Suchergebnisse

Purpose
A model is proposed to develop happiness in the banking sector based on an improvement in the spirituality of employees.


Design/methodology/approach
Following the Schwartz's model for behavioural transformation, a new path has been proposed based on the development of the transcendent vision of work. The data obtained were analysed using the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (SEM) method.


Findings
Contrary to the widespread idea that happiness is orientated towards the enjoyment of goods, bank employees prefer to develop spiritual values and resources that allow them to respond adequately to massive layoffs and pressures at work.


Research limitations/implications
The bank employees' schedules made it difficult to organise group sessions. Multiple sessions prevented us all from interacting.


Practical implications
It is established a training strategy for the pursuit of happiness, to propose an engine for actions orientated towards happiness and to introduce transcendence and spirituality as requirements for finding happiness during daily work.


Social implications
There is a need to return to traditional values and principles in daily work. This will have a positive effect on communities and society.


Originality/value
A new concept has been coined: spiritual resources. This new variable can help to combat adversity by exploring the meaning of transcendence at work.

Music is known to have the power to induce strong emotions. The present study assessed, based on Electroencephalography (EEG) data, the emotional response of terminally ill cancer patients to a music therapy intervention in a randomized controlled trial. A sample of 40 participants from the palliative care unit in the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona was randomly assigned to two groups of 20. The first group [experimental group (EG)] participated in a session of music therapy (MT), and the second group [control group (CG)] was provided with company. Based on our previous work on EEG-based emotion detection, instantaneous emotional indicators in the form of a coordinate in the arousal-valence plane were extracted from the participants' EEG data. The emotional indicators were analyzed in order to quantify (1) the overall emotional effect of MT on the patients compared to controls, and (2) the relative effect of the different MT techniques applied during each session. During each MT session, five conditions were considered: I (initial patient's state before MT starts), C1 (passive listening), C2 (active listening), R (relaxation), and F (final patient's state). EEG data analysis showed a significant increase in valence (p = 0.0004) and arousal (p = 0.003) between I and F in the EG. No significant changes were found in the CG. This results can be interpreted as a positive emotional effect of MT in advanced cancer patients. In addition, according to pre- and post-intervention questionnaire responses, participants in the EG also showed a significant decrease in tiredness, anxiety and breathing difficulties, as well as an increase in levels of well-being. No equivalent changes were observed in the CG. ; This work was partly sponsored by Fundación Memora, the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN2013-48152-C2-2-R), and the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project).

Background: Expression is a key skill in music performance, and one that is difficult to address in music lessons. Computational models that learn from expert performances can help providing suggestions and feedback to students. Aim: We propose and analyze an approach to modeling variations in dynamics and note onset timing for solo violin pieces with the purpose of facilitating expressive performance learning in new pieces, for which no reference performance is available. Method: The method generates phrase–level predictions based on musical score information on the assumption that expressiveness is idiomatic, and thus influenced by similar–sounding melodies. Predictions were evaluated numerically using three different datasets and against note–level machine–learning models, and also perceptually by listeners, who were presented to synthesized versions of musical excerpts, and asked to choose the most human–sounding one. Some of the presented excerpts were synthesized to reflect the variations in dynamics and timing predicted by the model, whereas others were shaped to reflect the dynamics and timing of an actual expert performance, and a third group was presented with no expressive variations. Results: surprisingly, none of the three synthesized versions was consistently selected as human–like nor preferred with statistical significance by listeners. Possible interpretations of these results include the fact that the melodies might have been impossible to interpret outside their musical context, or that expressive features that were left out of the modeling such as note articulation and vibrato are, in fact, essential to the perception of expression in violin performance. Positive feedback by some listeners toward the modeled melodies in a blind setting indicate that the modeling approach was capable of generating appropriate renditions at least for a subset of the data. Numerically, performance in phrase–level suffers a small degradation if compared to note–level, but produces predictions easier to interpret visually, thus more useful in a pedagogical setting. ; This work has been partly sponsored by the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN 2013-48152-C2-2-R), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).

Comunicació presentada a: 26th Signal Processing and Communications Applications Conference, celebrada a Izmir, Turkey, del 2 al 5 de maig de 2018. ; The automatic assessment of music performance has become an area of special interest due to the increasing amount of technology-enhanced music learning systems. However, in most of these systems the assessment of the musical performance is based on the accuracy of onsets and pitch, paying little attention to other relevant aspects of performance. In this paper we present a preliminary study to assess the quality of violin performance using machine learning techniques. We collect recording examples of selected violin exercises varying from expert to amateur performances. We process the audio signal to extract features to train models using clustering based on Dynamic Time Warping distance. The quality of new performances is evaluated based on the level of match/miss-match to each of the recorded training examples. ; This work has been partly sponsored by the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN 2013-48152-C2-2-R), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).

