Rethinking Iberian ‘warrior’ stelae: a multidisciplinary investigation of Mirasiviene and its connection to Setefilla (Lora del Río, Seville, Spain)

Iberian ‘warrior’ stelae have captured the imagination of researchers and the public for more than a century. Traditionally, stelae were considered ‘de-contextualised’ monuments, and research typically focused on the study of their iconography, paying little or no attention to their immediate contexts. As a result, despite the large number of these stelae known to date (c. 140) and the ample body of literature that has dealt with them, fundamental questions remain unanswered. This paper aims to demonstrate the potential of a multidisciplinary and contextual approach to push forward the research agenda on these monuments through a case study. Firstly, we introduce the Mirasiviene stela and the methods deployed for its investigation, which include a variety of digital imaging techniques, petrography, pXRF, intensive survey and multiscalar spatial analysis. Secondly, we discuss the results in relation to three main topics: stela biography, social practices and landscape context. Comparisons to the well-known nearby Bronze Age and Iron Age site of Setefilla are made throughout the discussion. Ultimately, this paper makes a case for the stelae of Mirasiviene and Setefilla being polyvalent monuments made by local artisans, that served both as landmarks and memorials in connection with dense late second and early first millennium BCE settlement patterns in the region. Probably linked to elites, ‘houses’ or kin groups of this time, stelae were set in symbolically charged places, liminal spaces nearby water, burials and pathways, attracting a range of ritual activities throughout the centuries. The study of the newly discovered Mirasiviene stela shows that multidisciplinary, cutting-edge non-destructive archaeology can shed significant new light on these prehistoric monuments, thus providing a glimpse of what in our opinion is a paradigm shift in the research of similar monuments throughout Europe.The research was financed by the Spanish Ministry of Education (Programa Nacional de Movilidad de Recursos Humanos del Plan Nacional de I-D+i 2008-2011) (post-doctoral grant awarded to MDG) and the Polish National Science Centre (grant number DEC-2017/ 25/B/HS3/00635) (awarded to MK)

Organizational tools and cultural change in the success of lean transformations: delving into sequence and rhythm

Even if the original seminal authors developed the tools used in lean manufacturing (LM) as inherently culture-dependent, western companies have found a variety of alternatives to implement them. We can simplify them by theoretically identifying two different extreme approaches that in real life are normally combined with diverse intensities: one emphasizes the intrinsically efficient nature of lean tools (lean-toolbox perspective), whereas the other stresses the cultural side (lean-culture perspective). The inappropriate interaction between both approaches has been put at the root of the low success rate of LM in non-Japanese firms. On the one hand, there is no agreement on which sequence to follow regarding managerial tools and cultural change during lean transformation processes. On the other hand, there are also different views on what the correct rhythm should be, since the pace at which organizational tools and cultural transformation occur can also determine the synergies that both can generate. This article synthesizes and compares empirically the different perspectives and tests them in a wide dataset of 1692 North American manufacturing firms. Results suggest that cultural change does not moderate or precede lean transformations, but instead totally mediates the relation between the deployment of tools and enhanced plant performance. These findings not only offer managers a tentative sequence and rhythm in the deployment of lean tools and values but also offer a relevant theoretical byproduct: the integration of Western and Japanese approaches.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad | Ref. ECO2016‐76625‐RAgencia Estatal de Investigación | Ref. PID2019-106677GB-I0

Watch the working capital of tier-two suppliers: a financial perspective of supply chain collaboration in the automotive industry

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how lack of financial cooperation damages the operational efficiency of supply chains. The thesis is that economic and technological forces are provoking increasing financial tensions that push companies to transfer their credit needs and inventory requirements to their weakest suppliers. Thus, what might initially seem positive from an individual perspective can in fact generate losses in production efficiency for the supply chain as a whole. Design/Methodology/approach: This paper uses official data collected from 116 first- and second-tier suppliers in the Spanish automotive components sector, covering nine years (2001-2009). The relationships between the key variables are analysed using panel data estimations. Findings: Significant differences were found between the working capital (WC) of first- and second-tier companies, proving additionally that although this approach may temporarily improve the results of first-tier suppliers, it leads to lower production efficiency in plants throughout the value chain. Practical implications: Practitioners should avoid short-sighted attitudes when organizing the supply chain on a cooperative basis, going beyond the conventional wisdom on physical and information flows between original equipment manufacturers and their suppliers to reach upstream stages and embracing financial considerations. Originality/value: The paper takes a novel approach to the issue of inter-organizational collaboration in the supply chain, aiming to go beyond conventional Lean Supply practices. From an empirical point of view, while much of the research on the topic utilizes key informant insights collected using psychometric data collection techniques, this study uses different financial proxies collected from secondary panel data

