The Spanish Pension System: Overview and Long-Term Projections

In the middle of the so-called pension crisis, the ageing of population and the sharp decrease in affiliations to Social Security are threatening the well-functioning of the Spanish public pension system. The purpose of this paper is to present the main challenges to be faced by the Spanish pension system, as well as to shed light on the main determinants that will condition the evolution of pension expenditure over GDP along the following decades. This quantitative analysis, which considers the 2011 and 2013 pension reforms, uses the latest data on the Spanish demographic, labor market and institutional factors in order to project the evolution of the system from the expenditure side up to 2060. For the purpose of analyzing the dynamics and the underlying drivers of pension expenditure, the so-called aggregate accounting approach will be utilized. The alternative scenarios proposed allow for exploring the robustness of the results within the baseline scenario, which constitutes the reference point of projections in the exercise. The analysis concludes that, by the end of the projected period, Spain will count on a similar public pension expenditure ratio as the current one.

Floristical notes from Western Sierra de Gredos (Spanish Central System)

Se citan algunas plantas con interés corológico herborizadas en el macizo occidental de la Sierra de Gredos.

The rights to a hearing and to a lawful judge in the spanish constitutional system

Right to Audience and Right to a Lawful Judge are presumed to be two of the most important guaranties for the rule of law. Both liberties are established in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 as “fundamental rights”, and they are included as a part of a most generic right: the right to due process of law. Along this text, I will try to show its content and significance, according to the sentences of the Spanish “Tribunal Constitucional”, passed through more than 25 years.

Improving the competitiveness of the Spanish port system by optimising the cargo handling service

Port services, and in particular the cargo handling service, are responsible for the greatest share of costs incurred during the passage of cargo through a port. The provision of these services reliably and efficiently is crucial in a sector in which there is great opacity. This study has provided the responsible administration ? the Port Authority ? with a tool enabling objective decision making both when it comes to issuing the corresponding licenses and during the period of service provision. Furthermore, we have proposed a series of measures whose application would improve the conditions of service provision and reduce the costs incurred by the passage of cargo through the port.

Wind intermittency and CO2 reductions: the case of the spanish power system

Renewable energy sources are believed to reduce drastically greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise be generated from fossil fuels used to generate electricity. This implies that a unit of renewable energy will replace a unit of fossil-fuel, with its CO2 emissions, on an equivalent basis (with no other effects on the grid). But, the fuel economy and emissions in the existing power systems are not proportional with the electricity production of intermittent sources due to cycling of the fossil fuel plants that make up the balance of the grid (i.e. changing the power output makes thermal units to operate less efficiently). This study focuses in the interactions between wind generation and thermal plants cycling, by establishing the levels of extra fuel use caused by decreased efficiencies of fossil back-up for wind electricity in Spain. We analyze the production of all thermal plants in 2011, studying different scenarios where wind penetration causes major deviations in programming, while we define a procedure for quantifying the carbon reductions by using emission factors and efficiency curves from the existing installations. The objectives are to discuss the real contributions of renewable energies to the environmental targets as well as suggest alternatives that would improve the reliability of future power systems.

Gini coefficient, dissimilarity index and Lorenz curve for the spanish port system by type of goods

This paper shows the Gini Coefficient, the dissimilarity Index and the Lorenz Curve for the Spanish Port System by type of goods from 1960 to the year 2010 for business units: Total traffic, Liquid bulk cargo, Solid bulk cargo, General Merchandise and Container (TEUs) with the aim of carcaterizar the Spanish port systems in these periods and propose future strategies.

Application of Public Private Partnerships to the Spanish Airport System

The current deficit situation of the Spanish airport system suggests the need to manage this in a more efficient and profitable way. One of the possible options is through private management and being able to do this through Public Private Partnerships (PPP). This study analyzes the situation of the sector and its economic importance and the different possibilities for introducing private management in a public company, specifying the situation in the case of airports, presenting the advantages and disadvantages of these possibilities, and aiming at results obtained in other places where it has been applied. It is proposed that the ideal model for the introduction of private management would be through PPP models tailored to each airport, but having common characteristics according to the group they belong to. Finally, we observe that not all airports are commercially attractive, so that the PPP concept does not apply to all of them. In some cases even the operability itself is not viable at all, and that should be considered separately in order to avoid creating a private monopoly while trying to enhance competition among them.

