Recommending the identity of bidders in public procurement auctions has a significant impact in many areas of public procurement, but it has not yet been studied in depth. A bidders recommender would be a very beneficial tool because a supplier can search appropriate tenders and, vice versa, a public procurement agency can discover automatically unknown companies which are suitable for its tender. This paper develops a pioneering algorithm to recommend potential bidders using a machine learning method, particularly a random forest (...) classifier. The bidders recommender is described theoretically, so it can be implemented or adapted to any particular situation. It has been successfully validated with a case study: an actual Spanish tender dataset which has 102,087 tenders from 2014 to 2020 and a company dataset which has 1,353,213 Spanish companies. Quantitative, graphical, and statistical descriptions of both datasets are presented. The results of the case study were satisfactory: the winning bidding company is within the recommended companies group, from 24% to 38% of the tenders, according to different test conditions and scenarios. (shrink)

Since the mid-20th century, the study of Self-Regulated Learning has aimed to identify the distinctive characteristics that enable individuals to acquire new knowledge and skills under their control. The theory of Internal Self-Regulation vs. External-Regulation in Learning has postulated that a large number of self-regulatory variables are mediated by regulated/non-regulated or dysregulated features of the context. After signing their informed consent, a total of 616 university students completed validated instruments of SRL vs. ERL, behavioral regulation, regulatory teaching, and metacognitive study (...) control strategies. Using an ex-post facto design and correlation, regression, structural equation model and mediation analyses, the present research aimed to establish multicausal predictive relationships among the analyzed variables. Results indicated positive predictive effects between the external regulation variables on the self-regulation variables in learning [regulation /non-regulation /dysregulation ]; as well as positive predictive effects between SRL on SRB, RT and metacognitive SRS. Additionally, external regulation not only predicted but mediated numerous relations among the variables studied. Other findings and important considerations for future research in the field of self-regulation are discussed. (shrink)

Bullying has damaging short-term and long-term consequences. Research suggests that perpetrators have low empathy and high moral disengagement, but relations between these variables are unclear and are rarely integrated in a single study. Thus, the objective of this study was to discover if empathy and moral disengagement mechanisms were related to bullying perpetration. This study was conducted with 904 Polish adolescents enrolled in 6 rural and urban upper secondary schools. High affective empathy predicted lower bullying perpetration. Moral-disengagement mechanisms such as (...) moral justification, euphemistic language, advanced comparison, and distorting consequences were uniquely related to increased bullying perpetration. Low affective empathy was also uniquely related to increased perpetration. These findings have important implication for school policy and practice. (shrink)

Neonatal mortality during the first week of life, corresponding to the years 19750·023 per year. This decline cannot be explained by an increase in the mean birth weight (MBW=23440·835−10·107 g per year). From the most frequent of the causes of death to the least were: congenital anomalies, preterm born or low birth weight, respiratory problems, pregnancy difficulties, hypoxaemia/asphyxia, delivery difficulties and infectious diseases. This sequence changed when the specific age at death was considered. The NMR descended evenly for both sexes (...) for the causes indicated above, except for preterm born or low birth weight, in which the male mortality decrease was greater since its rate was more elevated at the beginning of the period studied. For all the causes listed, NMR was more elevated both in urban areas and for males. Early neonatal mortality (first 24 hours) was higher for pregnancy difficulties, preterm born or low birth weight, congenital anomalies and hypoxaemia/asphyxia. (shrink)

Álvarez J.F. (2016) Conflicts, Bounded Rationality and Collective Wisdom in a Networked Society. In: Scarafile G., Gruenpeter Gold L. (eds) Paradoxes of Conflicts. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning (Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Humanities and Social Sciences), vol 12. Springer, Cham -/- The adoption of an individualistic perspective on reasoning, choice and decision is a spring of paradoxes of conflicts. Usually the agents immerse in conflicts are drawn or modelled as rational individuals with targets well defined and full capabilities to access to (...) information, without both temporal limitations and perfect reasoning abilities to obtain their preferences are taken account. -/- However, other models of agent, in the bounded rationality perspective, could help to understand better the interrelationships. I adopt embedded argumentative reasoning processes as satisfying criteria to analyze the expert function in a new socio technical environment that has changed deeply the mechanism and tools to access and to aggregate information. The open access to information and institutional arrangements addressed towards team knowledge could offer other kind of tools to affront the conflict, even its possible benefits. -/- The “crowd expertise” is emerging as an actual possibility and it must be incorporated to affront with conflicts. The very possibility of obtaining knowledge generated by “many minds”, collective wisdoms, brings up a real challenge to the conservative or elitist conception of the masses, because masses now emerge as a smart collective user, with new mechanisms to select and produce quality knowledge. These new collective actions differ deeply from the traditional modes of social organization. A new mass society is emerging now as a hybrid one that breaks some conceptual traditional models, such as Ortega y Gasset’s ones, and induces a structured way of flourishing both new practices and new knowledge with transforming capabilities. (shrink)

Digital services and products that expand human capabilities can help to overcome the limitations of individuals, but they facilitate the emergence of new types of inequalities. A new profile of inequality is emerging as a product of unexpected consequences of technological change and calls for institutional policy and social action measures to reduce these new inequalities. The Internet, social networking and mobile devices are helping to generate what Lee Rainie and B. W. Wellman have called a new social operating system (...) of networked individuals. I believe it is possible and necessary to define a programme of minimum requirements for living and enjoying the benefits of a digital society by reducing the risks of new types of exclusion. It is a question of advancing in the construction of citizenship with its corresponding rights in the network society. (shrink)

Las propuestas éticas de Javier Muguerza y Amartya Sen comparten profundas raíces igualitarias y libertarias. Al revisar el carácter del individualismo ético defendido por ambos, distinguiéndolo del metodológico y del ontológico, se percibe que van “más allá del contrato social” abriendo espacio a las características individuales al tiempo que incorporan la indispensable sociabilidad del individuo. Muguerza, al utilizar la autonomía como elemento focal sobre el que plantear la igualdad, se acerca al enfoque de Sen en La idea de la justicia (...) , donde se propone más que una teoría general de la justicia una práctica activa contra la injusticia. El against injustice que ha formulado Sen tiene claras conexiones con el imperativo del disenso que ha propuesto Muguerza. El individualismo ético expresa el núcleo de anudamiento social que supone adoptar al individuo como elemento último responsable de decisiones que comportan su responsabilidad moral. La autonomía como dimensión básica de la igualdad, a decir de Muguerza, converge con la importancia de tener en cuenta el acto mismo de elección, como responsabilidad personal,que ha destacado Sen. (shrink)

Ciertas referencias biográficas son útiles para comprender un pensamiento tan articulado y complejo como el de Amartya Sen. Se destaca la importancia teórica de Sen para filósofos políticos, filósofos morales o filósofos de la ciencia. La reflexión filosófica, sobre métodos, sobre aspectos éticos y en general sobre cuestiones político culturales, es un asunto de primera importancia para la misma actividad interna a la ciencia económica. Para entender correctamente la obra de Sen resulta fundamental el trasfondo filosófico cultural, la comprensión del (...) individuo como parte de un compromiso social y la extracción sistemática de las consecuencias de ese tipo de compromiso. El desarrollo aparece como un proceso de expansión de las libertades reales que las personas disfrutan. La centralidad de la libertad para el proceso de desarrollo, la encuentra Amartya Sen en dos razones diferentes, una por razones evaluativas y otra por razones de eficacia. La evaluación del progreso podría hacerse teniendo en cuenta si de hecho se amplían las libertades que las personas tienen Se trata de interconexiones que ha encontrado Sen en muchos análisis empíricos que muestran cómo la responsabilidad “libre y sostenible” de los individuos emerge como la principal fuerza para el desarrollo. (shrink)

En The Idea of Justice de Amartya Sen se presenta una propuesta para comprender y defender la justicia global, alejada de las teorías de la justicia que se apoyan en el contrato social y en nociones institucionales trascendentales. El libro puede considerarse como un intento sistemático de defender la pertinencia de la tradición de la elección social para una noción robusta de justicia que no requiera una visión monolítica ni una única formulación institucional. Nos propone atender a las injusticias patentes, (...) aunque no tengamos una teoría de la justicia e incluso aunque no compartamos elementos centrales para esa teoría de la justicia. Es un auténtico desafío a la posición estándar en filosofía moral. (shrink)

La propia responsabilidad puede entenderse como un valor que los individuos tratan de satisfacer en lugar de pretender optimizar. Ciertos dilemas habituales entre procesos de elección racional y componentes emocionales o expresivos, no resultan ser auténticos dilemas. Analizamos la responsabilidad y la confianza como dos procedimientos que contribuyen a construir una perspectiva complementarista de la racionalidad. Se encuentran apoyos para esta posición en Aristóteles, Adam Smith o Stuart Mill. Nuestra racionalidad acotada se presenta como un proceso entretejido que nos ayuda (...) a criticar tres aparentes dicotomías en los estudios morales que han sido muy bien expuestas por Amartya Sen. (shrink)

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion and caused by exposure to excessive and prolonged stress related to job conditions. Moreover, burnout is highly prevalent among health care professionals. The aim of this study is, first, to examine the mediating role of social support over the effect of burnout in health care professionals and, second, to explore potential gender differences. A convenience sample of 1,035 health professionals from Ecuador, including 608 physicians and 427 nurses, was surveyed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, (...) Social Support Survey, and General Health Questionnaire as measures of burnout, social support, and general health, respectively. Social support was found to mediate the negative effects of burnout on health regardless of gender. Differences across the three dimensions of burnout and health are further discussed, along with their implications for designing effective burnout interventions for health care professionals in Ecuador. (shrink)

The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, now a global health crisis, has surprised health authorities around the world. Recent studies suggest that the measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak have generated issues throughout the population. Thus, it is necessary to establish and identify the possible risk factors related to the psychosocial and psychophysiological strain during the COVID-19 outbreak. The present extensive literature review assesses the social, psychological, and physiological consequences of COVID-19, reviewing the impact of quarantine measures, (...) isolation, vast human loss, social and financial consequences in the family’s economies, and its impact on the psychological health of the population. We also discussed the effect of psychophysiological factors, considering the impact of physical inactivity and modifications in nutritional habits, at psychological and physiological levels. The present review includes an actualized to date bibliography, articles for which were methodologically analyzed to verify they met the standards of quality and scientific accuracy. Authors understand the pandemic as a multifactorial event for which only a profound and extensive analysis would lead to better compression and efficient intervention in the near future. (shrink)

El amor ha sido uno de los temas preferidos por los artistas de todos los tiempos. Este sentimiento, eminentemente humano, omnipresente en cuantiosos textos literarios, ha servido y continúa siendo una fuente inagotable de inspiración artística para los creadores. Ellos, a través de los siglos, han recurrido a cuentos y narraciones literarias, a leyendas a historias en las que aparece el "amor" como tema fundamental. Del "amor" de sus diversos usos y significados, de sus diferentes sentimientos y formas se han (...) ido nutriendo para imaginar, recrear y dar sentido a sus composiciones. Así, los pintores y escultores, conocedores de esos hechos de amor y desamor descritos en textos y páginas literarias escritas a lo largo de la historia, los han ido interpretando en secuencias y pasajes. (shrink)