Entre el rechazo frontal y la aceptación con condiciones: cónsules extranjeros en los puertos vascos entre los siglos XVI y XIX

[ES] El presente artículo analiza el establecimiento de cónsules de naciones extranjeras en los puertos vascos, desde el siglo XVI hasta la primera mitad del siglo XIX. Y lo hace en un lapso de tiempo tan amplio, precisamente para poder valorar las cons­ tantes y diferencias producidas. Para ello se ha hecho uso de los fondos del Archivo General de Gipuzkoa, del Archivo Histórico de la Diputación Foral de Bizkaia, del Archivo General de Simancas y de la Sección de Consejos Suprimidos del Archi­ vo Histórico Nacional, así como de la abundante bibliografía existente. El estudio demuestra que durante el período de estudio hubo una oposición frontal al esta­ blecimiento de representación consular extranjera —más tajante en San Sebastián que en Bilbao—, por considerarse que era una erosión del orden foral. Sin embargo, existió un tratamiento diferenciado en función de la nación pretendiente y de su peso específico en la economía local.

Proyecto de diseño y cálculo de retroexcavadora de pala frontal

El objetivo del presente proyecto es el diseño y cálculo de la pala frontal para una retroexcavadora de minería. Para el desarrollo del proyecto se han realizado una serie de estudios con sus respectivas iteraciones hasta lograr un equilibrio entre todos los elementos a estudio. Partiendo de la función objetivo a cumplir por el diseño, el primer paso consiste en definir el tipo de mecanismo más adecuado a las necesidades planteadas mediante un proceso de síntesis estructural. De esta forma se obtiene el tipo y número de elementos y pares a utilizar, así como su secuencia de unión (diagrama estructural). A continuación, a partir de las especificaciones dimensionales dadas por la empresa minera se obtienen las dimensiones principales del mecanismo, es decir, las longitudes, las posiciones y orientaciones relativas entre pares. Una vez obtenidas las dimensiones principales, se aplica cinemática inversa, para obtener la trayectoria de las posiciones a estudio y a continuación se realiza el análisis cinemático para los valores calculados para dichas posiciones. Por tanto, es necesario hacer una estimación inicial de las secciones de los elementos, pudiendo tomar como referencia aquellas que en otros diseños similares hayan resultado adecuadas. Con la distribución másica que implican estas dimensiones secundarias, y suministrando como dato el movimiento requerido para el mecanismo, así como todas las acciones resistentes a las que está sometido, se resuelve el problema dinámico. Este da como resultado las reacciones en los pares y las acciones motoras necesarias para que el sistema se mueva como previamente se ha especificado. Si los esfuerzos en los elementos generan un fallo (estático) en cualquiera de los elementos de la máquina, se modifican los materiales y dimensiones de las secciones en cuestión, y se realiza de nuevo un análisis cinetostático hasta que las dimensiones secundarias de los elementos sean tales que resistan las reacciones que aparecerán. A partir de aquí, si la diferencia entre lo requerido y los resultados obtenidos son aceptables, puede darse como válido el diseño. En caso contrario habría que modificar las características inerciales de los elementos y proseguir con el ciclo del diseño.

Conflictos entre el Corregidor y la Provincia de Guipúzcoa por la jurisdicción sobre los bosques durante el siglo XVIII: lo excepcional del caso guipuzcoano

[ES]Si hasta mediados del siglo XVIII la jurisdicción sobre los bosques guipuzcoanos fue acumulativa y a prevención entre las instituciones provinciales, los alcaldes, el Corregidor y las instituciones de Marina, la Real Cédula de 28 de junio de 1749 inauguró un nuevo período en el que la Provincia la detentó de forma privativa y excluyente, lo que provocó un choque frontal con el Corregidor, quien se resistía a dejar de ejercer sus prerrogativas.

Métodos cuantitativos versus métodos cualitativos en la economía de los Negocios. ¿Es una metodología reconciliable?

Changes in the organizational environment over the last three decades have increasingly led to traditional theories being called into question, by stimulating the search for new models suited to the new realities of business economics, generating a crisis or scientific revolution that may result in the appearance of a new paradigm. The positivism-phenomenology duality provokes an “epistemological crisis” in research in management sciences. But the existence of both approaches does not imply the election of one scientific orientation in frontal opposition to the other. From these two conceptions of research procedure, the methods applied can be classed into groups, quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative methodologies places great confidence in the ability of data and measurement to represent opinions or concepts, while qualitative methodologies focus on words and relations to describe a reality or situation. While the diversity of methods contribute to its development and indicates the maturity of an area, the methods must be suitably implemented to obtain significant, valid results. The methodology to be used is not going to depend solely on the type of study or the reality under examination, but also on the stage the research process has reached.

Estudio taxonómico de las especies ibéricas del género Odiellus (Arachnida: Opiliones)

El género Odiellus Roewer, 1923, diagnosticable por un robusto tridente frontal y una excavación dorso-distal en el tronco del pene, alberga seis especies ibéricas. La elevada variabilidad detectada sugiere que hay más especies. En este trabajo se realiza la caracterización de las especies ibéricas, así como su estudio morfológico y morfométrico (haciendo hincapié en las del noreste ibérico), y la descripción de una nueva especie de Cataluña, usando para ello ejemplares conservados en la colección del Departamento de Zoología y Biología Celular Animal de la UPV/EHU, así como ejemplares capturados durante una campaña en el Macizo del Garraf entre el 1 y el 3 de noviembre del 2012. Los resultados muestran que las variables morfométricas estudiadas influyen de manera desigual en la varianza muestral, lo cual puede ser útil en futuros estudios a la hora de decidir distintos caracteres diagnósticos para cada una de las especies de Odiellus ibéricos.

Physiological modules for generating discrete and rhythmic movements: action identification by a dynamic recurrent neural network

In this study we employed a dynamic recurrent neural network (DRNN) in a novel fashion to reveal characteristics of control modules underlying the generation of muscle activations when drawing figures with the outstretched arm. We asked healthy human subjects to perform four different figure-eight movements in each of two workspaces (frontal plane and sagittal plane). We then trained a DRNN to predict the movement of the wrist from information in the EMG signals from seven different muscles. We trained different instances of the same network on a single movement direction, on all four movement directions in a single movement plane, or on all eight possible movement patterns and looked at the ability of the DRNN to generalize and predict movements for trials that were not included in the training set. Within a single movement plane, a DRNN trained on one movement direction was not able to predict movements of the hand for trials in the other three directions, but a DRNN trained simultaneously on all four movement directions could generalize across movement directions within the same plane. Similarly, the DRNN was able to reproduce the kinematics of the hand for both movement planes, but only if it was trained on examples performed in each one. As we will discuss, these results indicate that there are important dynamical constraints on the mapping of EMG to hand movement that depend on both the time sequence of the movement and on the anatomical constraints of the musculoskeletal system. In a second step, we injected EMG signals constructed from different synergies derived by the PCA in order to identify the mechanical significance of each of these components. From these results, one can surmise that discrete-rhythmic movements may be constructed from three different fundamental modules, one regulating the co-activation of all muscles over the time span of the movement and two others elliciting patterns of reciprocal activation operating in orthogonal directions.

Physiological modules for generating discrete and rhythmic movements: Component analysis of EMG signals

A central question in Neuroscience is that of how the nervous system generates the spatiotemporal commands needed to realize complex gestures, such as handwriting. A key postulate is that the central nervous system (CNS) builds up complex movements from a set of simpler motor primitives or control modules. In this study we examined the control modules underlying the generation of muscle activations when performing different types of movement: discrete, point-to-point movements in eight different directions and continuous figure-eight movements in both the normal, upright orientation and rotated 90 degrees. To test for the effects of biomechanical constraints, movements were performed in the frontal-parallel or sagittal planes, corresponding to two different nominal flexion/abduction postures of the shoulder. In all cases we measured limb kinematics and surface electromyographic activity (EMB) signals for seven different muscles acting around the shoulder. We first performed principal component analysis (PCA) of the EMG signals on a movement-by-movement basis. We found a surprisingly consistent pattern of muscle groupings across movement types and movement planes, although we could detect systematic differences between the PCs derived from movements performed in each sholder posture and between the principal components associated with the different orientations of the figure. Unexpectedly we found no systematic differences between the figute eights and the point-to-point movements. The first three principal components could be associated with a general co-contraction of all seven muscles plus two patterns of reciprocal activatoin. From these results, we surmise that both "discrete-rhythmic movements" such as the figure eight, and discrete point-to-point movement may be constructed from three different fundamental modules, one regulating the impedance of the limb over the time span of the movement and two others operating to generate movement, one aligned with the vertical and the other aligned with the horizontal.

Alcohol-Related Brain Damage in Humans

Chronic excessive alcohol intoxications evoke cumulative damage to tissues and organs. We examined prefrontal cortex (Brodmann's area (BA) 9) from 20 human alcoholics and 20 age, gender, and postmortem delay matched control subjects. H & E staining and light microscopy of prefrontal cortex tissue revealed a reduction in the levels of cytoskeleton surrounding the nuclei of cortical and subcortical neurons, and a disruption of subcortical neuron patterning in alcoholic subjects. BA 9 tissue homogenisation and one dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) proteomics of cytosolic proteins identified dramatic reductions in the protein levels of spectrin beta II, and alpha- and beta-tubulins in alcoholics, and these were validated and quantitated by Western blotting. We detected a significant increase in a-tubulin acetylation in alcoholics, a non-significant increase in isoaspartate protein damage, but a significant increase in protein isoaspartyl methyltransferase protein levels, the enzyme that triggers isoaspartate damage repair in vivo. There was also a significant reduction in proteasome activity in alcoholics. One dimensional PAGE of membrane-enriched fractions detected a reduction in beta-spectrin protein levels, and a significant increase in transmembranous alpha 3 (catalytic) subunit of the Na+, K+-ATPase in alcoholic subjects. However, control subjects retained stable oligomeric forms of a-subunit that were diminished in alcoholics. In alcoholics, significant loss of cytosolic alpha-and beta-tubulins were also seen in caudate nucleus, hippocampus and cerebellum, but to different levels, indicative of brain regional susceptibility to alcohol-related damage. Collectively, these protein changes provide a molecular basis for some of the neuronal and behavioural abnormalities attributed to alcoholics

Combining rimonabant and fentanyl in a single entity: preparation and pharmacological results

Based on numerous pharmacological studies that have revealed an interaction between cannabinoid and opioid systems at the molecular, neurochemical, and behavioral levels, a new series of hybrid molecules has been prepared by coupling the molecular features of two well-known drugs, ie, rimonabant and fentanyl. The new compounds have been tested for their affinity and functionality regarding CB1 and CB2 cannabinoid and mu opioid receptors. In [S-35]-GTP.S (guanosine 5'-O-[gamma-thio] triphosphate) binding assays from the post-mortem human frontal cortex, they proved to be CB1 cannabinoid antagonists and mu opioid antagonists. Interestingly, in vivo, the new compounds exhibited a significant dual antagonist action on the endocannabinoid and opioid systems.

Lethal Interpersonal Violence in the Middle Pleistocene

Evidence of interpersonal violence has been documented previously in Pleistocene members of the genus Homo, but only very rarely has this been posited as the possible manner of death. Here we report the earliest evidence of lethal interpersonal violence in the hominin fossil record. Cranium 17 recovered from the Sima de los Huesos Middle Pleistocene site shows two clear perimortem depression fractures on the frontal bone, interpreted as being produced by two episodes of localized blunt force trauma. The type of injuries, their location, the strong similarity of the fractures in shape and size, and the different orientations and implied trajectories of the two fractures suggest they were produced with the same object in face-to-face interpersonal conflict. Given that either of the two traumatic events was likely lethal, the presence of multiple blows implies an intention to kill. This finding shows that the lethal interpersonal violence is an ancient human behavior and has important implications for the accumulation of bodies at the site, supporting an anthropic origin.