THE ROLE OF TERRITORIAL COHESION AS THE BASIS OF EUROPEAN SPATIAL PLANNING

The European Union regional policy has undoubtedly been a key to the European integration process. Its main purpose, originally, was to correct territorial imbalances between different EU states and regions. However, cohesion policy is today one of the most important tools to develop the Lisbon Strategy objectives (closely related to economic competitiveness), in a process called by some authors the 'Lisbonisation' of EU policies. The importance recently gained as a tool to promote competitiveness has allowed 'to save' the cohesion policy from the budget cuts supported by some net contributor countries. Moreover, since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the cohesion policy is a shared competence between the EU and Member States, which gives the Commission a right of initiative to address cohesion policy recommendations. For a better implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, a greater territorialization of the actions as well as a better territorial governance between different institutional levels are needed, since the economic competitiveness is based on optimizing the regional territorial capital and on the capacity for resource mobilization. Thus, while cohesion policy originally lacked of a territorial approach, currently it is one of the policies with higher territorial impact. Consequently, from the French approach of aménagement du territoire, it means a real operational capability on spatial planning by the EU. Through this, the Union could overcome the need of financing and the lack of competence on territorial matters. In fact, although the term 'spatial planning' is almost banned in the EU language, the influence of European level on countries and regions spatial planning is increasing. Therefore, territorial cohesion, as a more neutral and vague concept, could turn into the 'Trojan Horse' by which the EU would exercise a real European spatial planning. This paper is aimed to analyze the development of EU cohesion policy, focusing in the role that it plays nowadays in territorial matters. Indeed, the new economic and institutional context could have a great influence on its function in a near future, acting as a framework for a real European spatial planning.

A Finite Element‑Based Methodology for the Thermo‑mechanical Analysis of Early Age Behavior in Concrete Structures

This paper presents a general procedure based on fracture mechanics models in order to analyze the level of cracking and structural safety in reinforced concrete elements at early ages, depending on the stripping time. Our procedure involves the development of a thermo-mechanical numerical model based on the finite element method that accounts for the change in the mechanical properties of concrete with time. Moreover, fracture mechanisms are analyzed by means of a material damage model, which is characterized via specific experimental results obtained for standard specimens and notched beams under three-point bending testing. The loading conditions are both thermal and mechanical, and are obtained from the hydration process for a given concrete dosage. The presented methodology allows for the determination of the optimal stripping time, whereas it helps assessing the analysis of the cracking and the stress states of the elements under consideration. A practical application, namely the analysis of a retaining wall, is used to validate our methodology, showing its suitability in engineering practice.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BIA2016-75431-

Indicators and methods for spatial cohesion research: difficulties and challenges in low-density regions

Previous research carried out by this same authors went through the analysis of data sources and their potential to apply the polycentrism approach to territories where the urban features is weak (specifically in Castilla-La Mancha, Spain). Lately, several hubs were identified as potential centres and sub-centres in a regional articulation, helping out to delimitate accurately the map of polycentrism and Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) for each of them. Currently, we hope to depict those FUAs, highlighting the spatial cohesion, and looking for a better geographical knowledge, in accordance with current European standards. The most common methods to characterize functional areas used to be linked with numerous variables, demographic and economic, usually available and updated. Nevertheless, to go deepen is a difficult task because the broad range of indicators involved and the outcomes of recent dynamics. The specific aim of this paper is reviewing methodologies and datasets sources frequently used in the spatial evaluation, stressing those which focus less populated or dispersed areas. The analysis is driven by the difficulty to effectively assess what spatial cohesion is and how can it be measured, especially in these zones where this concept is crucial to understand the regional development.

Endosymbiotic bacteria nodulating a new endemic lupine Lupinus mariae-josephi from alkaline soils in Eastern Spain represent a new lineage within the Bradyrhizobium genus

Lupinus mariae-josephi is a recently described endemic Lupinus species from a small area in Eastern Spain where it thrives in soils with active lime and high pH. The L. mariae-josephi root symbionts were shown to be very slow-growing bacteria with different phenotypic and symbiotic characteristics from those of Bradyrhizobium strains nodulating other Lupinus. Their phylogenetic status was examined by multilocus sequence analyses of four housekeeping genes (16S rRNA, glnII, recA, and atpD) and showed the existence of a distinct evolutionary lineage for L. mariae-josephi that also included Bradyrhizobium jicamae. Within this lineage, the tested isolates clustered in three different sub-groups that might correspond to novel sister Bradyrhizobium species. These core gene analyses consistently showed that all the endosymbiotic bacteria isolated from other Lupinus species of the Iberian Peninsula were related to strains of the B. canariense or B. japonicum lineages and were separate from the L. mariae-josephi isolates. Phylogenetic analysis based on nodC symbiotic gene sequences showed that L. mariae-josephi bacteria also constituted a new symbiotic lineage distant from those previously defined in the genus Bradyrhizobium. In contrast, the nodC genes of isolates from other Lupinus spp. from the Iberian Peninsula were again clearly related to the B. canariense and B. japonicum bv. genistearum lineages. Speciation of L. mariae-josephi bradyrhizobia may result from the colonization of a singular habitat by their unique legume host

Analysis of the Utilization of Air-Cooled Blast Furnace Slag as Industrial Waste Aggregates in Self-Compacting Concrete

