Connected and disconnected: ICTs, peacebuilding and aesthetic practices of peripheral communities in Colombia

This thesis analyzes how Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have been introduced in rural regions of Colombia for peacebuilding purposes and strengthening democracy, and how these have had an impact on the aesthetic practices of local communities. This research discusses theories about the relationship between technology and society, and it provides a critical perspective from the idea that technology solves social problems. Case studies of ICTs projects from the Soviet Union, Estonia, France, Finland, Chile and Paraguay are introduced and examined, to give an account of how similar processes took place in different contexts. Two case studies from Colombia are analyzed (Vive Digital and Linternet), and suggestions that can improve future projects are shared.Master's Thesis in Digital CultureMAHF-DIKULDIKULT35

Uncertainty in electric bus mass and its influence in energy consumption

Throughout recent years, a public awareness of climate change and a social trend for preserving the environment have emerged. Transport sector is the principal contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, consequently electric buses are a great opportunity to reduce these emissions and fossil fuel dependence. To increase the competitiveness of electric buses, batteries with an accurate size are needed in order to optimize the charging infrastructure and reduce the total costs. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse the influence of certain parameters on electrical consumption. This thesis evaluates the impact of passenger loads on the electrical consumption of an electric city bus and provides a reliable energy consumption forecast. An electrical consumption sensitivity analysis was created with the number of passengers in the bus as uncertainty. This uncertainty is stochastically modelled for each stop in the bus route based on actual data and it is evaluated with the Monte Carlo method. In addition, the uncertainty in the number of stops is also considered. An algorithm for passenger load calculation was created in Matlab, based on driving cycles generated randomly (with a random number of stops and different speed profiles). Passenger data for each bus stop were represented by a normal probability distribution and they were related to each other using a multivariate normal distribution. These are the uncertain inputs of the model, as well as the number of stops which was modelled previously by another normal distribution. A validated electric bus model created in Simulink was simulated by means of the Monte Carlo sampling method, varying in each iteration the driving cycle and passenger flow introduced. The results obtained for a particular bus route, described as a probability distribution, define an electrical consumption with an average of 0.549 kWh/km. It is also possible to assure with an 80% of probability that the electrical consumption in this route will be between 0.485 kWh/km and 0.613 kWh/km. These results represent an electrical consumption forecast for the route, including all the possible outcomes taking into account the uncertainties of the model. Moreover, the analysis of the results indicates that the passenger load has a clear influence on the bus electrical consumption that increases with the number of passengers. In addition, the results show a clear influence of driving cycle average speed and number of stops on the consumption. Electrical consumption increases as the number of stops increases and as the average speed decreases. The results also confirm that Monte Carlo method provides an efficient tool for estimating the consumption of an electric city bus since it enables to obtain results for the different possible scenarios and cover all the variations

A Second Chance on Earth: Understanding the Selection Process of the Judges of the Colombian Special Jurisdiction for Peace

For over fifty years, Colombia has faced a bloody and cruel civil conflict. Some of the most conservative studies have estimated that the total death toll of the war may be 220,000. The weight of this number heavily lies on the civilian population. It is estimated that around 81% of those killed in the conflict are non-combatant civilians. This represents, according to the data collected by the government’s Center for National Memory, around 180,000 civilian victims. In other words, as a civilian, the probability of being a victim in the Colombian conflict was nine times higher than a military or a guerrilla member. To put this in context, according to the United Nations, the global annual murder rate for 2012, the year the peace negotiation between the government and the FARC started, was 6.2 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. For that same year, the average in Colombia was 31.3 murder per 100,000 inhabitants. After four years of negotiations, on August 24, 2016, the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the guerrilla group FARC to end the fifty-year civil conflict. This ongoing accord has been the most successful peace attempt to date. Proof of this is that the agreement is currently being implemented by the parties, although not without some difficulties. A central part of the agreement conceived a System of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-Repetition. Under this system, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) was established as the cornerstone of the transitional justice system. This Jurisdiction for Peace, based on the terms of the agreement, is conceived as the institution that will exercise judicial functions, fulfilling the duty of the Colombian state to investigate, prosecute, and punish crimes committed in the context of and due to the armed conflict, particularly the most serious and significant crimes. The SJP provides an opportunity to look into a revolutionary proposal to form Transitional Justice tribunals. As it will be explained in this Article, the peace agreement conceived a unique and untested way to appoint the judges of the SJP. Conventionally, the way of appointing judges for this type of institution has been a top-down approach. In the past, the selection of justices has been from the rank and file of victors in war (like in the case of the International Military Tribunals created in Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II), through the United Nations Security Council (for the case of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda), or by International Bodies comprised only by states (like the case of the Assembly of State Parties of the Rome Statute regarding the International Criminal Court). In contrast, for the first time, the selection process of the judges of the SJP was conducted by an independent committee appointed by third parties designated by the Colombian government and the FARC. Also, unlike the vast majority of transitional justice institutions, only Colombian lawyers were appointed to the new Tribunal and the process of selection was run completely through an online platform that was open to public comments regarding the candidates’ qualifications and proficiency. Additionally, the peace agreement included clear formal criteria—related specially to affirmative actions in favor of minorities—that served as the guidelines for the selection process of the justices. Understanding the way those in charge of appointing the judges of the SJP translated this abstract formal criterion into reality not only allows us to grasp the impact of this new experiment on transitional justice but also helps to answer a broader question about judicial independence in transitional scenarios. Courts are institutions run by human beings, so they are subject to all kinds of subjective influences. Because of this, judicial independence is not directly observable. That is why empirical studies must rely on certain proxies to evaluate independence. One of the more common and reliable proxies is the appointment process, because in these scenarios the profile of a particular court is molded. The filters applied in this process are key elements for determining the kind of institution the Special Jurisdiction for Peace is destined to be. This Article traces the trials and tribulations surrounding the selection process for the SJP. In the heat of the current political debates around the implementation of the peace agreement, it is important to understand the origins of the institution that has the extraordinary challenge of closing, in a judicial sense at least, this chapter of violence in Colombia’s history

"El Libro de los jurados de Sevilla" of 1517: material Strategies in the Construction of an Institutional Memory

El cartulario conocido como El Libro de los jurados de Sevilla, realizado en 1517, ejemplifica la puesta en marcha de un conjunto de estrategias formales dispuestas por estos oficiales sevillanos para conseguir un doble objetivo, salvaguardar sus privilegios y franquezas, al tiempo que construir su memoria institucional. Los elementos materiales empleados por sus artífices y la cualificación de estos últimos muestran hasta qué punto dependió de ellos la adecuada concreción de las funciones a desempeñar.Compiled in 1517, the cartulary known as El Libro de los jurados de Sevilla provides an example of a set of formal strategies deployed by those Sevillian urban officers in order to achieve a double aim: in the first place, the safeguard of their own privileges and liberties; and secondly, the building of an institutional memory. This article analyses the very making of the cartulary in order to show to what extent the achievement of these goals depended on the material strategies developed

Más documentos notariales de Sevilla de la primera mitad del siglo XIV

The restoration of the city from Seville to the current of Latin civilization produced, from the first moment, an abundant documentary production. In the present work five documents are contributed (two sales, a chaplaincy dowry, a ratification of a donation pro animates and a testament), product of the professional activity of the Sevillian notaries, whose external and internal form, characters and content are a faithful reflection of the documentary products that were made and validated in the different public stores from escribanías that was in the city in first half of century XIV

El Libro de los Jurados de Sevilla de 1517: estrategias materiales en la construcción de una memoria institucional

El cartulario conocido como El Libro de los jurados de Sevilla, realizado en 1517, ejemplifica la puesta en marcha de un conjunto de estrategias formales dispuestas por estos oficiales sevillanos para conseguir un doble objetivo, salvaguardar sus privilegios y franquezas, al tiempo que construir su memoria institucional. Los elementos materiales empleados por sus artífices y la cualificación de estos últimos muestran hasta qué punto dependió de ellos la adecuada concreción de las funciones a desempeñar.Compiled in 1517, the cartulary known as El Libro de los jurados de Sevilla provides an example of a set of formal strategies deployed by those Sevillian urban officers in order to achieve a double aim: in the first place, the safeguard of their own privileges and liberties; and secondly, the building of an institutional memory. This article analyses the very making of the cartulary in order to show to what extent the achievement of these goals depended on the material strategies developed

Una protobioética en la España del Siglo XVIII: el caso del padre Feijoo y sus escritos médicos y biológicos

La Bioética Es Una Nueva Y Reciente Disciplina Basada En Los Avances Científicosy Tecnológicos Contemporáneos. Sin Embargo, Muchos De Sus Principios Sonreconocibles En La Filosofía Y Teología Escolásticas. En Este Caso, En Lafilosofía Del Padre Feijoo, Cuyas Obras Teatro Crítico Universal (1726-1739) Ycartas Eruditas Y Curiosas (1742-1760), Podemos Encontrar Muchas Cuestionesbioéticas Actuales.Bioethics Is A New And Recently Discipline Based In Contemporary Scientific Andtechnological Advances. But More Of His Principles Are Recognised In Scholasticphilosophy And Theology. In This Case, In The Philosophy Of Benedictine Fatherfeijoo, In Which Works Teatro Crítico Universal (1726-1739) And Cartas Eruditasy Curiosas (1742-1760), We Can Find Very Much Bioethics Questions Today

Experimental study of MIMO-OFDM transmissions at 94 GHz in indoor environments

Millimeter wave (mm-wave) frequencies have been proposed to achieve high capacity in 5G communications. Although meaningful research on the channel characteristics has been performed in the 28, 38and 60 GHz bands ─in both indoor and short-range scenarios─,only a small number of trials (experiments) have been carried out in other mm-wave bands. The objective of this work is to study the viability and evaluate the performance of the 94 GHz frequency band for MIMO-OFDM transmission in an indoor environment. Starting from a measurement campaign, the performance of MIMO algorithms is studied in terms of throughput for four different antenna configurations.This work was supported in part by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad MINECO, Spain under Grant TEC2016-78028-C3-2-P, and in part by the European FEDER funds

A fast UTD-Based method for the analysis of multiple acoustic diffraction over a series of obstacles with arbitrary modeling, height and apacing

A uniform theory of diffraction (UTD)-based method for analysis of the multiple diffraction of acoustic waves when considering a series of symmetric obstacles with arbitrary modeling, height and spacing is hereby presented. The method, which makes use of graph theory, funicular polygons and Fresnel ellipsoids, proposes a novel approach by which only the relevant obstacles and paths of the scenario under study are considered, therefore simultaneously providing fast and accurate prediction of sound attenuation. The obstacles can be modeled either as knife edges, wedges, wide barriers or cylinders, with some other polygonal diffracting elements, such as doubly inclined, T- or Y-shaped barriers, also considered. In view of the obtained results, this method shows good agreement with previously published formulations and measurements whilst offering better computational effciency, thus allowing for the consideration of a large number of obstacles.This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), Spain (TEC2016-78028-C3-2-P), and by European Fonds Européen de Développement Économique et Régional (FEDER) funds