Ciutat de Mallorca, 31 de desembre del 1229: Sant Silvestre, Sant Jordi i Jaume I

Un dels episodis més memorables del Llibre dels feits és la descripció de l’atac final a la Ciutat de Mallorca el 31 de desembre del 1229. Es tracta del dia de sant Silvestre i, encara que Jaume I no esmenti aquesta efemèride en el seu relat, potser no es tracta d’una coincidència. Per un cristià del segle XIII sant Silvestre era, d’acord amb el divulgadíssim Actus Beati Silvestri, el responsable de la conversió al cristianisme de l’emperador Constantí i d’Helena, la seva mare. Era, per tant, un personatge clau en la història de la difusió i de la consolidació de la religió cristiana. Potser per aquesta raó es va fer coincidir amb el 31 de desembre la data de l’atac definitiu a una ciutat que ja estava delmada a causa d’un setge llarg i dur. La caiguda de Mallorca en mans cristianes també es podia interpretar, sens dubte, com un moment important en la història de la difusió del cristianisme si més no a la nostra banda del Mediterrani. Potser cal tenir també en compte en relació amb aquesta qüestió que, segons una tradició recollida en el Flos Mundi, un compendi d’història universal en llengua vulgar de principis del segle xv, i catalogada en el repertori de llegendes historiogràfiques d’Anna Cortadellas (2001: 179), no va ser pas l’apòstol sant Jaume, sinó una deixebla de sant Silvestre la responsable de la conversió d’Espanya a la religió cristiana

Managing induced tourism image : relational patterns and the life cycle

The tourism image is an element that conditions the competitiveness of tourism destinations by making them stand out in the minds of tourists. In this context, marketers of tourism destinations endeavour to create an induced image based on their identity and distinctive characteristics.A number of authors have also recognized the complexity of tourism destinations and the need for coordination and cooperation among all tourism agents, in order to supply a satisfactory tourist product and be competitive in the tourism market. Therefore, tourism agents at the destination need to develop and integrate strategic marketing plans.The aim of this paper is to determine how cities of similar cultures use their resources with the purpose of developing a distinctive induced tourism image to attract tourists and the extent of coordination and cooperation among the various tourism agents of a destination in the process of induced image creation.In order to accomplish these aims, a comparative analysis of the induced image of two cultural cities is presented, Girona (Spain) and Perpignan (France). The induced image is assessed through the content analysis of promotional brochures and the extent of cooperation with in-depth interviews of the main tourism agents of these destinations.Despite the similarities of both cities in terms of tourism resources, results show the use of different attributes to configure the induced image of each destination, as well as a different configuration of the network of tourism agents that participate in the process of induced image creation

La Consulta i el prefaci quadripartit de l’Espill de Jaume Roig

This article points out that Jaume Roig’s Espill is a fictional autobiography written in the guise of a letter and thereby dated at Callosa d’en Sarrià in 1460. Joan Fabra, a knight suffering from love-illness, consults the physician Jaume Roig, who sends him a reply letter. Thus the work is also a lletovari (a mock medical prescription), a genre which was often presented in a verse letter-writing form. The four-part preface follows the four causes (efficient, final, material, and formal) of the ‘Aristotelian prologue’, a type of accessus largely used by scholars from the 12th century

De la dificultad para integrar las TIC al servicio de una propuesta alternativa para enseñar y aprender: políticas y prácticas. El caso del Jaume I

El estudio de caso realizado en la “Escola Jaume I” forma parte del proyecto de I+D Políticas y prácticas en torno a las TIC en la enseñanza obligatoria: Implicaciones para la innovación y la mejora (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. SEJ200767562), cuya finalidad principal es describir, analizar, interpretar y valorar la visión sobre la tecnología y la educación subyacente en las políticas y prácticas relacionadas con las TIC en la escuela, su grado de integración y sinergia con otras iniciativas políticas, y su capacidad para impulsar la transformación y la innovación y mejora de la educación obligatoria.

Les Sentències catòliques del diví poeta Dant (1545) d’en Jaume Ferrer de Blanes: edició crítica del text

Procurador reial i nobiliari, cosmògraf, joier, lapidari, mercader i escriptor, i al capdavall, un ciutadà català honrat, en Ferrer (Vidreres, ~1445 – Blanes, 1529) va marxar de ben jove, primer, a la cort de Nàpols, al servei del rei en Ferran I, i després a la cort de Sicília, al servei de la reina na Joana de Sicília. Acabada aquesta peripècia italiana va tornar a Blanes al servei del vescomte de Cabrera i de Bas fins que va morir a la mateixa vila al 1529. Un seu criat, disset anys més tard, va editar uns papers esparsos que havia trobat a can Ferrer, les (sic) Sentèncias cathòlicas del diví poeta Dant florentí, compilades per lo prudentíssim mossèn Jaume Ferrer de Blanes, incloent-hi tres parts. La primera, Conclusions, és un sumari destinat a mostrar (sic) «Entre totas las cosas necessàries a l’home per aconseguir lo seu fi y beatitut eterna principalment són tres»; la segona, Meditació, és una reflexió a fi d’il•luminar els misteris sobre la passió i mort de Jesucrist a (sic) «lo santíssim loch de Calvari»; la tercera, Letras, és un conjunt de dotze documents, entre cartes i d’altres textos, «fetas a mossèn Jaume Ferrer, respostes e regles per ell ordenades en cosmographia y en art de navegar». En Ferrer, home de grans recursos, fa un recorregut per tots els coneixements que havia acumulat al llarg de la seva vida, de Dant Alighieri a Ptolemeu i del marquès de Santillana a Albert Gran o a Aristòtil, fent servir fragments de la Commedia, dels Proverbios, de la Bíblia i de moltes altres autoritats científiques i filosòfiques, en català, italià, espanyol, llatí i, també, set mots en arameu

PhD Students’ Research Group Networks: a Qualitative Approach

This article examines the networks within the research groups where Spanish PhD students are pursuing their doctorate. Capó et al. (2007) used quantitative data to predict PhD students’ publishing performance from their background, attitudes, supervisors’ performance and research group networks. Variables related to the research group network had a negligible explanatory power on student performance once the remaining variables had been accounted for. In this article, a qualitative follow up of the same students is carried out using extreme case sampling and indepth interviews. The qualitative research shows networking as important for students. Out of the 115 aspects that students mention in the interviews as relevant to publishing in the qualitative research, 92 have to do with their supervisors, their research group or their network as a whole. Similarly, out of the 50 hindrances mentioned, 20 have to do with the networks or relations. The most commonly mentioned network-related topics are research group members pushing PhD students to publish, meeting researchers outside the research group, existence of other PhD students in the group, help with the PhD from group members, supervisor’s interest in the thesis, the possibility of discussing with experts on the PhD’s topic and frequent contact with the supervisor and research group members. Some of these characteristics were not, however, measured in the conventional quantitative social network survey

How (not) to interview children : interviews with young children in sexual abuse investigations in Finland

The present thesis had two main objectives: The first was to assess how child sexual abuse (CSA) interviews in Finland are conducted through analysing the interviewing techniques applied and the language used by the interviewers, as well as to suggest ways to improve interviews if they were found to have deficiencies. The second main aim was to contribute to the growing research corpus concerning CSA interviews, in particular, by addressing how interviewers follow up information provided by the child, by analysing whether child health care professionals would use childadapted language, and by studying the kind of modifications in the verbal behaviour of interviewers and children that were associated with a) repeated interviews, b) a support person’s presence at the interview, and c) the use of anatomically detailed dolls. Two complementary samples of CSA interviews were analysed. The first one was composed of child interviews with 3-12-year-old children (N = 27) that had been considered problematic by lawyers or other involved professionals (Studies I and IV). The second sample consisted of unselected interviews (N = 43) with children aged 3 to 8 years conducted in a number of hospitals in different parts of the country (Studies II and III). Study I: The verbal interaction between interviewer and child was analysed in a sample of interviews that had been considered to be problematic by involved professionals. Results showed that interviewers used inappropriate questioning techniques, relying on option-posing, specific suggestive and unspecific suggestive questions to a significant extent, these comprising around 50% of all interviewer utterances. The proportion of invitations, which the research community recommends interviewers to rely on, was strikingly low. Invitations and directive utterances were associated with an increase in informative responses by the child in terms of response type, number of new details reported, as well as length of response. The opposite was true for option-posing and suggestive utterances. Longer questions by the interviewer (in number of words) often rendered no reply from the child, whereas shorter questions were followed by descriptive answers. Even after the child had provided an informative answer, interviewers failed to follow up the information in an adequate way and instead continued to rely on focused and leading questions. Study II: Due to the possible bias of the sample analysed in Study I, the most important analyses were rerun with the unselected sample and reported separately. Results were quite similar between the two studies, indicating that the problems observed in Study I, with interviewers relying on option-posing and suggestive questions to a significant extent, are likely to be general and not specific for those interviews. Even if suggestive questions were slightly less and invitations slightly more common in this sample than in the previous study, almost half of the interviewer questions were still optionposing or suggestive, and also in this sample, interviewers failed to follow up information by the child in a facilitating manner. Differentiating between judicial and contextual details showed that while facilitators, invitations, and directive utterances elicited more contextual than judicial details, the opposite was true for specific suggestive utterances. These results might be explained by the reluctance of children to describe sexual details related to the abuse events. Alternatively, they may also be due to children describing incorrect sexual details as a result of suggestive interviewing techniques. Study III: This study examined features of the language used by the interviewers. Interviewer utterances included multiple questions, long statements, complicated grammar and concepts, as well as unclear references to persons and situations. More than a fifth of the interviewer utterances were coded as belonging to at least one of these categories. The results suggest that even professionals who are experienced in interacting with children may have difficulties in using a child-sensitive language, adding to the pool of studies showing similar problems to occur in legal hearings with children conducted by lawyers. As children rarely comment on, or even recognise, their lack of comprehension, the use of a language that is too complex can have detrimental consequences for the outcomes of investigative interviews. Interviewers used different approaches to introduce the topic of abuse. While 15% of the children spontaneously addressed the topic of abuse, probably indicating that they felt confident with the interviewer and the situation, in almost 50% of the cases, the interviewer introduced the topic of abuse in a way that can be considered leading. Interviews were characterised by a lack of structure, apparent in frequent rapid switches of topic by the interviewer. This manner was associated with a decrease in the number of new details provided by the children. Study IV: This study analysed possible changes in the interview dynamics associated with repeated interviewing, the presence of a support person (related to the child), and the use of anatomically detailed (AD) dolls. Repeated interviewing, in combination with suggestive questions, has previously been found to seriously contaminate children’s accounts. In the present material, interviewers used significantly more suggestive utterances in the repeated condition, thus endangering the reliability of the children’s reports. Few studies have investigated the effects of a support person’s presence at the interview. The results of the present study showed that interviewers talked more and children provided less information when a support person was present. Supporting some earlier findings regarding the use of AD dolls, the present results showed that using AD dolls was associated with longer interviewer utterances and shorter, less responsive, and less detailed child responses. Interviewers used up to five times more unspecific suggestive utterances when dolls were used, for instance through repeatedly asking the child to show “what really happened” with the dolls. Conclusion: The results indicate that CSA interviews in Finland are not conducted in a manner that follows best practice as defined by the research community and as stated in a number of guidelines. When comparing these questioning strategies with the recommendations, which have been predominant in the field for more than ten years now, it can be concluded that the interviews analysed were conducted in a manner that undermines the possibility to elicit an uncontaminated and accurate narrative from the children. A particularly worrying finding was the fact that interviewers did not follow up relevant information by the children in an adequate way. A number of clinical implications can be drawn from the results, particularly concerning the need for improvement in the quality of CSA interviews. There is convincing research regarding how to improve CSA interviews, notably through training forensic child interviewers to use a structured interviewing protocol, and providing them with continuous supervision and feedback. Allocating appropriate resources to improve the quality of forensic child interviews is a matter of protecting the rights of all persons involved in CSA investigations, in particular those of the children.

Una valigia caduta in mare: Jaume Serra Hunter e la "Scuola di Barcellona"

Nella storiografia filosofica spagnola non esiste, probabilmente, una definizione ambigua e problematica come quella che riguarda la cosiddetta "Scuola di Barcellona". La tesi principale di questo articolo è che tale scuola non giunse mai a nascere, ma ne esistette soltanto una forma embrionale che non poté maturare perché, in conseguenza della situazione politica venutasi a creare con la guerra civile (1936-1939), i suoi componenti si dispersero nell'esilio. Ciò nonostante, è possibile riconoscere alcuni tratti comuni, seppur labili e (forse) non sostanziali, nella diaspora degli intellettuali catalani che rendono possibile definirla, con le dovute cautele, "Scuola di Barcellona". Tali caratteristiche comuni si possono far risalire a colui che, in un certo senso, fu il fondatore della scuola, essendo il principale maestro delle nuove leve filosofiche della Catalogna all'inizio del XX secolo: Jaume Serra Hunter.