Pre-investigation of water electrolysis for flexible energy storage at large scales: the case of the Spanish power system

This report analyzes the basis of hydrogen and power integration strategies, by using water electrolysis processes as a means of flexible energy storage at large scales.

Unravelling past flash flood activity in a forested mountain catchment of the Spanish Central System

Flash floods represent one of the most common natural hazards in mountain catchments, and are frequent in Mediterranean environments. As a result of the widespread lack of reliable data on past events, the understanding of their spatio-temporal occurrence and their climatic triggers remains rather limited. Here, we present a dendrogeomorphic reconstruction of past flash flood activity in the Arroyo de los Puentes stream (Sierra de Guadarrama, Spanish Central System). We analyze a total of 287 increment cores from 178 disturbed Scots pine trees (Pinus sylvestris L.) which yielded indications on 212 growth disturbances related to past flash flood impact. In combination with local archives, meteorological data, annual forest management records and highly-resolved terrestrial data (i.e., LiDAR data and aerial imagery), the dendrogeomorphic time series allowed dating 25 flash floods over the last three centuries, with a major event leaving an intense geomorphic footprint throughout the catchment in 1936. The analysis of meteorological records suggests that the rainfall thresholds of flash floods vary with the seasonality of events. Dated flash floods in the 20th century were primarily related with synoptic troughs owing to the arrival of air masses from north and west on the Iberian Peninsula during negative indices of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The results of this study contribute considerably to a better understanding of hazards related with hydrogeomorphic processes in central Spain in general and in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park in particular.

Pre-investigation of water electrolysis for flexible energy storage at large scales: the case of the Spanish power system

This report analyzes the basis of hydrogen and power integration strategies, by using water electrolysis processes as a means of flexible energy storage at large scales. It is a prospective study, where the scope is to describe the characteristics of current power systems (like the generation technologies, load curves and grid constraints), and define future scenarios of hydrogen for balancing the electrical grids, considering the efficiency, economy and easiness of operations. We focus in the "Spanish case", which is a good example for planning the transition from a power system holding large reserve capacities, high penetration of renewable energies and limited interconnections, to a more sustainable energy system being capable to optimize the volumes, the regulation modes, the utilization ratios and the impacts of the installations. Thus, we explore a novel aspect of the "hydrogen economy" which is based in the potentials of existing power systems and the properties of hydrogen as energy carrier, by considering the electricity generation and demand globally and determining the optimal size and operation of the hydrogen production processes along the country; e.g. the cost production of hydrogen becomes viable for a base-load scenario with 58 TWh/year of power surplus at 0.025 V/kWh, and large number electrolyzer plants (50 MW) running in variable mode (1-12 kA/m2)

AliQAn, Spanish QA system at multilingual QA@CLEF-2008

Comunicación presentada en Cross-Language Evaluation Forum (CLEF 2008), Aarhus, Denmark, September 17-19, 2008.

Will austerity cuts dismantle the Spanish healthcare system?

In the face of austerity, a series of disconnected “reforms” could, without corrective measures, lead to the effective dismantling of large parts of the Spanish healthcare system, with potentially detrimental effects on health. Helena Legido-Quigley and colleagues explain.

Applying the WHO recommendations on health-sector response to violence against women to assess the Spanish health system. A mixed methods approach

This methodological note describes the development and application of a mixed-methods protocol to assess the responsiveness of Spanish health systems to violence against women in Spain, based on the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. Five areas for exploration were identified based on the WHO recommendations: policy environment, protocols, training, accountability/monitoring, and prevention/promotion. Two data collection instruments were developed to assess the situation of 17 Spanish regional health systems (RHS) with respect to these areas: 1) a set of indicators to guide a systematic review of secondary sources, and 2) an interview guide to be used with 26 key informants at the regional and national levels. We found differences between RHSs in the five areas assessed. The progress of RHSs on the WHO recommendations was notable at the level of policies, moderate in terms of health service delivery, and very limited in terms of preventive actions. Using a mixed-methods approach was useful for triangulation and complementarity during instrument design, data collection and interpretation.

Simplified Russian grammar (I. U. A. Orthographic system)

Mode of access: Internet.

La adquisición de conocimiento ortográfico en español

El objetivo de la presente tesis fue el de analizar de qué manera niños y niñas hablantes de español adquieren conocimiento ortográfico. Con tal fin, se realizó una investigación longitudinal en la cual se realizó el seguimiento, durante tres años, de un grupo de sujetos que ingresaba a la escuela primaria. En este seguimiento se administraron pruebas de las habilidades consideradas predictoras de la adquisición de conocimiento ortográfico a principio y a fin de primer grado y pruebas de escritura y lectura de palabras ortográficamente complejas a fin de primer, segundo y tercer grado. Asimismo, se realizaron dos situaciones experimentales de adquisición de conocimiento ortográfico a fin de segundo y tercer grado. El análisis de los resultados obtenidos a principio de primer grado se relacionó con el conocimiento de las letras. Los resultados permitieron observar una parcial independencia entre el conocimiento del nombre y del sonido de las letras del alfabeto. En efecto, los sujetos de este estudio conocían en mayor medida los nombres que los sonidos de letras, hecho que permite suponer que el nombre constituye la primera etiqueta aprendida y que el conocimiento de los sonidos sería, al menos en parte, inferido a partir del nombre de las letras. Asimismo, el conjunto de resultados referidos al conocimiento de las letras permite sugerir que el aprendizaje de las mismas se encuentra asociado fuertemente a su nivel de frecuencia. A fin de primer grado, se observa un escaso dominio del conocimiento ortográfico por parte de los niños y niñas. En efecto, los resultados obtenidos sugieren que los sujetos estarían operando con un alfabeto simplificado, esto es, como si todas las correspondencias fonema-grafema fueran unívocas. De hecho, el conjunto de resultados obtenidos sugiere que, en esta instancia del desarrollo, los niños y las niñas escriben recurriendo a mecanismos fonológicos y que la complejidad fonológica de las palabras afecta en mayor medida el desempeño al escribir que al leer. A fin de segundo grado, se encontraron importantes diferencias entre los tiempos de lectura de palabras y pseudopalabras. En efecto, los niños y las niñas reconocieron una palabra por segundo mientras que necesitaron en 4 promedio 5 segundos para leer cada pseudopalabra. Este resultado podría estar dando cuenta de un proceso de lexicalización de ciertos ítems léxicos. Sin embargo, el desempeño en la escritura de palabras no mostró en la misma medida evidencia de un proceso de lexicalización, dado que la representación de las correspondencias inconsistentes no dominantes alcanzó apenas un 48. Se observó también que el mejor predictor de la escritura fue el desempeño en la prueba de fluidez en el trazado de las letras, resultado que sugiere un importante efecto de las tareas motoras en el desarrollo de la escritura. A fin de tercer grado, si bien la lectura de palabras había llegado prácticamente al techo en el desempeño, los sujetos todavía no superaban el 70 de la escritura de palabras ortográficamente complejas. Estos resultados, aparentemente contradictorios, pueden encontrar explicación en la existencia de representaciones ortográficas de diferente calidad. Es decir, existirían representaciones de cierto nivel que permitirían un desempeño satisfactorio en la lectura de palabras, pero que no serían suficientes para la escritura convencional de las mismas. En relación a las situaciones experimentales de aprendizaje ortográfico, pudo observarse que los sujetos, a fin de segundo grado, se desempeñan operando con un sistema simplificado de correspondencias que la lectura repetida de nuevas palabras no puede contrarrestar. A fin de tercer grado, la recodificación fonológica parece actuar como un mecanismo de aprendizaje de la forma ortográfica de las palabras aunque el análisis en detalle del desempeño muestra que los niños y niñas obtuvieron un desempeño bajo en el post test que incluía la escritura de pseudopalabras con grafemas de frecuencia baja