Systemic metamorphosis in the 21st century

On 21st century, capitalist development process is going through important economic, political, social and cultural transformation. On this paper I try to contribute with a brief synthesis of some relevant factors related with these political transformations, analyzing the new political battlefield between a nationalism faced against globalization and 21st century progressivism, reflecting on the role of traditional left and socialist movements on the public space of politics opened by the new conditions of contemporary globalization and the harmful consequences of the neoliberal policy spread throughout the world since the last years of 20st century.En el siglo XXI, el proceso de desarrollo capitalista está atravesando por importantes transformaciones económicas, políticas, sociales y culturales. En el presente artículo se realiza una breve síntesis de algunos factores relevantes relacionados con estas transformaciones políticas, analizando el nuevo campo de batalla político entre el nacionalismo enfrentado a la globalización y la corriente política progresista surgida en el siglo XXI, reflexionando sobre el papel que juegan los tradicionales movimientos socialistas y de izquierda en el espacio público de la política abierto por las nuevas condiciones de la globalización contemporánea y las severas consecuencias de la política neoliberal extendida por todo el mundo desde finales del siglo XX

Contradictions of structural adjustment policies in southern Europe

Este trabajo analiza los cambios operados en las sociedades mediterráneas en las primeras décadas del siglo XXI. Se estudia cómo las transformaciones políticas originadas a consecuencia de los programas de ajuste estructural han afectado a las condiciones de vida de la mayoría de trabajadores y trabajadoras. Mediante un estudio transdisciplinar en ciencias sociales y el análisis de información estadística recopilada en informes y bases de datos oficiales, se pretende reunir evidencia empírica de las transformaciones operadas en los mercados de trabajo del sur de Europa a consecuencia de la difusión de la ideología neoliberal. Una de las principales conclusiones obtenidas en este estudio radica en que las diferentes políticas llevadas a cabo por los gobiernos nacionales, bajo la batuta de los programas de ajuste estructural decretados por instituciones como el Fondo Monetario Internacional, han conducido a una economía de baja productividad como España a una situación donde la falta de empleos adecuados y las limitaciones políticas estructurales de acceso al empleo limitan gravemente las expectativas vitales para la mayoría de la población trabajadora, obligando a amplios sectores sociales a migrar a otros países. El artículo también aborda las contradicciones entre las políticas neoliberales y las estructuras precapitalistas existentes en las sociedades mediterráneas, con el fin de plantear interrogantes que contribuyan a buscar alternativas políticas en favor de una mayor democratización social y económica.This paper analyses the changes operated in Mediterranean societies on the first decades of 21st century. The work studies how political transformations originated as a consequence of the implementing of structural adjustment programs affected life conditions of the majority of the workers. Through a transdisciplinary study on social sciences and the analysis of statistical information compiled in reports and official databases, this article has the aim of gather empirical evidence of the transformations occurred in southern European labor markets as a result of the spread of neoliberal ideology. One of the main conclusions found in this study lies in that the different policies conducted by national governments, under the aegis of Structural Adjustment Programs decreed by institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, drove a low productivity economy like Spain to a situation where the lack of adequate employment and structural political constraints to fair access to employment critically restrict life expectations for most of the population, forcing ample sectors of the population to migrate abroad. The article also tackles the contradictions between neoliberal policies and precapitalist structures existing in Mediterranean societies, with the aim to outline questions that contribute to find political alternatives in favor of greater social and economic democratization

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

To make use of comunications network in academic teaching

El modelo del Sistema de Europeo de Transferencia y Acumulación de Créditos (ECTS) del Espacio Europeo Superior (EEES) profundiza en diseños curriculares adecuados y metodologías docentes centradas en el apoyo al aprendizaje de los alumnos. Los programas de redes de investigación permiten facilitar el desarrollo profesional de los docentes, creando un espacio compartido de experiencias y proporcionando un marco curricular general de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje. Estos proyectos de investigación docente se basan fundamentalmente en analizar el curriculum para la investigación y el cambio docente. Todo este desarrollo basado en las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) requiere mayor esfuerzo y dedicación por parte de los profesores. Por tanto, para que los profesores adopten estas nuevas estrategias de trabajo, resulta urgente y prioritario en España que la docencia sea valorada, al menos, al mismo nivel que la investigación a todos los efectos

Impact of the Information and Communication Technologies on the Education of Students with Down Syndrome: a Bibliometric Study (2008- 2018)

This article analyzes the impact of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on students with Down syndrome through the consult of scientific articles published during the 2008 to 2018 period, in five scientific journal databases utilized in the academic world. Through a descriptive and quantitative methodology, the most significant bibliometric data according to citation index is shown. Likewise, a methodology based on the analysis of co-words and clustering techniques is applied through a bibliometric maps, in order to determine the fields of scientific study. The results show that articles published have a medium-low index of impact. There are linked with the importance of using ICT with these students, from educational inclusion and accessibility perspective

New trends in education: the use of ICT in different ways

In the 21st century and due to the exponential growth of the Internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), people live in a technological age, in all areas and in all contexts, we have daily contact with technology, with access to Information. This dynamic requires a constant update of the services and technological tools that change the method that we study, work, communicate and socialize on an unprecedented scale. These constant changes force everyone, regardless of age, gender or profession, to possess a range of functional and critical thinking skills, such as information literacy, media literacy and technological literacy. The evolution of technologies, forces the promoters of education, to always be aware of the changes that society is introducing outside the classroom. Today, students don't have the same pattern as before, regardless of age, they are very active and are no longer the same introverted child who studied a few years ago in the classroom. According to this, students are eager for different forms of motivation inside and outside the classroom, they need the learning and teaching process to move along with changes in society and ICT. To ensure the success of today's students, it is important to provide them with the technological skills to make the correct use of ICTs, to perform tasks essential to their learning process, such as researching and selecting information, creating content, information sharing, use of collaboration tools or environment simulation tools. The main objective of this chapter is to show how ICT tools that can be used in educational environments to help students, helping them develop key skills in their training process, is also relevant to show how these tools can help teachers achieve these goals in daily activities with their students

