The translation of children's literature: Ideology and cultural adaptations. Captain Underpants as a case study

The aim of this research is to explore cultural differences in the children’s publishing industry in the USA and Spain and the impact these have on translation, and to develop a case study of the translation of Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series into Spanish from a cultural and linguistic perspective. The main aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate the ways in which ranges of meaning are narrowed, expanded or refracted in children’s literature translation and how they affect early readers’ understanding of the text (as more or less subversive), modelling all this as a dynamic rather than static system. Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism is applied to the Captain Underpants texts to show that the translation process is a continuum, never a finalized project, which can - and does - change with time.This dissertation explores the ways in which the translator of the Captain Underpants series, Miguel Azaola, negotiates the pressures and constraints, be they political, historical, cultural, editorial, commercial, or linguistic, which are imposed upon him via ideology, commissioning editors and the publishing industry. All translations imply a certain level of manipulation of the original text, and the translation of a subversive text written for a younger audience is even more vulnerable to change, due to the existing power imbalance between adults and children and the potential of humour as a tool for undermining or reinforcing social control. The Captain Underpants books mock and challenge authority-figures and the structures of the adult world (parents, teachers, political and religious institutions). These books provide a carnivalesque context that enables children to establish a dialogue with the text through which to question societal norms that have been learnt in school and at home. This dissertation examines how humour and references to food have been translated into Spanish in this context. It also points out the dilemmas posed by retaining the original pictures in the translated text, and how the lack of a supporting cultural peritext affects not only the visual meaning of the text as a whole but also children’s reading experience and their perception of the books as cultural artefacts. Translation loss in children’s literature can be attributed to linguistic difficulties of capturing meanings or stylistic features. However, it may also reflect societal attitudes towards childhood and cultural differences. The history of publishing for children in Spain and the didactic mission of the publishing house (El Barco de Vapor) have had a strong impact on the translation of this series. Examples of the manifestation of this impact include domesticated names, loss of word-play, discrepancies between pictures and texts, and the almost complete deletion of the dual readership (adult and child). Translation has diminished the potential subversive elements of the target text, resulting in a significant reduction of humour. By adopting an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, in which theories from children’s literature, translation studies, reader response and studies on recent Spanish publishing trends are integrated, this thesis aims to make a scholarly contribution to the hitherto neglected study of the translation of contemporary children’s literature into Spanish. Highlighting throughout the differences in the textual content and children’s responses to the translated texts, this thesis explores the editor’s and translator’s decision-making processes and the challenges posed by translation for younger readers

Lora-based traffic flow detection for smart-road

This paper presents a wireless traffic flow detection system, mainly focused on conditions in which the traffic flow is slow or stopped, which increases the risk of highway accidents. To achieve this goal, a Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) based on LoRa called Short LoRa has been developed. This LoRa sub-network complies with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) harmonized standard for its compatibility in Europe countries. In addition, the development of the devices has allowed them to also work on a LoRaWAN network. The introduced development has been compared to a reference system mounted with laser barriers that provided a high accurate comparison. Field tests of the system have been carried out and the data obtained in the measurement has been analyzed with two different methods, and both of them were valid for the application. The results can determine vehicle speed with adequate precision at low speeds. The attenuating behavior of the communication signal is also analyzed through the Radio Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). The relationship between vehicle speed, gate distances and RSSI attenuation has been studied. The system is proven to have efficient results in detecting traffic flow under the conditions for which it has been developed

Reconstructing the Star Formation History of the Galaxy

The evolution of the star formation rate in the Galaxy is one of the key ingredients quantifying the formation and determining the chemical and luminosity evolution of galaxies. Many complementary methods exist to infer the star formation history of the components of the Galaxy, from indirect methods for analysis of low-precision data, to new exact analytic methods for analysis of sufficiently high quality data. We summarise available general constraints on star formation histories, showing that derived star formation rates are in general comparable to those seen today. We then show how colour-magnitude diagrams of volume- and absolute magnitude-limited samples of the solar neighbourhood observed by Hipparcos may be analysed, using variational calculus techniques, to reconstruct the local star formation history. The remarkable accuracy of the data coupled to our maximum-likelihood variational method allows objective quantification of the local star formation history with a time resolution of ~ 50 Myr. Over the past 3Gyr, the solar neighbourhood star formation rate has varied by a factor of ~ 4, with characteristic timescale about 0.5Gyr, possibly triggered by interactions with spiral arms.Comment: 12 pages, Proc. of the Sept. 20-24, 1999 Vulcano Workshop ``The chemical evolution of the Milky Way: stars vs. clusters'', eds. F. Matteucci & F. Giovanell

Using ages and kinematic traceback: the origin of young local associations

Over the last decade, several groups of young (mainly low-mass) stars have been discovered in the solar neighbourhood (closer than ~100 pc), thanks to cross-correlation between X-ray, optical spectroscopy and kinematic data. These young local associations offer insights into the star formation process in low-density environments, shed light on the substellar domain, and could have played an important role in the recent history of the local interstellar medium. Ages estimates for these associations have been derived in the literature by several ways. In this work we have studied the kinematic evolution of young local associations and their relation to other young stellar groups and structures in the local interstellar medium, thus casting new light on recent star formation processes in the solar neighbourhood. We compiled the data published in the literature for young local associations, including the astrometric data from the new Hipparcos reduction. Using a realistic Galactic potential we integrated the orbits for these associations and the Sco-Cen complex back in time. Combining these data with the spatial structure of the Local Bubble and the spiral structure of the Galaxy, we propose a recent history of star formation in the solar neighbourhood. We suggest that both the Sco-Cen complex and young local associations originated as a result of the impact of the inner spiral arm shock wave against a giant molecular cloud. The core of the giant molecular cloud formed the Sco-Cen complex, and some small cloudlets in a halo around the giant molecular cloud formed young local associations several million years later. We also propose a supernova in young local associations a few million years ago as the most likely candidate to have reheated the Local Bubble to its present temperature.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Invited talk, to appear in "The Ages of Stars", Proceedings of the IAU Symposium 258, Baltimore USA 13-17 Oct 2008, eds D. Soderblom et al., CUP in pres