The health crisis caused by the outbreak of the COVID-19 disease has devastated the worldwide hospitality sector. The current situation has led many countries to implement drastic rules to stop the spread of the virus. According to the Spanish health authority decisions need to be made in the context of uncertainty and lack of knowledgeable experiences through a gradual and asymmetric de-escalation process planned in four phases. Although the vast majority of studies refer to economic risks and impacts on tourist flows and economic income, few of them explicitly investigates safety and health measures that hotel managers should implement to their customers. Over a population of 12,740 hotels, 823 Spanish hotel managers have been involved in a participatory study. With the aim of assessing the actions taken to stop the spread of the virus, empirical research was implemented. A model presented four variables and 13 indicators which have been previously tested among hotel managers in the tourism sector. Five conclusions are drawn from the hypotheses: (1) Mass testing surveillance in customers and employees should be quick, affordable, and homogeneous throughout the European Union. (2) Training measures need to be taken by both public authorities and the private sector to reach a knowledgeable crisis management team with high commitment to the customer's health and safety. (3) Protocols established by public authorities should be observed and adjusted gradually not only in hotels but also in tourist arrivals. (4) Healthy measures need to be periodically updated. (5) Each hotel should set up a surveillance process to guarantee the safety to their customers.

The automatic assessment of music performance has become an area of increasing interest due to the growing number of technology-enhanced music learning systems. In most of these systems, the assessment of musical performance is based on pitch and onset accuracy, but very few pay attention to other important aspects of performance, such as sound quality or timbre. This is particularly true in violin education, where the quality of timbre plays a significant role in the assessment of musical performances. However, obtaining quantifiable criteria for the assessment of timbre quality is challenging, as it relies on consensus among the subjective interpretations of experts. We present an approach to assess the quality of timbre in violin performances using machine learning techniques. We collected audio recordings of several tone qualities and performed perceptual tests to find correlations among different timbre dimensions. We processed the audio recordings to extract acoustic features for training tone-quality models. Correlations among the extracted features were analyzed and feature information for discriminating different timbre qualities were investigated. A real-time feedback system designed for pedagogical use was implemented in which users can train their own timbre models to assess and receive feedback on their performances. ; This work has been partly sponsored by the Spanish TIN project TIMUL (TIN2013-48152-C2-2-R), the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 688269 (TELMI project), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).

Over the last 10 weeks the COVID-19 epidemic has exceeded 10 to 32 times the total number of confirmed SARS and MERS cases respectively. This has forced several countries around the world to establish extraordinary plans in terms of Public Health in order to prevent global expansion, including logistic design and guidelines with high security standards to repatriate citizens residing in China [1,2]. We believe that the information published daily in scientific documents as in gray material from government entities may be extremely valuable for estimating the pooled proportion of suspected asymptomatic carriers for COVID-19 (PAC-COVID-19). It is also possible to determine the number of PAC-COVID-19 during a repatriation plan by adjusting to the current R0 in Wuhan, to estimate the frequency of returnees in whom the infection could possibly spread, in context of a positive symptomatic returnee for COVID- 19. Therefore, herein we did so including the building of an online calculator to estimate the presumptive asymptomatic COVID-19 carriers.

The analysis of the causes that explain the increasing levels of socioeconomic inequality in a country is crucial for the design and implementation of public policies and institutional arrangements capable to promote virtuous cycles between economic growth, social equality and democracy. This article provides an analysis of the different dimensions of socioeconomic inequality in Costa Rica for the last 15 years ; El estudio y análisis de los factores que explican los crecientes niveles de desigualdad socioeconómica de un país son indispensables para el diseño e implementación de políticas y arreglos institucionales capaces de promover círculos virtuosos entre el crecimiento económico, la equidad social y la gobernabilidad democrática. En este artículo se analizan las distintas dimensiones de la desigualdad socioeconómica en Costa Rica y su comportamiento en los últimos 15 años.

The analysis of the causes that explain the increasing levels of socioeconomic inequality in a country is crucial for the design and implementation of public policies and institutional arrangements capable to promote virtuous cycles between economic growth, social equality and democracy. This article provides an analysis of the different dimensions of socioeconomic inequality in Costa Rica for the last 15 years ; El estudio y análisis de los factores que explican los crecientes niveles de desigualdad socioeconómica de un país son indispensables para el diseño e implementación de políticas y arreglos institucionales capaces de promover círculos virtuosos entre el crecimiento económico, la equidad social y la gobernabilidad democrática. En este artículo se analizan las distintas dimensiones de la desigualdad socioeconómica en Costa Rica y su comportamiento en los últimos 15 años.

