Suchergebnisse

Las economías rentistas, es decir aquellas que dependen de la renta generada por una actividad económica, generalmente de la exportación de algún producto básico como el petróleo, no pueden experimentar un proceso de desarrollo sostenible, ya que al depender de actividades económicas cambiantes y volátiles que están sujetas a realidades externas fuera de su control, se transforman en economías vulnerables y cambiantes. Tradicionalmente, aplican políticas económicas procíclicas que generan bonanza en los periodos de altos precios del producto que exportan, pero recesión, empobrecimiento e inflación en los periodosde bajos precios. En ellas se aprecia notablemente la moneda en los años de bonanza, para luego sufrir masivas devaluaciones con efectos devastadores. Para corregir esa vulnerabilidades necesario evitar la implementación de políticas procíclicas, crear fondos de estabilización,diversificar la economía y aplicar políticas cambiarias dinámicas.

The Venezuelan economic crisis of the 1970s undermined confidence & generated competing theories of what had gone wrong. Venezuela's quest for change after years of decline is a challenge of breaking the syndrome of failure to restore citizen confidence in the ability of governments to provide prosperity while reducing poverty beat stability of the Venezuelan political system that was created in 1958. The domination of two main competing parties resulted in an Olsonian cycle of long periods of stability giving rise to entrenched coalitions of groups in society that gradually undermined forces of renewal & change necessary for adaptation. The case of Venezuela reveals how a democracy enters into decline & fails to deliver the economic results the voters want. Investigation of the impacts of the oil industry on economic performance identifies four key variables in the evolution leading up to the start of the Chavez era. The combination of a weakened oil market, high levels of imports, massive capital outflows, & the outbreak of debt crisis led to the uncontrollable 1983 crisis that left room for a new economy with Chavez's political changes. Although the Chavez government made an attempt to combine harsh macroeconomic policies with direct programs for the poor, the ambiguous economic strategy did not perform, allowing for unraveling of confidence. After four years of the Chavez revolution, many Venezuelans are still at a loss to define economic policy of the regime, & will have to think again about how to achieve prosperity with real changes to economic policies that go beyond grandiose rhetoric. Tables, Figures. J. Harwell

UID/AMB/04085/2019 ; The reduction of energy consumption and the increase in energy efficiency is currently an important cornerstone of EU policy. Energy performance certificates (EPCs) were implemented as one of the tools to promote this agenda, and are used for the energy performance assessment of buildings. In this study, the characteristics of the Portuguese dwelling stock are regionally analysed using data from approximately 523,000 Portuguese residential EPCs. Furthermore, a bottom-up building typology approach is used to assess the regional energy needs impact of retrofitting actions and to estimate the heating and cooling energy performance gaps of the whole dwelling stock, as well as the potential CO2 emissions resulting from the gaps' potential offset due to increase thermal comfort. The results show that Portuguese residential buildings have very low energy performance, with windows and roofs being identified as the most energy inefficient elements. Roof retrofitting has the highest potential for the reduction of energy needs. The estimated heating and cooling energy performance gap amount to very significant percentages, due to the poor performing building stock but also very low energy consumption levels, with probable consequences for the thermal comfort of occupants. Assuming the current energy mix, carbon emissions would be 9.8 and 20.2 times higher associated with heating and cooling, respectively, if the actual final energy consumption were to match the estimated theoretical values derived from building regulation. This study demonstrates several application cases and leverages the potential of the individual EPC, increasing the detail in the dwelling stock characterization and energy performance estimation, revealing its value for energy retrofit and climate change mitigation assessments, as well as establishing the ground for future work related to building retrofits, energy efficiency measure implementation, climate change mitigation, thermal comfort, and energy poverty studies. ; publishersversion ; published

