Alternative financing instruments for Spanish cooperative

The search for funding is an ongoing task of the company, which is exacerbated, particularly in times of economic crisis, affecting also to the cooperatives. Cooperative legislation available to these entities various instruments of external financing through the issuance of securities (bonds, equity securities, special shares), to them accounts are added in participation, but without much detail in the legal texts. At work we investigate their potential, by looking, especially in those last; We seek to clarify their legal status and contrast their potential as a technical instrument, alternative for funding in the area of cooperative societies. Finally, we also see the impact of the recent Law 5/2015, of promoting business financing in the cooperative sector and ended up proposing some policy adjustments.

Calibration of assessment instruments – classification in mathematics at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano

Item Response Theory, IRT, is a valuable methodology for analyzing the quality of the instruments utilized in assessment of academic achievement. This article presents an implementation of the mentioned theory, particularly of the Rasch model, in order to calibrate items and the instrument used in the classification test for the Basic Mathematics subject at Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano. 509 responses chains of students, obtained in the june 2011 application, were analyzed with a set of 45 items, through eight case studies that are showing progressive steps of calibration. Criteria of validity of items and of whole instrument were defined and utilized, to select groups of responses chains and items that were finally used in the determination of parameters which then allowed the classification of assessed students by the test.

A systematic review of instruments related to family caregivers of palliative care patients

Support for family caregivers is a core function of palliative care. However, there is a lack of consistency in the way needs are assessed, few longitudinal studies to examine the impact of caregiving, and a dearth of evidence-based interventions. In order to help redress this situation, identification of suitable instruments to examine the caregiving experience and the effectiveness of interventions is required. A systematic literature review was undertaken incorporating representatives of the European Association for Palliative Care’s International Palliative Care Family Caregiver Research Collaboration and Family Carer Taskforce. The aim of the review was to identify articles that described the use of instruments administered to family caregivers of palliative care patients (pre and post-bereavement). Fourteen of the 62 instruments targeted satisfaction with service delivery and less than half were developed specifically for the palliative care context. In approximately 25% of articles psychometric data were not reported. Where psychometric results were reported, validity data were reported in less than half (42%) of these cases. While a considerable variety of instruments have been administered to family caregivers, the validity of some of these requires further consideration. We recommend that others be judicious before developing new instruments for this population.

A Framework for the Evaluation of Digital Musical Instruments

At the outset of a discussion of evaluating digital musical instruments, that is to say instruments whose sound generators are digital and separable though not necessarily separate from their control interfaces (Malloch, 2006), it is reasonable to ask what the term evaluation in this context really means. After all, there may be many perspectives from which to view the effectiveness or otherwise of the instruments we build. For most performers, performance on an instrument becomes a means of evaluating how well it functions in the context of live music making, and their measure of success is the response of the audience to their performance. Audiences evaluate performances on the basis of how engaged they feel they have been by what they have seen and heard. When questioned, they are likely to describe good performances as “exciting,” “skillful,” “musical.” Bad performances are “boring,” and those which are marred by technical malfunction are often dismissed out of hand. If performance is considered to be a valid means of evaluating a musical instrument, then it follows that, for the field of DMI design, a much broader definition of the term “evaluation” than that typically used in human-computer interaction (HCI) is required to reflect the fact that there are a number of stakeholders involved in the design and evaluation of DMIs. In addition to players and audiences, there are also composers, instrument builders, component manufacturers, and perhaps even customers, each of whom will have a different concept of what is meant by “evaluation.”

THz Frequency Selective Surface Filters for Earth Observation Remote Sensing Instruments

The purpose of this paper is to review recent developments in the design and fabrication of Frequency Selective Surfaces (FSS) which operate above 300 GHz. These structures act as free space electromagnetic filters and as such provide passive remote sensing instruments with multispectral capability by separating the scene radiation into separate frequency channels. Significant advances in computational electromagnetics, precision micromachining technology and metrology have been employed to create state of the art FSS which enable high sensitivity receivers to detect weak molecular emissions at THz wavelengths. This new class of quasi-optical filter exhibits an insertion loss

Modal Representation of the Resonant Body within a Finite Difference Framework for Simulation of String Instruments

This paper investigates numerical simulation of a string coupled
transversely to a resonant body. Starting from a complete nite
difference formulation, a second model is derived in which the
body is represented in modal form. The main advantage of this hybrid form is that the body model is scalable, i.e. the computational
complexity can be adjusted to the available processing power. Numerical results are calculated and discussed for simplied models
in the form of string-string coupling and string-plate coupling.

A comparative study of qualitative immunochemical screening assays for the combined measurement of T-2/HT-2 in cereals and cereal-based products

Many different immunochemical platforms exist for the screening of naturally occurring contaminants in food from the low cost enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) to the expensive instruments such as optical biosensors based on the phenomenon of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). The primary aim of this study was to evaluate and compare a number of these platforms to assess their accuracy and precision when applied to naturally contaminated samples containing HT-2/T-2 mycotoxins. Other important factors considered were the speed of analysis, ease of use (sample preparation techniques and use of the equipment) and ultimately the cost implications. The three screening procedures compared included an SPR biosensor assay, a commercially available ELISA and an enzyme-linked immunomagnetic electrochemical array (ELIME array). The qualitative data for all methods demonstrated very good overall agreements with each other, however on comparison with mass spectrometry confirmatory results, the ELISA and SPR assay performed slightly better than the ELIME array, exhibiting an overall agreement of 95.8% compared to 91.7%. Currently, SPR is more costly than the other two platforms and can only be used in the laboratory whereas in theory both the ELISA and ELIME array are portable and can be used in the field, but ultimately this is dependent on the sample preparation techniques employed. Sample preparative techniques varied for all methods evaluated, the ELISA was the most simple to perform followed by that of the SPR method. The ELIME array involved an additional clean-up step thereby increasing both the time and cost of analysis. Therefore in the current format, field use would not be an option for the ELIME array. In relation to speed of analysis, the ELISA outperformed the other methods.

Physical Models of Wind Instruments : A Generalized Excitation Coupled with a Modular Tube Simulation Platform

To develop real-time simulations of wind instruments, digital waveguides filters can be used as an efficient representation of the air column. Many aerophones are shaped as horns which can be approximated using conical sections. Therefore the derivation of conical waveguide filters is of special interest. When these filters are used in combination with a generalized reed excitation, several classes of wind instruments can be simulated. In this paper we present the methods for transforming a continuous description of conical tube segments to a discrete filter representation. The coupling of the reed model with the conical waveguide and a simplified model of the termination at the open end are described in the same way. It turns out that the complete lossless conical waveguide requires only one type of filter.Furthermore, we developed a digital reed excitation model, which is purely based on numerical integration methods, i.e., without the use of a look-up table.