Passives without actives: evidence from verbless complement clauses in Spanish

This paper proposes a constructionist analysis à la Goldberg (1995, 2003, 2006) of passive verbless configurations in Spanish lacking a felicitous active counterpart.Under the paradigmatic – rather than syntagmatic – view of passives invoked in this paper, configurations of the type in (1) above, attested with a number of verba cogitandi et dicendi, are handled as instances of the Impersonal Subjective-Transitive construction, whose general skeletal meaning is X (NP1) attributed Y (XPCOMP) by Z (NP2) in a direct, categorical way. Moreover, the analysis proposed here also provides a satisfactory account of the distribution of grammatical subjects and the XPCOMPs, while also capturing the commonalities with “regular” passives (i.e. those with a felicitous active counterpart). In addition, Spanish passive verbless complement configurations with se dice (‘is said’) are shown to illustrate a three-point continuum consisting of (i) non-grammaticalized configurations with an active counterpart, (ii) non-grammaticalized configurations without an active counterpart, and (iii) grammaticalized configurations without an active counterpart. From a synchronic point of view, the structural and semantico-pragmatic properties exhibited by the lower-level lo que se dice XPFOCUS construction, involving a focusing/emphasizer subjunct function (e.g. verdaderamente ‘really’) as well as a reformulatory connective use (e.g. o sea ‘that is’, en otras palabras ‘in other words’) appear to point to an early process of grammaticalization, exhibiting decategorialization as well as generalization of meaning in conjunction with a prominent increase in pragmatic function and subjectification (cf. Traugott 1988, 1995a, 1995b, 2003).

Pens and Swords: Creative writing and poetry in post-conflict and displacement settings.

An overview of the use of poetry in creative writing and memoir writing in post-conflict contexts and for migrants illustrated with a number of proven activities, in the light of the (alleged) contrast between therapeutic and artistic writing.

TECPR2 Associated Neuroaxonal Dystrophy in Spanish Water Dogs.

Clinical, pathological and genetic examination revealed an as yet uncharacterized juvenile-onset neuroaxonal dystrophy (NAD) in Spanish water dogs. Affected dogs presented with various neurological deficits including gait abnormalities and behavioral deficits. Histopathology demonstrated spheroid formation accentuated in the grey matter of the cerebral hemispheres, the cerebellum, the brain stem and in the sensory pathways of the spinal cord. Iron accumulation was absent. Ultrastructurally spheroids contained predominantly closely packed vesicles with a double-layered membrane, which were characterized as autophagosomes using immunohistochemistry. The family history of the four affected dogs suggested an autosomal recessive inheritance. SNP genotyping showed a single genomic region of extended homozygosity of 4.5 Mb in the four cases on CFA 8. Linkage analysis revealed a maximal parametric LOD score of 2.5 at this region. By whole genome re-sequencing of one affected dog, a perfectly associated, single, non-synonymous coding variant in the canine tectonin beta-propeller repeat-containing protein 2 (TECPR2) gene affecting a highly conserved region was detected (c.4009C>T or p.R1337W). This canine NAD form displays etiologic parallels to an inherited TECPR2 associated type of human hereditary spastic paraparesis (HSP). In contrast to the canine NAD, the spinal cord lesions in most types of human HSP involve the sensory and the motor pathways. Furthermore, the canine NAD form reveals similarities to cases of human NAD defined by widespread spheroid formation without iron accumulation in the basal ganglia. Thus TECPR2 should also be considered as candidate gene for human NAD. Immunohistochemistry and the ultrastructural findings further support the assumption, that TECPR2 regulates autophagosome accumulation in the autophagic pathways. Consequently, this report provides the first genetic characterization of juvenile canine NAD, describes the histopathological features associated with the TECPR2 mutation and provides evidence to emphasize the association between failure of autophagy and neurodegeneration.

The Political Candidacy of EU Migrants in their European Countries of Residence. The Case of British and Romanians Standing in Spanish Local Elections

What explains the variation in how European citizens of diverse origins are politically incorporated in the member states of residence? This paper argues that immigrant groups’ status in the host society plays an important role in political party responses to immigrants’ political participation. Drawing on the case of Romanian and British candidacies in the Spanish local elections from 2011, the paper finds that the level of competition between parties is the key mechanism for incorporating candidates from a positively/neutrally perceived group. Instead, a greater level of ethnic diversity encourages the incorporation of candidates from the negatively perceived group. To demonstrate this, the paper uses an original data-set with the Romanian and British candidates in a large number of Spanish localities.

Influence of road noise disturbances on black vulture nesting area: Case of "Cabeza de Hierro" state in Spanish Mediterranean Central Mountain

The real and potential road influence on soundscape is considered a relevant management aspect that can assess the negative effects of massive visitants on such sensitive species -that have been living for centuries in the area-. As a first approach to the study of human disturbances sound impact, acoustic engineering tools allow us to model noise pollution caused by the main road that crosses the state ?Cabeza de Hierro? (M-604). For these preliminary results we use the French method XPS 31-133, recommend at EU level. Noise emission levels in black vulture nesting area are analyzed to understand the influence of human activities on rural areas and road management on biodiversity conservation. This approach develops a useful tool to make compatible the public enjoyment of forest services such as recreation or landscape scenary, the conservation of biodiversity as well as a suitable social and economic activity level ?timber and firewood harvesting, industry?- at the region.

Tools in Spanish Universities to facilitate the transmission from High School to University and their assessment.

Incoming students in the University have education deficiencies, so universities studies require a sound basis of scientific knowledge. In this project are analysed instruments to reinforcing knowledge in those areas related to the studies that students are about to embark on public Spanish universities. There are important differences among universities and, in each university there are great differences among titles. Initial courses (cursos cero) are widespread (in 50% of universities) that selfevaluation instruments (14 % of universities). It is necessary to improve diffusion of those instruments because it is not possible to evaluate them. So are proposed the next actuations: to make regular standard surveys for professors and students; to publish results of surveys; public universities should institutionalize their basic training offer and improve the dissemination of this offer especially through the web. This paper presents a questionnaire to assess student opinion about these tools. To analyze the effectiveness, and make an initial estimate of the evaluation of these tools, we conducted a pilot test of the questionnaire with 68 students at the University of Extremadura. The results of preliminary statistical analysis conducted on the pilot test indicate that the survey results are reliable. A global evaluation of both tools, with a scale of 1 to 5, gave an average score of 3.29 for initial courses and 3.41 for selfevaluation. The 72.9% of the students consider the "self assessment" more effective than the "initial course"

Comparison of methods for downscaling runoff from regional climate models in Spanish basins

At present there is much literature that refers to the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of statistical and dynamical downscaling of climate variables projected by climate models. Less attention has been paid to other indirect variables, like runoff, which play a significant role in evaluating the impact of climate change on hydrological systems. Runoff presents a much greater bias in climate models than other climate variables, like temperature or precipitation. It is very important to identify the methods that minimize bias while downscaling runoff from the gridded results of climate models to the basin scale

Relationship among research collaboration, number of documents and number of citations. A case study in Spanish computer science production in 2000-2009.

This paper analyzes the relationship among research collaboration, number of documents and number of citations of computer science research activity. It analyzes the number of documents and citations and how they vary by number of authors. They are also analyzed (according to author set cardinality) under different circumstances, that is, when documents are written in different types of collaboration, when documents are published in different document types, when documents are published in different computer science subdisciplines, and, finally, when documents are published by journals with different impact factor quartiles. To investigate the above relationships, this paper analyzes the publications listed in the Web of Science and produced by active Spanish university professors between 2000 and 2009, working in the computer science field. Analyzing all documents, we show that the highest percentage of documents are published by three authors, whereas single-authored documents account for the lowest percentage. By number of citations, there is no positive association between the author cardinality and citation impact. Statistical tests show that documents written by two authors receive more citations per document and year than documents published by more authors. In contrast, results do not show statistically significant differences between documents published by two authors and one author. The research findings suggest that international collaboration results on average in publications with higher citation rates than national and institutional collaborations. We also find differences regarding citation rates between journals and conferences, across different computer science subdisciplines and journal quartiles as expected. Finally, our impression is that the collaborative level (number of authors per document) will increase in the coming years, and documents published by three or four authors will be the trend in computer science literature.

Web-based education in Spanish Universities. A Comparison of Open Source E-Learning Platforms

Web-based education or „e-learning‟ has become a critical component in higher education for the last decade, replacing other distance learning methods, such as traditional computer training or correspondence learning. The number of university students who take on-line courses is continuously increasing all over the world. In Spain, nearly a 90% of the universities have an institutional e-learning platform and over 60% of the traditional on-site courses use this technology as a supplement to the traditional face-to-face classes. This new form of learning allows the disappearance of geographical barriers and enables students to schedule their own learning process, among some other advantages. On-line education is developed through specific software called „e-learning platform‟ or „virtual learning environment‟ (VLE). A considerable number of web-based tools to deliver distance courses are currently available. Open source software packages such as Moodle, Sakai, dotLRN or Dokeos are the most commonly used in the virtual campuses of Spanish universities. This paper analyzes the possibilities that virtual learning environments provide university teachers and learners and offers a technical comparison among some of the most popular e-learning learning platforms.

Detecting acronyms from capital letter sequences in Spanish

This paper presents an automatic strategy to decide how to pronounce a Capital Letter Sequence (CLS) in a Text to Speech system (TTS). If CLS is well known by the TTS, it can be expanded in several words. But when the CLS is unknown, the system has two alternatives: spelling it (abbreviation) or pronouncing it as a new word (acronym). In Spanish, there is a high relationship between letters and phonemes. Because of this, when a CLS is similar to other words in Spanish, there is a high tendency to pronounce it as a standard word. This paper proposes an automatic method for detecting acronyms. Additionaly, this paper analyses the discrimination capability of some features, and several strategies for combining them in order to obtain the best classifier. For the best classifier, the classification error is 8.45%. About the feature analysis, the best features have been the Letter Sequence Perplexity and the Average N-gram order.