Between Law and Justice: An Approximation to Castilian Jurisdictional Culture During the Sixteenth Century through the Experience of the House of Trade (Casa de la Contratación) in Seville and the Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias)

¿Qué motivó a la sociedad castellana a pleitear en los tribunales reales a pesar de los defectos que agobiaban al sistema judicial hispánico? Se responderá a esta cuestión a través del método jurisdiccional utilizado por los oidores de la Casa de la Contratación de Sevilla y del Consejo de Indias como su tribunal de apelación para resolver los pleitos que surgían en el contexto de la Carrera de Indias. El estudio se concentra en los pleitos sobre comiso de mercancías, pues ofrecen el laboratorio adecuado para valorar la posición de los magistrados en los litigios en los cuales intervenía, de una parte, el fiscal, representante de los intereses del soberano y, de la otra, los litigantes comunes. Tal coyuntura permitirá determinar cómo los jueces entendían en la práctica su papel de ministros de equidad, una condición que los obligaba a administrar justicia incluso más allá de los intereses del rey.What encouraged Castilian society to bring lawsuits before the royal courts of justice, when they were known to be highly inefficient? The answer is be found in the methods used by the judges of the House of Trade (Casa de la Contratación) in Seville and the Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias) as its court of appeal to settle disputes arising from the trade routes to the Indies (Carrera de Indias). The study focuses on lawsuits relating to the confiscation of supposedly illegal merchandise coming from the Indies. These lawsuits offer an adequate laboratory to test the attitude of judges in the disputes which involved, on the one hand, the royal prosecutor, who represented and defended the economic interests of the king and, on the other, the common litigants, making it possible to determine how the judges understood their role as ministers of equity, a condition that obliged them to administer justice, sometimes even in detriment to the interests of the king

Nutritive Quality of Silages by Conventional Laboratory Methods and Near Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy

Preservation of forages as silages is needed by dairy farmers in NW Spain to feed their cows during the dry (summer) and cold (winter) seasons. The objective of this work was to compare the prediction of in vivo digestibility values by conventional laboratory methods and by near infra-red reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) for herbage and maize silages

Development and validation of the Spanish hazard perception test

Objective: The aim of the current study is to develop and obtain validity evidence for a Hazard Perception test suitable for the Spanish driving population. To obtain validity evidence to support the use of the test, the effect of hazardous and quasi-hazardous situations on the participants’ Hazard Prediction is analysed and the pattern of results of drivers of different driving experience: learner, novice and expert drivers and re-offender vs. non-offender drivers, is compared. Potentially hazardous situations are those that develop without involving any real hazard (i.e., the driver didn’t actually have to decelerate or make any evasive manoeuvre to avoid a potential collision). The current study analysed multiple offender drivers attending compulsory re-education programmes as a result of reaching the maximum number of penalty points on their driving licence, due to repeated violations of traffic laws. Method: A new video-based hazard perception test was developed, using a total of 20 hazardous situation videos plus 8 quasi-hazardous situation videos. They were selected from 167 recordings of natural hazards in real Spanish driving settings

Parto y distocias en la perra y en la gata

El conocimiento de la fisiología normal del parto, eutocia, resulta indispensable para reconocer y, por lo tanto, establecer un adecuado plan de actuación clínica ante un parto patológico o distócico. En la primera parte de este artículo revisamos los mecanismos del parto en la perra y en la gata poniendo especial interés en aquellos aspectos de mayor trascendencia clínica; posteriormente estudiamos el parto patológico, su diagnóstico y las técnicas obstétricas que debemos emplear para resolver el problema que plantea un parto distócico en los animales de compañía.An adequate knowledge of the physiological parturition, eutocya, results essential in order to recognize and then establishing an accurate plan of clinicalperformance, to cope with the pathological whelping or dystocia. That's why in the first part of this article the mechanism of parturition in the bitch and the queen are reviewed, watching especiaUythose aspects of clinical significance; after this we study the pathological parturition, its identification and the obstetrical techniques to use in order to get successin the resolution of the trouble that a dystocia in companion animals represents

