Trata sobre los procedimientos de análisis de datos cuantitativo y cualitativo y sobre la presentación de los datos en el marco de la escritura científica. Ofrece recursos para la redacción de trabajos científicos, presenta un esquema descriptivo para la elaboración de proyectos de investigación y sugiere criterios para su evaluación y autoevaluación.

Aprender a investigar en el campo de las ciencias fácticas implica atravesar una experiencia personal y profesional compleja, dificultosa e inquietante. Es una tarea que obliga a disciplinar el pensamiento y la acción. Requiere de un permanente ejercicio de introspección y reflexión acerca de cómo encarar el conocimiento de un aspecto particular del mundo. Aprender a investigar supone desarrollar un delicado equilibrio entre la aplicación de normas más o menos preestablecidas por el método, y cierta dosis de creatividad y originalidad. Técnicas para investigar y formular proyectos de investigación...

Desarrolla los componentes metodológicos ligados a la resolución de las acciones propias de la dimensión estratégica de la investigación. Desde una perspectiva amplia se realiza un recorrido por las diferentes lógicas de la investigación (cuantitativa y cualitativa), indicando sus derivaciones metodológicas. Se presta especial atención a la clasificación de los tipos de investigación y a los procesos de muestreo, tanto en la vertiente cuantitativa como cualitativa.

Globalization has led legal systems to influence each other throughout history and legal transplants have not been immune to that process either. Nowadays we do not just see examples of legal transplants but come across cases of 'cross-fertilization' of case law. An emergence of unstudied trends that have spread around the world in a voluntary and involuntary way across legal cultures can also be witnessed. However it seems that legal transplants have been largely misunderstood and have been condemned as mere copy-paste exercises due to their history. This paper studies the different theories of legal transplants in comparative law and also analyses some particular cases that have eventually ‘worked’ efficiently both in the country of origin and in the country where those laws were adopted. We can no longer say that legal transplants are impossible; they are a reality we cannot run away from. Amongst the many challenges faced by this phenomenon, the primary one is to overcome all the obstacles imposed by a ‘legal globalization’ that is threatening developing countries by focusing more on the liberalization of markets, rather than on policies supporting social welfare. Despite this fact, there is still hope for a new concept of ‘legal globalization’, one that includes executing a serious study of the trends that not only developing countries are in need of, but also is a need of the developed countries, which is the adoption of policies towards social welfare, one of the biggest challenges that face modern legal comparatists today.

On the one hand food waste is generated in huge amounts throughout the food supply chain, which has environmental, economic and social consequences. On the other hand, consumers’ knowledge of safe food handling practices has an important role to play in preventing foodborne diseases which represent a growing public health issue all over the world. Though households are the largest contributor to these two issues, little is known about the effects that the consumers’ level of food safety knowledge can have on the production of food waste. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of consumers’ knowledge of safe food handling practices on the amount of food thrown away. A survey of 57 London consumers examined the level of food safety handling knowledge and practices as well as food waste behaviour. The results showed that respondents’ shopping behaviour tended to result in the production of food waste, yet there were some motivations that could decrease the likelihood of food being thrown out. For instance, they were aware of how much food they had at home and checked their cupboards before buying more food. Furthermore, it was found that economic status and feelings of guilt also contributed to respondents behaviour regarding food safety and waste. The findings indicated that most of the respondents (78%) always read the expiry dates but that their level of understanding of what these mean was low. Similarly, participants on the whole knew how to handle and store their leftover food correctly and knew the correct temperature at which a fridge or freezer should be set. However, their reported behaviour did not always match the knowledge that they demonstrated. Therefore, their responses suggested that some poor food handling practices due to knowledge not being implemented could lead to food going off before it could be eaten, thus increasing the amount of wasted food. This suggests that in order to improve consumers’ food safety handling practices and knowledge to reduce the amount of food waste, efforts should be made to develop food safety education strategies aimed at schools and households as well as new technologies to improve the interpretation of these practices.

Conventional wisdom holds that large sums of money poured into election campaigns are the gateway to corruption. Allegations of the corrupting influence of money in politics and policy are widespread on the national level. Yet, little empirical evidence has advanced the understanding of such a link on the local level, coupled with blurred corruption measures. This master’s thesis tests the effect of campaign finance on public procurement corruption risks in Colombian municipalities, focusing on donations, small donations, and financial disclosure. To that end, I seized publicly disclosed contribution-level data from the 2015 municipal elections and a novel index of institutionalized public procurement corruption risks based upon contract-level data from the near population of local governments. The analysis shows that donations are negatively associated with overall corruption risk, yet they affect specific corruption risks differently. By contrast, small donations seem to correlate positively with direct awarding for a sub-sample of medium-sized municipalities, whereas in their large-sized counterparts the effect of the former on institutionalized corruption is adverse. Finally, financial misreporting is positively linked with market competition restrictions and direct awarding. In the conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for future research and outline a series of policy recommendations. La sabiduría convencional sostiene que las grandes sumas de dinero invertidas en campañas electorales son la puerta de entrada de la corrupción. Las acusaciones sobre la influencia corrupta del dinero en la política y la política pública son contundentes a nivel nacional. Sin embargo, poca evidencia empírica ha avanzado el entendimiento de dicha relación en el nivel local, junto con difusas mediciones de corrupción. Esta tesis de maestría mide el efecto del financiamiento de campañas electorales en el riesgo de corrupción en la contratación pública en municipios colombianos, enfocándose en las donaciones, las pequeñas donaciones y el reporte de información financiera sobre las campañas. Para alcanzar tal fin, usé información pública sobre las contribuciones políticas durante las elecciones locales de 2015 y un novedoso índice de corrupción institucional en la contratación pública, basado en el análisis de procesos de compra del universo de alcaldías municipales en Colombia. Los resultados muestran que las donaciones se relacionan negativamente con el riesgo de corrupción en general, aunque afectan específicos riesgos de corrupción de manera diferente. Por otro lado, las pequeñas donaciones muestran una correlación positiva con la contratación directa en ciudades medias, mientras en ciudades grandes el efecto parece ser negativo. Finalmente, el subreporte de información se relaciona positivamente con riesgos como restricciones a la competencia y contratación directa. En la conclusión, discuto las implicaciones de dichos resultados para futuras investigaciones y señalo algunas recomendaciones de política pública.

