Virtualidad, realidad, comunidad : un comentario sociológico sobre la semántica de las nuevas tecnologías digitales

El tema de este artículo son los conceptos de realidad y comunidad virtuales. Partiendo de la teoría de sistemas y el constructivismo, se pretende hacer evidente que estos conceptos, además de conceptualmente equívocos, son teoréticamente infecundos, pues dificultan la comprensión de las novedades que traen consigo las nuevas tecnologías digitales en los planos cognitivo y social.Topics of this text are the concepts of virtual reality and virtual community. Taking as support points systems theory and constructivism, it is sought to make evident that these concepts, besides conceptually confused, are theoretically infertile, because they hinder the understanding of the newness that the new digital technologies report on the cognitive and social levels of human life

Violencia, acción y comunicación

El concepto de violencia, pese a ser usado con profusión por referirse a un fenómeno de indudable relevancia social, bien puede decirse que pocas veces ha sido objeto de una especial consideración en la teoría social. Su difuso sentido está construido sobre un no menos vago concepto de acción, que ha llevado, bien a minimizar, bien a dramatizar su significado social. El presente artículo propone darle una nueva y mayor determinación a partir de los conceptos de comunicación y atribución e imputación comunicativa, con la que se abren nuevos horizontes interpretativos de la violencia colectiva en nuestra sociedad.In spite of making reference to a phenomenon of inquestionable social relevance, and for that reason to be used with profusion, the concept of violence few times has been object of special consideration on the part of the social theory. Their diffuse meaning is based on a not less vague concept of action, what has allowed equally to minimize its social significance or to overdramatize it. Starting from the concepts of communication and communicative attribution and imputation, this paper intends to give him a new and bigger specification, with wich new horizons open up to the interpretation of the collective violence in our society

Parametric assessment of a building active façade by means of a combined metallic sandwich panel with an unglazed solar collector

The building sector has a poor performance in terms of energy efficiency and is looking for alternatives to reduce the use of fossil fuels on building use stage. Renewables are unlimited and solar thermal energy is a technology with a demonstrated potential. The façade is a key element able to harness renewable energy coming from the sun becoming in an Active Solar Thermal Façade (ASTF). The main purpose of this study is the development of a parametric study using a numerical model to analyze the behavior of an unglazed solar collector. Thus, evaluating different design and meteorological parameters to show their influence on the heat transfer and the efficiency. The study shows that solar irradiation and mass flow are the most influential on thermal difference. However, for the efficiency ambient temperature and inlet temperature both are the most influencing ones. In brief, a set of parameters have a significant influence on the behavior of the ASTF that are fully governed by environmental conditions. Nevertheless, there are some other parameters that can be controlled during the operation. The challenge is to make a continuous configuration of this adaptable values depending on the external situation to achieve a higher performance for the ASTF

Organización y semántica naval moderna

This article looks at the use of seafaring language in the Modern Era. It dwells especially on the words “escuadra”, “flota” and “convoy” (squadron, fleet and convoy), examining the mutations therein during the imperial wars waged between Charles V (Charles I of Spain) and Francis I of France, which favoured the birth and development of Atlantic piracy. It analyses the names of the various functional navies, created on an ad hoc basis as the various weak points appeared in Spain’s traffic with the Americas. The article also deals with the commanders of these groups and the names given to the onboard personnel. Specific examples are given of modern semantics with comments on the changes that occurred upon the advent of the Bourbons and the creation of the Military Navy of Spain (Marina Militar de España). The paper also investigates the rich semantics of the rudimentary naval artillery of the time and then winds up with a section on naval architecture, a field so vast it would really need an article in its own right

A robust numerical framework for the analysis of material failure of fibre reinforced soft tissue

In this work, robustness and stability of continuum damage models applied to material failure in soft tissues are addressed. In the implicit damage models equipped with softening, the presence of negative eigenvalues in the tangent elemental matrix degrades the condition number of the global matrix, leading to a reduction of the computational performance of the numerical model. Two strategies have been adapted from literature to improve the aforementioned computational performance degradation: the IMPL-EX integration scheme [Oliver,2006], which renders the elemental matrix contribution definite positive, and arclength-type continuation methods [Carrera,1994], which allow to capture the unstable softening branch in brittle ruptures. The IMPL-EX integration scheme has as a major drawback the need to use small time steps to keep numerical error below an acceptable value. A convergence study, limiting the maximum allowed increment of internal variables in the damage model, is presented. Finally, numerical simulation of failure problems with fibre reinforced materials illustrates the performance of the adopted methodology

Del derecho y su violencia

The relationship between law and violence has been analyzed traditionally within the framework of the reflection on law’s foundation. The article reviews the most important theoretical moments in the history of the analysis of law’s foundation and the role of violence, and then focuses on the authors who have made three of the most important contributions to this analysis in the twentieth century: Benjamin, Derrida and Luhmann. Although all three agree on the paradoxical foundation of law, they differ in their treatment. Benjamin and Derrida made a critique and a deconstruction, respectively, of what they consider the constitutive violence of law, guided by a transcendent idea of justice. Instead Luhmann develops and immanent (sociological) analysis, which leads him to argue that the semantics of violence does not provide useful indications for the analysis of the underlying problem, even distorts it. The article concludes with a reflection that connects the Luhmann’s analysis with the Carl Schmitt’s theory of sovereignty: although antagonists, norm and decision are the basic elements of law, because there is not possibility to establish normative orders without decisions, and the monopoly of the “ultimate decisions”, rather than that of violence, is what ensures the factual normalization required by the regular operation of any normative order.La relación entre derecho y violencia se ha planteado tradicionalmente en el marco de la reflexión sobre la fundamentación del derecho. Tras pasar revista a los momentos teóricos más importantes en la historia de esta temática, el artículo se centra en los autores que han realizado tres de las más importantes aportaciones en el siglo XX a la misma: Benjamin, Derrida y Luhmann. Si bien los tres coinciden en el problema del carácter constitutivamente paradójico del derecho, difieren en su tratamiento. Benjamín y Derrida realizan una crítica y una deconstrucción, respectivamente, de lo que consideran violencia constitutiva del derecho, apoyándose para ello en una idea trascendente de justicia. En cambio, Luhmann desarrolla un análisis inmanente, sociológico, según el cual la semántica de la violencia más que dar indicaciones útiles para tratar el problema de fondo lo distorsiona. El articulo concluye con una reflexión que conecta el análisis de Luhmann con la teoría de la soberanía de Carl Schmitt: aunque antagónicas, norma y decisión son elementos fundamentales del derecho, pues sin decisiones no es posible instituir órdenes normativos, cuyo funcionamiento regular, además, presupone una normalidad fáctica que sólo es asegurada por el monopolio de las “decisiones últimas”, más que por el de la violencia

Knowledge, the Great Challenge to Deal with Terrorism

Terrorism, radicalisation and violent extremism are great challenges in these times of uncertainty. This paper analyses the need to improve the knowledge to provide a solid foundation for the design of effective security Counter-Terrorism strategies. Broad definitions of stakeholders are considered (including universities, think-tanks, the intelligence community, media, communities, and minorities and citizens), together with the integration of methods and techniques of analysis drawn from the social sciences and intelligence techniques. It proposes new approaches to generate knowledge through the integration of critical perspectives allowing an improved decision-making process that must be followed by continuous evaluations

An attempt to identify the issues underlying the lack of consistent conceptualisations in the field of student mathematics-related beliefs

This paper aims to clarify the inconsistencies present in the field of student mathematics-related beliefs. Despite the general agreement about the important role that beliefs play in the learning of mathematics, the study of student mathematics-related beliefs has resulted in a body of uncoordinated research. The lack of consensus on defining and classifying beliefs has generated much confusing terminology, preventing a consistent conceptualization of the phenomenon. To identify the problem underlying existing inconsistencies, we have undertaken a systematic review of the literature to analyse the belief conceptualisations proposed by the most cited authors in this field of research. Our analysis suggests that authors often fail to conceptualise beliefs in four important ways: existing theories related to the phenomenon under research are normally not considered; definitions are often too broad and do not clearly confine the construct under evaluation; and existing beliefs sub-constructs are rarely defined and thus not explicitly distinguished. Our study has also revealed that some of the scales developed to measure the belief constructs lack of content and internal validity. We believe that these findings open new lines of research that may help to clarify the field of student mathematics-related beliefs.This work was supported by Horizon 2020 (710577), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (EDU2017-84979-R), Erasmus+ (2017-1-ES01-KA203-038491) and (2019-1-CZ01-KA201-061377), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PGC2018-100758-B-I00), RED8-Educación matemática y formación de profesores (EDU2016-81994-REDT) and Junta de Castilla y León (Q3718001E)S