Diseño de un BMS modular para EV enfocado a MotoStudent

The project is based on the design of a Modular Battery Management System for a battery pack that will be in the Eupla Racing Team prototype racing in Alcañiz during the MotoStudent IV event. The present memory explains the development of such design. It starts presenting a state of the art and a theoretical framework to give the reader some background and understanding before starting with the technical work. Knowledge of the existing technologies is a must to be able to design a reliable BMS. The next section explains the development of the prototype. It is divided into several sections. MotoStudent regulations and the battery pack for which we are designing the BMS will be introduced to be able to start with the design. We will first carry out a market study of the available monitoring chips and search for one with the optimal features for our application. Once the chip is selected the electronic design will start taking into account the suggestions given by the manufacturer in the datasheet. Also the extra features needed for our application will be added. For instance, the conditioning circuit for the chosen temperature sensors; in our case, NTCs. For the hardware development we will have to choose an appropriate balancing current for a competition application and make the corresponding calculations such as trace width to withstand the current applied. A meticulous component selection will be elaborated to ensure we have a reliable prototype. Finally, software will be divided into two stages: software development and the interface. The former will be based on the chip libraries offered by the manufacturer and adapted to our application, the latter will be developed with LabVIEW. The LabVIEW interface will be a key feature to ensure a testing procedure and a quick way to check the battery pack state during the competition

A Catalog of Moving Group Candidates in The Solar Neighborhood

Based on the kernel estimator and wavelet technique, we have identified 22 moving group candidates in the solar neighborhood from a sample which includes around 14,000 dwarfs and 6000 giants. Six of them were previously known as the Hercules stream, the Sirus-UMa stream, the Hyades stream, the Caster group, the Pleiades stream, and the IC 2391; five of them have also been reported by other authors. 11 moving group candidates, not previously reported in the literature, showprominent structures in dwarf or giant samples.Acatalog of moving group candidates in the solar neighborhood is presented in this work.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letter

Factory Oriented Technique for Thermal Drift Compensation in MEMS Capacitive Accelerometers

Capacitive MEMS accelerometers have a high thermal sensitivity that drifts the output when subjected to changes in temperature. To improve their performance in applications with thermal variations, it is necessary to compensate for these effects. These drifts can be compensated using a lightweight algorithm by knowing the characteristic thermal parameters of the accelerometer (Temperature Drift of Bias and Temperature Drift of Scale Factor). These parameters vary in each accelerometer and axis, making an individual calibration necessary. In this work, a simple and fast calibration method that allows the characteristic parameters of the three axes to be obtained simultaneously through a single test is proposed. This method is based on the study of two specific orientations, each at two temperatures. By means of the suitable selection of the orientations and the temperature points, the data obtained can be extrapolated to the entire working range of the accelerometer. Only a mechanical anchor and a heat source are required to perform the calibration. This technique can be scaled to calibrate multiple accelerometers simultaneously. A lightweight algorithm is used to analyze the test data and obtain the compensation parameters. This algorithm stores only the most relevant data, reducing memory and computing power requirements. This allows it to be run in real time on a low-cost microcontroller during testing to obtain compensation parameters immediately. This method is aimed at mass factory calibration, where individual calibration with traditional methods may not be an adequate option. The proposed method has been compared with a traditional calibration using a six-sided orthogonal die and a thermal camera. The average difference between the compensations according to both techniques is 0.32 mg/°C, calculated on an acceleration of 1 G; the maximum deviation being 0.6 mg/°C

Lightweight thermal compensation technique for MEMS capacitive accelerometer oriented to quasi-static measurements

The application of MEMS capacitive accelerometers is limited by its thermal dependence, and each accelerometer must be individually calibrated to improve its performance. In this work, a light calibration method based on theoretical studies is proposed to obtain two characteristic parameters of the sensor’s operation: the temperature drift of bias and the temperature drift of scale factor. This method requires less data to obtain the characteristic parameters, allowing a faster calibration. Furthermore, using an equation with fewer parameters reduces the computational cost of compensation. After studying six accelerometers, model LIS3DSH, their characteristic parameters are obtained in a temperature range between 15 °C and 55 °C. It is observed that the Temperature Drift of Bias (TDB) is the parameter with the greatest influence on thermal drift, reaching 1.3 mg/°C. The Temperature Drift of Scale Factor (TDSF) is always negative and ranges between 0 and −400 ppm/°C. With these parameters, the thermal drifts are compensated in tests with 20 °C of thermal variation. An average improvement of 47% was observed. In the axes where the thermal drift was greater than 1 mg/°C, the improvement was greater than 80%. Other sensor behaviors have also been analyzed, such as temporal drift (up to 1 mg/h for three hours) and self-heating (2–3 °C in the first hours with the corresponding drift). Thermal compensation has been found to reduce the effect of the latter in the first hours after power-up of the sensor by 43%