Antecedents and Development of the Contemporary Romance Novel in English: A Study of the Contribution to the Genre by Rosamunde Pilcher and Lisa Kleypas

Inspired by the premises and the methodologies of cultural studies and feminist literary criticism, this dissertation undertakes a diachronic analysis of the romance novel genre, with the aim of illustrating that enjoying (mass‐market) romantic narratives does not impede a sincere engagement with the feminist agenda of gender equality. To accomplish this objective, this investigation looks at the close relationship of the romance novel with feminist theory and activism, and exposes the (academic) bias that denies romance novels aesthetic value or politically progressive content. In addition, the present work studies a handful of selected works by two well‐known romance writers of our time, the British Rosamunde Pilcher and the American Lisa Kleypas, in order to asssess their respective contributions to the formal and thematic development of the genre

Estudio del comportamiento de secciones mixtas de hormigón-mortero de reparación bajo solicitaciones normales.

Cada día son más frecuentes en la edificación las situaciones en que resulta necesario intervenir sobre una estructura existente. El hormigón ha demostrado tener prestaciones mecánicas muy amplias y una durabilidad adecuada para los usos a los que se destina. La durabilidad se puede ver afectada ya que el hormigón es permeable a líquidos y gases. Un problema habitual en nuestro entorno geográfico, y en general en las zonas costeras, es el deterioro prematuro que presentan las estructuras de hormigón armado debido principalmente a la corrosión de las armaduras, ya sea por carbonatación del hormigón o, sobre todo, por penetración de cloruros. En este trabajo se han sometido a compresión probetas mixtas de hormigón y morteros tradicionales o de reparación variando las proporciones de mortero. Los ensayos se han realizado colocando los materiales en serie y en paralelo. En trabajos previos se han ensayado a flexión hasta rotura 4 vigas de hormigón armadas con distintas cuantías y distintos tipos de acero. Las 4 vigas se han reparado con dos materiales distintos: un mortero de cemento tradicional y un mortero de reparación de base orgánica. De nuevo las vigas se han ensayado hasta rotura mediante ensayos de flexión controlando la carrera. Los resultados de los ensayos muestran que las vigas reparadas son capaces de alcanzar las cargas de rotura de las vigas iniciales, e incluso mayores. Además, la ductilidad de las vigas reparadas con mortero de reparación es superior a la de las vigas reparadas con mortero de cemento y a la de las vigas en su estado inicial. Las fisuras que aparecen tras el ensayo a flexión son un 80% superiores a las originales tanto en las vigas armadas inicialmente con 2 Ø 18 como en las del 16. Por lo que respecta a las probetas, los resultados muestran que las de hormigón y mortero de cemento no llegan a alcanzar las cargas del mortero o del hormigón y sin embargo son más dúctiles. Las probetas con hormigón y mortero de reparación son generalmente más dúctiles que las de hormigón o mortero de reparación y alcanzan cargas de rotura que se encuentran entre las del hormigón y el mortero de reparación. Estos resultados permiten identificar que las probetas de mortero de reparación alcanzan un 23% más de resistencia que las de mortero de cemento Portland

Antecedentes del compromiso afectivo de los empleados de pymes intensivas en conocimiento

ResumenEste estudio analiza el vínculo entre las autoevaluaciones básicas (AEB), la importancia de la tarea y el compromiso afectivo (CA). El modelo fue contrastado en una muestra de empleados de pymes intensivas en conocimiento en España. Los resultados apoyan un modelo de mediación parcial en el que las AEB influyen en el CA de los empleados, tanto de manera directa como indirecta, al propiciar la percepción de importancia de la tarea.AbstractThis study analyzes relationships between core self-evaluations (CSE), task significance and affective commitment (AC). The model was tested on a sample of employees from knowledge-intensive SMEs in Spain. Results provide support for a partially mediated model whereby CSE influence employees’ AC, both directly as indirectly, by fostering perceptions of task significance

Lattice-Based Analog Mappings for Low-Latency Wireless Sensor Networks

© 2023 IEEE. This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. The Version of Record is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1109/JIOT.2023.3273194.[Abstract]: We consider the transmission of spatially correlated analog information in a wireless sensor network (WSN) through fading single-input and multiple-output (SIMO) multiple access channels (MACs) with low-latency requirements. A lattice-based analog joint source-channel coding (JSCC) approach is considered where vectors of consecutive source symbols are encoded at each sensor using an n -dimensional lattice and then transmitted to a multiantenna central node. We derive a minimum mean square error (MMSE) decoder that accounts for both the multidimensional structure of the encoding lattices and the spatial correlation. In addition, a sphere decoder is considered to simplify the required searches over the multidimensional lattices. Different lattice-based mappings are approached and the impact of their size and density on performance and latency is analyzed. Results show that, while meeting low-latency constraints, lattice-based analog JSCC provides performance gains and higher reliability with respect to the state-of-the-art JSCC schemes.This work was supported in part by the Xunta de Galicia under Grant ED431C 2020/15, and in part by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR under Grant PID2019-104958RB-C42 (ADELE), Grant TED2021-130240B-I00 (IVRY), and Grant BES-2017-081955. CITIC is funded by Xunta de Galicia through the collaboration agreement between the Consellería de Cultura, Educación, Formación Profesional e Universidades, and the Galician universities for the strengthening of the research centers of the Galician University System (CIGUS).Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 2020/1

Un nuevo método para analizar y representar las variaciones de temperatura del suelo en ambientes fríos. Los Andes Fueguinos, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

The thermal response of soils in cold environments has been investigated in numerous studies. The data considered here were obtained in a study carried out in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, as part of the IV International Polar Year. Temperature sensors were installed at ground level (0) and depths of -10, -20 and -60 cm in the study area, with the aim of characterizing the thermal response by detecting diurnal and annual variations. The study has two main aims. The first is to present and discuss the study findings regarding the thermal response of a soil in a sub-Antarctic environment by using classical descriptive analysis. The second, closely related, aim is to apply some novel statistical tools that would help improve this description. The study of freeze-thaw patterns can be approached from a non-parametric perspective, while taking into account the cyclical nature of the data. Data are considered cyclical when they can be represented on a unit circle, as with the hours in which certain events occur throughout a day (e.g. freezing and thawing). Analysis of this type of data is very different from the analysis of scalar data, as regards both descriptive and graphical measures. The application in this study of methods used to represent and analyse cyclical data improved visualization of the data and interpretation of the analytical findings. The main contribution of the present study is the use of estimators of the nuclear type density and derived techniques, such as the CircSiZer map, which enabled identification of significant freeze-thaw patterns. In addition, the relationships between the temperature recordings at different points were analysed using Taylor diagramsLos resultados de las investigaciones sobre la respuesta térmica del suelo en ambientes fríos han sido recogidos en un gran número de artículos. Las muestras de datos consideradas en este trabajo pertenecen también a un ambiente frío y se han obtenido de una investigación realizada en Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, bajo los auspicios del Año Polar Internacional. Con el fin de caracterizar la respuesta térmica, se instalaron diferentes sensores de temperatura a 0, -10, -20 y -60 cm de profundidad, permitiendo la detección de variaciones anuales y diarias. Este trabajo persigue un doble objetivo. Por un lado, la presentación de resultados y discusión sobre los mismos en relación al comportamiento térmico del suelo en un ambiente subantártico. Por otro lado, y apoyando al objetivo anterior, se introducen algunas herramientas estadísticas novedosas en este contexto, si bien el estudio se acompaña de análisis descriptivos clásicos. El estudio de patrones de congelación y descongelación puede enfocarse desde una perspectiva no paramétrica, a la vez que se tiene en cuenta la naturaleza circular (cíclica) de los datos. Una muestra de datos se considera circular cuando puede representarse sobre un círculo de radio unidad. Esto ocurre, por ejemplo, con las horas en las que suceden determinados eventos a lo largo de un día (por ejemplo, congelaciones y descongelaciones). El análisis de este tipo de datos es radicalmente distinto del que se realiza sobre datos escalares, tanto en lo que se refiere a medidas descriptivas como a métodos gráficos. El uso de representaciones y herramientas propias del análisis de datos circulares realizado en este trabajo permite una mejor visualización de los datos y de los resultados de su análisis. Como principal aportación, cabe destacar el uso de estimadores de la densidad tipo núcleo y técnicas derivadas, como el mapa CircSiZer, que identifica patrones significativos de congelación/descongelación. Además, el análisis de las relaciones entre registros de temperaturas en distintos puntos se presenta a través del uso de Diagramas de TaylorThis research was funded by the Ministry of Education and Science (Spain) projects (POL2006-09071) as a contribution to the fourth International Polar Year. Research by M. Oliveira, R.M. Crujeiras and A. Rodríguez was partially supported by grants MTM2013-41383P and MTM2016-76929P awarded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and AEI/FEDER, SpainS

Polyhydroxyalkanoates production from methane emissions in Sphagnum mosses: Assessing the effect of temperature and phosphorus limitation

Producción CientíficaThe isolation of highly efficient methanotrophic communities is crucial for the optimization of methane bioconversion into products with a high market value such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). The research here presented aimed at enriching a methanotrophic consortium from two different inocula (Sphagnum peat moss (Sp) and Sphagnum and activated sludge (M)) able to accumulate PHA while efficiently oxidizing CH4. Moreover, the effect of the temperature and phosphorus limitation on the biodegradation rate of CH4 and the PHA accumulation potential was investigated. Higher CH4 degradation rates were obtained under P availability at increasing temperature (25, 30 and 37 °C). The biomass enriched from the mixed inoculum always exhibited a superior biodegradation performance regardless of the temperature (a maximum value of 84.3 ± 8.4 mg CH4 h−1 g biomass−1 was recorded at 37 °C). The results of the PHB production showed that phosphorus limitation is required to promote PHB accumulation, the highest PHB content being observed with the Sphagnum inoculum at 25 °C (13.6 ± 5.6%). The differential specialization of the microbial communities depending on the enrichment temperature supported the key role of this parameter on the results obtained. In all cases after the completion of the enrichment process and of the P limitation tests, Methylocystis, a type II methanotroph known for its ability to accumulate PHA, was the genus that became dominant (reaching percentages from 16 to 46% depending on the enrichment temperature). Thus, the results here obtained demonstrated for the first time the relevance of the temperature used for the enrichment of the methanotrophic bacteria to boost PHA production yields under P limiting condition, highlighting the importance of optimizing culture conditions to improve the cost-efficiency of bioprocesses based on using methane as the primary feedstock for the PHA industrial market.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad - FEDER (Project CTM2015-73228-JIN)Junta de Castilla y León (programa de apoyo a proyectos de investigación - Ref. UIC 71 and CLU 2017-09

From LMX to Individual Creativity: Interactive Effect of Engagement and Job Complexity

This study explores how the quality of leader–member exchange (LMX) is associated with employees’ creativity via engagement, and the moderating role of a job characteristic related to knowledge (job complexity) in this relationship. A moderated mediation model was tested on a sample of 320 employees from emergent high-tech and knowledge-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Spain. The results supported an indirect influence of LMX on individual creativity through engagement. Additionally, this study found that job complexity accentuated the impact of engagement on creativity. More importantly, the findings confirmed that the intensity of the LMX–engagement–creativity relationship was moderated by job complexity. That is, the relationship was stronger when job complexity was high. Taken together, this study improves the understanding of the factors that contribute to increased employee creativity, an important outcome for high-tech and knowledge-based SMEsS

Evaluation of the effectiveness of the surveillance system for tuberculosis in cattle in Spain

In Spain, the eradication of tuberculosis (TB) in cattle has had some setbacks and therefore we need to re-evaluate the current surveillance strategies. The Spanish cattle TB surveillance system consists of three components: a) routine skin testing, b) slaughterhouse surveillance, and c) pre-movement controls. Our objectives were to assess the effectiveness of the whole surveillance system and evaluate the relative contribution of each of those components, both at national and at the province level. The effectiveness was estimated based on both the sensitivity of detection per year and the time until detection. Moreover, we evaluated the impact of different factors on that effectiveness. We used a stochastic model that simulated the spread of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-complex (MTC) infection within cattle herds that was modified to incorporate the three components of TB surveillance. Input data, at the province level, on cattle movements off-farm or the frequency of the routine screening were provided by the Spanish Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Under the current conditions, 96.1% of Spanish herds were detected within one year after their infection (i.e. mean sensitivity of TB surveillance), although that detection took on average 178 days. The surveillance system effectiveness was highly dependent on the routine skin testing, responsible for the detection of almost 90% of the infected herds, while slaughterhouse surveillance and pre-movement controls contributed only to the identification of a small proportion of infected herds. We observed substantial differences in the effectiveness of the surveillance components among Spanish provinces, although in general, the sensitivities were high. The most influential factor on the efficiency of TB detection in Spain was, by far, the frequency of routine controls, followed by the sensitivity of the test used. In a context of reduced funding for cattle TB eradication, the frequency of testing should be adapted based on risk-based surveillance strategies, i.e. efforts should focus on herds more likely to be infected, but also in herds more likely to infect other herds. While slaughterhouse surveillance seems a cost-effective strategy, the use of pre-movement testing at least in areas of low incidence should be further evaluated.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dirección de los recursos humanos estratégicos

Texto dispoñible en galego e españolA medida que a globalización e as demandas asociadas de cambio continuo fan da innovación, da anticipación e da eficiencia factores esenciais, a importancia estratéxica do capital humano incrementouse de forma substancial. Aínda que os recursos humanos poden constituír un activo estratéxico, esta condición suscita diversos problemas de dirección que, de non ser tratados adecuadamente, poden mingua-la súa contribución á creación de valor. O obxectivo deste traballo é analizar eses dilemas así como expoñer diversas intervencións que poden contribuír a corrixilosAs globalization and the associated demands for continuous change make innovation, anticipation and efficiency essential features, the strategic importance of human capital has increased substantially. Although human resources can be considered as a strategic asset, this condition pose several management problems that, if not handled adequately, can decrease their contribution to the value creation process. The aim of this paper is to analyze these dilemmas and several interventions to overcome themA medida que la globalización y las demandas asociadas de cambio continuo hacen de la innovación, de la anticipación y de la eficiencia factores esenciales, la importancia estratégica del capital humano se ha incrementado de forma substancial. Aunque los recursos humanos pueden constituir un activo estratégico, esta condición suscita diversos problemas de dirección que, de no ser tratados adecuadamente, pueden mermar su contribución a la creación de valor. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar dichos dilemas así como exponer diversas intervenciones que pueden contribuir a subsanarlosS

Formal conceptualisation as a basic for a more procedural knowledge management

Knowledge management at an organisational level can only be brought into practice if a corporate memory is defined. Unfortunately, at this moment there is no complete and procedural specification on how to build it. This paper presents a complete and generic knowledge representation scheme that makes it possible to conceptualise/represent the knowledge of any domain in a systematic way, guiding the definition of a corporate memory and allowing us to reach a more procedural level in knowledge management discipline. The conclusions of our study, which follows the generic and formal definition of any conceptualisation, are illustrated by a real project