Archaeological research in the Canary Islands: island archaeology off Africa’s Atlantic coast

Island archaeology is a well-established field within the wider discipline, but African contributions to it remain scarce. The Canary Islands are unusual in the broader African context for their relatively long history of occupation (~2000 years) and the intensity with which archaeological research has been, and is, undertaken there. Much of that research, however, has focused on specifically Canarian issues, including efforts to demonstrate connections between the islands’ initial settlement and the Classical Mediterranean world. Relatively little of it has been conducted within the broader comparative framework that an island archaeology perspective provides. Additionally, much of the Canarian literature is not directly accessible to non-Hispanophones. In response, I synthesize what is currently known about the archaeology of the Canary Islands, focusing on determining when, how, and by whom they were first settled; the impacts of human settlement on their environments; inter-island variability in precolonial subsistence, social, and political trajectories; and the record left by European contact and subsequent colonization, which began in the 14th century AD. As well as pointing to further opportunities for research within the archipelago, I simultaneously map out several areas where archaeological work there could contribute to wider debates in island archaeology as a whole

Attitudes to Language and Culture in the EFL Classroom: British versus American English?

The main purpose of this article is to report on the results of an empirical study carried out among the students of English Philology at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria University in order to elicit data about their attitudes toward the British and the American varieties of English. In view of the outcome, we try to suggest ways in which we can cope with students’ tendency to put too high a value on British English and to judge the other varieties as inferior. Specifically, we argue that when teaching English in the 21st century, it makes little sense to restrict the limits of the language and the culture to the British sphere. In fact, the evolution of English into an international language requires that all of its speakers, learners, and teachers recognise and reaffirm the diversity of cultures English represents throughout the world today.

Demographic history of Canary Islands male gene-pool: replacement of native lineages by European

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The origin and prevalence of the prehispanic settlers of the Canary Islands has attracted great multidisciplinary interest. However, direct ancient DNA genetic studies on indigenous and historical 17^th–18^thcentury remains, using mitochondrial DNA as a female marker, have only recently been possible. In the present work, the analysis of Y-chromosome polymorphisms in the same samples, has shed light on the way the European colonization affected male and female Canary Island indigenous genetic pools, from the conquest to present-day times.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Autochthonous (E-M81) and prominent (E-M78 and J-M267) Berber Y-chromosome lineages were detected in the indigenous remains, confirming a North West African origin for their ancestors which confirms previous mitochondrial DNA results. However, in contrast with their female lineages, which have survived in the present-day population since the conquest with only a moderate decline, the male indigenous lineages have dropped constantly being substituted by European lineages. Male and female sub-Saharan African genetic inputs were also detected in the Canary population, but their frequencies were higher during the 17^th–18^thcenturies than today.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The European colonization of the Canary Islands introduced a strong sex-biased change in the indigenous population in such a way that indigenous female lineages survived in the extant population in a significantly higher proportion than their male counterparts.</p

Dating prehispanic and colonial sites on the island of Gran Canaria: a proposal for a radiocarbon hygiene protocol

Radiocarbon dating can give rise to problems associated with the nature of the dated sample, with the method used itself and with the stratigraphic reliability of the dated site. Consequently, the principal objective of this paper is to carry out a systematic exploration of each of these aspects. To this end, a critical review was conducted of the radiocarbon dates of materials from archaeological sites on the island of Gran Canaria. On the basis of this analysis, a system of categories of radiometric reliability was developed and, simultaneously, objective analytical criteria were used in an attempt to establish the reliability of radiometric dates obtained for archaeological sites in the Canary Islands and, in particular, the island of Gran Canaria.El radiocarbono puede presentar problemas relacionados con la naturaleza de la muestra fechada, los propios del método y la fiabilidad estratigráfica del contexto fechado. Por ello, el principal objetivo de este trabajo consiste en efectuar una exploración sistemática de cada uno de ellos. Para ello ha sido realizada una revisión crítica de las fechas radiocarbónicas efectuadas en materiales procedentes de contextos arqueológicos de la isla de Gran Canaria. Este análisis ha permitido elaborar un sistema de rangos de fiabilidad radiométrica al tiempo que ha pretendido establecer, sobre la base de criterios objetivos de análisis, la fiabilidad de las fechas radiométricas obtenidas en contextos arqueológicos del archipiélago canario y, en particular, de la isla de Gran Canaria

