Between Flanders and Castile: the patronage of Aĺonso Manrique in Badajoz Cathedral

La intención de este texto es analizar los trabajos emprendidos por el obispo Alonso Manrique de Lara en el templo mayor de la diócesis de Badajoz, con el fin de constatar que el repertorio formal usado en dichas obras parece reflejar los gustos del prelado, un gusto formado a partir de sus viajes por Europa durante su exilio en Flandes y su relación con los grandes centros de creación artística castellanos; en definitiva, comprobar que existe una intención por parte del obispo de dejar una impronta personalista en la sede, tanto en lo espiritual como en el encargo de obras arquitectónicas, un Modus operandi que será consustancial a la carrera de Manrique como obispo.The aim of this text is to analyze the works promoted by bishop Alonso Manrique de Lara in the most relevant temple of the diocese of Badajoz, in order to verify, that the formal repertoire used in these works seems to reflect the tastes of the prelate, a taste formed from his trips through Europe during his exile in Flanders and his relation with the great centers of artistic creation in Castile; in short, it is pretended to verify that there is an intention of the bishop to leave a personal stamp on the see, both in the spiritual as in the commission of architectural works, a Modus operandi that will be consubstantial to Manrique ́s career as a bishop

A Declarative Semantics for CLP with Qualification and Proximity

Uncertainty in Logic Programming has been investigated during the last decades, dealing with various extensions of the classical LP paradigm and different applications. Existing proposals rely on different approaches, such as clause annotations based on uncertain truth values, qualification values as a generalization of uncertain truth values, and unification based on proximity relations. On the other hand, the CLP scheme has established itself as a powerful extension of LP that supports efficient computation over specialized domains while keeping a clean declarative semantics. In this paper we propose a new scheme SQCLP designed as an extension of CLP that supports qualification values and proximity relations. We show that several previous proposals can be viewed as particular cases of the new scheme, obtained by partial instantiation. We present a declarative semantics for SQCLP that is based on observables, providing fixpoint and proof-theoretical characterizations of least program models as well as an implementation-independent notion of goal solutions.Comment: 17 pages, 26th Int'l. Conference on Logic Programming (ICLP'10

The influence of social capital on risk-taking propensity. A study on Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs

This paper studies the influence of social capital on immigrant entrepreneurs’ risk-taking propensity. The paper has a particular focus on Chinese immigrants and also explores the effects of the so-called “guanxi”, a specific form of social capital for Chinese communities. The empirical research is based on a survey conducted in 2012 on Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs in Andalusia (Spain). An ordinal logistic regression specification was employed to test the hypotheses. The results show that the Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs with greater structural, relational and cognitive social capital and better “guanxi” have a higher risk-taking propensity in their business activity

How triathletes mount their bikes after first transition (T1). A proposal of classification

A proposal is submit for the classification referring to the different ways in which triathletes mount their bikes to start pedalling. This action happens at the end of the transition area (T1) after having gone across on foot, with the bikes at their side, or, led across by hand, in a specific way (Fernández, Romero, Merino and April, 2015). These are unique aspects of this sport, compared to other sports in which a bike is also used. The purpose of this research was concentrates in describing and classifying the motor behaviours that occur at the end of the transition area, in front of the “judge’s line”. This study was bassed on participants of 3 Spanish Elite Championships of different distances (407 triathletes). It was filmed in the moment when they picked up their bikes, passed through the transition area and mounted their bikes. Eleven different ways were discovered on how to mount a bike when passing the judge’s line.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Heuristic optimization of clusters of heat pumps: A simulation and case study of residential frequency reserve

