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The purpose of this study is to determine how consumer perceptions of brand ethical behavior can affect their commitment to brands during turbulent times. A study of the effects of perceived ethical behavior of brands in Colombia during the initial months of the COVID-19 outbreak was conducted in May 2020 in Bogota, Colombia, to ascertain customer perception of brand ethical actions during the first 2 months of the COVID-19 outbreak. A Bayesian model was developed to assess the impact of brands' ethical behavior on brand recognition benefits, brand image, and brand commitment. The selection of the initial months of the outbreak for this project was important because the COVID-19 pandemic had the potential to augment consumer perception of brands' ethical actions at a pivotal moment in consumers' lives. Our findings demonstrate that customers expressed a positive perception of brands' ethical actions during the early months of the pandemic, which resulted in high commitment intention to these brands in the model examined. The findings highlight the critical nature of the perception of ethical behavior in the eyes of customers during a major global health crisis. More than ever, organizations must commit their brands to fully live out their publicly expressed ethical principles and continuously monitor consumer perceptions of brand attributes and behaviors associated with ethical actions regardless of market conditions. Commitment to living the brand's stated ethical principles can be demonstrated via branding activities in ways that can be especially welcomed by customers during turbulent times. The insights mentioned in this article are crucial for brands already present in South America or exploring expansion into these regions. The findings provide compelling evidence of the impact of ethical actions on consumer commitment to brands, suggesting that brands must now, more than ever, stay in touch with their customers and truthfully live the ethical values they transmit to customers.

This manuscript builds on a novel, automatic, freely-available Bayesian approach to extract information in abstracts and titles to classify research topics by quartile. This approach is demonstrated for all N= 149,129 ISI-indexed publications in biological sciences journals during 2017. A Bayesian multinomial inverse regression approach is used to extract rankings of topics without the need of a pre-defined dictionary. Bigrams are used for extraction of research topics across manuscripts, and rankings of research topics are constructed by quartile. Worldwide and local results (e.g., comparison between two peer/aspirational research institutions in Colombia) are provided, and differences are explored both at the global and local levels. Some topics persist across quartiles, while the relevance of others is quartile-specific. Challenges in sustainable development appear as more prevalent in top quartile journals across institutions, while the two Colombian institutions favour plant and microorganism research. This approach can reduce information inequities, by allowing young/incipient researchers in biological sciences, especially within lower income countries or universities with limited resources, to freely assess the state of the literature and the relative likelihood of publication in higher impact journals by research topic. This can also serve institutions of higher education to identify missing research topics and areas of competitive advantage.

Resumen: El uso de catéter percutáneo para la implantación de dispositivo es una de las técnicas más eficaces en la actualidad para el cierre de comunicación interauricular. En ocasiones puede presentarse mal posicionamiento o causar lesiones a estructuras adyacentes. Por otro lado, se han descrito varias causas de estenosis de vena pulmonar, una de ellas la iatrogenia durante procedimientos quirúrgicos cardiacos. Presentamos el caso de una paciente mujer de 41 años con antecedente de cierre de comunicación interauricular, quien presento síntomas de dolor torácico tipo punzada, palpitaciones y deterioro de la clase funcional. Al examen físico estaba sin deterioro hemodinámico, con hallazgo de soplo sistólico en foco pulmonar. Por antecedente se realizó ecocardiograma, identificándose insuficiencia mitral severa, tricúspidea moderada y comunicación interauricular residual 11 años después del cierre del defecto. Se realizó cirugía para el cierre de la comunicación residual y plastia mitral y tricúspidea, sin embargo, durante el postoperatorio presentó estenosis de la vena pulmonar derecha, por lo cual fue nuevamente intervenida para la liberación de venas pulmonares con adecuada evolución clínica a un año del seguimiento. Abstract: The use of a percutaneous catheter for device implantation is currently one of the most effective techniques for atrial septal defect closure. Occasionally, it may be poorly positioned or cause lesions to adjacent structures. Furthermore, several causes of pulmonary vein stenosis have been described, one of which being iatrogenic during cardiac surgical procedures. We present the case of a 41-year-old female patient with a history of atrial septal defect closure who presented with symptoms of stabbing chest pain, palpitations and functional class impairment.Physical examination showed no haemodynamic deterioration with systolic murmur in the pulmonary focus. Echocardiogram was performed identifying severe mitral regurgitation, moderate tricuspid regurgitation and residual atrial septal defect 11 years after defect closure. Surgery was performed to close the residual communication and mitral and tricuspid plasty. However, during the postoperative period the patient presented stenosis of the right pulmonary vein and was operated again to free the pulmonary veins with adequate clinical evolution at one year of follow-up.