The Author aims to show the results presented by the Clean development Mechanism (CDM) created under the Kyoto Protocol as tool to promote a flexible scheme to meet the commitments. After thirteen years of CDM operation, results exposed a discouraging panorama as GHG emissions keep increasing. The situation got complex as it has been some barriers that prevented CDM optimal operation. With a new second commitment period entering into force, CDM scheme provides an uncertain outlook so far. The first period results are shown along with the characteristics of the second one and the future CDM market trends. It is also reviewed the CDM background, following by the analysis of the periods’ situation and possible actions that can be taken in order to enhance CDM as emissions reduction strategy, finished by conclusions from the author.

The international development arena has been transformed in the last two decades. On the one hand, NGOs have become more market oriented, both in terms of their business models and in terms of their approach. On the other hand, private actors have also become more socially engaged, and advances in technology and communications have brought new opportunities for market sector actors to create social impacts. The result has been an increasing trend of social enterprises (SEs), hybrid organisations created for a social purpose but participating actively in the market for their subsistence. This paper examines the differences between traditional NGOs, funded mainly by government grants and donations, and these new actors that rely primarily on market-based income. Furthermore, this study tries to examine how Dutch NGOs and SEs are creating links between activities focused on market building and actual participation in markets, a challenge that Helmsing and Knorringa identified in 2008. To do this, 21 SEs were interviewed and another 16 NGOs were studied on the basis of interviews (5) and their annual reports, strategy papers and official websites. We find that there are three ways in which NGOs and SEs are successfully “bridging the gap” between market building and market participation: i) through official partnerships, ii) individually by tapping market and non-market sources of funding, using new technologies and leveraging from new forms of private philanthropy, and iii) by selling specialized “market building” services that guarantee an active participation of the private sector. Furthermore, the ability of SEs to engage in market building activities and of NGOs to participate in the market depends largely on their origins and the business models and financial strategies that they adopt.

Energy Union (En Un) is a program released by the European Commission intended to create a single energy market between the European Union in order to have secure, affordable and sustainable energy. This way the imports will be reduced and the final price should be lower (theoretically) increasing the energy security for all the countries. The first communication was in February 2015 and is a very new topic for all the energy stakeholders in the EU. This is why a dissertation for the implications of this policy in UK was developed as part of the Master in Energy, Environmental Technology & Technology from City University London. UK is currently catalogued as an Energy Island (less than 10% of cross-border interconnection), with 30% of the generation based in coal, 30% in gas and 20% renewable, a liberalised market that varies with changes in gas or wind availability and the third highest kWh price from the EU. More than 20 energy policies and Conservative government with a constraint view against renewables’ subsidies. The implication for the UK and the En Un are divided into three: Infrastructural, Political and Economical. In the middle a map of the new cross-border grids proposed by this policy some of the findings are. The Energy Union in the UK will happen even if there’s no political wiliness or if they decide to not be part of the EU, mainly because the new infrastructure is already being developed (UK-Belgium) additional to the four current cross-border interconnectors. The wholesale market in UK is already liberalized and some cross border trades are being done with clean and cheap electricity from France and Holland; the key development is UK-Ireland, because UK, instead of being a 100% exporter to Ireland, will flip the coin with an import-export relationship with 8 interconnectors, electricity generated in Euros and close distance. Now it will not really matter if you generate electricity from Fossil Fuels, Nuclear or Renewable; the country will purchase from where is cheapest and available, independently from the source. Shale Gas, Nuclear, Gas and coal with CCS will be the important investment in the next years, not only in PPP (private public partnership) schemes but with R&D. New Universities courses will be develop (energy traders / brokers, cross border trade supervisors, etc) and more women should get involved. The £/ kWh for domestic and small companies will not be significantly reduced (albeit the low cost of it), those companies more engaged with the market will have very good deals and low £/ kWh.

The paper argues that the Constitutional Court of Colombia has understood economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) from the perspective of a traditional theory of rights according to which they are achievements that cannot be overridden by conflicting public interests. As a result, the Court has favored a categorical formula of adjudication according to which judicial activity focuses on the definition of the scope of the right. Competing public interests may be taken into account in order to establish the scope of the right, but once that scope is defined, it cannot be overridden by conflicting public interests. Therefore, the conception of ESCR that the Court of Colombia has adopted differs from the South African conception. The South African Constitutional Court regards ESCR as protective shields against conflicting governmental interests. This theory allows for positions of rights to be balanced against countervailing governmental interests. Given the tensions that these theories of rights and formulas of adjudication create in terms of judicial discretion and democratic debate, some intermediate formulas have been proposed. In the final part of the paper, these proposals are analyzed and some suggestions are made that contribute to the debate.