The technological challenges of adapting energy systems to the addition of more renewables are intricately interrelated with the ways in which markets incentivize their development and deployment. Households with own onsite distributed generation augmented by electrical and thermal storage capacities (prosumers), can adjust energy use based on the current needs of the electricity grid. Heat pumps, as an established technology for enhancing energy efficiency, are increasingly seen as having potential for shifting electricity use and contributing to Demand Response (DR). Using a model developed and validated with monitoring data of a household in a plus-energy neighborhood in southern Germany, the technical and financial viability of utilizing household heat pumps to provide power in the market for Frequency Restoration Reserve (FRR) are studied. The research aims to evaluate the flexible electrical load offered by a cluster of buildings whose heat pumps are activated depending on selected rule-based participation strategies. Given the prevailing prices for FRR in Germany, the modelled cluster was unable to reduce overall electricity costs and thus was unable to show that DR participation as a cluster with the heat pumps is financially viable. Five strategies that differed in the respective contractual requirements that would need to be agreed upon between the cluster manager and the aggregator were studied. The relatively high degree of flexibility necessary for the heat pumps to participate in FRR activations could be provided to varying extents in all strategies, but the minimum running time of the heat pumps turned out to be the primary limiting physical (and financial) factor. The frequency, price and duration of the activation calls from the FRR are also vital to compensate the increase of the heat pumps’ energy use. With respect to thermal comfort and self-sufficiency constraints, the buildings were only able to accept up to 34% of the activation calls while remaining within set comfort parameters. This, however, also depends on the characteristics of the buildings. Finally, a sensitivity analysis showed that if the FRR market changed and the energy prices were more advantageous, the proposed approaches could become financially viable. This work suggests the need for further study of the role of heat pumps in flexibility markets and research questions concerning the aggregation of local clusters of such flexible technologies.Comisión Europea 69596

A Transformation-based Implementation for CLP with Qualification and Proximity

Uncertainty in logic programming has been widely investigated in the last decades, leading to multiple extensions of the classical LP paradigm. However, few of these are designed as extensions of the well-established and powerful CLP scheme for Constraint Logic Programming. In a previous work we have proposed the SQCLP (proximity-based qualified constraint logic programming) scheme as a quite expressive extension of CLP with support for qualification values and proximity relations as generalizations of uncertainty values and similarity relations, respectively. In this paper we provide a transformation technique for transforming SQCLP programs and goals into semantically equivalent CLP programs and goals, and a practical Prolog-based implementation of some particularly useful instances of the SQCLP scheme. We also illustrate, by showing some simple-and working-examples, how the prototype can be effectively used as a tool for solving problems where qualification values and proximity relations play a key role. Intended use of SQCLP includes flexible information retrieval applications.Comment: 49 pages, 5 figures, 1 table, preliminary version of an article of the same title, published as Technical Report SIC-4-10, Universidad Complutense, Departamento de Sistemas Inform\'aticos y Computaci\'on, Madrid, Spai

Creatividad, arte, artista, locura: una red de conceptos limítrofes.

El tema de la relación entre el artista o los individuos creadores y la locura ha sido siempre polémico y continúa siéndolo. A pesar de la abundante investigación, no parece que se haya llegado a ninguna solución definitiva acerca del carácter real o mitico de esa vinculación. Una vía de análisis que aquí se plantea, diferente a las habituales, puede ser el estudio de algunos de los conceptos implicados --arte, artista, creatividad, locura-- y de sus posibles puntos de contacto. Quizás esta perspectiva pueda facilitar una mayor comprensión del problema y de sus numerosas denvaciones.The topic of the relationship between artist or creative people and madness has always been polemie and it is so still. Despite a vast range of research, there seems to be no definitive answer to the discussion about the mythical or real character of this linldng. Another perspective to research, difi'erent from usual ones, can be to study several coneepts involved --art, artist, creativity, madness-- and the meetting arcas between them. Perhaps, this approach may help to understand the problem and bis several derivations

Creatividad en el Arte: Descentramientos, aplicaciones, conexiones, complejidad

Se consideran algunas de las transformaciones ocurridas en el ámbito del arte en los últimos años, extrayendo sus rasgos fundamentales. A partir de ahí, se revisa la perspectiva tradicional sobre la creatividad artística y se ofrecen algunas claves, para considerar la creatividad en artes, ajustada a las nuevas manifestaciones artísticas, con la referencia en la complejidad y la interconexión