Learning Bayesian network classifiers for multidimensional supervised classification problems by means of a multiobjective approach

A classical supervised classification task tries to predict a single class variable based on a data set composed of a set of labeled examples. However, in many real domains more than one variable could be considered as a class variable, so a generalization of the single-class classification problem to the simultaneous prediction of a set of class variables should be developed. This problem is called multi-dimensional supervised classification. In this paper, we deal with the problem of learning Bayesian net work classifiers for multi-dimensional supervised classification problems. In order to do that, we have generalized the classical single-class Bayesian network classifier to the prediction of several class variables. In addition, we have defined new classification rules for probabilistic classifiers in multi-dimensional problems. We present a learning approach following a multi-objective strategy which considers the accuracy of each class variable separately as the functions to optimize. The solution of the learning approach is a Pareto set of non-dominated multi-dimensional Bayesian network classifiers and their accuracies for the different class variables, so a decision maker can easily choose by hand the classifier that best suits the particular problem and domain

A solutrean site in the Western Betic Range: El Higueral- Guardia cave (Cortes de la Frontera, Málaga, Spain)

En el verano de 2011 se iniciaron trabajos de sondeo en la cueva del Higueral-Guardia (Málaga, España). Los sondeos han determinado la existencia de una importante secuencia con niveles del Paleolítico superior y medio todavía en estudio. No obstante, la actividad perpetrada por los clandestinos en la cueva, ha limitado significativamente las posibilidades de interpretación de los niveles solutrenses. En este trabajo pretendemos, además de realizar una presentación preliminar de los datos obtenidos, establecer una discusión sobre el valor que este tipo de registros puede tener de cara a establecer interpretaciones de rango mayor. Aspectos como la intensidad de la ocupación, la diacronía del registro, o la funcionalidad del sitio son discutidos en este sentidoIn the summer of 2011 several test pits were made in the Higueral-Guardia Cave (Málaga, Spain). The sondages have determined the existence of an important Upper and Middle Paleolithic archaeological sequence, still under study. However, the illegal digging activity in the cave have significantly limited the possibilities of interpretation of the Solutrean levels. In this paper we present some preliminary results of the field work, and at the same time, establish a discussion about the value of such records in order to establish deeper anthropological interpretations. Aspects such as the intensity of the occupation, the diachronic value of the archaeological record, or the functionality of the site are discusse

A sensitivity study of bias and variance of k-fold cross-validation in prediction error estimation

In the machine learning field the performance of a classifier is usually measured in terms of prediction error. In most real-world problems, the error cannot be exactly calculated and it must be estimated. Therefore, it’s important to choose an appropriate estimator of the error. This paper analyzes the statistical properties (bias and variance) of the k-fold cross-validation classification error estimator (k-cv). Our main contribution is a novel theoretical decomposition of the variance of the k-cv considering its sources of variance: sensitivity to changes in the training set and sensitivity to changes in the folds. The paper also compares the bias and variance of the estimator for different values of k. The empirical study has been performed in artificial domains because they allow the exact computation of the implied quantities and we can specify rigorously the conditions of experimentation. The empirical study has been performed for two different classifiers (naïve Bayes and nearest neighbor), different number of folds (2, 5, 10, n) and sample sizes, and training sets coming from assorted probability distributions

Use of sera cell free DNA (cfDNA) and exovesicle-DNA for the molecular diagnosis of chronic Chagas disease

This research was funded by the ERANet program, Research in prevention of congenital Chagas disease: parasitological, placental and immunological markers (ERANet17/HLH-0142 (Cochaco). Instituto Carlos III, Ministerio de Sanidad, Gobierno de Espana. Fundacion Ramon Areces "Interactoma de las exovesiculas de T. cruzi y de los inmunocomplejos que forman con las celulas del hospedador: implicaciones en la patologia de la enfermedad de Chagas (2019)". PreChag y el titulo Exovesiculas circulantes como marcadoras de diagnostico, PREcoz de la Enfermedad de CHAGas del XXI Concurso Nacional para la adjudicacion de Ayudas a la Investigacion en Ciencias de la Vida y de la Materia (2022). Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia of the government of Spain funded the project PGC2018-099424-B-I00 and The financial support given by the proyect A-BIO-350-UGR18 I+D+i Proyect "Programa Operativo FEDER de Andalucia JJAA" 2014-2020.Chagas disease, a neglected tropical disease, is now considered a worldwide health concern as a result of migratory movements from Central and South America to other regions that were considered free of the disease, and where the epidemiological risk is limited to transplacental transmission or blood or organ donations from infected persons. Parasite detection in chronically ill patients is restricted to serological tests that only determine infection by previous infection and not the presence of the parasite, especially in patients undergoing treatment evaluation or in newborns. We have evaluated the use of nucleic acids from both circulating exovesicles and cell-free DNA (cfDNA) from 50 samples twice randomly selected from a total of 448 serum samples from immunologically diagnosed patients in whom the presence of the parasite was confirmed by nested PCR on amplicons resulting from amplification with kinetoplastid DNA-specific primers 121F-122R. Six samples were randomly selected to quantify the limit of detection by qPCR in serum exovesicles. When the nucleic acids thus purified were assayed as a template and amplified with kinetoplastid DNA and nuclear satellite DNA primers, a 100% positivity rate was obtained for all positive samples assayed with kDNA-specific primers and 96% when SAT primers were used. However, isolation of cfDNA for Trypanosoma cruzi and amplification with SAT also showed 100% positivity. The results demonstrate that serum exovesicles contain DNA of mitochondrial and nuclear origin, which can be considered a mixed population of exovesicles of parasitic origin. The results obtained with serum samples prove that both cfDNA and Exovesicle DNA can be used to confirm parasitaemia in chronically ill patients or in samples where it is necessary to demonstrate the active presence of the parasite. The results confirm for the first time the existence of exovesicles of mitochondrial origin of the parasite in the serum of those affected by Chagas disease.ERANet17/HLH-0142Instituto Carlos III, Ministerio de Sanidad, Gobierno de EspañaFundación Ramón ArecesSpanish Government PGC2018-099424-B-I00I+D+i Proyect "Programa Operativo FEDER de Andalucia JJAA" A-BIO-350-UGR1

Aportaciones Metodológicas de la Investigación a la Docencia

La presente ponencia constituye un ejercicio de aplicación de la metodología de investigación a la docencia. De este modo se identificarán las principales actividades de la metodología investigadora, y se verá cómo éstas se pueden utilizar para construir en torno a ellas una asignatura. Se realizará también un análisis de las capacidades, habilidades y conocimientos generales que potencia este tipo de metodología

Atmospheric pollen dynamics in Malaga (s. Spain) during 2013-2014. Seasonal trends

In this work we present the atmospheric pollen results obtained in Malaga, a coastal Mediterranean city situated in southern Spain, throughout 2013 and 2014. The main objective is to compare the results obtained these years with those registered during the 21 previous years (1992-2012) and detect possible significant trends. The samplings were made with the aid of a Hirst-type volumetric pollen trap (Hirst, 1952) situated on the roof of the building of the Faculty of Sciences, Campus de Teatinos. The mounting of the samples and the pollen counting were according to the methodology proposed by the Spanish Aerobiology Network, the REA (Galán et al., 2007). In this work, the seasonal evolution of the different taxa, annual pollen index and features of the main pollen season (length and start, end and peak days) are studied and the results obtained in 2013 and 2014 are compared to the average values of the previous years in order to detect differences related to climate change. The annual mean temperature have been rising in 2013 and 2014 (19.1 and 19.9ºC) comparing to the average of the last 20 years (18.7ºC). The annual total rainfall have been declining in 2013 and 2014 (354.7 and 373.1 mm) comparing to the average of the last 20 years (546.2 mm). The relative humidity declined in 2014 (60.6%) compared to last 20 years (66.6%). Among the significant trends that we have observed are: increase in the annual pollen index of Quercus and Olea, decrease in the annual pollen index of Chenopodiaceae, Plantago and Cyperaceae, delay in the end and increase in the length of the main pollen season of Quercus, delay and reduction in the length of the main pollen season of Gramineae pollen.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec