Knowledge Organization Research in the last two decades: 1988-2008

We apply an automatic topic mapping system to records of publications in knowledge organization published between 1988-2008. The data was collected from journals publishing articles in the KO field from Web of Science database (WoS). The results showed that while topics in the first decade (1988-1997) were more traditional, the second decade (1998-2008) was marked by a more technological orientation and by the appearance of more specialized topics driven by the pervasiveness of the Web environment

Measuring Conduct and Cost Parameters in the Spanish Air Transport Market

This paper estimates a model of airline competition for the Spanish air transport market. I test the explanatory power of alternative oligopoly models with capacity constraints. In addition, I analyse the degree of density economies. Results show that Spanish airlines conduct follows a price-leadership scheme so that it is less competitive than the Cournot solution. I also find evidence that thin routes can be considered as natural monopolies.multiple equation models, air transportation, oligopoly

E.S.O. en femenino. Material didáctico para la igualdad en ciencias sociales. Tercer curso E.S.O.

La presente comunicación es el resultado de la preocupación por la ausencia de referencias femeninas en los libros de texto que se estudian en la Educación Secundaria de la Comunidad Valenciana, la Geografía no es ajena a esta situación y el planteamiento de las cuestiones de género quedan aparcadas, dando una visión limitada de la realidad de las relaciones de hombres y mujeres con el entorno. El trabajo que presento es para reivindicar la presencia de las mujeres, de sus logros y de su participación en el contexto de la sociedad actual. En particular, en el tercer curso de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria, dado el carácter de la materia impartida donde la Geografía Humana tiene un peso específico importante, lo que a su vez permite desarrollar los temas desde una perspectiva de género. La idea de la creación de este material ha surgido en el seno de un grupo de trabajo de la Universidad de Alicante y se está confeccionando siguiendo unas normas de diseño que contemplan la sencillez y la practicidad de aplicación de cuestiones de género mediante unas fichas donde se incluyen actividades muy fáciles de desarrollar. Estas actividades complementan los contenidos de los libros de texto, se trata por lo tanto de implicar al profesorado en la coeducación en el aula, la educación en valores y el trabajo comunitario para despertar en el alumnado la participación activa y el espíritu crítico ante su propio desarrollo intelectual y en definitiva, también personal. Son actividades que ya se han practicado en las aulas y que ha obtenido buenos resultados, por lo que es indudable que hay que continuar trabajando por la coeducación

Combining Language Models with NLP and Interactive Query Expansion.

International audienceFollowing our previous participation in INEX 2008 Ad-hoc track, we continue to address both standard and focused retrieval tasks based on comprehensible language models and interactive query expansion (IQE). Query topics are expanded using an initial set of Multiword Terms (MWTs) selected from top n ranked documents. In this experiment, we extract MWTs from article titles, narrative field and automatically generated summaries. We combined the initial set of MWTs obtained in an IQE process with automatic query expansion (AQE) using language models and smoothing mechanism. We chose as baseline the Indri IR engine based on the language model using Dirichlet smoothing. We also compare the performance of bag of word approaches (TFIDF and BM25) to search strategies elaborated using language model and query expansion (QE). The experiment is carried out on all INEX 2009 Ad-hoc tasks

Price transmission analysis: A flexible methodological approach applied to European hog markets

The study of spatial price relationships contributes to explain markets performance, their degree of integration or isolation, and the speed at which information is transmitted. A great deal of methods have been used to analyze this issue, being the most important: causality tests, impulse- response functions and cointegration. Normally, these techniques have been individually applied. However, a more rich knowledge of the functioning of markets can be extracted when they are jointly applied. In this paper, we try to conjugate these three techniques in a common econometric model. First, Johansen(1988) multivariate cointegration tests are used to determine the number of long-run equilibrium relationships. Cointegration is considered not only as informative about long-run price transmission but also as an essential step in the correct specification of a vector error correction model (VECM) used in the subsequent analysis. Second, Dolado and Lutkepohl(1996) causality tests are used to investigate the lead-lag behaviour among markets. Finally, impulse-response functions are calculated from the VECM estimated in the first stage for evaluating dynamic price linkages. The method exposed is applied to study spatial pork prices relationships among seven countries in the EU from 1988 to 1995. Weekly prices at farm level published by EUROSTAT: "Agricultural Markets" are used.

Ethnic food preferences in the Spanish market

A labelled choice experiment is conducted in order to investigate preferences of Spanish consumers towards ethnic cuisines. In particular, the three best known cuisines, Mexican, Arab and Asian, are considered, across three consumption situations: restaurant, take-away and at home. Wald statistics are applied in order to assess the differential marginal utilities of ethnic food in alternative consumption situations, and the appropriateness of considering a linear effect in price.choice experiment, ethnic food, consumers, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Socio-economic determinants of efficiency in reducing child mortality in developing countries

Efficiency issues in health investments have received increasing attention, mainly as a result of the growing amount of resources invested in developing countries and their mixed impacts on outcomes. The empirical literature has suggested that, although government spending on health care improves the health status of the population, society can potentially gain more through the more efficient assignment of health resources. In this context, this paper aims to: firstly, to analyse whether developing countries can further reduce child mortality by using the available resources more parsimoniously; and secondly, to identify the (non-discretionary) socio-economic factors that could be affecting this process. More specifically, this paper aims to explain why some countries are more efficient than others in converting inputs (physician density and relative total health expenditure) into a health outcome: the under-five mortality rate (U5MR). The database used in the estimations comprised 47 developing countries with data for the periods 2000- 2004, 2005-2009, and 2010-2012. The findings suggest that greater efficiency in the provision of immunization, better quality government, and lower income inequality are directly related to efficiency in the use of inputs to reduce the U5MR.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Driving Cars by Means of Genetic Algorithms

Proceedings of: 10th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving From Nature, PPSN 2008. Dortmund, Germany, September 13-17, 2008The techniques and the technologies supporting Automatic Vehicle Guidance are an important issue. Automobile manufacturers view automatic driving as a very interesting product with motivating key features which allow improvement of the safety of the car, reducing emission or fuel consumption or optimizing driver comfort during long journeys. Car racing is an active research field where new advances in aerodynamics, consumption and engine power are critical each season. Our proposal is to research how evolutionary computation techniques can help in this field. As a first goal we want to automatically learn to drive, by means of genetic algorithms, optimizing lap times while driving through three different circuits.Publicad