Spanish legislation against trafficking in human beings: punitive excess and poor victims assistance

"The article seeks to provide a perspective of human trafficking as one of the fastest growing criminal activities of the last few years in the area of organised crime and one that affects human beings’ most basic rights. In the main, the response to the problem has been its criminal prosecution, but without tackling the issues of need that underlie this conduct and which the traffickers take advantage of to abuse, assail and exploit the people they traffic. In this context, the evolution of Spanish legislation in terms of the criminalisation of this problem has made it one of the most repressive, although there is no clear evidence of its effectiveness. This punishment, which covers a wide range of criminal conducts, has not however been accompanied by any policies to support and integrate the victims of trafficking, which has led to a large number of victims being subjected to slavery who, in the majority of cases, fall under the control of the trafficking networks again." [author's abstract

El debate sobre la eutanasia y la medicina actual

En el actual debate planteado en torno a la eutanasia hay cuatro cuestiones que necesitan hoy un urgente estudio. La primera consiste en la necesidad de definir inequívocamente la terminología y, con ella, los conceptos que usamos al hablar de eutanasia. La segunda se refiere a la conveniencia de seguir de cerca la conducta de los profesionales que aceptan la eutanasia como solución para ciertos problemas médico-sociales, tal como nos muestra el ejemplo holandés, y la incidencia en la medicina de esa aceptación de la eutanasia. La tercera cuestión, más de fondo, sería el análisis de las ideas que están en la base de las reclamaciones de autodeterminación de la propia muerte, la eutanasia por falta de "calidad de vida" o por la "inutilidad social" de la persona. El cuarto punto, es la regulación jurídica de los diferentes problemas o delitos de eutanasia, tal y como se ha planteado en Holanda o en algunos estados de USA de modo explícito, o de modo velado en el proyecto de Código Penal español

El niño vampiro y el cazador

Si bien el vampiro es, tal vez, el más célebre en la galería de monstruos que cobrarán fama sobre todo a partir de la conocida serie de películas de la casa Universal Pictures, es indudable que su conocida efigie le ha llevado a un punto de sobreexposición que parece desembocar en una cada vez mayor carencia imaginativa. Pero ello no significa que se trate de una figura ya acabada e imposible de revitalizar, prueba de ello son el cuento breve «Bebe mi sangre» y la novela Soy leyenda de Richard Matheson, en las cuales el autor norteamericano ofrece una muy original visión de esta clase de monstruos a través de dos figuras centrales: el monstruo niño y el cazador. A partir del elemento común en ambos, la soledad, y de muchas cualidades distintivas, Matheson demuestra que el monstruo es, aún, la gran metáfora acerca del Otro.It is true that the vampire is, perhaps, the most famous monster among those who won a definitive place in contemporary fiction after the release of Universal Pictures monster films. But, it is also true that this popularity has carried an overexposure of the vampire character that has led to an increasing creative crisis in recent works of literature, film and other media. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that vampires (o monsters in general) have come to an end and cannot be revitalised. Proofs of this are «Drink my red blood» and the novel I Am Legend, both by Richard Matheson. In them the author offers an original vision of the vampire character by means of the protagonists: the vampire-child and the vampire hunter. Through the solitude of both characters and their particular features, Matheson shows that monsters are still a powerful metaphor about the Other

Hierarchical clustered register file organization for VLIW processors

Technology projections indicate that wire delays will become one of the biggest constraints in future microprocessor designs. To avoid long wire delays and therefore long cycle times, processor cores must be partitioned into components so that most of the communication is done locally. In this paper, we propose a novel register file organization for VLIW cores that combines clustering with a hierarchical register file organization. Functional units are organized in clusters, each one with a local first level register file. The local register files are connected to a global second level register file, which provides access to memory. All intercluster communications are done through the second level register file. This paper also proposes MIRS-HC, a novel modulo scheduling technique that simultaneously performs instruction scheduling, cluster selection, inserts communication operations, performs register allocation and spill insertion for the proposed organization. The results show that although more cycles are required to execute applications, the execution time is reduced due to a shorter cycle time. In addition, the combination of clustering and hierarchy provides a larger design exploration space that trades-off performance and technology requirements.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Modulo scheduling with integrated register spilling for clustered VLIW architectures

Clustering is a technique to decentralize the design of future wide issue VLIW cores and enable them to meet the technology constraints in terms of cycle time, area and power dissipation. In a clustered design, registers and functional units are grouped in clusters so that new instructions are needed to move data between them. New aggressive instruction scheduling techniques are required to minimize the negative effect of resource clustering and delays in moving data around. In this paper we present a novel software pipelining technique that performs instruction scheduling with reduced register requirements, register allocation, register spilling and inter-cluster communication in a single step. The algorithm uses limited backtracking to reconsider previously taken decisions. This backtracking provides the algorithm with additional possibilities for obtaining high throughput schedules with low spill code requirements for clustered architectures. We show that the proposed approach outperforms previously proposed techniques and that it is very scalable independently of the number of clusters, the number of communication buses and communication latency. The paper also includes an exploration of some parameters in the design of future clustered VLIW cores.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Poster Abstract: Practical issues in image acquisition and transmission over wireless sensor network

Multimedia data have become an important objective in wireless sensor networks. Due to the node resource constraints (energy consumption, memory capacity, network latency and throughput) the incorporation of image sensor at the nodes is currently a challenge. In this paper, we study different node architectures, evaluating processing time, energy consumption, image quality and data delivery issues. The study shows that a specialized image co-processor is an optimal solutionJUnta de Andalucía P07-TIC-0247

Locating sensors with fuzzy logic algorithms

In a system formed by hundreds of sensors deployed in a huge area it is important to know the position where every sensor is. This information can be obtained using several methods. However, if the number of sensors is high and the deployment is based on ad-hoc manner, some auto-locating techniques must be implemented. In this paper we describe a novel algorithm based on fuzzy logic with the objective of estimating the location of sensors according to the knowledge of the position of some reference nodes. This algorithm, called LIS (Localization based on Intelligent Sensors) is executed distributively along a wireless sensor network formed by hundreds of nodes, covering a huge area. The evaluation of LIS is led by simulation tests. The result obtained shows that LIS is a promising method that can easily solve the problem of knowing where the sensors are located.Junta de Andalucía P07-TIC-0247