"He was in no place and no place was in him": Edward Dahlberg's autobiographical fictions as an epistemology of sites

Edward Dahlberg‘s childhood, adolescence and youth, narratively fictionalized in two early autobiographical novels, Bottom Dogs (1930) and Flushing to Calvary (1932) is markedly and recurrently informed by the influence of urban sites and institutional spaces. As the article discusses, a number of these spaces are pivotal to the development of Dahlberg‘s autobiographical character Lorry, and can be productively read in terms of the Foucaldian heterotopia, while other sites, explicitly identified as metropolitan, are marginal to Lorry‘s autobiographical narrative, and yet serve to foreground the protagonist‘s absence from them in relevant ways. Finally, other spaces may epitomize a predominantly artificial nature, functioning as simulacra of experiences that Lorry undergoes but needs to cast out. Drawing on theoretical tenets related to space, site and place, as set out by Foucault, Baudrillard, Lefebvre, and others, in this article I will contend that a situated epistemological approach is essential in fruitfully reading Dahlberg‘s early fictions, and, ultimately, in understanding his quest for space in both biographical and artistic terms.La infancia, adolescencia y juventud de Edward Dahlberg, ficcionalizada a través de sus dos tempranas novelas autobiográficas, Bottom Dogs (1930) y Flushing to Calvary (1932), está muy determinada por la influencia de entornos urbanos y espacios institucionales. Algunos de estos espacios son esenciales para el desarrollo de Lorry, el protagonista autobiográfico de Dahlberg, y pueden ser interpretados en clave de heterotopia Foucaldiana. Otros lugares, expresamente identificados como espacios metropolitanos, marginales a la narrativa autobiográfica centrada en Lorry, resultan, sin embargo, extremadamente significativos para subrayar la ausencia del protagonista de los mismos. Además, otros entornos sirven para encarnar condiciones artificiales, proporcionando simulacros de vivencias que Lorry experimenta pero necesita luego desechar. Partiendo de nociones teóricas relativas a los conceptos de sitio y de espacialidad, desarrolladas por Foucault, Baudrillard y Lefebvre, entre otros, el presente artículo propone un análisis basado en una epistemología de ―situacionalidad‖ que permita una interpretación crítica fructífera de la obra iniciática de Dahlberg, y, en concreto, ilumine su obsesiva búsqueda de espacio(s), tanto en términos biográficos como literarios.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España) FFI 2015-66767-PXunta de Galicia (Galicia, España) ED431D2017/1

Online estimation of rollator user condition using spatiotemporal gait parameters

Assistance to people during rehabilitation has to be adapted to their needs. Too little help can lead to frustration and stress in the user; an excess of help may lead to low participation and loss of residual skills. Robotic rollators may adapt assistance. The main challenge to cope with this issue is to estimate how much help is needed on the fly, because it depends not only on the person condition, but also on the specific situation that they are negotiating. Clinical scales provide a global condition based estimation, but no local estimator based on punctual needs. Condition also changes in time, so clinical scales need to be recalculated again and again. In this paper we propose a novel approach to estimate users’ condition in a continuous way via a robotic rollator. Our work focuses on predicting the value of the well known Tinetti Mobility test from spatiotemporal gait parameters obtained from our platform while users walk. This prediction provides continuous insight on the condition of the user and could be used to modify the amount of help provided. The proposed method has been validated with 19 volunteers at a local hospital that use a rollator for rehabilitation. All volunteers presented some physical or mental disabilities. Our results sucessfully show a high correlation of spatiotemporal gait parameters with Tinetti Mobility test gait (R2 = 0.7) and Tinetti Mobility test balance (R2 = 0.6).Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A cane-based low cost sensor to implement attention mechanisms in telecare robots

Telepresence robots have been recently used for Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA). Since the robot can not track a person continuously, there are several strategies to decide when to check them, from cyclic checks to simple requests from users and/or caregivers. In order to adapt to the user needs and condition, it is preferable to perform CGA as soon as regularities appear. However, this requires detection of potential issues in users to offer immediate service. In this work we propose a new low cost force sensor system to detect user’s condition and attract attention of CGA robots, so they can perform a full examination on a need basis. The main advantages of this system are: i) it can be attached to any standard commercial cane; ii) its power consumption is very reduced; and iii) it provides continuous information as long as the user walks. It has been tested with several elderly volunteers in care facilities. Results have proven that the sensor readings are indeed correlated with the users’ condition.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Didàctica de l’Educació Física

Departament d'Educació. Codi d’assignatura: MP101

Progress in colloid propulsion

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. 61-68).In the early decades of the Space Age, a great deal of work was put into the development of the Colloid Thruster as an electric propulsion system for spacecraft. In spite of the effort by the end of the 70s the programs were stopped in the USA and Europe before any design had gotten to fly in space. An exhaustive study of the literature has been performed to identify what were the reasons behind the disappearance of Colloid Thrusters. Apart from programmatic reasons related to the introduction of the Space Shuttle, some technical reasons where identified. The technical difficulties had to do with the use of arrays of needles. Aiming at overcoming these difficulties, an alternative way to construct Colloid Thrusters has been proposed. Instead of needles, holes in Teflon where used. This has been tested both numerically and experimentally with positive results. This development may be useful not only for colloid propulsion but also for other technologies that require electrospray emission.by Jóse Mariano López Urdiales.S.M

Heterogeneous Device Networking for an AmI Environment

Assisted living environments involve a wide range of different devices. Most of them are commercially available, but typically associated to standard domotics buses not compatible with each other. Besides, in many cases it is desirable to integrate new devices to a system that might not support the installed bus protocol. Interconnection between devices is far from simple, specially because domotic buses are often proprietary. The most popular solution to this problem is to export information to Ethernet as a system meeting point, but it is not always simple and accessibility in proprietary buses is limited. This paper proposes a method to integrate a variety of platforms through a shared memory interface, including a proprietary bus, commercial devices and ad hoc systems. Its main novelty is that compatibility between dif ferent standards is achieved without additional expensive hardware.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Análisis de resultados en pacientes de riesgo intermedio - bajo sometidos a implante valvular aórtico percutáneo Vs cirugía

El implante valvular aórtico transcatéter es un nuevo sistema que ha revolucionado el tratamiento de la estenosis aórtica. Actualmente en sus indicaciones incluyen el tratamiento para pacientes del alto riesgo quirúrgico y pacientes inoperables. En los últimos años, gracias a la mejora de los dispositivos y la curva de aprendizaje que se pone de manifiesto en algunos recientes estudios, se está valorando la posibilidad de ampliar sus indicaciones a pacientes de riesgo quirúrgico intermedio-bajo. En esta línea se incluye nuestro trabajo. Se trata de un estudio no aleatorizado que compara dos grupos de tratamiento (pacientes sometidos a implante valvular aórtico transcatéter y pacientes sometidos a recambio quirúrgico valvular aórtico con un estudio de emparejamiento (70-70) y análisis de propensión. Se incluyeron un total de 362 casos de estenosis aórtica sintomática y riesgo quirúrgico intermedio-bajo (EuroScore logístico < 20%) tratados en nuestro centros desde 2009 al 2014. El objetivo primario de mortalidad al año e ictus y el combinado de ambos no mostraron diferencias significativas, no obstante la tasa de insuficiencia aórtica residual fue mayor en el grupo transcatéter. Nuestro estudio pone de manifiesto que el tratamiento aórtico percutáneo puede ser una opción factible para de la estenosis aórtica en pacientes de riesgo quirúrgico intermedio sin embargo el principal inconveniente es la insuficiencia aórtica residual.Grado en Medicin