In this work, the effects of replacing the aggregates of self-compacting concrete by air-cooled blast furnace slag have been analysed. Different mixes have been manufactured by substituting the fine and coarse natural aggregates by air-cooled blast furnace slag. The fracture energy and the tensile and compressive strength have been determined for each mix. The self-compacting properties of the mixes, or the absence of them, have been observed. The main goals of this research are the decrease of the price of aggregates, reduction of the industrial waste, and attenuation the rate of consumption of natural resources. The results show that the self-compactability of the concrete is gradually lost as the slag content is increased, thus, when the ratio of replacement is low, the concrete keeps the self-compacting properties. Nevertheless, the loss of self-compaction affects the mechanical properties by increasing its strength. An air-cooled blast furnace slag did not present problems of heavy metals leaching.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BIA2016-75431-RUniversidad de Sevilla VI Plan Propio de Investigació

HIV/STI co-infection among men who have sex with men in Spain

In Spain, neither the HIV nor the STI national surveillance systems collect information on HIV/STI co-infection. However, there are two networks based on HIV/STI clinics which gather this data. We describe HIV prevalence in men who have sex with men (MSM) diagnosed with infectious syphilis and/or gonorrhoea in 15 STI clinics; and concurrent diagnoses of STI in MSM newly diagnosed with HIV in 19 HIV/STI clinics. In total, 572 MSM were diagnosed with infectious syphilis and 580 with gonorrhoea during 2005-2007. HIV prevalence among syphilis and gonorrhoea cases was 29.8% and 15.2% respectively. In the multivariate analysis, HIV/syphilis co-infection was associated with being Latin American; having a history of STI; reporting exclusively anal intercourse; and having sex with casual or several types of partners. HIV and gonorrhoea co-infection was associated with age older than 45 years; having no education or only primary education completed; and having a history of STI. In total, 1,462 HIV infections were newly diagnosed among MSM during 2003-2007. Of these, 31.0% were diagnosed with other STI at the same time. Factors associated with STI co-infection among new HIV cases in MSM were being Latin American; and having sex with casual partners or with both steady and casual partners. In Spain, a considerable proportion of MSM are co-infected with HIV and STI.This work was funded by two grants (36646/07; 36794/08) from the Foundation for Research and Prevention of AIDS in Spain (Fundación para la Investigación y la Prevención del SIDA en España–FIPSE).S

#commonfabbing. Experiencia piloto de fabricación digital comunitaria en Cáceres

El término #commonfabbing define la construcción de un concepto en tiempo real que se está llevando a cabo desde el Laboratorio de Fabricación Digital de la Universidad de Sevilla. El concepto reside en los condicionantes de la aplicación del diseño y la fabricación digital para la construcción de comunidades y la producción social del espacio. En la intersección de teoría y práctica, este ensayo presenta el proyecto Fabbing CC[*], experiencia piloto de intervención en dos solares de Cáceres, España. Fabbing CC consiste en dos intervenciones urbanas colaborativas a través de talleres en los que se involucren instituciones locales, diversos agentes sociales, y arquitectos y artistas especializados en fabricación digital, el resultado de los cuales fue la fabricación y la instalación in situ de varias piezas de mobiliario urbano. El objetivo final del proyecto es generar una red comunitaria en torno al diseño y la fabricación digital de código abierto de arquitecturas y otros elementos urbanos.The hashtag #commonfabbing refers to the real-time construction of a concept, that is being performed by the Laboratorio de Fabricación Digital at the University of Seville. The concept deals with virtualities of the application of digital design and fabrication to community building and social production of space. At the intersection of theory and practice, this paper presents Fabbing CC, a pilot intervention in two sites in Cáceres, Spain. Fabbing CC consisted in two participatory urban interventions, developed through a series of workshops engaging local institutions, various social agents and architects and designers specialized in digital fabrication, the result of which was the fabrication and on-site installation of various pieces of urban furniture. The final goal of the Project is to generate a community based worknet dedicated to open source digital design and fabrication of architectural and urban component

On the Designing of Spikes Band-Pass Filters for FPGA

In this paper we present two implementations of spike-based bandpass filters, which are able to reject out-of-band frequency components in the spike domain. First one is based on the use of previously designed spike-based low-pass filters. With this architecture the quality factor, Q, is lower than 0.5. The second implementation is inspired in the analog multi-feedback filters (MFB) topology, it provides a higher than 1 Q factor, and ideally tends to infinite. These filters have been written in VHLD, and synthesized for FPGA. Two spike-based band-pass filters presented take advantages of the spike rate coded representation to perform a massively parallel processing without complex hardware units, like floating point arithmetic units, or a large memory. These low requirements of hardware allow the integration of a high number of filters inside a FPGA, allowing to process several spike coded signals fully in parallel.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-0

Spikes Monitors for FPGAs, an Experimental Comparative Study

In this paper we present and analyze two VHDL components for monitoring internal activity of spikes fired by silicon neurons inside FPGAs. These spikes monitors encode each spike according to the Address-Event Representation, sending them through a time multiplexed digital bus as discrete events, using different strategies. In order to study and analyze their behavior we have designed an experimental scenario, where diverse AER systems have been used to stimulate the spikes monitors and collect the output AER events, for later analysis. We have applied a battery of tests on both monitors in order to measure diverse features such as maximum spike load and AER event loss due to collisions.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TEC2009-10639-C04-02Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2012-37868-C04-0