A critical approach to Pastime Park (1893-1914) as an exhibitionary and dreamworld complex

This article seeks to analyse the Parque del Pasatiempos (Pastime Park) complex (1893–1914) located in the city of Betanzos, in north-western Spain. As an architectural and sculptural complex, the space provides an interesting case for studying the cultural history of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the emergence of museum and recreational complexes. The aim is to contextualise the Park’s specificity in light of the colonial dynamics of the north of Spain, and also, through visual studies literature, establish the connection between the complex and an entire range of practices and artefacts that existed, both in Spain and internationally, at the end of the 19th century, such as world expositions, public parks and amusement parks. Through this constellation of meaning, we shall try to understand how these exhibitionary complexes have a place within the tensions inherent in enlightened dialectics, between discipline and instruction and the release of bodies.     

Influence of Communicative Openness on the Psychological Adjustment of Internationally Adopted Adolescents

This study evaluated the predictive relationship between the communicative openness and psychological adjustment of adopted adolescents, controlling for preplacement risk factors. One hundred Spanish international adoptees aged 12–18 took part in the study. Data were gathered with a structured interview, the Youth Self Report and the Adoption Communication Scale. A history of maltreatment prior to the adoption was associated with more closed communication between parents and children. Prenatal drug exposure shows a relationship with the presence of externalizing behaviors and attention problems in adolescents. Finally, a lower degree of communicative openness regarding the child's origins was significantly associated with the presence of all the adolescent behavioral problems studied.     

Evaluating Lightning-Caused Fire Occurrence Using Spatial Generalized Additive Models: A Case Study in Central Spain

It is widely accepted that the relationship between lightning wildfire occurrence and its influencing factors vary depending on the spatial scale of analysis, making the development of models at the regional scale advisable. In this study, we analyze the effects of different biophysical variables and lightning characteristics on lightning-caused forest wildfires in Castilla y León region (Central Spain). The presence/absence of at least one lightning-caused fire in any 4 × 4-km grid cell was used as a dependent variable and vegetation type and structure, terrain, climate, and lightning characteristics were used as possible covariates. Five prediction methods were compared: a generalized linear model (GLM), a random forest model (RFM), a generalized additive model (GAM), a GAM that includes a spatial trend function (GAMs) and a spatial autoregressive model (AUREG). A GAMs with just one covariate, apart from longitude and latitude for each observation included as a combined effect, was considered the most appropriate model in terms of both predictive ability and simplicity. According to our results, the probability of a forest being affected by a lightning-caused fire is positively and nonlinearly associated with the percentage of coniferous woodlands in the landscape, suggesting that occurrence is more closely associated with vegetation type than with topography, climate, or lightning characteristics. The selected GAMs is intended to inform the Regional Government of Castilla y León (the fire and fuel agency in the region) regarding identification of areas at greatest risk so it can design long-term forest fuel and fire management strategies.     

More Money,More Problems? Resource Dependence and Professionalization of Non-governmental Social Services Organizations in Southern Spain

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This study analyzes the strategies displayed by non-governmental organizations in the social services sector to face the...     

Interdependent Network Recovery Games

Recovery of interdependent infrastructure networks in the presence of catastrophic failure is crucial to the economy and welfare of society. Recently, centralized methods have been developed to address optimal resource allocation in postdisaster recovery scenarios of interdependent infrastructure systems that minimize total cost. In real-world systems, however, multiple independent, possibly noncooperative, utility network controllers are responsible for making recovery decisions, resulting in suboptimal decentralized processes. With the goal of minimizing recovery cost, a best-case decentralized model allows controllers to develop a full recovery plan and negotiate until all parties are satisfied (an equilibrium is reached). Such a model is computationally intensive for planning and negotiating, and time is a crucial resource in postdisaster recovery scenarios. Furthermore, in this work, we prove this best-case decentralized negotiation process could continue indefinitely under certain conditions. Accounting for network controllers' urgency in repairing their system, we propose an ad hoc sequential game-theoretic model of interdependent infrastructure network recovery represented as a discrete time noncooperative game between network controllers that is guaranteed to converge to an equilibrium. We further reduce the computation time needed to find a solution by applying a best-response heuristic and prove bounds on ε-Nash equilibrium, where ε depends on problem inputs. We compare best-case and ad hoc models on an empirical interdependent infrastructure network in the presence of simulated earthquakes to demonstrate the extent of the tradeoff between optimality and computational efficiency. Our method provides a foundation for modeling sociotechnical systems in a way that mirrors restoration processes in practice.     

Minimum Cost Edge Subset Covering Exactly k Vertices of a Graph

Given a graph G with nonnegative edge costs and an integer k, we consider the problem of finding an edge subset S of minimum total cost with respect to the constraint that S covers exactly k vertices of G. An O(n ³) algorithm is presented where n is the order of G. It is based on the author's previous paper dealing with a similar problem asking S to cover at least k vertices.     

论英语文学研究的拓展

研究外国文学从很大程度上说是一种跨文化的文学阅读活动,20世纪的文学理论告诉我们,跨文化的文学阅读不可避免地会涉及到一个阅读者在阅读过程中择取什么样的阅读视角的问题.后殖民主义理论特别指出,当一个弱势文化在阅读一个强势文化的文学时,阅读视角的问题经常会表现得更加突出.我国对英语文学研究的历史和现状明确地反映出我国外国文学界的研究立场问题,由于长期以来存在一种自动认同西方大国的倾向,我国的英语文学研究常常将英语文学与英美两国文学等同起来.而要拓展我国的英语文学研究,必须首先调整我们的阅读视角和研究立场,在摆脱殖民心态的前提下坦然面对英美以外的一切后殖民英语文学.     

Approximation hardness of edge dominating set problems

We provide the first interesting explicit lower bounds on efficient approximability for two closely related optimization problems in graphs, MINIMUM EDGE DOMINATING SET and MINIMUM MAXIMAL MATCHING. We show that it is NP-hard to approximate the solution of both problems to within any constant factor smaller than . The result extends with negligible loss to bounded degree graphs and to everywhere dense graphs. An extended abstract of this paper was accepted at the 14th Annual International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation, ISAAC 2003.     

The guaranteed minimum income in Portugal: A universal safety net under political and financial pressure

The Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) was created in Portugal by a centre-left Socialist Party government in 1996, as the most important constitutive part of a ‘new generation of active social policies,’ which completed the existence in Portugal of a universal system of guaranteed income. Its transformation into a Social Integration Income (SII) in 2003 and its retrenchment in the period of the Great Recession and troika austerity (2011–2015) has reduced the scope of this policy measure as a universal safety net policy. This article examines the context and the major drivers for the creation and for the policy changes that occurred in the GMI/SII. Looking at the political debates and the changes in this policy measure along this period, we argue that the major reforms introduced since its creation reflect ideological cleavages within the political arena. Considering the very low share in total government current expenditure of GMI/SII, this can explain the social policy selective retreat associated to the changes introduced in this policy measure by the centre-right coalition in government, in the latest period of cost containment of social policy in Portugal, leading to a great decrease in the number of beneficiaries and to an increase of its inadequacy.     

Understanding the Relationship Between Direct Experience and Risk Perception of Natural Hazards

Risk perception has been largely examined in studies that have aimed to explain and predict preparedness behavior in the context of natural hazards. Findings from studies on the relationship between previous experience, preparedness, and risk perception in disaster situations have been inconsistent. Hence, the main goal of this work was to explore the influence of physical and emotional experience on risk perception regarding natural hazards. This study was conducted in a statistically representative sample of the city of Iquique, in northern Chile (n = 701), who completed a survey one month after the occurrence of an earthquake and tsunami (8.2 Mw). The survey assessed the experience and preparation actions of survivors in relation to this event. Using a structural equation model, we examined nine proposed relationships, six of which were significant. The final model had an adequate fit (χ² = 752.23, df = 283, comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.90, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.049). Direct experience showed the greatest influence on risk perception: while direct physical experience (i.e., the physical and material consequences associated with the earthquake) maintained a direct positive effect on risk perception, direct emotional experience (i.e., the fear of experiencing an earthquake) produced an indirect positive effect (through worry). Emotional experience, however, did not directly influence current preparedness and risk perception. Implications for understanding the relationship between risk perception and direct experience are discussed.