Cuidad histórica, ciudad actual : una dualidad a respetar

Nuestros Centros históricos son una amalgama de trazas urbanas y construcciones resultado del devenir del tiempo, respuesta material que en cada momento histórico fueron dando a sus necesidades los pobladores que allí habitaron; lo que los convierte en los documentos más valiosos para la investigación y conocimiento de sus procesos evolutivos, tanto técnicos como sociológicos. Pero sobre todo, y ante todo, forman parte de nuestras ciudades de hoy en día, debiendo aprender a adaptarse y convivir con la época actual, como ya lo hicieron en épocas pretéritas, pero sabiendo exigir su derecho a ser conservados y respetados los valores que representan. Plantearnos ?La ciudad necesaria, la ciudad posible?, es saber asumir el aquí y ahora sin renunciar a nuestro pasado; es saber integrar lo que fuimos y lo que vamos siendo, en el fluir constante de la vida; es saber dar respuesta a las necesidades de hoy sin desfigurar nuestros Centros Históricos; es en definitiva entender la cultura como concepto y no solo como suma de manifestaciones materiales y/o inmateriales. El urbanismo es una valiosísima herramienta con que afrontar la dualidad de nuestras ciudades, histórica y actual, pero hay que liberarlo de toda carga ideológica a fin de no convertirla en instrumento al servicio de la especulación o de creación de espacios organicistas que dirigen y manipulan la normal convivencia social. El urbanismo ha de estar al servicio de nuestras ciudades, de sus ciudadanos; no al contrario, en el que el urbanismo se convierte en un fin, con formato de ejercicio intelectual llevado a escala real. Es difícil encontrar el equilibrio entre el mantenimiento de los testimonios del pasado y la exigible calidad de vida de la sociedad actual que habita en los espacios que aquellos configuran; pero es la meta irrenunciable, si no queremos dejar dichos espacios languidecer, convirtiéndolos en museos o parques temáticos, lo cual es perder el mejor testimonio que nos ofrecen, el de contenedores de vida, de sensaciones; ser testigos vivos de nuestra historia

Accessibility dynamics and regional cross-border cooperation (CBC) perspectives in the portuguese—spanish borderland

Accessibility plays a major role in achieving sustainable transport, and therefore urban and regional sustainability. The urban public transport system promotes mobility and realizes a large part of urban movements. Moreover, improving accessibility in order to promote sustainable transport requires the application of new concepts and indicators as a powerful tool in the process of creating a balanced urban transport system. In this regard, one of the main goals of this research is to present an overview of the relevant accessibility indicators and assessment of accessibility in regional Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC) in order to transcendence challenges and obstacles for sustainable transportation in these regions along of Portuguese-Spanish border. This paper focuses on the accessibility of cross-border cooperation scenarios along the border regions of Alto Alentejo (Portugal) and Badajoz (Spain) where the Case Study Research Method (CSR) made it possible to recognize accessibility as a key factor in territorial success. Also, accessibility analysis can assess improvements as well as regional imbalances. In addition, this methodology can be used to identify missing links, which requires new investments enabling long-term sustainability.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Control of HVAC system comfort by sampling

The sampling of the users comfort, allows observing and predicting the level of comfort on the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems. The development of online sampling systems assists in the recognition of the behavior patterns that occur in the offices. This paper presents a user-friendly tool designed and developed in order to make easier knowledge extraction and representation to make possible decisions about which demand that must prevail, the user comfort or saving into a central system. This decision may depend on the occupation and feeling of comfort of its occupants. Some studies have put neutral thermal conditions outside the ranges of comfort of the ASHRAE standard. The actual rules of the HVAC systems are based on studies carried out on specific populations in a specific space, which are not valid in certain situations. This is a dynamic idea of the comfort based in real data. The methodology used provides important and useful information to be able to select the comfort set-point of the rooms of a central heating system without the need to use fixed values based on programmed time schedules or any other methodology. The response to comfort in an area of a building throughout the day can be seen in this study. The users were assessed using a standard set of key questions in order to measure the level of satisfaction with environmental factors, thanks to a questionnaire of imprecise answers. We seek an improvement in the building users, regardless of their particularities

How are pine species responding to soil drought and climate change in the Iberian Peninsula?

This study investigates the relationship between soil moisture and the growth of Pinus halepensis, P. nigra, P. sylvestris and P. uncinata, which are some of the main pine species of the Iberian Peninsula, and the response of these species to soil drought. The role played by climatic and geographic factors in the resilience of these species to drought events is also evaluated. A total of 110 locations of the four species studied were selected, with data ranging from 1950 to 2007. The results show that the species that are less dependent on soil moisture best withstood droughts, while those more dependent on it showed better adaptability. Additionally, climatic and geographic factors had a stronger influence on the species’ resilience to soil drought at higher altitudes. The results of this study can help us to better understand forest ecosystem dynamics and their reaction to droughts in Mediterranean areas, where this phenomenon will be much more severe in the future due to climate change

Comparative analysis of ephemeral river ecosystem services in agricultural and natural landscapes in mediterranean environments. A practical approach to Caia River (Portugal)

Mediterranean landscapes present a large amount of biodiversity and ecosystems leading to their unique identity. In fact, it is increasingly acknowledged that these ecosystems provide a large range of benefits, not only for the area where they are located but also for their surroundings. Benefits that may vary from aesthetical values to socioeconomic aspects that might influence territorial development, including also the preservation of those ecosystems. The ephemeral and intermittent rivers provide several and pivotal ecosystem services within to the environment. However, these services differ a lot from agricultural to natural landscapes – e.g. agricultural landscapes structure ́ is susceptible to dramatic changes through the seasons and water cycles. Thus, a comparison study between agricultural and natural Mediterranean environments landscapes have been carried out – allowing to deeply understand ephemeral rivers ecosystems systems and their dynamics. Considering the purpose of the study - a comparison analysis between river ecosystem services in agricultural and natural landscapes in Mediterranean environments have been conducted. Therefore, a Cross-Border ephemeral river – Caia River (Portugal-Spain) have been selected as a case study. The comparison has covered cultural, aesthetic, functional and socio-economic ecosystem services; showing the relevance of the functions granted by the river

Evidence-based peer-tutoring program to improve students’ performance at the university

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the impact of a peertutoring program on academic performance among first-year students. The sample consisted of 102 first-year students from four-degree programs at a Spanish University. The academic performance was measured through the official student Academic reports. The assignment of the students to the experimental group (N = 51) and control group (N = 51) was done randomly. The intervention consisted of 20 highly structured individual weekly tutoring sessions delivered by senior and doctoral students, previously trained in three training sessions. The results show moderate effects’ size and statistically significant differences in favor of the experimental group in the total academic course, as well as in the fall and spring semesters

La tenacidad como predictor y resultado del éxito educativo, profesional y personal: revisión sistemática

Given the recent relevance of non-cognitive skills for consequential outcomes in the educational, personal, and professional domains, the objective of this systematic review was to synthesize the quality of the evidences on grit as predictor and outcome of educational, professional, and personal success. A pre-specified systematic review protocol was designed and implemented to synthesize the qualitative finding. A systematic literature search was conducted across diverse platforms and databases. A narrative content analysis was adopted to analyze the results. The final sample of studies reviewed was 90. The following analytical themes were identified: grit as a predictor of educational, professional, and personal success, and grit as outcome of demographic, educational, professional, and personal success. The results suggest that the evidences of effectiveness of grit as a predictor are largely stronger than those of grit as outcome. Additionally, our findings unveil that research on this construct is off to a good start, even though higher-quality research is needed.Dada la reciente importancia de las habilidades no cognitivas para obtener resultados significativos en los ámbitos educativo, personal y profesional, el objetivo de esta revisión sistemática es sintetizar la calidad de la evidencia de la tenacidad como predictor y resultado del éxito educativo, profesional y personal. Se diseñó y aplicó un protocolo de revisión sistemática preespecificado para sintetizar los resultados cualitativos. Se llevó a cabo una búsqueda sistemática de literatura en diversas plataformas y bases de datos. Se adoptó un análisis del contenido narrativo para analizar los resultados. La muestra final de estudios revisados fue de 90. Se identificaron los siguientes temas analíticos: tenacidad como predictor del éxito educativo, profesional y personal y tenacidad como resultado del éxito demográfico, educativo, profesional y personal. Los resultados indican que la evidencia acerca de la eficacia de la tenacidad como predictor es en gran medida mayor que de la tenacidad como resultado. Además, nuestros hallazgos revelan que la investigación sobre este constructo es prometedora, aunque necesita mejorar su calidad.This work is an outcome of the EU-funded collaborative research project CUPESSE (Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-Sufficiency and Entrepreneurship; Grant Agreement No. 613257). Correspondence: [email protected] (F. D. Fernández-Martín)

Competencias actitudinales de los orientadores escolares de Educación Secundaria

A través de este estudio tratamos de dar a conocer los aspectos más relevantes de una de las partes de la investigación realizada, en el seno del área MIDE, Universidades de Santiago y Vigo, sobre las competencias actitudinales (saber ser/saber estar) que, para un desempeño eficaz de sus funciones, los orientadores escolares de centros públicos de educación secundaria de Galicia (jefes de departamentos de orientación) consideran que tienen/deberían tener (Barreira, 2003). El aspecto nuclear lo constituyen los resultados relativos a aquellas actitudes más y menos valoradas por los orientadores escolares, tanto desde el grado de importancia que tienen (le conceden), como desde el que deberían tener, en ambos casos en relación con diversos sectores de intervención/actividad orientadora

Gestión de las empresas de servicios : Yield Management

Yield Management es un sistema para gestionar los recursos de las empresas del sector servicios. La finalidad es que la empresa pueda vender la correcta unidad de inventario o servicio al tipo de cliente adecuado, en el instante preciso y al precio conveniente. YM es un sistema de ayuda a la toma de decisiones para conseguir que las categorías de inventario se ajusten a la demanda existente, con el objetivo de maximizar los ingresos o beneficios. En definitiva, el problema se reduce a cuánto y a qué precio se debe vender en cada segmento de mercado. En el sector servicios se integran la mayoría de las actividades que cuentan con la característica de simultaneidad de la producción y del consumo del servicio prestado. Es decir, que carecen de un procedimiento de almacenamiento de su producto por ser perecedero, lo que no ocurre en el sector industrial. Este problema se pone de manifiesto en las empresas del sector aéreo, hoteles, alquiler de coches, restaurantes, etc