The role of children in the traditional religious house-blessing rite of Salpassa in north-eastern Spain

Salpassa denotes the blessing of houses, land, and other belongings, carried out during Easter week and Resurrection (Easter) Sunday in the Valencia–Catalonia linguistic region of north-eastern Spain. Although it is now remembered mostly as a consecrating ceremony or a religious rite, recent field research has shown that a playful element, carried out by children through their songs and other activities, was also an important aspect of the traditional Salpassa.

Buscando la correlación instrumental y visual óptima para colores goniocromáticos mediante cabinas de iluminación y multi-gonio-espectrofotómetros

En la búsqueda de la modelización y cuantificación óptimas de la correlación instrumental y visual de materiales goniocromáticos (pinturas y plásticos, principalmente) en los procesos de control de calidad típicos del sector automovilístico, se presenta aquí una comparación de las prestaciones de diversos tipos actuales de instrumentos de medida del color y cabinas de iluminación. Los multi-gonioespectrofotómetros analizados fueron: Datacolor FX10®, X-Rite MA98® y BYK-mac®, y, las cabinas de iluminación direccional: gonio-vision-box® y byko-spectra effect®. Las propiedades ópticas, básicamente fotométricas y colorimétricas, evaluadas fueron: geometrías de medida, fuente de luz, distancia de observación y dirección visual a la muestra. Los resultados aportados mostraron que actualmente dicha correlación instrumental y visual no es óptima debido a desajustes en las cabinas.

Reproducibility comparison among multiangle spectrophotometers

New color-measuring instruments known as multiangle spectrophotometers have been recently created to measure and characterize the goniochromism of special-effect pigments in many materials with a particular visual appearance (metallic, interference, pearlescent, sparkle, or glitter). These devices measure the gonioapparent color from the spectral relative reflectance factor and the L*a*b* values of the sample with different illumination and observation angles. These angles usually coincide with requirements marked in American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and Deutsches Institut Für Normung standards relating to the gonioapparent color, but the results of comparisons between these instruments are still inconclusive. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to compare several multiangle spectrophotometers at a reproducibility level according to ASTM E2214-08 guidelines. In particular, we compared two X-Rite multi-gonio spectrophotometers (MA98 and MA68II), a Datacolor multi-gonio spectrophotometer (FX10), and a BYK multi-gonio spectrophotometer (BYK-mac). These instruments share only five common measurement geometries: 45° × −30° (as 15°), 45° × −20° (as 25°), 45° × 0° (as 45°), 45° × 30° (as 75°), 45° × 65° (as 110°). Specific statistical studies were used for the reproducibility comparison, including a Hotelling test and a statistical intercomparison test to determine the confidence interval of the partial color differences ΔL*, Δa*, Δb*, and the total color difference ΔE*ab. This was conducted using a database collection of 88 metallic and pearlescent samples that were measured 20 times without the replacement of all the instruments. The final findings show that in most measurement geometries, the reproducibility differences between pairs of instruments are statistically significant, although in general, there is a better reproducibility level at certain common geometries for newer instruments (MA98 and BYK-mac). This means that these differences are due to systematic or bias errors (angle tolerances for each geometry, photometric scales, white standards, etc.), but not exclusively to random errors. However, neither of the statistical tests used is valid to discriminate and quantify the detected bias errors in this comparison between instruments.

Global color estimation of special-effect coatings from measurements by commercially available portable multiangle spectrophotometers

Colors of special-effect coatings have strong dependence on illumination/viewing geometry and an appealing appearance. An open question is to ask about the minimum number of measurement geometries required to completely characterize their observed color shift. A recently published principal components analysis (PCA)-based procedure to estimate the color of special-effect coatings at any geometry from measurements at a reduced set of geometries was tested in this work by using the measurement geometries of commercial portable multiangle spectrophotometers X-Rite MA98, Datacolor FX10, and BYK-mac as reduced sets. The performance of the proposed PCA procedure for the color-shift estimation for these commercial geometries has been examined for 15 special-effect coatings. Our results suggest that for rendering the color appearance of 3D objects covered with special-effect coatings, the color accuracy obtained with this procedure may be sufficient. This is the case especially if geometries of X-Rite MA98 or Datacolor FX10 are used.

El principio de igualdad y no discriminación en relación con la pensión de viudedad y el «matrimonio gitano»

El punto de partida de nuestro estudio se sitúa en el polémico y discutido asunto resuelto por la sentencia del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos de 8 de diciembre de 2009, Caso Muñoz Díaz c. España, donde se condena al Estado español por denegar la pensión de viudedad a una ciudadana casada exclusivamente por el rito matrimonial gitano. Al hilo de esta resolución analizaremos, entre otras cuestiones, las diversas formas matrimoniales a las que nuestro legislador otorga efectos civiles, la incidencia de dichas disposiciones en el principio de igualdad y no discriminación consagrado en el artículo 14 de la Constitución y en el artículo 14 del Convenio Europeo de Derechos Humanos, y la posible vulneración de dicho principio en el marco de las prestaciones sociales reguladas en la Ley General de la Seguridad Social, recientemente reformada.