More robust attribution methods are necessary to understand physician-level variation in quality of care across risk-adjusted inpatient measures. We address a gap in the literature involving attribution of physicians to inpatient stays using administrative claims data, in which rule-based methods often inadequately attribute physicians.Methodology comparison study using a cross-section of inpatient stays.A novel approach is proposed in which physicians' relative degrees of responsibility for inpatient stays are expressed through physician-specific attribution ratios informed by existing patient characteristics and comorbidities. Attribution results are compared with the rule-based benchmark method for 7 CMS-defined clinical cohorts, including a COVID-19 cohort.Using 6,835,460 unique patient encounters during 2020 (n = 136,339 in out-of-sample cohort), the proposed approach favored specialists generally considered responsible for primary clinical conditions when compared with the benchmark. The most salient shift within the acute myocardial infarction (+17.0%), heart failure (+20.2%), and coronary artery bypass graft (+4.0%) cohorts was toward the cardiovascular diseases specialty, and the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (+24.0%) and pneumonia (+16.2%) cohorts resulted in a shift toward the pulmonary diseases specialty. The COVID-19 cohort resulted in considerable shifts toward infectious diseases and pulmonary diseases specialties (+17.4% and +14.1%, respectively). The stroke cohort experienced a considerable shift toward the neurology specialty (+42.2%).We provide a robust method to attribute physicians to patients, which is a necessary tool to understand physician-level variation in quality of care within the inpatient acute care setting. The proposed method provides consistency across facilities and eliminates unattributed patients resulting from unsatisfied business rules.

In a polarized society, it is a university’s responsibility to offer courses that explore highly controversial issues. Traditional forms of debate may create barriers to knowledge and entrenchment ...

Aim To examine the impact of attainment of primary care diabetes clinical indicators on progression to sight‐threatening diabetic retinopathy (STDR) among those with mild non‐proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR). Materials and Methods An historical cohort study of 18,978 adults (43.63% female) diagnosed with type 2 diabetes before 1 April 2010 and mild NPDR before 1 April 2011 was conducted. The data were obtained from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink during 2010‐2017, provided by 330 primary care practices in England. Exposures included attainment of the Quality and Outcomes Framework HbA1c (≤59 mmol/mol [≤7.5%]), blood pressure (≤140/80 mmHg) and cholesterol (≤5 mmol/L) indicators in the financial year 2010‐2011, as well as the number of National Diabetes Audit processes completed in 2010‐2011. The outcome was time to incident STDR. Nearest neighbour propensity score matching was undertaken, and univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards models were then fitted using the matched samples. Concordance statistics were calculated for each model. Results A total of 1037 (5.5%) STDR diagnoses were observed over a mean follow‐up of 3.6 (SD 2.0) years. HbA1c, blood pressure and cholesterol indicator attainment were associated with lower rates of STDR (adjusted hazard ratios [95% CI] 0.64 [0.55‐0.74; p

Background Large intracardiac bronchogenic cysts are rare mediastinal masses. However, they must always be considered in the differential diagnosis of heart failure with abnormal chest X-ray. Case presentation We present a 60-year-old female patient with de novo atrial fibrillation, heart failure and a very large intrapericardial mass. The patient underwent successful surgical resection, with pathological findings confirming a bronchogenic cyst. Conclusions Large bronchogenic cysts located intrapericardially are very rare. However, they should be included in the differential diagnosis of patients presenting with atrial fibrillation and heart failure with abnormal radiologic studies.

A formal statistical framework is proposed for synthesis of text information into sentiment indicators. Each text document is treated as an exchangeable collection of stems of words (tokens), and u...

We report a study designed to determine the most efficient means of pursuing sonic seasoning in international marketing. For the first time, music chosen to trigger specific emotional responses was directly and cross-culturally compared with music chosen as crossmodally congruent with specific taste/flavors (the latter usually referred to as ‘sonic seasoning’). The effects triggered by ‘emotional’ music were more prominent than those triggered by ‘crossmodally-corresponding’ music. Specifically, chocolate was liked more, rated as sweeter, and the purchase intent was higher, when tasted while listening to music that conveyed positive, as compared to negative, emotion. By contrast, the same chocolate was mostly rated as tasting more bitter with the negative music, as compared to the positive music. Companies looking to use sonic seasoning in marketing strategies, should therefore principally aim at intelligently classifying music based on the likely emotions that they can trigger in their customers (at least when thinking globally).

In this paper we propose the use of the maximum entropy method to extract pricing densities directly from the weather market prices. The proposed methodology can overcome the data sparsity problem ...

The fact that comfort is a subjective state of the mind is widely accepted by engineers, architects and building scientists. Despite this, capturing all the complexity, subjectivity and richness of this construct in models that are useful in building science contexts is far from straightforward. By prioritizing usability, building science has produced models of comfort (e.g., acoustic, visual and thermal) that overly simplify this concept to something nearly objective that can be directly associated with people’s physiology and measurable and quantifiable environmental factors. This is a contradiction because, even if comfort is supposed to be subjective, most of the complexity of “the subject” is avoided by focusing on physiology; and, even if comfort is supposed to reside in the mind, the cognitive processes that characterize the mind are disregarded. This research partially mitigates this contradiction by exploring people’s non-physical personal factors and cognition within the context of their comfort and by proposing a way in which they can be incorporated into building science research and practice. This research refers to these elements together—i.e., people’s non-physical personal factors and cognition—as “the mind”. This research proposes a new qualitative model of the Feeling of Comfort that embraces “the mind”. This model was developed from the results of a first study in which 18 people—from Chile and New Zealand—were asked to describe “a home with good daylight” and “a warm home” in their own words. These results were then replicated in a second study in which another group of 24 people—also from Chile and New Zealand—described “a home with good acoustic performance”, “a home with good air quality” and “a pleasantly cool home”. The Feeling of Comfort model not only was capable of making sense of the new data (gathered in this second study) but also proved to be simple enough to be useful in the context of comfort research and practice. For instance, it guided the development of a quantitative Feeling of Comfort model and also of a prototype building simulation tool that embraces “the mind” and thus can potentially estimate people’s Feeling of Comfort. This research concludes that embracing “the mind” is not only possible but necessary. The reason for this is that “the mind” plays a significant role in the development of people’s comfort. Thus, theories and models of comfort that ignore it fail to represent properly the concept of comfort held by the people for whom buildings are designed. However, incorporating “the mind” into building science’s research and practice implies embracing tools, research methods and conceptual frameworks that have historically not been used by such a discipline. Specifically, it concludes that building science should normalize a more holistic view of comfort and perform more exploratory and qualitative research.

Firm–employee relationships are a prerequisite for customer–firm relationships and, consequently, to organizational success. The development of such relationships can be particularly challenging for retailers because of the complexity of the service component inherent to the environment in which they usually operate. For this reason, organizations need to align employee behaviors with the corporate brand promise so that they can perform a more active role as brand ambassadors. This issue becomes even more complex for organizations with a presence in foreign markets. This study focuses on how the adoption of in-role branding behavior by front-line employees (FLEs) can be influenced by the level of commitment FLEs display towards the corporate brand and how commitment is consequently influenced by corporate brand identity and corporate brand identity FLES’ perception of their role within the organization. The object of the study was the employees of Falabella, a multinational retailer based in Chile with a strong presence in the Colombian market. Results obtained demonstrate that brand commitment positively and significantly impacts FLE brand-oriented behavior in the retail context examined. More specifically, brand identity and role clarity positively impact brand commitment, leading to a positive impact on FLE brand behavior and job satisfaction. The results of this study offer valuable insight for scholars and practitioners regarding employee brand behavior’s engendering process within a retail environment in an emerging market.

The distribution of the returns of an asset is still an open problem despite the variety of models and methods devised to deal with it. In this note we propose a model-free, nonparametric method for the estimation of asset returns, which is applicable also to a wider set of similar problems. The Laplace transform of a shifted rate of return or other percent change of a positive random variables can be transformed into a fractional moment problem which can then be solved by the method of maximum entropy. This is a very robust method and requires only a few values of the Laplace transform to provide good reconstructions. This method can be applied in multiple fields where model-free density estimation of functionals like percent changes of random variables is of interest.

Objectives England has invested considerably in diabetes care over recent years through programmes such as the Quality and Outcomes Framework and National Diabetes Audit. However, associations between specific programme indicators and key clinical endpoints, such as emergency hospital admissions, remain unclear. We aimed to examine whether attainment of Quality and Outcomes Framework and National Diabetes Audit primary care diabetes indicators is associated with diabetes-related, cardiovascular, and all-cause emergency hospital admissions. Design Historical cohort study. Setting A total of 330 English primary care practices, 2010–2017, using UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Participants A total of 84,441 adults with type 2 diabetes. Main Outcome Measures The primary outcome was emergency hospital admission for any cause. Secondary outcomes were (1) diabetes-related and (2) cardiovascular-related emergency admission. Results There were 130,709 all-cause emergency admissions, 115,425 diabetes-related admissions and 105,191 cardiovascular admissions, corresponding to unplanned admission rates of 402, 355 and 323 per 1000 patient-years, respectively. All-cause hospital admission rates were lower among those who met HbA1c and cholesterol indicators (incidence rate ratio = 0.91; 95% CI 0.89–0.92; p Conclusions Attaining Quality and Outcomes Framework-defined diabetes intermediate outcome thresholds, and comprehensive completion of care processes, may translate into considerable reductions in emergency hospital admissions. Out-of-hospital diabetes care optimisation is needed to improve implementation of core interventions and reduce unplanned admissions.

Background The associations between England’s incentivised primary care-based diabetes prevention activities and hard clinical endpoints remain unclear. We aimed to examine the associations between attainment of primary care indicators and incident diabetic retinopathy (DR) among people with type 2 diabetes. Methods A historical cohort (n = 60,094) of people aged ≥ 18 years with type 2 diabetes and no DR at baseline was obtained from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Exposures included attainment of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) HbA1c (≤ 7.5% or 59 mmol/mol), blood pressure (≤ 140/80 mmHg), and cholesterol (≤ 5 mmol/L) indicators, and number of National Diabetes Audit (NDA) care processes completed (categorised as 0–3, 4–6, or 7–9), in 2010–2011. Outcomes were time to development of DR and sight-threatening diabetic retinopathy (STDR). Nearest neighbour propensity score matching was undertaken and Cox proportional hazards models then fitted using the matched samples. Concordance statistics were calculated for each model. Results 8263 DR and 832 STDR diagnoses were observed over mean follow-up periods of 3.5 (SD 2.1) and 3.8 (SD 2.0) years, respectively. HbA1c and blood pressure (BP) indicator attainment were associated with lower rates of DR (adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) 0.94 (95% CI 0.89–0.99) and 0.87 (0.83–0.92), respectively), whereas cholesterol indicator attainment was not (aHR 1.03 (0.97–1.10)). All QOF indicators were associated with lower rates of STDR (aHRs 0.74 (0.62–0.87) for HbA1c, 0.78 (0.67–0.91) for BP, and 0.82 (0.67–0.99) for cholesterol). Completion of 7–9 vs. 0–3 NDA processes was associated with fewer STDR diagnoses (aHR 0.72 (0.55–0.94)). Conclusions Attainment of key primary care indicators is associated with lower incidence of DR and STDR among patients with type 2 diabetes in England.

AIMS: To describe associations between incentivised primary care clinical and process indicators and mortality, among patients with type 2 diabetes in England. METHODS: A historical 2010-2017 cohort (n = 84,441 adults) was derived from the UK CPRD. Exposures included English Quality and Outcomes Framework glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c; 7.5%, 59 mmol/mol), blood pressure (140/80 mmHg), and cholesterol (5 mmol/L) indicator attainment; and number of National Diabetes Audit care processes completed, in 2010-11. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality. RESULTS: Over median 3.9 (SD 2.0) years follow-up, 10,711 deaths occurred. Adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) indicated 12% (95% CI 8-16%; p

This article proposes the use of computationally efficient inverse regression Bayesian method for analysis of tweet propagation of political messages. Our example focuses on the Colombian case, though our method can be used in any election where social media messaging has a direct impact on political outcomes. We find strong evidence that politicians were able to identify the combination of sensitive words to enhance the probability of retweet of the message, which, in turn, had an impact on political outcomes. The contributions of our work entail: (a) an examination of a neglected unit of analysis (trigram) in a language less studied (i.e. Spanish), (b) based on an innovative Bayesian efficient approach and (c) exploiting the predictive power that retweets have on electoral results as an informational diffusion tool in social media. A practical implication of this new methodology is the possibility to adjust political messages as a means to increase voters engagement in political campaigns.

IntroductionEngland has invested considerably in diabetes care through such programs as the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) and National Diabetes Audit (NDA). Associations between program indicators and clinical endpoints, such as amputation, remain unclear. We examined associations between primary care indicators and incident lower limb amputation.Research design and methodsThis population-based retrospective cohort study, spanning 2010–2017, was comprised of adults in England with type 2 diabetes and no history of lower limb amputation. Exposures at baseline (2010–2011) were attainment of QOF glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), blood pressure and total cholesterol indicators, and number of NDA processes completed. Propensity score matching was performed and multivariable Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for disease-related, comorbidity, lifestyle, and sociodemographic factors, were fitted using matched samples for each exposure.Results83 688 individuals from 330 English primary care practices were included. Mean follow-up was 3.9 (SD 2.0) years, and 521 (0.6%) minor or major amputations were observed (1.62 per 1000 person-years). HbA1c and cholesterol indicator attainment were associated with considerably lower risks of minor or major amputation (adjusted HRs; 95% CIs) 0.61 (0.49 to 0.74; pConclusionsComprehensive primary care-based secondary prevention may offer considerable protection against diabetes-related amputation. This has important implications for diabetes management and medical decision-making for patients, as well as type 2 diabetes quality improvement programs.

Introduction Research productivity has been linked to a country's intellectual and economic wealth. Further analysis is needed to assess the association between the distribution of research across disciplines and the economic status of countries. Methods By using 55 years of data, spanning 1962 to 2017, of Elsevier publications across a large set of research disciplines and countries globally, this manuscript explores the relationship and evolution of relative research productivity across different disciplines through a network analysis. It also explores the associations of those with economic productivity categories, as measured by the World Bank economic classification. Additional analysis of discipline similarities is possible by exploring the cross-country evolution of those disciplines. Results Results show similarities in the relative importance of research disciplines among most high-income countries, with larger idiosyncrasies appearing among the remaining countries. This group of high-income countries shows similarities in the dynamics of the relative distribution of research productivity over time, forming a stable research productivity cluster. Lower income countries form smaller, more independent and evolving clusters, and differ significantly from each other and from higher income countries in the relative importance of their research emphases. Country-based similarities in research productivity profiles also appear to be influenced by geographical proximity. Conclusions This new form of analyses of research productivity, and its relation to economic status, reveals novel insights to the dynamics of the economic and research structure of countries. This allows for a deeper understanding of the role a country's research structure may play in shaping its economy, and also identification of benchmark resource allocations across disciplines for developing countries.

Customer experience (CX) is an aggregate of consumer touch points that can be brand-owned (completely controlled by the firm), partner-owned (collectively controlled by the firm and one or more of its partners), customer-owned (where the firm or its partner cannot exert any control or influence) or represented by social/external touch points that account for the importance of the roles of others in the customer experience process. Although the concept of CX is widely used, not much has been examined about how external touch points impact customer perception of experience. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to examine the role and impact of internal and external touchpoints as dimensions of customer experience and how CX can impact consumer word-of-mouth intention. Service outcome and peace of mind were used to represent internal experience touchpoints and peer to peer quality (PTP) was used to represent an external experience touchpoint. A total of 293 usable surveys were used for analysis using a Bayesian model developed for this study instead of the more traditional SEM approaches. Results showed that an external experience touchpoint has a similar impact to those of internal experience touchpoints in the experience process. CX was also found to have a strong effect on customer word of mouth intention. These findings make various contributions to the literature on CX, especially to research differentiating internal from external experience touchpoints. On the practical side, this study provides recommendations to retailers about how to manage an external touchpoint. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd

In this paper, we propose maximum entropy in the mean methods for propensity score matching classification problems. We provide a new methodological approach and estimation algorithms to ha...

