Los cinco testamentos de Francisco Xavier Balmis

El reciente hallazgo de los Protocolos Testamentarios Francisco Xavier Balmis (1753-1819), director de la Real Expedición Filantrópica de la Vacuna, constituye una nueva fuente documental para explorar su perfil biográfico. Balmis redactó un total de cinco testamentos que abarcan el periodo de 1803-1818 y coinciden con momentos cruciales de su vida. Su análisis ha permitido establecer interesantes observaciones que certifican su inseguridad personal antes de afrontar la expedición, su desamparo al ser despojado de sus bienes por adherirse a la causa monárquica frente a Napoleón, el consuelo al serle restituidos sus honores y hacienda o la entereza para afrontar sus últimos momentos. Revelan que Balmis supo hacer de la carrera profesional como cirujano militar un instrumento para alcanzar el prestigio social, y desmienten los supuestos sobre un final oscuro. El inventario de sus bienes ratifica su desahogada situación económica y su capacidad para gestionarlos. Las fuentes notariales se acreditan con este caso de Balmis, un funcionario de la Corona, como un ejemplo para el estudio de las oligarquías urbanas del Antiguo Régimen.

Characterization of the instability mechanisms affecting slopes on carbonatic Flysch: Alicante (SE Spain), case study

The studied Flysch sequence of Alicante occupies a widely populated area crossed by main communication routes. The slopes existing on this area usually suffer slope instabilities that cause substantial damage and a very high maintenance cost. In order to assess the type of instability mechanisms affecting these heterogeneous carbonatic slopes, in this paper a wide inventory of 194 Flysch rock slopes has been performed, reporting the existing lithologies, their competence and their relative arrangement and the geometrical relationship between bedding and the slope and the associated instability mechanism. All these data have been jointly used for performing an instability mechanisms characterization. For systematically characterizing the wide type of complex rock exposures existing in the study area, they are divided into basic units referred as lithological pattern columns to which the different observed instability mechanisms are associated. Inventoried instability mechanisms are diverse and sometimes are combined with each other. Rockfalls are a very common instability mechanism associated to the differential weathering and sapping of the marly lithologies which are present in a wide number of geometrical combinations. The other instability mechanisms closely depend on the combination of the geometrical and lithological parameters. Therefore, this work provides a new basic tool which can be easily used during preliminary project stages for knowing the instability mechanisms which can affect rock slopes excavated on carbonatic Flysch heterogeneous geological formations.

Structures, Systems and Organizational Communication Processes in Franchises in times of crisis: the Spanish case

Current economic crisis together with the Internet revolution has had direct impacts on the franchise sector of Spain: in particular on its unique communication network. The aim of this research is to analyse how Spanish franchise companies have adapted to these changes through its corporate communications management. We want to determine whether the management of communications is ideal to the growth and consolidation of companies in the market. Corporate communications plans and organizational structures were analyzed to verify whether or not information technology (i.e. the use of the Internet) is maximized: the communications aspect being a critical area of company growth. We found that most franchise companies surveyed had adapted well to the changes in information technology, despite economic challenges. The Internet as a communications tool has been limited to its utility as a “bulletin board” for information. The marketing advantage of Internet communication, or its use as an avenue for customer exchange and exchange of goods and services has yet to be maximized. Future research may look into the details of how companies are able to maximize the communications-marketing advantage that Online/Internet can contribute to the franchise sector.

Profiles of emotional intelligence and learning strategies in a sample of Chilean students

In the last few years, one of the lines of research of great interest in the field of emotional intelligence (EI) has been the analysis of the role of emotions in the educational context and, in particular, their influence on learning strategies. The aims of this study are to identify the existence of different EI profiles and to determine possible statistically significant differences in learning strategies between the obtained profiles. The study involved 1253 Chilean school students from 14 to 18 years (M = 15.10, SD = 1.30), who completed the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24 (TMMS-24) and the Inventory of Learning and Study Strategies—High School version (LASSI-HS). Cluster analysis identified four EI profiles: a group of adolescents with a high EI profile, a group with predominance of low emotional attention and high repair skills, a group with high scores on attention and low scores on clarity and repair, and a final group of adolescents with low EI. Also, students in groups with high overall scores in EI and low attention and high repair emotional obtained higher scores on the different learning strategies; however, the effect size analysis showed that these differences had no empirical relevance.

Prosocial behavior and self-concept of Spanish students of Compulsory Secondary Education

This study analyzed the relationship between prosocial behavior and self-concept dimensions in a sample of 2022 Spanish students (51.1% males) of Compulsory Secondary Education. The prosocial behavior was measured with the Prosocial Behavior scale of the Teenage Inventory of Social Skills (TISS) and the self-concept was measured with the Self-Description Questionnaire-II (SDQ-II). Logistic regression analyses revealed that prosocial behavior is a positive and significant statistically predictor of high scores on the following self-concept dimensions: physical ability, parent relations, same-sex relations, opposite-sex relations, verbal, school, trustworthiness, and self-esteem. Those results were found in males, females and every Compulsory Secondary education year. However, prosocial behavior is not a significant statistically predictor of high scores on physical appearance, math, and emotional stability.