Genera Esfera: Interacting with a trackball mapped onto a sphere to explore generative visual worlds

Genera Esfera is an interactive installation that allows the audience to interact and easily become a VJ (visual DJ) in a world of generative visuals. It is an animated and generative graphic environment with a music playlist, a visual spherical world related with and suggested by the music, which reacts and evolves. The installation has been presented at MIRA Live Visual Arts Festival 2015, in Barcelona. Genera Esfera was envisioned, developed and programmed on the basis of two initial ideas: first, to generate our spherical planets we need to work with spherical geometry and program 3D graphics; second, the interaction should be easy to understand, proposing a direct mapping between the visuals and the interface. Our main goal is that participants can focus on exploring the graphic worlds rather than concentrate on understanding the interface. For that purpose we use a trackball to map its position onto sphere rotations. In this paper, we present the interactive installation Genera Esfera, the design guidelines, the mathematics behind the generative visuals and its results.Postprint (published version

Geographical deviations in foreign trade statistics: A study into European trade with Latin American Countries, 1925

We have analyzed the spatial accuracy of European foreign trade statistics compared to Latin American. We have also included USA’s data because of the importance of this country in Latin American trade. We have developed a method for mapping discrepancies between exporters and importers, trying to isolate systematic spatial deviations. Although our results don’t allow a unique explanation, they present some interesting clues to the distribution channels in the Latin American Continent as well as some spatial deviations for statistics in individual countries. Connecting our results with the literature specialized in the accuracy of foreign trade statistics; we can revisit Morgernstern (1963) as well as Federico and Tena (1991). Morgernstern had had a really pessimistic view on the reliability of this statistic source, but his main alert was focused on the trade balances, not in gross export or import values. Federico and Tena (1991) have demonstrated how accuracy increases by aggregation, geographical and of product at the same time. But they still have a pessimistic view with relation to distribution questions, remarking that perhaps it will be more accurate to use import sources in this latest case. We have stated that the data set coming from foreign trade statistics for a sample in 1925, being it exporters or importers, it’s a valuable tool for geography of trade patterns, although in some specific cases it needs some spatial adjustments.Economic geography, statistical accuracy, foreign trade statistics

El mercado internacional de tejidos de algodón en 1913 y la industria española

Los novísimos en la Historia Económica de España. Edición a cargo de Francisco Comín y Blanca Sánchez AlonsoEditada en la Fundación Empresa PúblicaLa escasa orientación exportadora de la industria algodonera española ha sido objeto de un amplio debate en la historia económica. Las aportaciones de los distintos autores a este debate se han centrado fundamentalmente en análisis de las características propias de la economía española. Mi propuesta consiste en enfocar el debate desde la perspectiva de las nuevas teorías del comercio internacional. Bajo este enfoque teórico, se plantea la existencia de competencia imperfecta en los mercados de tejidos de algodón en el período anterior a la Primera Guerra Mundial. Los modelos de competencia imperfecta pretenden ponderar econométricamente variables tales como la dependencia histórica, las influencias geográficas, el mercado interior y las estrategas de diferenciación de producto y segmentación de los mercados. La adopción de un enfoque comparativo a escala internacional permite sugenr alpinas claves interpretativas para explicar la escasa relevancia exportadora de la industna algodonera española.There are many studies about the export failure of the Spanish cotton industry, but they are mainly focused on specific features of the Spanish economy. This article apples new trade theories to this topic. Taking into account this theoretical framework, the main hypothesis is the unperfect competition of International cotton textile markets in 1913. The econometric model employed in this paper measures the influence of variables such as histoncal and geographical dependencies, home market effect and product differentiation strategies. This International approach shows new explanations to the lack of an export orientation of the Spanish cotton industry.Publicad

The international textile trade in 1913: the role of intra-European flows

This article analyses the textile trade using an international, multilateral and multifibre approach. Its main contribution is to present new data on international textile trade in 1913, which reveals how, within European countries, there was a clear dominance of German exports, followed closely by those from France and Britain. The scenario that emerges is quite different to that obtained from an analysis of intercontinental trade, where British hegemony was still very evident in 1913. The fact that, when looking only at the intra-European textile trade, Britain lags behind Germany and is almost on par with France, indicates that we are dealing with very different markets to those emerging on aggregate data, in which analysis can be reduced to a single country

Manuel Llorca-Jaña (2012), The British Textile Trade in South America in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, Nueva York, 380 pp.

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The British Textile Trade in South America in the Nineteenth Century [Ressenya de llibre]

Ressenya de: Manuel Llorca-Jaña (2012), The British Textile Trade in South America in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, Nueva York, 380 pp

The international textile trade in 1913: the role of intra-European flows

This article analyses the textile trade using an international, multilateral and multifibre approach. Its main contribution is to present new data on international textile trade in 1913, which reveals how, within European countries, there was a clear dominance of German exports, followed closely by those from France and Britain. The scenario that emerges is quite different to that obtained from an analysis of intercontinental trade, where British hegemony was still very evident in 1913. The fact that, when looking only at the intra-European textile trade, Britain lags behind Germany and is almost on par with France, indicates that we are dealing with very different markets to those emerging on aggregate data, in which analysis can be reduced to a single country

Geographical effects on the accuracy of textile trade data:an international approach for 1913

Foreign trade statistics are the main data source to the study of international trade. However its accuracy has been under suspicion since Morgernstern published his famous work in 1963. Federico and Tena (1991) have resumed the question arguing that they can be useful in an adequate level of aggregation. But the geographical assignment problem remains unsolved. This article focuses on the spatial variable through the analysis of the reliability of textile international data for 1913. A geographical bias arises between export and import series, but because of its quantitative importance it can be negligible in an international scale.Economic geography, Statistical accuracy, Economic textile history