The role of sophisticated accounting system in strategy management

Organizations are designing more sophisticated accounting information systems to meet the strategic goals and enhance their performance. This study examines the effect of accounting information system design on the performance of organizations pursuing different strategic priorities. The alignment between sophisticated accounting information systems and organizational strategy is analyzed. The enabling effect of the accounting information system on performance is also examined. Relationships are explored using data collected from 112 CEOs in 218 hospitals in Spain. The findings provide support of an indirect effect of sophisticated accounting information system on performance, acting through a prospector strategy.Las organizaciones están diseñando sistemas de recopilación de información más sofisticados para cumplir con los objetivos estratégicos y mejorar su rendimiento. Este estudio investiga el efecto del diseño de los sistemas de recopilación de información en el rendimiento de organizaciones que persiguen diferentes prioridades estratégicas. La alineación entre sistemas de información sofisticados y la estrategia de organización es analizada. El efecto de estas a la hora del rendimiento también se analiza. Las relaciones son exploradas usando datos recolectados de 112 CEOs en 218 hospitales en España. Los hallazgos proporcionan apoyo para un efecto indirecto de recuento de información sofisticado en acción, actuando a través de una estrategia prospectora

Non-equilibrium Effects in the Thermal Switching of Underdamped Josephson Junctions

We study the thermal escape problem in the low damping limit. We find that finiteness of the barrier is crucial for explaining the thermal activation results. In this regime low barrier non-equilibrium corrections to the usual theories become necessary. We propose a simple theoretical extension accounting for these non-equilibrium processes which agrees numerical results. We apply our theory to the understanding of switching current curves in underdamped Josephson junctions.Comment: 4 pages + 4 figure

The work environment as an enhancer of operational results in the Colombian National Army

El concepto de entorno laboral es un aspecto fundamental a tener en cuenta por las empresas, ya que está demostrado que este influye en el rendimiento laboral del trabajador y por ende repercutirá en el estado final del bien o servicio a producir, impactándolo en su calidad. Siendo así que un trabajador que se sienta conforme con su entorno, tendrá un mayor rendimiento en todas sus actividades; de esta manera el Ejército Nacional es una empresa prestadora de servicios que a su interior presenta diferentes ambientes laborales como el sistema autoritario explotador, sistema consultivo y sistema participativo, cada uno de estos en un mayor o menor grado de aplicación debido a las diferentes personalidades, capacidades, cualidades de los comandantes, capacitación y entrenamiento del personal asesor y que conforman las unidades táctica del Ejército Nacional.The concept of work environment is a fundamental aspect to be taken into account by companies, since it has been demonstrated that this influences the work performance of the worker and therefore will affect the final state of the good or service to be produced, impacting on its quality. Thus, a worker who feels comfortable with his surroundings, will have a greater performance in all his activities; In this way the National Army is a company that provides services to its interior presents different working environments such as the authoritarian system exploiter, consultative system and participatory system, each of them in a greater or lesser extent of application due to different personalities, Capacities, qualities of the commanders, training and training of the advisory personnel and that conform the tactical units of the National Army.Pregrad

Pro-peasant Resignification of Rurality: Rural University «Paulo Freire»

El medio rural se constituye hoy en día en un espacio de disputa entre diferentes agentes en pugna por sus recursos materiales e ideáticos y por la definición del contenido de la nueva ruralidad, una vez socavadas las bases y criterios tradicionales de la antigua. A su vez, en el contexto de la globalización, aparecen movimientos culturalistas que de manera consciente pugnan por crear identidades y modelos de vida que tengan una cultura como referente. La iniciativa de recuperación de la cultura campesina por parte del Universidad Rural Paulo Freire (URPF) sería uno de estos movimientos, con la Agroecología como referente teórico y con el medio rural español y su población como su problemática base territorial y sociológica para la creación de una nueva ruralidad campesinista. El objetivo del texto es analizar los procesos y herramientas que pone en juego este grupo social para reconstruir y resignificar la identidad campesina y sus prácticas como parte del intento de construcción de un sujeto político.The rural space is currently disputed between different actors who fight for its material and symbolic resources distribution as much as for the definition of rurality, considering that most bases and criterions of the traditional one have already been vanished. In this context, different culturalist movements appear among these actors, who consciously competing for the creation of identities and life styles with a certain culture as referent. Universidad Rural Paulo Freire (URPF) is proposed as one of these culturalist movements. In the way to recuperate the peasant culture, URPF use Agroecology as its theoretical and practical referent to build a new pro-peasant rurality in the spanish rural environment. The aim of the text is to analyze the processes and tools that a social group use to resignify and rebuild peasant identity and its practices as part of the attempt to build a political subject

