infrared Spectroscopy

The objective of this study was to assess the potential of visible and near infrared spectroscopy (VIS+NIRS) combined with multivariate analysis for identifying the geographical origin of cork. The study was carried out on cork planks and natural cork stoppers from the most representative cork-producing areas in the world. Two training sets of international and national cork planks were studied. The first set comprised a total of 479 samples from Morocco, Portugal, and Spain, while the second set comprised a total of 179 samples from the Spanish regions of Andalusia, Catalonia, and Extremadura. A training set of 90 cork stoppers from Andalusia and Catalonia was also studied. Original spectroscopic data were obtained for the transverse sections of the cork planks and for the body and top of the cork stoppers by means of a 6500 Foss-NIRSystems SY II spectrophotometer using a fiber optic probe. Remote reflectance was employed in the wavelength range of 400 to 2500 nm. After analyzing the spectroscopic data, discriminant models were obtained by means of partial least square (PLS) with 70% of the samples. The best models were then validated using 30% of the remaining samples. At least 98% of the international cork plank samples and 95% of the national samples were correctly classified in the calibration and validation stage. The best model for the cork stoppers was obtained for the top of the stoppers, with at least 90% of the samples being correctly classified. The results demonstrate the potential of VIS + NIRS technology as a rapid and accurate method for predicting the geographical origin of cork plank and stoppers

Road fright transport decoupling: A comparative analysis between the United Kingdom and Spain

Economic growth has traditionally been linked to road freight transport demand, leading to a steady rise in social and environmental impacts. Concern about this problem has caused the EU to promote a decoupling strategy aimed at boosting sustainable development in European countries by improving the efficiency of transport systems without curbing economic growth. Over the last few years empirical evidence in some countries such as the United Kingdom has shown an increase in GDP while the volume of road freight traffic has remained stable or even decreased. This paper compares recent decoupling trends by analyzing the evolution of road tonne-kms/GDP relationship in the United Kingdom and Spain from 1999 to 2007. This comparison seeks to identify the main differences and key drivers of decoupling in both countries. We first provide an overview of the divergences between both economic structures and levels of road transport intensity. Then we conduct a decomposition analysis in order to identify the variables that explain the evolution of truck traffic per unit of GDP in each country. The results show that the increasing share of services in GDP has substantially contributed to decreasing road transport demand in both cases. Changes in road transport intensity due to improvements in logistic and supply chain management have been more successful in the UK than in Spain.

Work-related health problems among resident immigrant workers in Italy and Spain

Background: in both Spain and Italy the number of immigrants has strongly increased in the last 20 years, currently representing more than the 10% of workforce in each country. The segregation of immigrants into unskilled or risky jobs brings negative consequences for their health. The objective of this study is to compare prevalence of work-related health problems between immigrants and native workers in Italy and Spain. Methods: data come from the Italian Labour Force Survey (n=65 779) and Spanish Working Conditions Survey (n=11 019), both conducted in 2007. We analyzed merged datasets to evaluate whether interviewees, both natives and migrants, judge their health being affected by their work conditions and, if so, which specific diseases. For migrants, we considered those coming from countries with a value of the Human Development Index lower than 0.85. Logistic regression models were used, including gender, age, and education as adjusting factors. Results: migrants reported skin diseases (Mantel-Haenszel pooled OR=1.49; 95%CI: 0.59-3.74) and musculoskeletal problems among those employed in agricultural sector (Mantel-Haenszel pooled OR=1.16; 95%CI: 0.69-1.96) more frequently than natives; country-specific analysis showed higher risks of musculoskeletal problems among migrants compared to the non-migrant population in Italy (OR=1.17; 95% CI: 0.48-1.59) and of respiratory problems in Spain (OR=2.02; 95%CI: 1.02-4.0). In both countries the risk of psychological stress was predominant among national workers. Conclusions: this collaborative study allows to strength the evidence concerning the health of migrant workers in Southern European countries.