Phytogeographic characterization of Gran Canaria Island (Canary Islands-Spain)

Studies on the flora and fauna of the Canary Islands show that this Archipelago is one of the planet’s diversity hot spots. However, an analysis of the differences in the phytogeographic characteristics of each of the islands that make up this Archipelago is lacking. This article focuses on the phytogeographic characterization of the island of Gran Canaria. This island exhibits geological and climatic characteristics resulting in a rich vascular flora, including endemic species and genera that are significantly different from the other islands of the Archipelago. These differences are verified through statistical analysis of the existing similarity between the floras of the members of the Canary Islands. This study also analyses the subdivision of Gran Canaria Island, indicating that there are three well-differentiated areas on the island itself. Finally, this study argues that these areas, themselves, should be considered biogeographic sectors.

Discourses on Modernization in the Employment Public Services: Towards a New Form of Governance?

The “crisis of the social issue” in the EU has led to a certain consensus in the need to renew the organizational and institutional model of public administration. The core of the reform implies important administrative changes in most of the European welfare states. Those changes are inspired on theories such as the new public management, management by objectives or partnership. Such changes involve both semantic (“sharing responsibilities”, “effective costs”, or the substitution of “citizen under an administration” by “consumer”) and political (predominance of scattered forms of power and the individualization of responsibilities) transformations which operate in the framework of individuals and State relations. The paradigms of activation and flexicurity have been central in this public administration modernization project. This commitment with new forms of governance of social issues has important consequences for the political and moral foundations of social cohesion, and the Spanish case is not an exception. This paper aims at looking at those representations of “modernization” (as they appear in debates about the employment services restructuring policies) in detail as well as providing references to the trajectory of such reforms of public services since the early eighties to the beginning of the crisis.

How teachers of Geography and History of Secondary Education assess?

The purpose of this article is to analyse the assessment procedures and instruments used by teachers of Geography and History of Compulsory Secondary School (ESO) in the Region of Murcia (Spain). The data have been extracted implementing a survey technique proceeded by a descriptive analysis. The results show that teachers generally have a traditional conception of assessment, reflected in the fact that they think that assessment should not change when teaching strategies are changed or when they innovate. On the other hand, although they consider that is necessary to employ a variety of instruments to assess well and to prevent school failure, they still use exams as the most objective and essential instrument in the assessment, while they don’t apply continuous assessment, only tests in a continuous way. The implementation of similar research in other areas or in other subjects shows the existence of contrasts in teacher assessment practices.

Los nuevos territorios de la gráfica: imagen, proceso y distribución

La gráfica se encuentra en un proceso de simbiosis con la cultura visual en el que la tecnología de la imagen, la descentralización de la matriz y la adaptación del formato expositivo se funden con el resto de las actividades artísticas. El análisis de las comunidades formadas alrededor de esta práctica configura un puzzle, aparentemente bien encajado, que se divide entre el formalismo y el conceptualismo y entre la idea y el proceso. Las bienales y trienales, a la vanguardia del discurso, cuestionan cualquier concepto que se haya podido asentar con solidez: ante la decadencia del proceso artesanal el mensaje se profundiza nutriéndose de la invectiva provocada por las contradicciones sociales, territoriales y medioambientales para convertirse en un reflejo de la sociedad contemporánea. Comprender la gráfica actual pasa por un ejercicio de aperturismo y un proceso de adaptación al cambio técnico e iconográfico de los sectores implicados. El grabado es ahora un territorio en el que la integración de todas las artes permite cruzar sus fronteras con fluidez.

Estrategias resilientes ante la situación adversa de los desahucios

Los desahucios en España se han convertido en los últimos años en un fenómeno social emergente, de interés tanto para la investigación como para la intervención de los profesionales de la acción social. Aun así, no existen estudios suficientes relacionados con esta situación adversa, y menos aún centrados en las respuestas resilientes que las personas son capaces de ofrecer ante ella. Con el objetivo de identificar los factores internos y externos que se presentan en la experiencia de las familias que viven procesos de desahucios y que les están permitiendo desarrollar estrategias resilientes ante dicha adversidad, se lleva a cabo la presente investigación en la que participan 20 sujetos, pertenecientes a familias que acuden a la Plataforma de Afectados por las Hipotecas (PAH) de Málaga. A los participantes se les realiza una entrevista semi-estructurada y a través de ellas se han podido definir las características socio-familiares de las personas afectadas, las diferentes estrategias de afrontamiento desarrolladas, las principales fuentes de apoyo con las que han contado, así como las preocupaciones que les han acompañado. Los resultados muestran los principales factores internos y externos que están presenten en las estrategias resilientes que han desarrollado las familias afectadas por los desahucios durante el proceso vivido y destacan como fuente de apoyo informacional a la PAH. Se concluye con la necesidad de continuar con esta línea de investigación para tratar de diseñar intervenciones que refuercen y fomenten las estrategias de afrontamiento ante la situación adversa del desahucio.

Special employment centers in Castile and León 2007-2013: effects of the crisis in relation to these centers’ registered legal personalities

The aim of this paper is to carry out an economic and financial study of the Special Employment Centres in Castile and León based on a classification of these entities’ registered legal personalities in order to view how the economic crisis that began at the end of 2007 may have affected them. Various items from the Centres’ financial statements are analysed and the results are compared to those from the period 2007-2013 as to provide a broader perspective of their size, development, growth and behaviour. The following economic figures were used: total assets, turnover and revenue. The variable “employment” is compared with the subsidies received by the Centres, showing that the crisis does affect the Centres depending on their registered legal personalities. Associations and physical persons are the most affected personalities, to the point of possible extinction. An account reversal for the Centres is also included in this article, which measures the percentage of public aid received by the Centres that is returned to society.

Las expectativas de los estudiantes y la calidad del servicio ofertado por la universidad de Sevilla

En este artículo se presenta un análisis diferencial de las expectativas de los estudiantes de la Universidad de Sevilla (España), en función de las ramas del conocimiento, agrupadas en las dimensiones personal, universidad, curricular y docencia. Las aportaciones han sido recogidas en un cuestionario aplicado a 1082 estudiantes de las áreas de humanidades, bio-sanitaria, económica-jurídica y científico-técnica, a través de un análisis de la varianza para la comparación de medias (asumiendo varianzas iguales y pruebas de Scheffé y Tukey). Se han contrastado los valores medios de cada rama, con el fin de determinar si las diferencias observadas resultan estadísticamente significativas. Los resultados obtenidos ponen de manifiesto que la dimensión personal y la de universidad son valoradas de forma similar en las cuatro ramas del conocimiento; en cambio en la dimensión curricular, las expectativas son más favorables para la rama bio-sanitaria y, en la docencia para la rama de humanidades. En definitiva, los resultados presentan las fortalezas y las debilidades en las dimensiones consideradas y permiten extraer conclusiones de las que derivan indicadores de interés para la mejora de la comunidad universitaria.

Antropología de la Conservación en España. Balance y perspectivas

En este artículo presentamos un balance de la Antropología de la Conservación en el Estado español. Durante las últimas décadas, la protección de los espacios naturales ha aumentado de una manera exponencial en todo el mundo. A la vez que se extendía esta patrimonialización de la naturaleza, los trabajos etnográficos sobre las áreas protegidas han ido ganando terreno dentro de la disciplina y, en particular, en el campo de la Antropología Ambiental. La mencionada bibliografía ha puesto de relieve los múltiples aspectos derivados de las nuevas políticas territoriales de regulación, apropiación y mercantilización de la ‘naturaleza’. En este trabajo realizamos una revisión exhaustiva de la producción generada a raíz de este interés por las áreas protegidas en nuestro país subrayando sus principales aportaciones, características y debilidades. De este modo pretendemos reflexionar acerca de su continuidad, con el fin de evitar la mera reiteración y favorecer el avance en sus resultados.

“Animanazo”. Song and memories. Cultural expressions and movements in the reconstruction of the past inside a north Argentinian town

This article analyses the context of production and local situations of appropriation and resignification related to the folk song “Fire on Animaná” as well as the request and mobilization (“The animanazo”) provoked by this song in order to examine different mechanisms and foundations by which a population connect with an event from its community past, identifying with this and taking it in a specific way. In this article we combine discourse analysis of the song and of interviews to participants in this event with the reconstruction —through ethnographic observation— of how to use this song.

La biblioteca del predicador Pere Dorchal (1419)

A partir del inventario post mortem de los libros de Pere Dorchal, sacerdote beneficiado en la catedral de Valencia, datado en 1419, se estudia la composición de la biblioteca de un predicador. Al mismo tiempo, se recompone su biografía.

Civic Humanism and the Classical Tradition in the Early Republic of Chile

The first decades of the 19th century constituted a period of profound change for Chile, the principal results of which were to be seen in the consolidation of the process of independence from Spanish dominion in 1818. The consequences were not limited to a revolution of military and political nature; they also included a renovation of the cultural panorama -at least among the educated patriots who made an effort to distance themselves ideologically from the Monarchy-, with the implicit challenge of establishing a new order for Chile, based on legitimate and universally recognizable foundations. The inspirational framework for these efforts is usually associated with other revolutionary examples -France and the United States- that preceded the emancipation processes in Spanish America, as well as with the discourses of illustrated liberalism. As we will attempt to demonstrate in this study, a new reading of the texts written by the Creoles that lead the Chilean independence process may, nonetheless, also reveal the relevance of the classical tradition as a model for the configuration and legitimization of the first Republican projects that especially admired the ideals of Republicanism.

Grammar in dictionaries revisited: the case of verbs with se

This paper is a study about the way in which se structures are represented in 20 verb entries of nine dictionaries of Spanish language. There is a large number of these structures and they are problematic for native and non native speakers. Verbs of the analysis are middle-high frequency and, in the most part of the cases, very polysemous, and this allows to observe interconnections between the different se structures and the different meanings of each verb. Data of the lexicographic analysis are cross-checked with corpus analysis of the same units. As a result, it is observed that there is a large variety in the data which are offered in each dictionary and in the way they are offered, inter and intradictionary. The reasons range from the theoretical overall of each Project to practical performance. This leads to the conclusion that it is necessary to further progress in the dictionary model it is being handled, in order to offer lexico-grammatical phenomenon such as se verbs in an accurate, clear and exhaustive way.