Regulación traduccional en respuesta a estrés por calor en plantas

Comunicaciones a congreso

Enkapsulacija askorbinske kiseline u hidrofobnom silikagelu

Self-assembled hybrid organo-silica sol-gel materials are rapidly expanding for newand novel applications. The microporous solid silica matrix was used as a carrier for the controlled release of ascorbic acid (AA), selected as cargo molecule. One-step synthesis procedure was optimized for the preparation of silica–molecule composites by using tetraethoxysilane and methyltrimethoxysilane as precursors. The hydrophobic silica xerogel matrices were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction. Specific surface area and porosity parameters were determined by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) technique and the matrix surface morphology by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The observed release pattern could be interesting for the development of AA-fortified food and for use in food packaging.Hibridni, organsko-silikatni sol-gel materijal sve se više primjenjuje u prehrambenoj industriji. Stoga je kao nosač za kontrolirano otpuštanje askorbinske kiseline upotrijebljen mikroporozni čvrsti silikatni matriks. Optimirana je jednostupanjska sinteza kojom su dobiveni silikatni kompoziti uz pomoć prekurzora: tetraetoksisilana i metiltrimetoksisilana. Matriksi su hidrofobnog silikagela okarakterizirani Fourier transformiranom infracrvenom spektroskopijom (FTIR) i difrakcijom X-zraka. Specifična površina i poroznost matriksa ispitane su Brunaer-Emmett-Teller (BET) metodom, dok su morfološka svojstva površine matriksa određena skenirajućim elektronskim mikroskopom (SEM). Utvrđeno je da se askorbinska kiselina ovako može upotrijebiti za proizvodnju hrane s dodanom vrijednošću, te za pakiranje prehrambenih proizvoda

Enkapsulacija askorbinske kiseline u hidrofobnom silikagelu

Self-assembled hybrid organo-silica sol-gel materials are rapidly expanding for newand novel applications. The microporous solid silica matrix was used as a carrier for the controlled release of ascorbic acid (AA), selected as cargo molecule. One-step synthesis procedure was optimized for the preparation of silica–molecule composites by using tetraethoxysilane and methyltrimethoxysilane as precursors. The hydrophobic silica xerogel matrices were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction. Specific surface area and porosity parameters were determined by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) technique and the matrix surface morphology by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The observed release pattern could be interesting for the development of AA-fortified food and for use in food packaging.Hibridni, organsko-silikatni sol-gel materijal sve se više primjenjuje u prehrambenoj industriji. Stoga je kao nosač za kontrolirano otpuštanje askorbinske kiseline upotrijebljen mikroporozni čvrsti silikatni matriks. Optimirana je jednostupanjska sinteza kojom su dobiveni silikatni kompoziti uz pomoć prekurzora: tetraetoksisilana i metiltrimetoksisilana. Matriksi su hidrofobnog silikagela okarakterizirani Fourier transformiranom infracrvenom spektroskopijom (FTIR) i difrakcijom X-zraka. Specifična površina i poroznost matriksa ispitane su Brunaer-Emmett-Teller (BET) metodom, dok su morfološka svojstva površine matriksa određena skenirajućim elektronskim mikroskopom (SEM). Utvrđeno je da se askorbinska kiselina ovako može upotrijebiti za proizvodnju hrane s dodanom vrijednošću, te za pakiranje prehrambenih proizvoda

Desarrollo de mezclas de hormigón poroso para pavimentos urbanos permeables

The present study aimed to analyze the hydraulic and mechanical behaviour of a series of roller-compacted, laboratory porous concrete mixtures. The mix design variables examined were the actual void ratio in the hardened concrete and the water/cement ratio. From these results the better dosages from the mechanical and hydraulical behaviour point of view were determined. One of the designs developed was found to exhibit excellent hydraulic capacity and 20% greater strength than the mixtures recommended in the literature. Moreover, concrete with an actual void ratio of only 14% was observed to meet permeability requirements. Maximum flexural strength of concretes with different w/c ratios was achieved with a cement paste content of 250 l/m3. Relationships were found between the void ratio and both 28-day concrete permeability and flexural strength. Finally, the doses exhibiting the best mechanical and hydraulic performance were identified.El trabajo realizado en este estudio consistió en analizar el comportamiento de diferentes dosificaciones de mezclas de hormigón poroso, fabricadas en laboratorio y compactadas con rodillo pesado para simular las condiciones de terreno. Las variables consideradas para el diseño de las mezclas fueron el porcentaje real de huecos en el hormigón endurecido y la razón agua/cemento. A partir de estos resultados se determinaron las dosificaciones que presentan mejor comportamiento desde el punto de vista mecánico e hidráulico. Los resultados muestran que existe una dosificación de hormigón poroso, distinta a las encontradas actualmente en la literatura internacional, que permite obtener resistencias hasta 20% más altas, manteniendo todavía una excelente capacidad hidráulica. Se determinó que una permeabilidad suficiente se puede obtener con un porcentaje real de huecos de 14%, y que agregar pasta de cemento en una proporción de 250 l/m3 permite maximizar la resistencia a flexotracción de hormigones que utilizan diferentes razones a/c. Se encontraron relaciones entre el porcentaje de huecos y la permeabilidad del material, y entre el porcentaje de huecos y la resistencia a flexotracción a 28 días

The Allometry of Daily Energy Expenditure in Hummingbirds: An Energy Budget Approach

1. Within-clade allometric relationships represent standard laws of scaling between energy and size, and their outliers provide new avenues for physiological and ecological research. According to the metabolic-level boundaries hypothesis, metabolic rates as a function of mass are expected to scale closer to 0.67 when driven by surface-related processes (e.g. heat or water flux), while volume-related processes (e.g. activity) generate slopes closer to one. 2. In birds, daily energy expenditure (DEE) scales with body mass (M) in the relationship log (DEE)=2.35+0.68×log (M), consistent with surface-level processes driving the relationship. However, taxon-specific patterns differ from the scaling slope of all birds. 3. Hummingbirds have the highest mass-specific metabolic rates among all vertebrates. Previous studies on a few hummingbird species, without accounting for the phylogeny, estimated that the DEE–body mass relationship for hummingbirds was log (DEE)=1.72+1.21×log (M). In Contrast to the theoretical expectations, this slope \u3e1 indicates that larger hummingbirds are less metabolically efficient than smaller hummingbirds. 4. We collected DEE and mass data for 12 hummingbird species, which, combined with published data, represented 17 hummingbird species in eight of nine hummingbird clades over a sixfold size range of body size (2.7–17.5 g). 5. After accounting for phylogenetic relatedness, we found DEE scales with body mass as log(DEE)=2.04+0.95×log (M). This slope of 0.95 is lower than previously estimated for hummingbirds, but much higher than the slope for all birds (0.68). The high slopes of torpor, hovering and flight potentially explain the high interspecific DEE slope for hummingbirds compared to other endotherms

Capability of 19-litre polycarbonate plastic water cooler containers for efficient solar water disinfection (SODIS): field case studies in India, Bahrain and Spain.

The small treated volume (typically ~2 litres) associated with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles that are most frequently used in solar water disinfection (SODIS), is a major obstacle to uptake of this water treatment technology in the developing world. In order to address this problem we have conducted a series of experiments in Spain, Bahrain and India, to assess the efficacy of large volume (19 litres) transparent plastic (polycarbonate) water cooler/dispenser containers (WDCs) as SODIS reactors to inactivate Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis, under strong natural sunlight. Reduction values of 6 log10 units (LRV = 6.0) have been observed using WDCs in each location. Additional comparisons between 2-L PET bottles and 19-L indicate that WDCs provide bacterial inactivation similar in both systems. SODIS disinfection experiments in turbid water (100 NTU) in both reactors showed very good inactivation efficiency. LRVs of 7.2 and 7.8 were obtained for E. coli in WDC and 2-L PET bottles, respectively, and in the case of E. faecalis LRV = 5.7 and 7.9 were observed. These studies demonstrate that under conditions of strong sunlight and mild temperature, 19 litre water dispenser containers can be used to provide adequate volumes of SODIS treated water for households or larger community applications such as schools or clinics in the developing world