Los castillos en el reino de Córdoba: revisión historiográfica y perspectivas actuales

After a historiographical survey of the most relevant authors who have dealt with fortifications in the Late Medieval Kingdom of Cordoba ( Spain ), we have tried to establish an evolution in the different ways of approaching the study of this particular buildings. At the same time, we analyse the various opportunities for ressearching that have come out, both from restoration projects carried out on architectural heritage and from the main methodology advances and new approaches wich have been developed in recent years.A partir de la revisión de los títulos y autores más representativos que han tratado el tema de las fortificaciones medievales cordobesas, nuestra intención es marcar una evolución de los diferentes planteamientos en su estudio, desde sus orígenes hasta llegar al estado actual de la cuestión. Igualmente, esbozaremos las múltiples posibilidades que se abren en esta investigación, ya sea a raíz de las intervenciones arquitectónicas sobre el patrimonio monumental, ya de las principales innovaciones metodológicas y nuevos enfoques aplicados en los últimos años

Morning-After Decisions: Legal Mobilization Against Emergency Contraception in Chile

In Chile, the Criminal Code bans all forms of abortion. Furthermore, the Constitution—drafted and enacted by the Military Junta led by General Augusto Pinochet—was inspired by a conservative version of Catholic natural law championed by prominent Chilean constitutional law scholars. This Article traces the emergence, development, and ultimately the defeat of a persistent legal mobilization driven by natural law-inspired litigants, politicians, and scholars against levonorgestrel-based emergency contraception, also known as the morning-after pill. In their decade-long efforts at legal mobilization, these natural law litigants used every tool of the Chilean legal system to challenge the legality and the constitutionality of the morning-after pill. This case of legal mobilization demonstrates both the strengths and the weaknesses of conservative political and religious networks in Latin America, and it demonstrates both the potential and limitations of litigation-led policymaking in civil law countries

The Alcázar of Córdoba: the seat of Islamic power in Al-Andalus

The palace of the Umayyad dynasty, built in the south-western corner of the medina of Córdoba after the Islamic conquest of the city, has been a building recurrently mentioned in Arabian chronicle sources. Thanks to these written references, we know of its location, its approximate size, the name of its gates, some of the pavilions that form it, and many of the transcendental events that occurred there or behind its walls. However, the material information of this architectural complex is still relatively unknown, unlike the case of another great Umayyad building, the Congregational Mosque to which it was attached, which underwent successive well-known expansions. While the Islamic oratory has preserved a good part of its architectural integrity, with the exception of the construction of the cathedral in the 16th century, the palace complex was broken down and separated into pieces that were assigned by the Castilian monarchs to the conquest’s collaborators (cfr. Escobar Camacho 1989, pp. 127–28; Escobar Camacho 2020, p. 389 ss.), so that the unity of this extensive area was separated into many properties that have undergone an uneven urban evolution, the result being the loss of the complex’s image. This lack of a more evident materiality explains its scarce prominence in publications on Umayyad art and architecture. Another factor to bear in mind is the fact that the urban nature of the area where the Al-Andalus Alcázar is located has undergone far fewer changes than other areas of the city, in which property speculation and building renewal have together led to the completion of various archaeological interventions (Figure 1). The ownership of the Church of an important part of the space occupied by the Alcázar, with buildings identified as having high heritage value (The Episcopal Palace, Seminary of Saint Pelagius, Hospital of Saint Sebastian, etc.), and the transformation of the centre of the palace complex into a large public square (Plaza Campo Santo de los Mártires) have reduced the possibilities of performing preventive archaeological activities until recently. The only exceptions up to the end of the 20th were the discovery and conversion into a museum of the so-called “caliphal baths” in 1903 and in the 1960s, and the activities in the “Bishop’s Gardens” at the beginning of the 1970s (vid. Infra). In addition to the above, other factors have conditioned research on the Al-Andalus architectural complex: on the one hand, the difficulty in identifying material evidence recovered from this space, and on the other, the approach by studies in the framework of a philological tradition that has defined decades of work on the Al-Andalus Umayyad capital (cfr. León-Muñoz 2022, p. 26). This trend has entailed a certain burden for the research, which has restricted the possibilities of archaeological analysis, subject to the documentary information. Fortunately, in recent years, various archaeological interventions integrated in heritage recovery projects in the south-western sector of the city have provided substantial information regarding the architectural origin and evolution of the Alcázar and have allowed for the approach of a new reading of the space occupied by the seat of Al-Andalus power in Córdoba. It is increasingly evident that the way of looking influences our view of things. Accordingly, the change of paradigm and the observation from the optics of archaeology are transforming the means of conceiving this extensive architectural complex towards a mainly material reading with a diachronic suggestion

Effect of a HIIT program performed in different simulated altitude conditions on physiological variables related with strenght and endurance

The objective of the study is to investigate the potential impact of cycling High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) at sea level or simulated altitude has on Aerobic fitness level, blood lactate accumulation and strength, of the lower limbs of untrained individuals to improve performance and develop a method of training. The study was randomly divided into 2 groups (hypoxia/sea level) and for 4 weeks, training was performed twice a week for the duration of the sessions lasted no more than 30 minutes. The training itself consisted of cycling HIIT, working at 85-90% of maximum heart rate during 1-minute sprint intervals, followed by 1- minute rest periods. For the group that exercised at altitude the oxygen saturation was set at approximately 16%. During the first week there were four 1-minute sprints and after each first week the sprints will increase by two repetitions each week. Results show after training program significant increases in maximum oxygen volume (VO2max) (p < 0,001), haemoglobin concentration (p = 0,004), resting heart rate (p < 0,001), lactate threshold in Watt (W) (p < 0,001), Systolic blood pressure (SBP) (p = 0,007), in the moment pre-post in favour post. There were no significant differences between the increases in any of the performance parameters mentioned between groups (p > 0,05). In addition, neither one repetition maximum (1RM) nor diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were significantly changed in the effect moment or group (p>0,05). These data suggest the time expended under normobaric hypoxia conditions is insufficient to improve aerobic and anaerobic capacity at sea level in untrained subjects. Therefore, if there is any advantage in intermittent hypoxia training to improve performance at sea level, it would not appear with a short exposure protocol as in the present study.Ciencias de la Actividad Física y del Deport

Democracia y autoritarismo en la escuela venezolana. Un acercamiento etnográfico

Este texto se presentó como comunicación al II Congreso Internacional de Etnografía y Educación: Migraciones y ciudadanías. Barcelona, 5-8 Septiembre 2008.La conflictividad política vivida en Venezuela en la última década ha invadido el espacio escolar, alimentando una creciente división social; de ahí que la investigación que se presenta a continuación surgió de la preocupación por rescatar la dimensión de lo político dentro de la propuesta formativa que la escuela ofrece a las nuevas generaciones de venezolanos. Con este motivo, se decidió abordar la vida cotidiana de las escuelas, una oficial y otra privada, desde la metodología etnográfica, entendiendo que ella permitiría asumir la ambigüedad y la sensibilidad de un tema proclive a la visceralidad, vivido en un ambiente poco tolerante al diálogo. En una primera etapa, desde la vida cotidiana de las escuelas comenzó a surgir una realidad con claves de lectura propias que se constituyó en caldo de cultivo para iniciar un proceso de identificación de categorías de análisis. Esta experiencia se fue enriqueciendo paulatinamente con la reflexión en torno a la comprensión política de la Pedagogía. Con este fin, la propuesta epistemológica de Zemelman -en torno al presente potencial para la lectura de lo político- permitió identificar tres niveles de análisis: los sujetos sociales, las prácticas educativas y los proyectos sociopolíticos que dieron consistencia al conjunto de categorías que surgieron de la vida cotidiana de las escuelas para interpretar la realidad de las mismas desde la perspectiva democrática y autoritaria. La escuela privada observada se comprende como una institución controlada al detalle, imposibilitada para el diálogo, en donde la centralidad del maestro y el cumplimiento del alumno crean un espacio seguro, protegido y aislado del entorno; la democracia se concibe como una utopía inalcanzable y el autoritarismo como una imposición necesaria para alcanzar las metas. Por su parte, la escuela oficial se comprende como una institución sin direccionalidad, ambigua en su oferta educativa, con una evidente ausencia de procesos viables de educación; los sujetos asocian la democracia con la irresponsabilidad y perciben al autoritarismo como necesario para controlar el desorden. Al hacer un diagnóstico del potencial democrático de ambas escuelas, se llega a la conclusión que la escuela privada, al mantenerse impermeable ante la realidad, podría constituirse en un espacio propicio para la preparación de generaciones descomprometidas con el país, incapaces para comprender la complejidad de los procesos sociales; mientras, la escuela oficial, de continuar funcionando a la deriva seguirá alimentando la convicción de sus alumnos por preferir soluciones autoritarias que transformen su realidad

Puntos de corte para el acoso psicológico en el trabajo: el cuestionario breve de actos negativos (S-NAQ) en español

Antecedentes: el acoso psicológico en el trabajo es un estresor laboral severo de origen social. Sin embargo, en el contexto español, hay escasez de medidas que nos permitan diagnosticar de forma fiable si una persona está siendo objeto de acoso. Método: se informa de las propiedades psicométricas, la estructura factorial y los puntos de corte del Cuestionario Breve de Actos Negativos (S-NAQ) en una muestra española (N = 1.409). Resultados: el S-NAQ presenta unas buenas propiedades psicométricas. Los análisis factoriales exploratorios y confirmatorios revelan que la escala tiene una única dimensión. Los datos de las curvas ROC indican dos puntos de corte que nos permiten categorizar a las personas como “no expuestas a conductas de acoso” (puntuaciones menores de 15), “en riesgo de ser acosadas” (puntuaciones entre 15 y 22), o “víctimas de acoso” (puntuaciones mayores de 22). Conclusiones: estos puntos de corte pueden facilitar el diagnóstico de acoso y servir para diseñar intervenciones según cada categoría.Background: Workplace bullying is considered a major social stressor at work. However, in the Spanish context, there is a lack of measures that allow researchers and practitioners to distinguish between non-targets and targets of workplace bullying. Method: This study reports the psychometric properties, factor structure, and cutoff scores for the Short-Negative Acts Questionnaire (S-NAQ) in a Spanish sample (N = 1,409). Results: The S-NAQ demonstrated adequate psychometric properties. Moreover, both Exploratory and Confi rmatory Factor Analysis revealed that a unifactorial model of workplace bullying fi t the data best. Two cutoff points for the S-NAQ were formulated using receiver operating characteristic curves to categorize respondents as “not exposed to workplace bullying” (scores below 15), “at risk of being bullied” (scores between 15 and 22), and “targets of workplace bullying” (scores above 22). Conclusions: These cutoff scores may help researchers and practitioners in diagnosing workplace bullying and designing intervention strategies.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PSI2017-83465-