A Compilation of the Bioscience Professional Development Opportunities Offered to K-12 Teachers in Iowa, September 14, 2005

Professional development opportunities are offered piecemeal to K-12 teachers in Iowa through Area Education Agencies (AEAs), Regents’ institutions, community colleges, private colleges, private corporations, and out-of-state institutions (often online). Compiling a comprehensive list of in-service and pre-service opportunities for primary and secondary public school educators is not feasible for a variety of reasons. However, this report briefly summarizes most of the bioscience-related options for professional development available for K-12 educators this summer and over the past year.

Market Index Biases and Minimum Risk Indices

Markets, in the real world, are not efficient zero-sum games where hypotheses of the CAPM are fulfilled. Then, it is easy to conclude the market portfolio is not located on Markowitz"s efficient frontier, and passive investments (and indexing) are not optimal but biased. In this paper, we define and analyze biases suffered by passive investors: the sample, construction, efficiency and active biases and tracking error are presented. We propose Minimum Risk Indices (MRI) as an alternative to deal with to market index biases, and to provide investors with portfolios closer to the efficient frontier, that is, more optimal investment possibilities. MRI (using a Parametric Value-at-Risk Minimization approach) are calculated for three stock markets achieving interesting results. Our indices are less risky and more profitable than current Market Indices in the Argentinean and Spanish markets, facing that way the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Two innovations must be outlined: an error dimension has been included in the backtesting and the Sharpe"s Ratio has been used to select the"best" MRI

The Impact of Housing Market Segmentation between Tourists and Residents on the Hedonic Price for Landscape Quality

Market segmentation is an important issue when estimating the implicit price for an environmental amenity from a surrogate market like property. This paper tests the hypothesis of a segmentation of the housing market between tourists and residents and computes the implicit price for natural landscape quality in Swiss alpine resorts. The results show a clear segmentation between both groups of consumers, although tests also show that the estimated coefficient for landscape is similar in the tourists' model and in the residents'. However, since the functional form is non linear, the nominal - rather than relative - value of a change in natural landscape quality is higher in the tourist housing market than in the residents'. Hence, considering the segmentation of the market between tourists and residents is essential in order to provide valid estimates of the nominal implicit price of natural landscape quality.

Médecine interne et gériatrie en soins aigus: mariage de raison [General internal medicine and geriatrics in the acute care setting: opportunities for collaboration]

The health care system faces a difficult challenge as a result of the demographic evolution. The acute hospital is especially challenged by the steady increase of the elderly population. The collaboration between internal medicine and geriatrics in this setting could prove useful to facilitate the adaptation of the acute care setting and greatly enhance education of the health care professionals. Internists and geriatricians can benefit from each other skills and competencies to develop together new models of acute care that would better match the elderly population needs.

Disparities in work, risk and health between immigrants and native-born Spaniards

We analyse the impact of working and contractual conditions, particularly exposure to job risks, on the probability of acquiring a permanent disability, controlling for other personal and firm characteristics. We postulate a model in which this impact is mediated by the choice of occupation, with a level of risk associated with it. We assume this choice is endogenous, and that it depends on preferences and opportunities in the labour market, both of which may differ between immigrants and natives. To test this hypothesis we apply a bivariate probit model to data for 2006 from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives provided by the Spanish Social Security system, containing records for over a million workers. We find that risk exposure increases the probability of permanent disability arising from any cause - by almost 5%.

Amazon.es : incògnites i expectatives. Amb Enric Faura i Pep Torn

Debat a l'Internauta, el primer programa de ràdio del país sobre la xarxa, una col·laboració entre la UOC i Vilaweb. Fa menys d'una setmana que es va confirmar la notícia: la plataforma de comerç electrònic més potent de la xarxa, Amazon, va obrir dimecres de la setmana passada la filial ibèrica. Amazon és actualment el portal de venda en línia més important i divers, amb un catàleg de milions de llibres impresos i electrònics, a més d'un gavadal de productes com ara compactes, DVD, jocs, aparells d'electrònica de consum i, fins i tot, roba, alimentació i mobiliari. De moment, Amazon.es ha aterrat a casa nostra amb una oferta de productes físics, entre els quals hi ha cinquanta mil llibres impresos en català, però obre tantes oportunitats com interrogants. Com afectarà les llibreries convencionals? Tindran mercat ara plataformes de llibre digital més modestes? Estimularà el negoci del llibre electrònic? Facilitarà l'autoedició de llibres? Farà créixer el nombre de lectors en català? En parlem amb Enric Faura, de la plataforma Edi.cat, i amb l'expert Pep Torn, director de l'àrea de Biblioteca i Recursos Documentals de la UOC.

Mobile Phone Use among Market Traders at Fairs in Rural Peru

We characterize market traders at two rural fairs in Puno, Peru, based on quantitative and qualitative data gathered in 2008, to gain insight into types of traders and the information needs that influence the degree to which they use mobile phones to make decisions regarding which weekly fairs to attend. Using variables such as origin, type of goods sold, means of transportation to the market, and reliance on networks, we identify traders as full-time traders, part-time traders, or subsistence traders, that is, people trading solely to survive. We find that when traders are already familiar with the technology, regularly rely on endogenous networks to make decisions, and have more to lose from failing to trade (e.g., those selling perishable goods), they are more likely to use mobile phones to decide where to sell.