The aim of this study is to discuss the impact of polycentric structures and other regional patterns on the provision of Social Services of General Interest (SSGI). Polycentricity has been a favoured spatial pattern of EU policies since the European Spatial Development Perspective ESDP 1999 which is promoted alongside efficient and resilient spatial structuring for socio-economic activities. The objective of a polycentric development was also taken further in the debate about European territorial cohesion policy (Faludi, 2006; Council of the European Union, 2006), being considered a key element to achieve territorial cohesion (Territorial Agenda, 2011). The theoretical background on SSGI provision builds upon the elaborations of ESPON/SeGI project (Rauhut et al. 2013) that defines SSGI as an open, normative EU policy field, nevertheless linked to national understandings of public services (Bjørnsen et al. 2013). First attempts of discussing the influence of polycentricity on SSGI provision have been made by Borges and Johansson (2013). In this study, the analysis shall be carried forward by using the single SSGI indicators as well as calculated SSGI indices by Humer and Palma (2013) as the dependent variables in a set of multivariate regression analyses. A multivariate cross-section OLS regression model will be used to estimate the relative impact of polycentricity on our dependent variables which is the provision of educational and health care SSGI in EU and EFTA countries. Besides a polycentricity index provided by ESPON, further explanatory/ independent variables about population densities, settlement structures as well as macro-economic indicators will help in the regression model to decipher the impact of polycentricity. An additional space-sensitive step is included by running the regression model for various dependent variables (i.e. SSGI of educational and health care sectors) of different centrality scales. We expect to see different importance of polycentricity according to the range and frequency of usage of certain services such as for instance primary schooling (local centrality), hospitals (regional centrality) or universities (supra-regional centrality) The chosen method enables to control for a subset of explanatory variables and examine the effect of selected independent variables when estimating the impact of polycentricity to the provision of SSGI. This study uses Eurostat and ESPON data.

SFRH/BD/147925/2019 SFRH/BD/146732/2019 UIDB/04085/2020 ; The UK has an extensive research base in the field of energy poverty, to the extent that other countries have based their policy approaches on the UK model. Despite this, there is no common method for measuring this condition across the UK. Additionally, sustaining meaningful reductions in UK energy poverty remains a challenge. While significant regional differences in UK energy poverty have been identified, it is not possible to draw direct comparisons between devolved countries. This paper explores the causes of these regional differences and contests that a common measurement across the UK countries would be insightful for resource allocation and policy design. The potential for applying a common multidimensional method of energy poverty assessment across the UK countries is investigated, with a strong focus on the value and viability of this process. Findings demonstrate that while there is a high level of data availability for input into a high spatial resolution index, this data is not compatible between countries and would have to undergo a process of data and metrics equivalisation before direct comparisons could be drawn. With increasing interest in the potential of multidimensional indexes to guide EU energy poverty policy, this paper provides useful insights into the practicalities of upscaling indexes between varied socio-political contexts. ; authorsversion ; published

Abstract

Background
Despite the fact that the Colombian armed conflict has continued for almost five decades there is still very little information on how it affects the mental health of civilians. Although it is well established in post-conflict populations that experience of organised violence has a negative impact on mental health, little research has been done on those living in active conflict zones. Médecins Sans Frontières provides mental health services in areas of active conflict in Colombia and using data from these services we aimed to establish which characteristics of the conflict are most associated with specific symptoms of mental ill health.


Methods
An analysis of clinical data from patients (N = 6,353), 16 years and over, from 2010–2011, who consulted in the Colombian departments (equivalent to states) of Nariño, Cauca, Putumayo and Caquetá. Risk factors were grouped using a hierarchical cluster analysis and the clusters were included with demographic information as predictors in logistic regressions to discern which risk factor clusters best predicted specific symptoms.


Results
Three clear risk factor clusters emerged which were interpreted as 'direct conflict related violence', 'personal violence not directly conflict-related' and 'general hardship'. The regression analyses indicated that conflict related violence was more highly related to anxiety-related psychopathology than other risk factor groupings while non-conflict violence was more related to aggression and substance abuse, which was more common in males. Depression and suicide risk were represented equally across risk factor clusters.


Conclusions
As the largest study of its kind in Colombia it demonstrates a clear impact of the conflict on mental health. Among those who consulted with mental health professionals, specific conflict characteristics could predict symptom profiles. However, some of the highest risk outcomes, like depression, suicide risk and aggression, were more related to factors indirectly related to the conflict. This suggests a need to focus on the systemic affects of armed conflict and not solely on direct exposure to fighting.

The Teleo-Reactive approach facilitates reactive system development without losing sight of the system goals. Objective: To introduce TRiStar as an extension of i* notation to specify Teleo-Reactive systems. To evaluate whether the notational extension is an improvement in terms of effectiveness and efficiency over the original language when it is used to specify Teleo-Reactive systems. Method: A family of experiments was carried out with final-year engineering students and experienced software development professionals in which the participants were asked to fill in a form designed to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of each of the languages. Results: Both the statistical results of the experiments, analyzed separately, and the meta-analysis of the experiments as a whole, allow us to conclude that TRiStar notation is more effective and efficient than i* as a requirements specification language for modeling Teleo-Reactive systems. Conclusion: The extensions made on i* have led to TRiStar definition, a more effective and efficient goal-oriented notation than the original i* language. ; This work was partially supported by the insPIre (ref. TIN2012-34003), cDrone (ref. TIN2013- 45920-R) and ViSelTR (ref. TIN2012-39279) projects of the Spanish Government. Also Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Subprograma Estatal de Movilidad, Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2013-2016 for grant CAS14/00238

El artículo tiene por objetivo la presentación de una propuesta metodológica para el análisis del discurso social en el marco de un estudio acerca del significado que los estudiantes universitarios le atribuyen a la democracia en la actualidad. Para tal efecto, se procede a describir una matriz para el análisis del discurso social que fue utilizado en un corpus obtenido mediante la ejecución de entrevistas en profundidad a los estudiantes de la Carrera de Periodismo y Licenciatura en Comunicación Social de la Universidad San Sebastián (Concepción – Chile) con la intención de identificar el conjunto de elementos discursivos que delimitan y/o fortalecen el sentido de la democracia en el Chile contemporáneo

El artículo tiene por objetivo la presentación de una propuesta metodológica para el análisis del discurso social en el marco de un estudio acerca del significado que los estudiantes universitarios le atribuyen a la democracia en la actualidad. Para tal efecto, se procede a describir una matriz para el análisis del discurso social que fue utilizado en un corpus obtenido mediante la ejecución de entrevistas en profundidad a los estudiantes de la Carrera de Periodismo y Licenciatura en Comunicación Social de la Universidad San Sebastián (Concepción – Chile) con la intención de identificar el conjunto de elementos discursivos que delimitan y/o fortalecen el sentido de la democracia en el Chile contemporáneo

This paper describes the experience of the Cartagena node in the 2015 edition of the EU-xCEL project, which was funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. EU-xCEL aims at fostering entrepreneurship awareness and training among young graduates, in Information and Communication Technologies as well as to strengthen the European entrepreneurship ecosystem. This paper outlines the development of the training week and the posterior virtual incubation phase, as well as the experience of running the program in Cartagena. Finally, we outline some conclusions drawn from the experience. ; This work has been developed in the context of the EUxCEL project, funded by European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 644801. It has been partially supported by the "Research Programme for Groups of Scientific Excellence at Region of Murcia" of the Seneca Foundation (Agency for Science and Technology of the Region of Murcia – 19895/GERM/15). Diego Alonso thanks the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Subprograma Estatal de Movilidad, Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2013-2016 for grant CAS14/00238.

Energy poverty seriously affects living conditions and health. In spite of its mild climate, Portugal has been pointed out as one of the most vulnerable countries in the European Union. Due to the multidimensionality of energy poverty, attention needs to be paid to specific factors contributing to it in different contexts. This paper contributes to a better understanding of energy poverty by providing results from a study combining the use of an energy poverty vulnerability index and mapping - based on a detailed quantitative analysis of all 3092 civil parishes -, with interviews conducted with 100 households in ten hotspots across the country. The sample of interviewees includes both rural and urban dwellers, several family types, and individuals of different ages, social and economic status, and living in different types of buildings. Results show the extent, but also variability, of vulnerability to energy poverty throughout the country. Findings also show that households may consider normal and acceptable to feel both cold and hot at home, either in winter or in summer. This can hinder the social recognition of the energy poverty problem and the need to tackle its negative consequences on the well-being and health of the population. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion