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Teamwork is necessary for engineering to address today’s complex challenges. Therefore, team members must improve their teamwork competencies for more significant team development and effectiveness. This study aimed to analyze how a non-directive coaching intervention model for an entire team influences the individual team members’ teamwork competencies.

Action research was used in this study with a quasi-experimental design featuring control and experimental groups comprising final-year engineering students from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The sample included 168 students, with 132 in the control group and 36 in the experimental group. The experimental group underwent a non-directive team coaching intervention involving three sessions. Competencies were evaluated using the teamwork competency test (TWCT), administered at the course’s beginning and end to measure progress.

The results show that the individuals who participated in the team coaching significantly increased their competencies, particularly “conflict resolution” and “feedback.”

This study’s value contributes to identifying the positive impacts of non-directive team coaching interventions on individual teamwork competencies, fostering collaborative skills and supporting collective goals.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the determinants of corporate effective tax rates (ETR) of listed companies in euro area.

With a large and recent panel of 2,870 listed companies for the period 2005–2016, the authors use the generalized moments method (GMM) to estimate global models for three groups of countries and specific models for six selected countries: Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium and Greece.

The results confirm that ETR have different determinants depending on the countries analyzed. There is a significantly positive relationship with leverage and negative with size and financial profitability. However, economic profitability shows a statistically positive effect in the new members, but negative effect on old ones. In the individual analysis, Germany and Spain maintain this negative association with return on assets (ROA), but Belgium and Greece show a positive effect. The effect of the economic cycle shows statistically relevant, negatively in Germany but positively in Belgium and Greece.

This paper makes a novel contribution to the current debate on the need for harmonization of corporate income tax in the European Union (EU). For the first time, the group of countries whose common currency is the euro is considered with a great level of detail. In addition, the impact derived from the enlargement of the euro area and the individual analysis of the main countries is included. The European authorities must take into account the specific differences found in the ETR determinants because it hinders to take measures that limit tax competition.

El propósito de este artículo es investigar el efecto de los determinantes del tipo impositivo efectivo (TIE) del impuesto de sociedades de las empresas que cotizan en la zona del euro.

Utilizando un panel de 2,870 compañías cotizadas en el período 2005–2016, los autores utilizan el Método de Momentos Generalizados (GMM) para estimar modelos globales para tres grupos de países y modelos específicos para los seis países seleccionados: Alemania, España, Francia, Italia, Bélgica y Grecia.

Los resultados confirman que el TIE tiene diferentes determinantes en función de los países analizados. Entre antiguos y nuevos miembros se evidencia una relación significativamente positiva con el apalancamiento y negativa con el tamaño y la rentabilidad financiera. Sin embargo, la rentabilidad económica muestra una relación estadísticamente positiva en los nuevos, pero negativa en los antiguos. En el análisis individual, Alemania y España mantienen esta asociación negativa con el ROA, pero Bélgica y Grecia evidencian un efecto positivo. El efecto del ciclo económico sí resulta estadísticamente relevante, de forma negativa en Alemania, pero positiva en Bélgica y Grecia.

Este artículo hace una novedosa contribución al debate actual sobre la necesidad de armonizar del impuesto de sociedades en la Unión Europea. Por primera vez, se considera el grupo de países cuya moneda común es el euro con gran nivel de detalle, así como el impacto de su ampliación y la comparativa individual entre sus principales países. Las autoridades europeas deberían tener en cuenta las específicas diferencias encontradas en los determinantes del ETR, tanto entre antiguos y nuevos miembros como por países, porque dificultan la adopción de medidas de armonización que limiten la competencia fiscal entre países comunes.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new geometric model based on the mathematical morphology paradigm, specialized to provide determinism to the classic morphological operations. The determinism is needed to model dynamic processes that require an order of application, as is the case for designing and manufacturing objects in CAD/CAM environments.

The basic trajectory-based operation is the basis of the proposed morphological specialization. This operation allows the definition of morphological operators that obtain sequentially ordered sets of points from the boundary of the target objects, inexistent determinism in the classical morphological paradigm. From this basic operation, the complete set of morphological operators is redefined, incorporating the concept of boundary and determinism: trajectory-based erosion and dilation, and other morphological filtering operations.

This new morphological framework allows the definition of complex three-dimensional objects, providing arithmetical support to generating machining trajectories, one of the most complex problems currently occurring in CAD/CAM.

The model proposes the integration of the processes of design and manufacture, so that it avoids the problems of accuracy and integrity that present other classic geometric models that divide these processes in two phases. Furthermore, the morphological operative is based on points sets, so the geometric data structures and the operations are intrinsically simple and efficient. Another important value that no excessive computational resources are needed, because only the points in the boundary are processed.

Segmentation is an important topic in computer vision and image processing. In this paper, we sketch a scheme for a multiscale segmentation algorithm and prove its validity on some real images. We propose an approach to the model based on MRF (Markov Random Field) as a systematic way for integrating constraints for robust image segmentation. To do that, robust features and their integration in the energy function, which directs the process, have been defined. In this approach, the image is first transformed to different scales to determine which one fits better to our purposes. Then, it is segmented into a set of disjoint regions, the adjacent graph (AG) is determined and a MRF model is defined on the corresponding AG. Robust features are incorporated to the energy function by means of clique functions and optimal segmentation is then achieved by finding a labeling configuration that minimizes the energy function using Simulated Annealing.

In this work, we propose an approach to the model based on Markov random field (MRF) as a systematic way for integrating constraints for robust image segmentation. To do that, robust features and their integration in the energy function, which directs the process, have been defined. The suitability of the method has been verified by comparing classic features with the robust ones. In this approach, the image is first segmented into a set of disjoint regions and the adjacent graph (AG) has been determined. This approach is applied by defining an MRF model on the corresponding AG. Robust features are incorporated to the energy function by means of clique functions, and optimal segmentation is then achieved by finding a labelling configuration, which minimizes the energy function using the simulated annealing.

Spatial ability is essential for engineers’ professional performance. Several studies describe it as a skill that can be enhanced using new technologies. Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that is proving very useful for training different skills and improving spatial perception. In this chapter, the authors firstly present some previous works that use VR to train students, mainly in the area of engineering studies, and which demonstrate that VR can improve some aspects of the spatial perception. This study took a group of engineering students who used VR technologies to carry out learning activities designed to improve their spatial perception, which was measured with a widely used spatial ability test. The results obtained confirm that the use of VR technologies can improve students’ spatial perception. This proposal is easily transferable to other educational contexts. On the one hand, it could be implemented to improve spatial ability in other engineering studies, and on the other hand, with simple adaptation, it could be used to enhance other skills.

THE attendance at the Library Association Conference was, after all, a normal one of about twelve‐hundred delegates and their wives. There is always a lift of those who are unable to intimate their intention to attend until after the list in the programme has been printed. If it is longer this year it may be in part due to the uncertainty caused by the municipal elections, but only in part, as quite a number were not municipal people in the official sense at all. However that may be, it was a worth‐while meeting in which the address by President Lionel McColvin was certainly the outstanding feature, as providing a candid survey of the faults, the achievements and suggestions as to the prospects of the public library service. As our correspondent suggests elsewhere, the Conference Proceedings in extenso are available to all our readers in the separate volume the Library Association publishes and we need not attempt to reproduce the quality of the Address, but, as also is suggested, we hope the branches, sections and other groups of librarians will have point by point discussions on its substance in the months ahead.

In 1989, the people of Czechoslovakia ousted the communists from government after almost fifty years of rule, in a peaceful process known as the Velvet Revolution. An IMF‐backed stabilisation programme was launched in 1991. It comprised some liberalisations, a sharp devaluation of the currency and the unification of the exchange rate. In 1992, the Czechs and Slovaks decided to separate, in what was known as the Velvet Divorce. The separation of the Czech and Slovak Republics officially took place the 1st of January 1993 without political and social crisis. The state of the economy of the Czech Republic at the end of 1991, was as follows: