Perturbative contributions to Wilson loops in twisted lattice boxes and reduced models

We compute the perturbative expression of Wilson loops up to order $g^4$ for SU($N$) lattice gauge theories with Wilson action on a finite box with twisted boundary conditions. Our formulas are valid for any dimension and any irreducible twist. They contain as a special case that of the 4-dimensional Twisted Eguchi-Kawai model for a symmetric twist with flux $k$. Our results allow us to analyze the finite volume corrections as a function of the flux. In particular, one can quantify the approach to volume independence at large $N$ as a function of flux $k$. The contribution of fermion fields in the adjoint representation is also analyzed.Comment: pdflatex 57 pages, 9 figures, 4 appendice

Towards a collocation writing assistant for learners of Spanish

This paper describes the process followed in creating a tool aimed at helping learners produce collocations in Spanish. First we present the Diccionario de colocaciones del español (DiCE), an online collocation dictionary, which represents the first stage of this process. The following section focuses on the potential user of a collocation learning tool: we examine the usability problems DiCE presents in this respect, and explore the actual learner needs through a learner corpus study of collocation errors. Next, we review how collocation production problems of English language learners can be solved using a variety of electronic tools devised for that language. Finally, taking all the above into account, we present a new tool aimed at assisting learners of Spanish in writing texts, with particular attention being paid to the use of collocations in this language

Exploratory Research for the Improvement of the Teaching of Spanish as a Second Language in a Spanish Public Center†

This paper is part of the R&D project DIPURE (El Discurso Público sobre los Refugiados en España in English Public Discourse on Refugees in Spain) and it is one of the research lines of the research group “Andalusian Circle of Applied Linguistics, HUM-194” on the study of teaching Spanish as a second language (SSL) for immigrants and refugees. Its objective is to establish a profile of Spanish second language (SL) students at the Official School of Languages (OSL). To meet this objective, we carried out an exploratory study based on mixed quantitative–qualitative methods, including, among other methods, participant observation and a Likert-type questionnaire used with students of the OSL in Granada, from level A1 to B2. The data obtained has allowed us to reflect on the migration process in Spain and on the work in the classrooms of a public center with students who study Spanish as a second language—their learning beliefs, needs, and attitudes, as well as didactic preferences. The information obtained is envisaged to improve the teaching practice of Spanish as a host language in a public educational context

Rural development, population aging and gender in Spain: the case of rural women in the autonomous community of Castilla y León

The transformation that rural areas have undergone during the last 30 years constitutes a very important phenomenon in Spain, but it is especially relevant in certain regions such as the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León. The constant process of depopulation, which a great number of villages of that region are suffering, primarily caused by the continuous transfer of labour force from agriculture activities to the industrial sector and, more recently, towards the service sector of urban areas, is provoking the progressive demographic and economic decadence of rural areas. In this context, women played a key role in the process of rural exodus, especially in the case of young women. This trend has created highly aged, male rural populations, with few potential human resources, which are incapable of sustaining and promoting economic and social development in the future. This project attempts to determine to which extent women have been and continue to be the protagonists of the social and economic transformations which have affected rural areas during the last decades. To this aim, we will undertake an analysis by sex of different demographic, economic and social variables at the municipal level, which will show women’s spatial situation, according to rural criteria. We will also undertake a prospective analysis of the population evolution of these rural areas, in order to obtain a probable demographic scenario which rural women will have to face in the future. The specific focus of this study will be the territory of the Autonomous Community of Castilla y León. The results of this analysis will serve as a very useful reference for the public authorities as well as for private agents of this and other Spanish regions whenever they have to design alternative policies and actions regarding the role that rural women play and will play in the economic maintenance and development of rural areas. This is especially true given that, until now, studies which focus on the quantitative analysis of the economic and social situation of rural women have been practically nonexistent.

Towards the Empowered Births: Recovering our Bodies Kidnapped by the Biomedicine

Throughout the western History, women have gradually lost the power over their own bodies, noticing how everything, which is happening inside them, become pathologized and medicalized. Pregnancy and labor are totally in the hands of biomedicine, subject to medical protocols intended to the comfort of the medical professionals, and which treat women many times as little girls incapable of making their own decisions, constituting an accurate breeding ground to obstetric violence. Recently there are some activism rising up and gathering strength intending to inform, educating and putting pressure to make women recovering the leading role on their own labors again. As the right to decide is a sexual right, that’s why the empowered births turn out to be a deeply feminist concession.A lo largo de la historia de Occidente las mujeres han ido perdiendo paulatinamente el poder sobre sus propios cuerpos, viendo cómo se patologiza y medicaliza todo lo que en ellos sucede: el embarazo y el parto se hallan totalmente en manos de la biomedicina, sujetos a unos protocolos médicos destinados a la comodidad de los profesionales y que tratan en demasiadas ocasiones a las mujeres como a niñas incapaces de decidir por sí mismas, lo que constituye un caldo de cultivo idóneo para la violencia obstétrica. Pero en los últimos tiempos están surgiendo diversas formas de activismo que cada vez toman más fuerza, con el objetivo de informar, formar y presionar a nivel social para que las mujeres vuelvan a ser las protagonistas de sus propios partos. Porque el derecho a decidir es un derecho sexual, y por ello, los partos empoderados resultan una reivindicación profundamente feminista

The presence of Góngora in José Ángel Valente’s poetic thought

Este artículo analiza la interpretación que José Ángel Valente realiza de la personalidad poética y vital de Luis de Góngora. Partiendo especialmente de la obra ensayística del poeta gallego y de su biblioteca personal, trata de encuadrar la lectura valenteana en una serie de coordenadas críticas, personales y estéticas específicas, muy relacionadas por un lado con la poética de la retracción de Valente, de presupuestos antagónicos a la gongorina, así como con su experiencia biográfica y aproximación intelectual al exilio hispánicoThis article analyses José Ángel Valente’s interpretation of Luis de Góngora’s poetic and vital personality. Departing mainly from Valente’s theoretical production and from the observation of his private library, it tries to frame Valente’s reading within a series of critical, personal and aesthetic coordinates. These are intimately linked to Valente´s own poetics of retraction, which are antagonistic to Góngora’s, and to his biographical experience and intellectual approach to Hispanic exil

Topology by improved cooling: susceptibility and size distributions

We use a cooling algorithm based on an improved action with scale invariant instanton solutions, which needs no monitoring or calibration and has a inherent cut off for dislocations. We present results for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory where the method provides good susceptibility data and physical size distributions of instantons.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures. Talk presented at LATTICE96(topology

The SU(∞)SU(\infty) twisted gradient flow running coupling

We measure the running of the $SU(\infty)$ 't Hooft coupling by performing a step scaling analysis of the Twisted Eguchi-Kawai (TEK) model, the SU($N$) gauge theory on a single site lattice with twisted boundary conditions. The computation relies on the conjecture that finite volume effects for SU(N) gauge theories defined on a 4-dimensional twisted torus are controlled by an effective size parameter $\tilde l = l \sqrt{N}$, with $l$ the torus period. We set the scale for the running coupling in terms of $\tilde l$ and use the gradient flow to define a renormalized 't Hooft coupling $\lambda(\tilde l)$. In the TEK model, this idea allows the determination of the running of the coupling through a step scaling procedure that uses the rank of the group as a size parameter. The continuum renormalized coupling constant is extracted in the zero lattice spacing limit, which in the TEK model corresponds to the large $N$ limit taken at fixed value of $\lambda(\tilde l)$. The coupling constant is thus expected to coincide with that of the ordinary pure gauge theory at $N =\infty$. The idea is shown to work and permits us to follow the evolution of the coupling over a wide range of scales. At weak coupling we find a remarkable agreement with the perturbative two-loop formula for the running coupling.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure