Alcajazz: Afro-Peruvian Forms of Musical Knowledge and the Shaping of Afro-Peruvian Jazz [abstract only]

This paper is focused on the recent collaboration between local jazz and Afro-Peruvian musicians to develop a new, locally rooted style of jazz that uses Afro-Peruvian musical genres as a departure point. While there have been prior attempts at such musical synthesis can be traced back to the late 1970s, I argue that a shift in perspective among the latest generation of jazz both jazz and Afro-Peruvian musicians has led to more fruitful working relationship. Specifically, I suggest that jazz musicians have increasingly come to acknowledge and value their Afro-Peruvian counterparts for having access to distinct forms of musical and cultural knowledge that are deemed vital to the development of this new jazz idiom. To this end, I will look at the music of Gabriel Alegría and the Afro-Peruvian Sextet, playing particular attention to how stylistic features of Alegría’s music have grown out of an ongoing dialogue among band members with markedly different social, ethnic, and musical backgrounds. I will also explore the broader implications that this new type of collaboration has for rooting Afro-Peruvian jazz among the larger Afro-Peruvian musical community rather than remaining predominantly a middle class and upper middle class activity at the hands of musicians who are not of African descent

Daylight Spectrum Index: A New Metric to Assess the Affinity of Light Sources with Daylighting

The current scenario of colorimetry shows a wide variety of different metrics which do not converge in the assessment of the color rendering of light sources. The limitations of the Color Rendering Index have promoted the emergence of new metrics, such as the Color Quality Scale. As in the case of the previous metric, these new concepts are based on the analysis of the deviation of different color samples in a color space, contrasting the results with those obtained with a light source reference, which can vary depending on the color temperature. Within this context, the Daylight Spectrum Index is proposed. This new concept aims to determine the affinity with daylighting of electric light sources, comparing the resulting spectral power distributions of the lamps studied and that observed under natural light. The affinity of an electric light source with daylighting allows for lower energy consumption due to the better performance of human vision. The new metric proposed is evaluated following the results obtained from 80 surveys, demonstrating the usefulness of this new concept in the quantification of color rendering of LED lamps and the affinity of electric light sources with daylighting.Government of Spain BIA2017-86997-

Poster Abstract: Practical issues in image acquisition and transmission over wireless sensor network

Multimedia data have become an important objective in wireless sensor networks. Due to the node resource constraints (energy consumption, memory capacity, network latency and throughput) the incorporation of image sensor at the nodes is currently a challenge. In this paper, we study different node architectures, evaluating processing time, energy consumption, image quality and data delivery issues. The study shows that a specialized image co-processor is an optimal solutionJUnta de Andalucía P07-TIC-0247

Spanish legislation against trafficking in human beings: punitive excess and poor victims assistance

"The article seeks to provide a perspective of human trafficking as one of the fastest growing criminal activities of the last few years in the area of organised crime and one that affects human beings’ most basic rights. In the main, the response to the problem has been its criminal prosecution, but without tackling the issues of need that underlie this conduct and which the traffickers take advantage of to abuse, assail and exploit the people they traffic. In this context, the evolution of Spanish legislation in terms of the criminalisation of this problem has made it one of the most repressive, although there is no clear evidence of its effectiveness. This punishment, which covers a wide range of criminal conducts, has not however been accompanied by any policies to support and integrate the victims of trafficking, which has led to a large number of victims being subjected to slavery who, in the majority of cases, fall under the control of the trafficking networks again." [author's abstract

Mathematical programming with uncertainty and multiple objectives for sustainable development and wildfire management

Mathematical Programming is a well-placed field of Operational Research to tackle problems as diverse as those that arise in Logistics and Disaster Management. The fundamental objective of Mathematical Programming is the selection of an optimal alternative that meets a series of restrictions. The criterion by which the alternatives are evaluated is traditionally only one (for example, minimizing cost), however it is also common for several objectives to want to be considered simultaneously, thus giving rise to the Multi-criteria Decision. If the conditions to be met by an alternative or the evaluation of said alternative depend on random (or unknown) factors, we are in an optimization context under uncertainty. In the first chapters of this thesis the fields of multicriteria decision and optimization with uncertainty are studied, in two applications in the context of sustainable development and disaster management. Optimization with uncertainty is introduced through an application to rural electrification. In rural areas, access to electricity through solar systems installed in consumers' homes is common. These systems have to be repaired when they fail, so the decision of how to size a maintenance network is affected by great uncertainty. A mathematical programming model is developed by treating uncertainty in an unexplained way, the objective of which is to obtain a maintenance network at minimum cost. This model is later used as a tool to obtain simple rules that can predict the cost of maintenance using little information. The model is validated using information from a real program implemented in Morocco. When studying Multicriteria Optimization it is considered a problem in forest fire management. To mitigate the effects of forest fires, it is common to modify forests, with what is known as fuel treatment. Through this practice, consisting of the controlled felling or burning of trees in selected areas, it is achieved that when fires inevitably occur, they are easier to control. Unfortunately, modifying the flora can affect the existing fauna, so it is sensible to look for solutions that improve the situation in the face of a fire but without great detriment to the existing species. In other words, there are several criteria to take into account when optimizing. A mathematical programming model is developed, which suggests which zones to burn and when, taking into account these competing criteria. This model is applied to a series of simulated realistic cases. The following is a theoretical study of the field of Multiobjective Stochastic Programming (MSP), in which problems that simultaneously have various criteria and uncertainty are considered. In this chapter, a new solution concept is developed for MSP problems with risk aversion, its properties are studied and a linear programming model capable of obtaining said solution is formulated. A computational study of the model is also carried out, applying it to a variation of the well-known backpack problem. Finally, the problem of controlled burning is studied again, this time considering the existing uncertainty as it is not possible to know with certainty how many controlled burns can be carried out in a year, due to the limited window of time in which these can be carried out. The problem is solved using the multi-criteria and stochastic methodology with risk aversion developed in the previous chapter. Finally, the resulting model is applied to a real case located in southern Spain

An improved method for the identification of galaxy systems: Measuring the gravitational redshift by Dark Matter Haloes

We introduce a new method for the identification of galaxy systems in redshift surveys based on the halo model. This method is a modified version of the K-means identification algorithm developed by Yang et al (2005). We have calibrated and tested our algorithms using mock catalogs generated using the Millennium simulations (Springel et al. 2005) and applied them to the NYU-DR7 galaxy catalog (based on the SDSS datasets). Using this local sample of groups and clusters of galaxies we have measured the effect of gravitational redshift produced by their host dark matter haloes. Our results shows radial velocity decrements consistent with general relativity predictions and previous measurements by Wojtak et al (2011) in clusters of galaxies.Comment: Accepted for Publication in MNRAS Letters, 2 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:astro-ph/0405234, arXiv:astro-ph/0406593 by other author

El debate sobre la eutanasia y la medicina actual

En el actual debate planteado en torno a la eutanasia hay cuatro cuestiones que necesitan hoy un urgente estudio. La primera consiste en la necesidad de definir inequívocamente la terminología y, con ella, los conceptos que usamos al hablar de eutanasia. La segunda se refiere a la conveniencia de seguir de cerca la conducta de los profesionales que aceptan la eutanasia como solución para ciertos problemas médico-sociales, tal como nos muestra el ejemplo holandés, y la incidencia en la medicina de esa aceptación de la eutanasia. La tercera cuestión, más de fondo, sería el análisis de las ideas que están en la base de las reclamaciones de autodeterminación de la propia muerte, la eutanasia por falta de "calidad de vida" o por la "inutilidad social" de la persona. El cuarto punto, es la regulación jurídica de los diferentes problemas o delitos de eutanasia, tal y como se ha planteado en Holanda o en algunos estados de USA de modo explícito, o de modo velado en el proyecto de Código Penal español