The contribution of the entrepreneurial orientation to SMEs profitability: a contingent analysis that considers the environment role

This paper aims first to show the effect of the Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) on SMEs financial performance, and second, to propose a contingency model which explores the moderating effects of environmental hostility of the relationship EO ���financial performance -- To examine the research hypotheses, a sample of 121 manufacturing SMEs located in Catalonia, Spain has been used -- The results confirm a positive EO-financial performance relation, and suggest that a more positive relation exists when there is an adjustment between the EO and the environment -- Finally, the academic and entrepreneurial implications related to the EO and the SMEs environment are presented and discussed

El urbanismo expansivo y la movilidad infantil en Catalu��a

Los modelos de movilidad son una de las expresiones de las distintas formas urbanas. El urbanismo expansivo, como una de estas formas urbanas, est�� asociado a ciertos tipos de desplazamientos, relacionados a altos niveles de disfunciones sociales, econ��micas y medioambientales. La comunicaci��n explora las tipolog��as de desplazamientos en un grupo ciudadano muy espec��fico: los menores de 16 a��os. La poblaci��n infantil tiene sus propias pautas de movilidad y estas est��n relacionadas, tambi��n, a las distintas formas urbanas. El an��lisis se basa en los datos que ofrece la Encuesta de Movilidad Cotidiana de Catalu��a 2006 y de ella se analizan las grandes cifras para la comunidad catalana en conjunto. Tambi��n se comparan los distintos sub��mbitos territoriales en relaci��n a las caracter��sticas urbanas que estos presentan.

Obituary of Carmina Virgili i Rod��n (Spanish INHIGEO member)

Carmina Virgili was born in Barcelona, on 19 July 1927, and died in her native town, at the age of eighty seven. Her father, Guillem Virgili was Head of the Revenue Office of the Generalitat of Catalonia, during the second Spanish Republic. He displeased the Catholic community when required by the Catholic Church to pay taxes. Her mother, Carme Rodon, was a pharmacist, and a professor in the Agricultural High School. After the Spanish Civil War, due to their political thoughts, both parents were removed from their workplaces. During her childhood and youth, Virgili stood out as a good student. She did her primary and secondary studies in her hometown, and then she completed teacher training in Tarragona. She obtained her degree in Natural History from the University of Barcelona in 1949, where Carmina Virgili 1927-2014

Genetic differentiation among Parastichopus regalis populations in the Western Mediterranean Sea: potential effects from its fishery and current connectivity

Parastichopus regalis (Cuvier, 1817) is the most expensive seafood product on the Catalonian market (NE Spain), with prices at approximately 130 ���/Kg (fresh weight). Despite its ecological and economic importance, biological and genetic information on this sea cucumber species is scarce. Here, we provide both the first insight on the genetic structure of P. regalis using sequences of cytochrome oxidase I (COI) and 16S genes and a morphological description of its population. Individual sea cucumbers were collected in six locations along the Spanish Mediterranean coast, including an area under fishery pressure (Catalonia). We found high haplotype diversity and low nucleotide diversity for both genes, with higher levels of genetic diversity observed in the COI gene. The population pairwise fixation index (FST), AMOVA and correspondence analysis (CA) based on the COI gene revealed significant genetic differentiation among some locations. However, further analysis using nuclear markers (e.g., microsatellites) is necessary to corroborate these results. Moreover, the genetic and morphological data may indicate fishery effects on the Catalonian population with a decrease in the size and weight averages and lower genetic diversity compared with locations that lack fishery pressure. For the appropriate management of this species, we suggest the following: 1) accurately assessing the stock status along the Spanish coasts; 2) studying the reproductive cycle of this target species and the establishment of a closed fishery season according to the reproductive cycle; and 3) establishing protected areas (i.e., not take zones) to conserve healthy populations and favour recruitment in the nearby areas.

Changing family models in Spain: the impact of the sociodemographic factors

Abstract During the last few decades, there has been an increasing international recognition of the studies related to the analysis of the family models change, the focus being the determinants of the female employment and the problems related to the work family balance (Lewis, 2001; Petit & Hook, 2005Saraceno, Crompton & Lyonette, 20062008; Pfau-Effinger, 2012). The majority of these studies have been focused on the analysis of the work-family balance problems as well as the effectiveness of the family and gender policies in order to encourage female employment (Korpi et al., 2013). In Spain, special attention has been given to the family policies implemented, the employability of women and on the role of the father in the family (Flaquer et al., 2015; Meil, 2015); however, there has been far less emphasis on the analysis of the family cultural models (Gonz��lez and Jurado, 2012; Crespi and Moreno, 2016). The purpose of this paper is to present some of the first results on the influence of the socio-demographic factors on the expectations and attitudes about the family models. This study offers an analytical reflection upon the foundation of the determinants of the family ambivalence in Spain from the cultural and the institutional dimension. This study shows the Spanish family models of preferences following the Pfau-Effinger (2004) classification of the famiy living arrangements. The reason for this study is twofold; on the one hand, there is confirmed the scarcity of studies that have focused their attention on this objective in Spain; on the other hand, the studies carried out in the international context have confirmed the analytical effectiveness of researching on the attitude and value changes to explain the meaning and trends of the family changes. There is also presented some preliminary results that have been obtained from the multinomial analysis related to the influence of the socio-demographic factors on the family model chosen by the individuals in Spain (father and mother working full time; mother part-time father full-time; mother not at work father full-time; mother and father part-time). 3 The database used has been the International Social Survey Programme: Family and Changing Gender Roles IV- ISSP 2012-. Spain is the only country of South Europe that has participated in the survey. For this reason it has been considered as a representative case study.

Los or��genes de las reivindicaciones autonomistas catalanas y sardas a trav��s de la prensa peri��dica del siglo XIX (1840-1890)

The purpose of the thesis for obtaining this PhD diploma is a comparative research between the origin of the Catalonian national movement and the Sardinian national one through the analysis of the 19th century periodicals as well as through a bibliography obtained by extracting them from consulted newspapers and magazines. Not only are both realities compared because of the Aragonese-Catalan influence over the Sardinian culture during its conquer but also because both movements had their origin during the 1840s and developed concurrently along that century presenting some differences, though. The political and cultural scene in Sardinia in those years was characterized by the spread of a discomfort feeling among the population after the acceptance of the ��� Fusione perfetta��� in 1848 and the following rollout of the ���Statuto Albertino��� in the island, representing this last regulation an attempt to unify the different Italian provinces in an administrative and legislative way, together with the previous ���Feliciano��� code from 1827. Therefore, this is how it began to be defined the set of political, economic, and cultural theme that forms the central point of the ���questione sarda��� (this term and its whole connotation were used for the first time in 1867 in an article published in the Cagliaritano weekly-publication La Cronaca). The singularity of this Sardinian nationalistic movement is related to the origin of the first regional demands expressed during those same years in some European regions and, more specifically, in Catalonia. Actually in this region, in those same years, we find the origin of a cultural movement called Renaixen��a whose initial claim was the linguistic and cultural Catalonian renaissance and which adopted a more political meaning along the 19th century...

The minimum number of measurements for colour, sparkle, and graininess characterisation in gonio-apparent panels

Materials with new visual appearances have emerged over the last few years. In the automotive industry in particular there is a growing interest in materials with new effect finishes, such as metallic, pearlescent, sparkle, and graininess effects. Typically, for solid colours the mean of three measurements with repetitions is sufficient to obtain a representative measurement for colour characterisation. However, gonio-apparent panels have non-homogeneous colours, and there are no studies that recommend the minimum number of repetitions for colour, sparkle, and graininess characterisation of this type of panel. We assume that colour panels incorporating special-effect pigments in their colour recipes will require a higher minimum number of measurements than solid colour panels. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to verify this assumption by using a multiangle BYK-mac spectrophotometer, given that it is currently the only commercial device that can measure colour, sparkle, and graininess values simultaneously. In addition, a possible methodology is given for establishing the minimum number of measurements when characterising gonio-apparent materials using a specific instrument, able to be implemented in future instruments when determining multiple appearance attributes (colour, gloss, sparkle, etc.) for many coloration technologies. Thus, we studied the minimum number of measurements needed to characterise the colour, sparkle, and graininess of three types of sample with solid, metallic, and pearlescent coatings respectively. Twenty measurements were made at twenty random positions (different target areas) of 90 samples. The minimum number of measurements for all these variables was determined on the basis of the point at which the cumulative mean value became constant. Thus, applying new statistical tools, it is clearly shown that metallic and pearlescent panels require more colour measurements than solid panels, in particular when geometries are being measured in a specular direction. As regards texture (sparkle and graininess), more measurements are needed for graininess than for sparkle, and more for metallic panels than for pearlescent panels.

William Layton en Espa��a

This year 2015 marks the 55th anniversary of the establishment in Spain of the first theatre academy whose methodological principles for actors were based on the Stanislavski system ���although transformed by the perspective of the Method, developed in America by the Group Theatre during the 1930s and then implanted in some famous schools such as the Actor���s Studio���. It was in October 1960 when the American actor, teacher and director William Layton (1913-1995) opened the Teatro Estudio de Madrid (TEM). By then, he had already been living in Spain for two years. In that adventure Layton was accompanied by the Spanish Miguel Narros (a stage director) and the American Elizabeth H. Buckley. This private academy began its activity by offering the Method, a discipline that Layton had learned in his country with Sandford Meisner; one member of the Group Theatre along with Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Harold Clurmann or Elia Kazan. Thanks to the TEM, concepts till then completely unknown in Spanish academic venues for actors such as organicity, truth, mood, sensory memory, etc., started being implemented in the theatrical interpretation. Firstly, in exercises of improvisation; secondly, in scenes and characters; and finally, after a time of performing, those concepts were tested in the scenarios, by display to the public, which is the biggest challenge for any actor, author or director. That way, a singular model of interpretation, a naturalistic type, which have prevailed in the West over other ways of interpreting, came to Spain. A system (which could be defined as organic interpretation) that had been systematized by the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski in the early twentieth century and rapidly was exported abroad by some of his first students: Richard Boleslavsky, Maria Ouspenskaya, Michael Chekhov, Pietro Scharoff, P. Pauloff... Its popularity in the USA increased mainly due to the Actor���s Studio and also thanks to professor Lee Strasberg, through the famous Method working. While in 1960 Layton founded in Madrid the TEM, together with Narros and Buckley, the Brechtian technique was arriving to Barcelona. In that city, Ricard Salvat ���who had trained in Germany��� and Maria Aur��lia Capmany opened the School of Dramatic Art Adri�� Gual (EADAG). From Catalonia and over the years, this center will project the first formulas about ���distancing���. That way, after decades of delay, that same year 1960 landed in Spain two key trends that shaped and influenced the development of Western theatrical art in the first half of the twentieth century. SYNTHESIS: The knowledge and deep analysis of William Layton���s work as acting teacher in Spain will allow us to get closer to a major figure in the history of theater education in our country. Our main goal is to demonstrate that he was responsible for breaking the isolation that, from secular times, suffered the training of actors in Spain. Layton not only did achieve that, but did it consistently, without interruption. Also, by analyzing his work as stage manager, we will discover how this methodology was implemented in two aspects regarding the theatrical play: in the actor himself and in the dramatic text...

Electrostatically confined plasma in segmented hollow cathode geometries for surface engineering

A segmented hollow cathode (SHC) geometry was used for electrostatic confinement of plasma, and surface engineering treatments were conducted in this arrangement. The assessed processes included plasma nitriding, reactive deposition of sputtered material, and deposition of carbonaceous films by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition with a bipolar pulsed-dc power supply on steel substrates. The treated specimens exhibited uniform surface morphology and deposition layers. Characterization techniques included optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray capability, and X-ray diffraction. The advantages and potential applications of the SHC arrangement are discussed in view of these results.

��tudiants et apprenants de catalan en Catalogne du nord : ��cho du conflit diglossique espagnol

Dans le d��partement des Pyr��n��es orientales, nombreux sont ceux qui apprennent le catalan, langue r��gionale aux c��t��s du fran��ais. Cet espace g��ographique plurilingue se rattache �� l���entit�� plus vaste de la Catalogne, berceau de conflits diglossique virulents, au coeur de revendications d���autonomie qui secouent le climat politique actuel en Espagne. Cet article rend compte d���une enqu��te r��alis��e dans le cadre du projet ��Repr��sentations des langues et des identit��s en M��diterran��e en contexte plurilingue�� (EA 739 Dipralang). Il s���agit de mettre en ��vidence les repr��sentations du catalan et du fran��ais chez les apprenants de catalan, qu���ils soient locuteurs natifs, ��tudiants �� l���universit��, dans les fili��res sp��cifiques ou comme option, ou encore qu���ils se destinent �� l���enseigner dans les classes bilingues. Nous faisons l���hypoth��se que ces repr��sentations diff��rent en fonction de l���implication dans la diglossie fran��ais-catalan et qu���elles sont un ��cho au conflit linguistique propre �� la Catalogne. Pour la v��rifier, nous utilisons la m��thode d���analyse combin��e mise au point par Bruno Maurer.

Propuesta de mejoramiento de la competitividad en el departamento de Cundinamarca. Diagn��stico, metodolog��a de an��lisis del perfil econ��mico y vocaciones productivas de sus quince provincias

Con el objetivo de contribuir al desarrollo de las pol��ticas p��blicas transversales que posicionen a Cundinamarca como referente econ��mico nacional, se realizara un diagn��stico de los perfiles de la competitividad del pa��s y el departamento y se construir�� una metodolog��a de an��lisis que permita medir y comparar las capacidades de las quince provincias del Departamento, estableciendo las fortalezas y debilidades de la regi��n para finalmente focalizar las oportunidades de crecimiento en los mercados globales

Redes transnacionales en Argentina ��Un nuevo escenario de crimen organizado en Am��rica Latina?(2008-2013)

El desarrollo de este estudio de caso, tiene como objetivo analizar la consolidacio��n de Argentina como un posible escenario de crimen organizado en Ame��rica Latina. Para ello se analizara��n los factores que han permitido la proliferacio��n de dicho feno��meno, haciendo e��nfasis en que la capacidad de establecer redes, trascienden el ordenamiento estatal y permiten que se desarrolle de manera auto��noma en diferentes regiones del planeta. Adema��s se tratara��n temas fundamentales que permiten dar cuenta de co��mo ha sido la construccio��n de los pilares que conforman la sociedad argentina en el contexto de una sociedad criminal, convirtie��ndose en una amenaza directa para el funcionamiento del sistema internacional.

SISTEMA DE INFORMACI��N GEOGR��FICA PARA LA GESTI��N DE RECURSOS H��DRICOS

Este art��culo describe la puesta en funcionamiento de una herramienta de informaci��n geogr��fica para la gesti��n y planificaci��n de recursos h��dricos de Catalu��a desarrollada mediante plataformas OpenSource. Esta herramienta ha de permitir responder a sucesos extremos como la sequ��a, facilitando de manera intuitiva y r��pida elementos de�� evaluaci��n y toma de decisiones. Este Sistema de Informaci��n Geogr��fica (SIG) de gesti��n de los recursos h��dricos se ha�� desarrollado para obtener resultados a medida del cliente. Su interfaz ��gil y sencilla, su capacidad multiusuario, su alto�� rendimiento y escalabilidad y la ausencia de costes de licencia hacen que, con una inversi��n limitada, se obtenga una amortizaci��n muy r��pida. Cabe destacar la automatizaci��n de procesos sistem��ticos, geoprocesos y an��lisis multicriterio definidos por el cliente, que le permiten ahorrar tiempo y recursos, as�� como aumentar la productividad.Palabras clave: Sistema de Informaci��n Geogr��fica (SIG), acceso abierto, gesti��n, agua, automatizaci��nAbstractThis article describes the implementation of a geographical information tool developed on an OpenSource platform for the management and planning of water resources in Catalonia. This Geographic Information System (GIS) is designed to deliver fast and intuitive evaluation and decision making criteria in response to extreme events, such as drought. Its strong customization, user friendliness, multiuser capability, performance and scalability, together with its license-free condition, allow for an extremely fast return on investment. The embedded automation of user-defined systemic processes, geo-processes and multi-criteria analyses provide significant time and resource savings and productivity Key Words: Geographic Information System (GIS), Open Source, water supply management, automation

MAGGnet: an international network to foster mitigation of agricultural greenhouse gases.

Research networks provide a framework for review, synthesis and systematic testing of theories by multiple scientists across international borders critical for addressing global-scale issues. In 2012, a GHG research network referred to as MAGGnet (Managing Agricultural Greenhouse Gases Network) was established within the Croplands Research Group of the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (GRA). With involvement from 46 alliance member countries, MAGGnet seeks to provide a platform for the inventory and analysis of agricultural GHG mitigation research throughout the world. To date, metadata from 315 experimental studies in 20 countries have been compiled using a standardized spreadsheet. Most studies were completed (74%) and conducted within a 1-3-year duration (68%). Soil carbon and nitrous oxide emissions were measured in over 80% of the studies. Among plant variables, grain yield was assessed across studies most frequently (56%), followed by stover (35%) and root (9%) biomass. MAGGnet has contributed to modeling efforts and has spurred other research groups in the GRA to collect experimental site metadata using an adapted spreadsheet. With continued growth and investment, MAGGnet will leverage limited-resource investments by any one country to produce an inclusive, globally shared meta-database focused on the science of GHG mitigation.