Summary We expand the literature of risk neutral density estimation across maturities from implied volatility curves, which are usually estimated and interpolated through cubic smoothing splines. The risk neutral densities are computed through the second derivative, which we extend through a Bayesian approach to the problem, featuring an extension to a multivariate setting across maturities and over time, a flexible estimation approach for the smoothing parameter, which is traditionally assumed common to all assets, known and fixed across maturities and time, but now potentially different between assets and maturities, and over time, and information borrowing about the implied curves and risk neutral densities not only across different option maturities, but also dynamically.

Most countries are concerned about the image they project in international markets. They have adopted and implemented differentiation strategies in order to stimulate tourism and economic investment. In the case of Colombia's reputation, it has been built on unplanned positioning, interests and views of a few opinion leaders, political and economic instability and transformations in the productive sector. This paper outlines, using a Bayesian variable selection approach, the perception of foreign visitors and prospects on Colombia's country image, and proposes a methodological framework for unvailing those driving factors. Findings of this research demonstrate that countries may be seen positively from the point of view of visitors while prospects may have a negative image of them. The results validate the hypothesis that the symbolic elements associated with a country's image, in this case with Colombia's image, should be included in the communication activities of a country branding strategy. © 2017, © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor and Francis Group.

Online shopping has increasingly replaced traditional retail shopping, as a large number of consumers have adopted it on a global scale. However, while it is well established in developed countries, e-commerce is still at an early stage in emerging markets, hence there is a need to unveil which factors contributes to its adoption. The main objective of this study is to integrate the theory of planned behavior, the theory of reasoned action, and the technology acceptance model using a Bayesian approach to determine the key predictors of online purchase intention among internet users in Colombia. The results demonstrate the pertinence of the theory of reasoned action and technology acceptance model, models to explain online purchase intention, confirming that the intention to purchase online is mostly determined by the attitudes to e-commerce which, in turn, are explained by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and the subjective norm related to online shopping.

When experts are asked to assess a situation, they often express their opinions providing estimates of the probability of observing the occurrence of a random variable in given intervals, sometimes up to a range of values, rather than simply providing point estimates. The problem we face is how to translate that expert opinion into probability distributions. We examine a novel way of solving that problem by making use of the maximum entropy method in the data to deal with expert opinions expressed with or without uncertainty bands. Our method allows us to unveil underlying probability distributions driving expert opinions expressed with and without uncertainty.

espanolEl objetivo del presente articulo es analizar, el papel del educador en esta nueva etapa para Colombia que demanda de todos los actores involucrados, un especial esfuerzo, dinamismo y compromiso. Para lograr que esta fase de reinsercion sea exitosa, se deben desarrollar programas estrategicos que garanticen no solo la capacitacion de todas las partes de interes, sino tambien mecanismos de inclusion que promuevan la paz en los contextos educativos. Por lo anterior, se analiza mediante un enfoque descriptivo/cuantitativo la percepcion de las familias y funcionarios de organismos oficiales, sobre el papel del educador en este periodo de postconflicto. Se discute y se reflexiona sobre los programas de intervencion en el momento actual en las instituciones de educacion a nivel nacional. Entre los hallazgos se encuentra que la comunidad considera clave la labor docente para la construccion de la paz. La principal conclusion es que el docente es un agente de transformacion, siempre que cuente con el apoyo y orientacion de las politicas institucionales y del Estado para la construccion de la paz. EnglishThe objective of this article is to analyze the role of the educator in this new stage for Colombia, which demands a special effort, dynamism and commitment from all the actors involved. To achieve this reintegration phase, strategic programs must be developed that guarantee not only the training of all stakeholders, but also inclusion mechanisms that promote peace in educational contexts. For this reason, a descriptive/quantitative approach is used to analyze the perception of families and employers of official bodies of the role of the educator in this post-conflict period. Reflections and discussion on the intervention programs at the current time in education institutions at the national level, are presented. One of the findings is that the community considers teaching to be key to peace building. The main conclusion is that teachers are agents of transformation, provided that they have the support and guidance of institutional and state policies for peace building.