Study of the feasibility of the ship-weather routing algorithm simroutev2 on short sea shipping routes

Ship routing systems are gaining importance in the maritime sector as the use of these systems can lead to the reduction of fuel usage and reduce costs. Therefore, a mitigation of carbon emissions and improvement of maritime safety happens due to the avoidance of bad weather conditions. The implementation of pathfinding algorithms to determine the optimal ship rout- ing has been widely used for transoceanic distances. However, the evaluation of short distance routes with ship-weather routing algorithms is still scarce, due to the low spatial resolution of wave scripts. Therefore, this project investigates in which weather conditions the algorithm SIMROUTEv2 is feasible or not. This system was developed to obtain the optimal route and the minimum distance route recovered from the pathfinding algorithm A*. Ship routing analy- sis was studied on four relative routes related to five ports in the Western Mediterranean Sea, paying attention to the Short Sea Shipping activities and the Ro-Pax and Ro-Ro services. The methodology was based on the inclusion of the added resistance by waves on the vessel, the impact of which is significant in terms of time. The work established the basis of further de- velopment in routes optimisation utilized in comparatively short-distances and its systematic use in the Short Sea Shipping maritime industry.Outgoin

Graph Greenifier:Towards Sustainable and Energy-Aware Massive Graph Processing in the Computing Continuum

Our society is increasingly digital, and its processes are increasingly digitalized. As an emerging technology for the digital society, graphs provide a universal abstraction to represent concepts and objects, and the relationships between them. However, processing graphs at a massive scale raises numerous sustainability challenges; becoming energy-aware could help graph-processing infrastructure alleviate its climate impact. Graph Greenifier aims to address this challenge in the conceptual framework offered by the Graph Massivizer architecture. We present an early vision of how Graph Greenifier could provide sustainability analysis and decision-making capabilities for extreme graph-processing workloads. Graph Greenifier leverages an advanced digital twin for data center operations, based on the OpenDC open-source simulator, a novel toolchain for workload-driven simulation of graph processing at scale, and a sustainability predictor. The input to the digital twin combines monitoring of the information and communication technology infrastructure used for graph processing with data collected from the power grid. Graph Greenifier thus informs providers and consumers on operational sustainability aspects, requiring mutual information sharing, reducing energy consumption for graph analytics, and increasing the use of electricity from renewable sources.</p

Budismo en España: historia y presente

Grupo de investigación HISTOREL. Proyecto "Bases teóricas y metodológicas para el estudio de la diversidad religiosa y las minorías religiosas en España: de la antigüedad a la actualidad" (HAR2016-75173-P) del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España, 2017-2020Este trabajo utiliza los resultados del proyecto de investigación “Budismo en España”, inserto en el contrato de I + D entre la Fundación Pluralismo y Convivencia y la Universidad de La Laguna. (2010-2013) que produjo como publicación principal el libro F. Diez de Velasco, Budismo en España: historia, visibilización e implantación, Madrid, Akal, 2013, 350 pp. (ISBN 978-84-460-3679-1) que ha tenido una segunda edición (en formato e-book) con puesta al día completa en 2018 en la misma editorial (ISBN 978-84-460-4593-9). Se puede acceder a la página web (de puesta al día del proyecto con la totalidad de las publicaciones y actividades asociables con el mismo) en: http://historel.webs.ull.es/budesp

Scheduling Rigid, Evolving Applications on Homogeneous Resources

Classical applications executed on clusters or grids are either rigid/moldable or workflow-based. However, the increase of resource computing and storage capabilities has leveraged more complex applications. For example, some code coupling applications exhibit changing resource requirements without being a workflow. Executing them on current batch schedulers leads to an inefficient resource usage, as a block of resources has to be reserved for the whole duration of the application. This paper studies the problem of offline scheduling of rigid and evolving applications on homogeneous resources. It proposes several scheduling algorithms and evaluates them based on simulations. Results show that significant makespan and resource usage improvement can be achieved with short scheduling computing time