Farm Cooperatives and the Social Economy: The Case of Spain

The term “Social Economy†is used to mean a set of organizations that share specific operational features, such as solidarity, mutual assistance, open membership, democratic management and people-based decision-making and distribution of surpluses, which depend on the activity carried out by each person irrespective of the capital invested. Farm cooperatives undoubtedly belong to this group. In recent years, Spanish farm cooperatives have been experiencing substantial business development. This process is a consequence of the latest changes in the regulations governing Spanish cooperatives. Major cooperative groups with high turnovers have developed in this positive environment. Although there are differences between countries, the European cooperative movement is a good example of the prominence that cooperatives have achieved in many sectors. Their traditional goals are changing and one of their current priorities is to meet the requirements of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) as regards agricultural multi-functionality. Nevertheless, the principles of this concept were already present in their own tenets. This paper aims to show the role of the cooperatives in the new social requirements, taking into account their functioning principles and the new conceptual frame they are involved in.Agribusiness,

Introducing emotions in the architectural design process

[EN] 3D images or architectural renders are expressive tools widely used by architectural students to communicate their projects. Not only do these images have the task of transmitting the formal and functional characteristics of the project, but also need to evoke in users the sort of feelings and emotions which can only be aroused by experiencing the architecture. An experiment we undertook enabled us to find that these emotions can be quantified and may relate to the design parameters of the image, moreover there are also substantial differences in the valuation between architects and non-architects. Thus, the aim of this paper is to incorporate the results of our research on the learning of this graphical tool into the learning of architecture. Therefore we have established a teaching methodology in which the images are not only employed to show the final result of design, but are also incorporated into the creative process to investigate emotional and aesthetic responses of the user of the designed space..Juan Vidal, F.; Iñarra Abad, S. (2015). Introducing emotions in the architectural design process. En 1ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON HIGHER EDUCATION ADVANCES (HEAD' 15). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 539-544. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD15.2015.392OCS53954

… Y los ángeles apagaron la estrella del Barroco

[EN] This text discusses the controversial decision to demolish the Baroque vault in the apse of Valencia cathedral, which it describes and evaluates from a historical and stylistic viewpoint. With his experience in restoration and based on equanimity arising from the historiography of wise and prudent architecture, the author defends the natural right to effective conservation of all the phases of a building. Therefore he regrets that no actual alternatives to demolition, which would have contemplated the possibility of conserving the superposition of all the interventions performed over the centuries instead of prioritising certain periods when they all deserve the same respect, were put forward.[ES] Este escrito polemiza sobre la controvertida decisión de demoler la bóveda barroca del ábside de la catedral, que describe y valora desde un punto de vista histórico y estilístico. El autor defiende, desde la experiencia de la disciplina de la restauración y la ecuanimidad presupuesta a una historiografía de la arquitectura prudente y sensata, el derecho natural a la conservación efectiva de todas las fases de un edificio. Por ello, se lamenta que no se hayan barajado alternativas reales a la pura y simple demolición, que contemplasen la conservación juiciosa de la superposición de todas las intervenciones en el tiempo y evitasen entrar a rivalizar sobre el valor relativo de las mismas cuando, en el fondo, todas merecían el mismo respetoVidal, FJ. (2007). … Y los ángeles apagaron la estrella del Barroco. Loggia, Arquitectura & Restauración. (20):76-85. doi:10.4995/loggia.2007.3207SWORD76852

Apreciación del valor patrimonial de las torres de defensa del litoral valenciano

[EN] The paper refers to the network of watchtowers of the Valencian coast, built during the sixteenth century, and proposes the evaluation of their values as heritage with a conceptual methodology based on an operational tool: the evaluation matrix.Juan Vidal, F. (2015). Apreciación del valor patrimonial de las torres de defensa del litoral valenciano. En Defensive architecture of the mediterranean: XV to XVIII centuries. Vol. I. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 373-380. https://doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2015.2015.1747OCS37338

DETERMINANTES DEL CONSERVADURISMO FINANCIERO DE LAS EMPRESAS ESPAÑOLAS

The objective of this work is to analyse the factors motivating firms to follow a conservative (or low-leverage) financial policy over several years. We carry out a study on a sample of 1,396 Spanish firms in the period 1993-2001. Using logit regression and various difference of means analyses, we test the influence of a number of variables associated with the pecking order theory, optimal capital structure theory and information asymmetries. Our findings show that conservative firms have a capital structure determined by the cash flows generated and their investment in tangible and intangible fixed assets, in accordance therefore with the pecking order theory. The findings do not provide support either for the optimal capital structure theory or for the role of information asymmetries, since in the majority of cases the results are not significant and/or contrary to what is predicted. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los factores por los cuales una empresa sigue una política financiera conservadora o de bajo endeudamiento durante varios años. Se lleva a cabo el estudio con una muestra de 1.396 empresas para el periodo 1993-2001 y mediante regresión logit y diferentes análisis de diferencias de medias se testa la influencia de varias variables relativas a la teoría de la jerarquía, de la estructura financiera y a asimetrías informativas. Los resultados muestran que las empresas conservadoras tienen una estructura financiera determinada por los cash-flows generados y por las inversiones en inmovilizado material e inmaterial, acorde, por tanto, con la teoría de la jerarquía financiera. Los resultados para la teoría de la estructura financiera óptima y para las asimetrías informativas son poco significativos y, en algunos casos, contrarios a lo que predicen.Conservadurismo financiero, Estructura de capital Financial conservatism, capital structure.

A hybrid probabilistic domain decomposition algorithm suited for very large-scale elliptic PDEs

State of the art domain decomposition algorithms for large-scale boundary value problems (with $M\gg 1$ degrees of freedom) suffer from bounded strong scalability because they involve the synchronisation and communication of workers inherent to iterative linear algebra. Here, we introduce PDDSparse, a different approach to scientific supercomputing which relies on a "Feynman-Kac formula for domain decomposition". Concretely, the interfacial values (only) are determined by a stochastic, highly sparse linear system $G(\omega){\vec u}={\vec b}(\omega)$ of size ${\cal O}(\sqrt{M})$, whose coefficients are constructed with Monte Carlo simulations-hence embarrassingly in parallel. In addition to a wider scope for strong scalability in the deep supercomputing regime, PDDSparse has built-in fault tolerance and is ideally suited for GPUs. A proof of concept example with up to 1536 cores is discussed in detail

Magnetic-field control of near-field radiative heat transfer and the realization of highly tunable hyperbolic thermal emitters

We present a comprehensive theoretical study of the magnetic field dependence of the near-field radiative heat transfer (NFRHT) between two parallel plates. We show that when the plates are made of doped semiconductors, the near-field thermal radiation can be severely affected by the application of a static magnetic field. We find that irrespective of its direction, the presence of a magnetic field reduces the radiative heat conductance, and dramatic reductions up to 700% can be found with fields of about 6 T at room temperature. We show that this striking behavior is due to the fact that the magnetic field radically changes the nature of the NFRHT. The field not only affects the electromagnetic surface waves (both plasmons and phonon polaritons) that normally dominate the near-field radiation in doped semiconductors, but it also induces hyperbolic modes that progressively dominate the heat transfer as the field increases. In particular, we show that when the field is perpendicular to the plates, the semiconductors become ideal hyperbolic near-field emitters. More importantly, by changing the magnetic field, the system can be continuously tuned from a situation where the surface waves dominate the heat transfer to a situation where hyperbolic modes completely govern the near-field thermal radiation. We show that this high tunability can be achieved with accessible magnetic fields and very common materials like n-doped InSb or Si. Our study paves the way for an active control of NFRHT and it opens the possibility to study unique hyperbolic thermal emitters without the need to resort to complicated metamaterials.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Detection, quantification, and characterization of polystyrene microplastics and adsorbed bisphenol A contaminant using electroanalytical techniques

The potential applications of electroanalytical techniques for the quantification and size characterization of nonelectroactive polystyrene microplastics is reported, in addition to characterizing the kinetics of adsorption of bisphenol A on these polystyrene microparticles. The individual adsorption events of very diluted polystyrene microparticles dispersions on glassy-carbon microelectrodes produce the blocking of the charge transfer of a mediator (ferrocene-methanol) thus decreasing the current of the recorded chronoamperogram in a stepwise manner. The magnitude of the current steps are in the order of pA values and can be related to the diameter of the plastic microparticles in the size range 0.1 to 10 µm. The frequency of the current steps in the domain time used (120 s) allows to quantify the number concentration of these microparticles in the range 0.005 to 0.500 pM. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy confirms the adsorption of the polystyrene microplastics on carbon microelectrodes (and to a lesser extent on platinum microelectrodes) under the same experimental conditions as above. On the other hand, the adsorbed microplastics become concentrators of other pollutants found in the environment. The sensitive differential-pulse voltammetry determination of bisphenol A (linear range 0.80–15.00 µM; detection limit 0.24 µM) was used together with a simple separation procedure for studying the adsorption of bisphenol A on polystyrene microparticles. The adsorption capacity (mg of bisphenol A retained per g of the polystyrene microplastics) decreased from approximately 5.7 to 0.8 mg g−1 with increasing dosages of polystyrene microparticles from 0.2 to 1.6 g l−1. The adsorption isotherms were modeled resulting in a monolayer of bisphenol A adsorbed on the microplastics (i.e., best fitted to a Langmuir model)

Inteligencia emocional, resiliencia y el aprendizaje eficiente en escolares adolescentes que asisten a clases virtuales en tiempos de Covid 19 de una institución educativa, 2021

El presente estudio realizado cuyo diseño de investigación es correlacional, el objetivo central fue el establecer la relación entre las variables como la (I.E) inteligencia emocional, la resiliencia y el aprendizaje eficiente en estudiantes adolescentes que asisten a clases virtuales en tiempos de covid 19 de un centro educativo, Lima 2021. Participaron en la muestra 110 estudiantes que asisten a clases virtuales quienes, de una manera voluntaria, cada uno, respondió a la aplicación de manera virtual, tres instrumentos cuyas medidas paramétricas tienen su validez y alta confiabilidad como la escala de resiliencia (Wagnild y Young, 1993), la escala de inteligencia emocional (Bar-On, 2000) y la escala de aprendizaje eficiente (Harvey y Green,1993) que poseen alta validez y confiabilidad. Se reporta entre los análisis encontrados del estudio de correlación entre las variables de se observa una correlación significativa cuando se analiza la resiliencia y el aprendizaje efectivo, según se desprende del coeficiente de correlación de Spearman, r=0.778, cuya significancia, Sig.=0.000, resultó ser inferior a 0.05; esta correlación positiva. Por el contrario, la correlación entre la I.E. y la resiliencia (r=0.115) y entre la I.E. y el aprendizaje efectivo (r=0.074), fue no significativa; en ambos casos, la significancia de la prueba, Sig.=0.232 y Sig.=0.442, fue superior a 0.05, lo que no permite establecer que dichas variables se encuentren significativamente relacionadas. Estos resultados aportan evidencias que conduzcan a aceptar dicha hipótesis de investigación