Effect of Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria on Salicornia ramosissima Seed Germination under Salinity, CO2 and Temperature Stress

In a scenario of climate change and growing population, halophyte root microbiota interactions may be a sustainable solution to improve alternative crop production while combating abiotic stress. In this work, seeds of the cash crop halophyte Salicornia ramosissima were inoculated with five different plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria consortia, isolated from the rhizosphere of five halophytes in southwestern Spain salt marshes. For the first time, we recorded seed germination response to three interactive abiotic stressors, CO2 (400 and 700 ppm), temperature (25 and 29 ℃) and salinity (171, 510 and 1030 mM NaCl), all of them related to climate change. Salinity played a decisive role, as no significant differences were registered between treatments at 171 mM NaCl and no germination took place at 1030 mM NaCl. At 510 mM NaCl, one rhizobacterial consortium improved seed parameters notably, increasing up to 114% germination percentage and 65% seedlings biomass. These first findings encourage us to think that cash crop halophytes like S. ramosissima and halophyte root microbiota may be valuable resources for human or animal feeding in a future climate reality.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (CGL2016-75550-R)Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (FPU014/03987

An Experimental Study on Pitch Compensation in Pedestrian-Protection Systems for Collision Avoidance and Mitigation

This paper describes an improved stereovision system for the anticipated detection of car-to-pedestrian accidents. An improvement of the previous versions of the pedestrian-detection system is achieved by compensation of the camera's pitch angle, since it results in higher accuracy in the location of the ground plane and more accurate depth measurements. The system has been mounted on two different prototype cars, and several real collision-avoidance and collision-mitigation experiments have been carried out in private circuits using actors and dummies, which represents one of the main contributions of this paper. Collision avoidance is carried out by means of deceleration strategies whenever the accident is avoidable. Likewise, collision mitigation is accomplished by triggering an active hood system

Smart vest for respiratory rate monitoring of COPD patients based on non-contact capacitive sensing

In this paper, a first approach to the design of a portable device for non-contact monitoring of respiratory rate by capacitive sensing is presented. The sensing system is integrated into a smart vest for an untethered, low-cost and comfortable breathing monitoring of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients during the rest period between respiratory rehabilitation exercises at home. To provide an extensible solution to the remote monitoring using this sensor and other devices, the design and preliminary development of an e-Health platform based on the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) paradigm is also presented. In order to validate the proposed solution, two quasi-experimental studies have been developed, comparing the estimations with respect to the golden standard. In a first study with healthy subjects, the mean value of the respiratory rate error, the standard deviation of the error and the correlation coefficient were 0.01 breaths per minute (bpm), 0.97 bpm and 0.995 (p < 0.00001), respectively. In a second study with COPD patients, the values were -0.14 bpm, 0.28 bpm and 0.9988 (p < 0.0000001), respectively. The results for the rest period show the technical and functional feasibility of the prototype and serve as a preliminary validation of the device for respiratory rate monitoring of patients with COPD.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PI15/00306Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación DTS15/00195Junta de Andalucía PI-0010-2013Junta de Andalucía PI-0041-2014Junta de Andalucía PIN-0394-201

Origen y evolución de la imagen geográfica del centro histórico de Córdoba: investigación para su caracterización

En el Plan de Ordenación del Territorio de Andalucía2 (en adelante POTA), las Estrategias de Desarrollo Territorial constituyen su núcleo central, pues contienen las líneas de actuación necesarias para la consecución del Modelo propuesto. Uno de los cuatro grandes bloques en que se contienen estas estrategias hace referencia al llamado Sistema Regional de Protección del Territorio, siendo el Sistema del Patrimonio Territorial una de sus principales líneas maestras. Componentes de dicho Sistema son, entre otros, las ciudades históricas protegidas como Conjuntos Históricos, cual es el caso de la ciudad de Córdoba, parte de cuyo casco fue declarado en 1994 Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la UNESCO. Uno de los retos actuales de los centros históricos es hacer convivir sus señas de identidad seculares con los embates del sector turístico, y con las corrientes que abogan por una “modernización” y adaptación a los momentos actuales. El objeto de nuestro trabajo es, en primer lugar, perfilar los rasgos esenciales de la imagen geográfica que, en el pasado, el centro histórico de Córdoba despertó en viajeros y visitantes para contrastar, en un segundo momento, esta realidad con aquellos elementos que los habitantes del centro histórico de Córdoba perciben en la actualidad como claves para preservar su carácter y tradición histórica. Al respecto presentamos el estudio que se está realizando para caracterizar dicha imagen. Para ello proponemos como marco epistemológico el de la Geografía de la Percepción que, desde los años 60 del s. XX, aportara Kevin Lynch, convencidos de su aplicabilidad como apoyo a la redacción de los documentos de planeamiento vinculados con los bienes patrimoniales. La oportunidad del estudio se deriva de las anunciadas intenciones del Ayuntamiento de Córdoba de modificar el Plan Especial de Protección del Conjunto Histórico de la ciudad. Ocasión, por tanto, inmejorable para intentar contrastar los resultados que se deriven de la tramitación oficial, con los que se presentarían aplicando dicha metodología.In the Spatial Planning Plan of Andalusia (POTA, approved by Decree 206/2006, of 28 November), the Territorial Development Strategies constitute the core, because it comprises the necessary action lines in order to attain the proposed model. One of the four blocks which they are contained in, make reference to the so-called Regional System of Territorial Protection, being the Territorial Heritage System one of the main points. Components of the mentioned System are, between others, the historic cities considered as Cultural Heritage, which is the case of Cordoba, whose old quarter was declared World Heritage in 1994 by the UNESCO. One of the challenges of these old quarters is living together in accordance with their age-old hallmarks and the ravages of the tourism sector, and also with the currents that plead for a “modernization” and an adaptation to new times. The aim of the essay is, first of all, shaping the essential features of the image -geographical image- that travellers and visitors could have in the past from the old quarter of Cordoba, to contrast them with the elements perceived by their residents, as keys to maintain its nature and historical tradition. On this matter, the ongoing study is being presented to characterize this image. We suggest an epistemological framework developed by Kevin Lynch from the 60’s to the present day called Geography of Perception. We are convinced of its applicability in the drafting of documents as a support to Planning linked to patrimonial assets. The opportunity of the study derives from the intentions expressed by the City Council of Cordoba of modifying the Specific Plan made for the Old Quarter of the city. This is, therefore, an excellent opportunity to contrast the results which were obtained by the official proceedings using the methodology indicated above

Condiciones de seguridad e higene en el lugar de trabajo: Desacato del empleador

52 p.El trabajador se encuentra, y siempre lo ha estado, expuesto a diversos riesgos sea cual sea la actividad en la que se desempeñe. Estos riesgos se manifiestan de diversas formas, pero ciertamente, el hecho de que las condiciones de seguridad y de higiene sean precarias, o bien, no sean óptimas, acentúan irremediablemente la posibilidad de que un trabajador se vea expuesto a un accidente laboral o a una enfermedad producto de la labor que realiza. Así las cosas, aún con toda la normativa existente respecto al tema, se requiere que el empleador cumpla con su rol de asegurar condiciones de seguridad e higiene adecuadas y dignas, con el objeto de que los trabajadores puedan desempeñarse en plenitud y sin el temor que produce en toda persona el tener que lidiar con un espacio físico falto de higiene e inseguro

Sustainable innovation, management accounting and control systems, and international performance

This study analyzes how Management Accounting and Control Systems (MACS) facilitate the appropriation of the benefits of sustainable innovations in organizations. In particular, this paper examines the moderating role of different types of MACS in the relationships between sustainable innovation and international performance at an organizational level. We collected survey data from 123 Spanish and Portuguese organizations. Partial Least Square was used to analyze the data. Results show that the effect of sustainable innovations on international performance is enhanced by contemporary rather than traditional types of MACS. Overall our findings show that MACS can help managers to develop and monitor organizational activities (e.g., costumer services and distribution activities), which support the appropriation of the potential benefits from sustainable innovation. This paper responds to recent calls for in-depth studies about the organizational mechanism that may enhance the success of sustainable innovation.This study used the database developed within the REAL Project framework [0149_REAL_1_P]. This project was 75% co-financed by the European Union through POCTEP (operational program for cross-border cooperation Spain-Portugal 2007–2013)