Hedonic pricing models are based on the premise that the prices of marketed goods are related to their attributes. The traditional OLS regression applied to hedonic pricing models assumes that, when using time series, the estimated coefficients with respect to each of the attributes remain constant. This does not have to be the case. We propose a Bayesian dynamic estimation of the hedonic regression model in which the estimated coefficients are time-varying and apply it to art prices. We find that, using a sample of 27,124 paintings sold at auction by 63 Pop artists (2001-2013), the estimated coefficients from the dynamic regression model fluctuate noticeably through time, and also that certain types of artworks, which might be regarded as “safer”, declined in price by less than less safer paintings during the financial crisis (2008-2009). We also estimated a Pop-Art price index, finding that, in the semesters prior to the crisis, Pop-Art prices increased much faster than what an OLS estimation would have suggested.

The estimation of the multiplier parameter of portfolio insurance strategies is crucial for its implementation because it determines the risk exposure to the performance-seeking asset (PSA) at each point in time. Studies that address the estimation of the multiplier’s upper bound have been limited to strategies that use as the safe asset a short-term bank account, in which case the co-movements of the safe and the PSA become irrelevant. However, in several relevant applications, portfolio insurance strategies use stochastic reference assets different from cash, such as the control of active-risk relative to a benchmark, or insuring a minimum level of retirement income. We find that the implications of taking into account the assets’ co-movements in the multiplier estimation can be crucial. In Monte Carlo simulations the multiplier doubles in size across scenarios, and the strategy using the proposed approach presents stochastic dominance over the strategy that ignores the asset dependency structure.

Originally, explorers relied on hydrocarbon seeps and 2D seismic lines to define a basin's petroleum potential and to identify its best part. Due to dramatic improvements in seismic technology, today's explorers have access to a vast seismic tool kit, from basin-scale regional 3D seismic surveys to neural network techniques that directly derive reservoir properties from seismic volumes. However, in frontier or mature exploration, geoscientists are often limited by the amount of well data and rock properties information available, and they may deal with poor(er) seismic that makes seismic calibration difficult. Successful explorers will require a lot of knowledge-based creativity to derive meaningful geologic and reservoir properties models to reduce exploration risk. By embracing uncertainties, explorers develop “outside-the-box” thinking to help them chase the hydrocarbon molecules and unlock the prize. With their knowledge in rock physics, subsurface deformation, and wave propagation, geoscientists are deploying new methodologies and tools to fill the data gap and produce an improved description of the subsurface.

Electrical energy is generated in different ways, each located at some specific geographical area, and with different impact on the environment. Different sectors require heterogeneous rates of energy delivery, due to economic requirements. An important problem to solve is to determine how much energy must be sent from each supplier to satisfy each demand. Besides, the energy distribution process may have to satisfy ecological, technological, or economic cost constraints.

While Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores are becoming less widespread than in previous years, they continue to be used as an input by many higher education institutions in the United States to select which students to accept among applicants. This paper explores the association between average SAT scores of incoming undergraduate cohorts and major completions of graduating student cohorts. College Scorecard data from 2019 is collected from all U.S. undergraduate degree-granting, higher education institutions reporting average SAT scores of incoming cohorts (n=1,389). A multivariate beta regression approach, which allows for overdispersion and unit-interval responses, is proposed to explore associations between graduation rates by major (explanatory variables) and SAT percentiles of new student cohorts (response). Forty-nine percent of the variability in average SAT percentiles of incoming cohorts can be explained by the graduation proportions by major within institutions. Results show strong concurrent positive associations between average SAT percentiles of incoming cohorts and proportions of students graduating in: STEM fields; ethnic, cultural, and gender studies; social science; or languages, among others (p, Education; SAT percentiles of incoming student cohorts; Majors of graduating student cohorts; Beta regression