Plastics have become an essential part of the modern world thanks to their appealing physical and chemical properties as well as their low production cost. The most common type of polymers used for plastic account for 90% of the total production and are made from petroleum-based nonrenewable resources. Concerns over the sustainability of the current production model and the environmental implications of traditional plastics have fueled the demand for greener formulations and alternatives. In the last decade, new plastics manufactured from renewable sources and biological processes have emerged from research and have been established as a commercially viable solution with less adverse effects. Nevertheless, economic and legislative challenges for biobased plastics hinder their widespread implementation. This review summarizes the history of plastics over the last century, including the most relevant bioplastics and production methods, the environmental impact and mitigation of the adverse effects of conventional and emerging plastics, and the regulatory landscape that renewable and recyclable bioplastics face to reach a sustainable future.

Resumen El objetivo de este artículo es analizar la reforma económica implementada en Costa Rica en los últimos veinticinco años como resultado de la aplicación de los programas y políticas de ajuste estructural. Para tal efecto se analiza el debate que acompañó el proceso de aprobación e implementación de los mencionados programas, el discurso de los mismos, su desempeño y algunos de sus principales efectos sociales. Esta reforma económica representó un cambio importante en el estilo de desarrollo y en las funciones del estado social vigentes desde la década de los 1950s. De ahí que resulte de gran interés analizar cuál fue el nuevo enfoque de desarrollo que se implementó a partir de la década de los años ochenta y los resultados del mismo en materia de crecimiento económico y equidad social. Esta publicación pretende servir de insumo para promover la tarea académica de repensar la política de desarrollo que la sociedad costarricense debe definir dentro del nuevo contexto de la globalización. Abstract The objective of this article is to analyze the economic reform implemented in Costa Rica in the last twenty-five years as result of the application of the structural adjustment programs and policies. For such effect we analyze the debate that accompanied the process of approval and implementation of the mentioned programs, the speech of such, its performance and some of its main social effects. This economic reform represented an important change in the style of development and in the current functions of the social state from the decade of 1950s. Hence it results of big interest to analyze which was the new approach of development that was implemented from the decade of the eighties and the results of the same one on the subject of economic growth and social equity.This publication tries to serve as input to promote the academic task of rethinking the politics of development that the Costa Rican society must define inside the new context of the globalization.

El impacto de la pandemia de COVID-19 en la población de los países de América Latina (AL) depende en gran medida de las acciones de política pública (en general) y de salud (en particular) que los gobiernos hayan adoptado para frenar su avance y efectos. Especial atención merecen las personas mayores como grupo demográfico de más vulnerabilidad frente a esta enfermedad infecciosa. Así, este trabajo tiene dos objetivos: primero, examinar la tendencia de COVID-19 a partir de los casos confirmados y la mortalidad por esa causa entre personas adultas mayores de una selección de países de AL (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, México y Uruguay) junto con España; para luego destacar las acciones y políticas dirigidas a la atención de la población mayor en cada país durante la primera ola de la pandemia. ; The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the population of the countries of Latin America (LA) depends, to a large extent, on the public policies, and particularly on the health actions, that governments have adopted to confront the social and health crisis the pandemic has brought. Older people deserve special attention as one of the most vulnerable demographic groups to this infectious disease. The objec-tives of this work are: firstly, to examine the COVID-19 trend from confirmed cases and mortality due to this cause among older persons from a group of LA countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Uruguay) and Spain. Secondly, to explore actions and policies put in place in these countries to support older persons in particular, during the first wave of the pandemic. ; publishedVersion ; Fil: Acosta, Laura Débora. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales; Argentina. ; Fil: Acosta, Laura Débora. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina. ; Fil: Cardona Arango, Doris. Universidad Ces.; Colombia. ; Fil: Costa, José Vilton. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte; Brasil. ; Fil: Delgado, Alicia. Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador; Ecuador. ; Fil: Freire, Flávio Henrique M. de A. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte; Brasil. ; Fil: Garay Villegas, Sagrario. Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León; México. ; Fil: Gómez León, Madelin. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya; España. ; Fil: Paredes Della Croce, Mariana. Universidad de la República; Uruguay. ; Fil: Peláez, Enrique. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales; Argentina. ; Fil: Peláez, Enrique. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones y Estudio sobre Cultura y Sociedad; Argentina. ; Fil: Peláez, Enrique. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Psicología; Argentina. ; Fil: Peláez, Enrique. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro de Investigaciones de la Facultad de Psicología; Argentina. ; Fil: Rodríguez Rodríguez, Vicente. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España. ; Fil: Rojo Pérez, Fermina. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España. ; Fil: Silva Ramírez, Rafael. University of Montreal; Canadá.