Assistive technology for the inclusion of students with disabilities: a systematic review

The commitment to increase the inclusion of students with disabilities has ensured that the concept of Assistive Technology (AT) has become increasingly widespread in education. The main objective of this paper focuses on conducting a systematic review of studies regarding the impact of Assistive Technology for the inclusion of students with disabilities. In order to achieve the above, a review of relevant empirical studies published between 2009 and 2020 in four databases (Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, ERIC and PsycINFO) was carried out. The sample consists of 31 articles that met the inclusion criteria of this review, out of a total of 216 identified. Findings of this study include that the use of Assistive Technologies is successful in increasing the inclusion and accessibility of students with disabilities, although barriers such as teacher education, lack of information or accessibility are found.Spanish Government DIFOTICYD EDU2016 75,232-PSpringer Natur

Visual SLAM for Measurement and Augmented Reality in Laparoscopic Surgery

In spite of the great advances in laparoscopic surgery, this type of surgery still shows some difficulties during its realization, mainly caused by its complex maneuvers and, above all, by the loss of the depth perception. Unlike classical open surgery --laparotomy-- where surgeons have direct contact with organs and a complete 3D perception, laparoscopy is carried out by means of specialized instruments, and a monocular camera (laparoscope) in which the 3D scene is projected into a 2D plane --image. The main goal of this thesis is to face with this loss of depth perception by making use of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms developed in the fields of robotics and computer vision during the last years. These algorithms allow to localize, in real time (25 $\thicksim$ 30 frames per second), a camera that moves freely inside an unknown rigid environment while, at the same time, they build a map of this environment by exploiting images gathered by that camera. These algorithms have been extensively validated both in man-made environments (buildings, rooms, ...) and in outdoor environments, showing robustness to occlusions, sudden camera motions, or clutter. This thesis tries to extend the use of these algorithms to laparoscopic surgery. Due to the intrinsic nature of internal body images (they suffer from deformations, specularities, variable illumination conditions, limited movements, ...), applying this type of algorithms to laparoscopy supposes a real challenge. Knowing the camera (laparoscope) location with respect to the scene (abdominal cavity) and the 3D map of that scene opens new interesting possibilities inside the surgical field. This knowledge enables to do augmented reality annotations directly on the laparoscopic images (e.g. alignment of preoperative 3D CT models); intracavity 3D distance measurements; or photorealistic 3D reconstructions of the abdominal cavity recovering synthetically the lost depth. These new facilities provide security and rapidity to surgical procedures without disturbing the classical procedure workflow. Hence, these tools are available inside the surgeon's armory, being the surgeon who decides to use them or not. Additionally, knowledge of the camera location with respect to the patient's abdominal cavity is fundamental for future development of robots that can operate automatically since, knowing this location, the robot will be able to localize other tools controlled by itself with respect to the patient. In detail, the contributions of this thesis are: - To demonstrate the feasibility of applying SLAM algorithms to laparoscopy showing experimentally that using robust data association is a must. - To robustify one of these algorithms, in particular the monocular EKF-SLAM algorithm, by adapting a relocalization system and improving data association with a robust matching algorithm. - To develop of a robust matching method (1-Point RANSAC algorithm). - To develop a new surgical procedure to ease the use of visual SLAM in laparoscopy. - To make an extensive validation of the robust EKF-SLAM (EKF + relocalization + 1-Point RANSAC) obtaining millimetric errors and working in real time both on simulation and real human surgeries. The selected surgery has been the ventral hernia repair. - To demonstrate the potential of these algorithms in laparoscopy: they recover synthetically the depth of the operative field which is lost by using monocular laparoscopes, enable the insertion of augmented reality annotations, and allow to perform distance measurements using only a laparoscopic tool (to define the real scale) and laparoscopic images. - To make a clinical validation showing that these algorithms allow to shorten surgical times of operations and provide more security to the surgical procedures

Relación entre el proceso histórico: Tartessos/ colonización fenicia y la alta Andalucía

[email protected] fenicios y tartesiosfueron losfundamentales transmisores de la cultura semita hacía el hinterland, concretamente hacia la alta Andalucía. la antigua Oretania, rica en minas. Allí se han hallado huellas abundantes de la impronta orientalizante que imprimen un lluevo carácter al ambiente materiaL e incluso espiritual nativo. Ella lo apreciamos en numerosos rasgas en los múltiples yacimientos de esta región. Ile ahí el ejemplo de Puente Tablas, y más intensamente aún el de Cástulo. Concretamente en su santuario de la Muela, de la edadfinal del Bronce, hallamos huellasfehacientes de préstamos materiales y espiritualesfenicios, que desarrollarnos en antplftud. En otros puntas del yacimiento tan,b¡éít se iran recuperado tiraferiales suntuarios para documentar la colonización fenicio/tartésica: en ajuares de enterramientos, datados en época oretana: en estratos noji~nerarios. con cronologia alta . aunque dentro del ámbito de necrópolis del siglo IV a. C. (Los Palos. Estacar de I?obarinas,i. en el poblado de la tinelo al que pertenece el edificio sagrado al que aludimos más arriba