Ecclesiastical Support to the Master of Avis: An Analysis from the Aclamation Act of 1385

The death of king Fernando of Portugal in October 1383 without male heirs opened a succesion crisis. Despite the studies that have been made concerning the composition of the factions that supported the various pretenders to the throne, in special about the participation of town elites and nobility, there are still few contributions on the participation of the clergy in the conflict. This is a matter of great importance, given the religious character of the royal power in the legitimation of kings and dynasties, in particular in a period marked by the Schism of the Catholic Church. Therefore, starting from the list of signatories and witnesses of the acclamation act of João I, made in the cortes of Coimbra in 1385, our aim is to analyse the participation of the clergy in the fight for the throne, identifying the main protagonists of each party and the reasons for their positions, as well as the consequences for their later ecclesiastic and political careers

Reentrant and Whirling Hexagons in Non-Boussinesq convection

We review recent computational results for hexagon patterns in non-Boussinesq convection. For sufficiently strong dependence of the fluid parameters on the temperature we find reentrance of steady hexagons, i.e. while near onset the hexagon patterns become unstable to rolls as usually, they become again stable in the strongly nonlinear regime. If the convection apparatus is rotated about a vertical axis the transition from hexagons to rolls is replaced by a Hopf bifurcation to whirling hexagons. For weak non-Boussinesq effects they display defect chaos of the type described by the two-dimensional complex Ginzburg-Landau equation. For stronger non-Boussinesq effects the Hopf bifurcation becomes subcritical and localized bursting of the whirling amplitude is found. In this regime the coupling of the whirling amplitude to (small) deformations of the hexagon lattice becomes important. For yet stronger non-Boussinesq effects this coupling breaks up the hexagon lattice and strongly disordered states characterized by whirling and lattice defects are obtained.Comment: Accepted in European Physical Journal Special Topic

Clergy and royal service: the case of king Fernando's chancery

This study aims to analyse the participation of medieval clergy in royal administration through the example of the ecclesiastics mentioned in the documents of the chancery of king Fernando I of Portugal. For this, we shall analyse: 1) the ecclesiastics in the royal household; 2) the ecclesiastics with offices in the royal bureaucrac

Regions and Low-Wage Mobility in Portugal

This paper examines the impact of regions on low wage incidence and mobility in Portugal. In particular, we intend to examine to what extent there are significant differences between the region of Lisbon and the rest of the country. The results indicate that, everything else the same, the region is an important determinant of the probability of the individual being found into the low wage class (defined as two-thirds of the median hourly wage), even in a small country like Portugal. It is also affects the probability of leaving low-pay. In particular, equally-skilled workers working in the region of Lisbon are less-likely to be low-paid than the other workers. They are also more likely to escape from the low-pay segment. Other variables of great importance on low pay determination and mobility, and in both regions, are the level of education of the workers, gender and the size of the firm.

Convective instabilities in two superposed horizontal liquid layers heated laterally

This work is devoted to the theoretical study of the stability of two superposed horizontal liquid layers bounded by two solid planes and subjected to a horizontal temperature gradient. The liquids are supposed to be immiscible with a nondeformable interface. The forces acting on the system are buoyancy and interfacial tension. Four different flow patterns and temperature profiles are found for the basic state. A linear perturbative analysis with respect to two and three dimensional perturbations reveals the existence of three kind of patterns. Depending on the relative height of both liquids several situations are predicted: either wave propagation from cold to the hot regions, or waves propagating in the opposite direction or still stationary longitudinal rolls. The behavior of three different pairs of liquids which have been used in experiments on bilayers under vertical gradient by other authors have been examined. The instability mechanisms are discussed and a qualitative interpretation of the different behaviors exhibited by the system is provided. In some configurations it is possible to find a codimension-two point created by the interaction of two Hopf modes with different frequencies and wavenumbers. These results suggest to consider two liquid layers as an interesting prototype for the study of propagation and interaction of waves in the context of the B\'enard-Marangoni problem.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables;accepted to be published in PR

Etnomatemática e modelagem matemática: um estudo comparativo com os processos de criação de alegorias de carnaval

Neste artigo apresenta-se uma pesquisa cujos dados empíricos advieram de um criador de alegorias de carnaval – carnavalesco. Objetivou-se fazer uma análise comparativa entre o processo de criação de alegorias, modelagem matemática e etnomatemática. Modelagem Matemática é a arte na elaboração de um modelo; e etnomatemática é a arte de conhecer, explicar e entender os diversos fazeres e saberes das pessoas em seus contextos culturais. Os procedimentos metodológicos foram divididos em duas etapas: apreensão empírica e significação dos dados a luz da teoria. A apreensão, etnografia do lugar e da pessoa que cria as alegorias para um desfile de carnaval. Os dados foram coletados por meio de observações in loco, documentos, relatos gravados, fotos, vídeos e entrevista concedida pelo carnavalesco. A Significação implicou na organização, classificação e a análise desses dados comparando o processo de criação de alegorias pelo carnavalesco aos procedimentos de modelagem e ao programa etnomatemática. O resultado mostrou que o carnavalesco cria modelos de alegorias em sua mente, advindas de percepções e apreensões do entorno, que a partir da compreensão e do entendimento, transpassa em um modelo externo - conjunto de submodelos representados em desenhos, propostas e esquemas que uma vez produzidos ilustrarão o desfile de carnaval. A análise dos processos envolvidos na criação de alegorias do carnavalesco sugere que as pessoas que criam alguma coisa nas mais diversas áreas do conhecimento perpassam as mesmas etapas prescritas na modelagem sob uma perspectiva etnomatemática: a partir de uma situação-problema que espera compreender para então propor solução ou melhoria, busca perceber e apreender os dados de fontes diversas, compreender e explicar formulando um modelo, e significar e explicitar resolvendo e validando o modelo, gerando novos conhecimentos frente a novas necessidades impostas pelo meio, seja econômica, social, histórica ou cultural

Decomposition driven interface evolution for layers of binary mixtures: {II}. Influence of convective transport on linear stability

We study the linear stability with respect to lateral perturbations of free surface films of polymer mixtures on solid substrates. The study focuses on the stability properties of the stratified and homogeneous steady film states studied in Part I [U. Thiele, S. Madruga and L. Frastia, Phys. Fluids 19, 122106 (2007)]. To this aim, the linearized bulk equations and boundary equations are solved using continuation techniques for several different cases of energetic bias at the surfaces, corresponding to linear and quadratic solutal Marangoni effects. For purely diffusive transport, an increase in film thickness either exponentially decreases the lateral instability or entirely stabilizes the film. Including convective transport leads to a further destabilization as compared to the purely diffusive case. In some cases the inclusion of convective transport and the related widening of the range of available film configurations (it is then able to change its surface profile) change the stability behavior qualitatively. We furthermore present results regarding the dependence of the instability on several other parameters, namely, the Reynolds number, the Surface tension number and the ratio of the typical velocities of convective and diffusive transport.Comment: Published in Physics of Fluic

Taxonomy and Empire. Zoogeographical research on Portuguese Africa, 1862-1881

Between 1862 and 1881, the director of the Zoological Section of the Museu Nacional de Lisboa, José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, launched and consolidated a research program to study national fauna supported by the addition of new collections. The characteristic fauna of Portuguese land and seas should no longer be unknown in the rest of Europe neither misrepresented in the existing national collections. The scope of the national fauna considered metropolitan territories as well as imperial possessions and, according to Bocage, all of these geographical regions should be studied by “our own” instead of foreign naturalists and explorers. Lacking the resources of larger museums, Bocage leaned on the individual participation of collaborators both at home and distributed along the many distant outposts of the Portuguese empire. The nationalistic tone set by Bocage gradually yielded results and the work with the new collections allowed for an active new museum which in turn enabled the publication of tens of new species, with a particular emphasis on Angolan vertebrate fauna. The zoological museum and its scientific publications were seen as active participants in the political legitimation of the Portuguese presence in Africa. The descriptive taxonomic work in the Lisbon museum relied on local information, indigenous names, and specimens gathered from Portuguese colonial officials and collectors on the field. Bocage and the museum naturalists managed the collections using index cards, specimen tags, and different manuscript catalogues; and their work was published in the format of periodical articles, catalogues, and illustrated books. This dissertation considers this particular form of taxonomic and zoogeographical knowledge as a political field that substantiated the national rhetoric of appropriation and justification in the construction of the Portuguese African empir