Action research for tourism planning in rural areas? Examining an experience from the Couto Mixto (Galicia,Spain)

This paper reviews a tourist planning experience developed for the Couto Mixto in 2007–2008. The Couto Mixto is a small territory of three hamlets situated in Galicia (Spain) and bordering Portugal that, until the end of the 19th century, used to be a virtually independent state of 25 km². This tourism planning process is compared and contrasted with the well‐described Action Research (AR) approach. The paper begins by providing the conceptual foundations of tourism planning which were used as a framework for the research. Then, the tourism planning experience is introduced in detail, focussing on the results of the interviews conducted to identify the tourism resources of the area. Therefore, 23 resources were inventoried and further audited to determine their various degrees of potential for the purposes of tourism planning. Previous AR experiences and the tourism planning initiative developed for the Couto Mixto share a common objective to facilitate change in communities in trouble. However, the case‐study tourism planning experience was not fully compliant with genuine AR in several respects. We conclude by recommending AR as a worthy approach for tourism planning as a way to effectively put the local community in focus.     

Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón and 16th-Century Building Techniques: The Cimborio Vault of Archbishop Fonseca College Chapel in Salamanca (Spain)

Rodrigo Gil is one of the greatest masters of Spanish architecture. His brilliant career is partially explained by the efficiency of his design methods and his building techniques, especially evident in his ribbed vaults. If we examine the latter as a whole, the first aspect to be noted is undoubtedly their great formal complexity. However, the detailed study discloses that rather limited geometric and building techniques are hidden behind those elaborated patterns, aimed at simplifying and making the execution more economical. In order to bring some of these devices to light, one of his best-known vaults was selected for an in-depth study. The construction of a large-scale model of it also revealed some interesting features regarding the placing of the centerings and shorings during the erection.     

A graph-based analysis for generating geographical context from a historical cadastre in Spain (17th and 18th centuries)

Abstract

The cabreves are notarial documents prepared between the 13th and 19th centuries in the Catalan and Valencian regions of Spain. These historical records were published before the first cadastral maps and contain geographical information that could help spatially reconstruct historical landscapes. However, these documents have not been used to their full potential mainly because of their semi-structured and complex nature. In this article, we propose a new graph-based interactive methodology for partially reconstructing historical landscapes. We have successfully applied this methodology for reconstructing the historical landscape of the Barony of Sella in the 18th century and the methodology has also helped us locate “El Poblet,” a previously unknown archeological site abandoned after the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609.     

Late Mesolithic burials at Casa Corona (Villena,Spain): direct radiocarbon and palaeodietary evidence of the last forager populations in Eastern Iberia

Current knowledge about the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the Central and Western Mediterranean European regions is deeply limited by the paucity of Late Mesolithic human osteological data and the presence of chronological gaps covering several centuries between the last foragers and the first archaeological evidence of farming peoples. In this work, we present new data to fill these gaps. We provide direct AMS radiocarbon dating and carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) stable isotope analysis were carried out on bone collagen samples of two single burials from the recently discovered open-air Late Mesolithic site of Casa Corona (Villena, Spain). The results shed new light on the chronology and subsistence patterns of the last Mesolithic communities in the Central Mediterranean region of the Iberian Peninsula. Radiocarbon results date the human remains and funerary activity of the site to 6059–5849 cal BC, statistically different from other Late Mesolithic sites and the earliest Neolithic contexts, and bridging the 500 yrs chronological gap of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition from the area. Isotopic evidence shows that diet was based on terrestrial resources despite the proximity to the site of lagoon and marine ecosystems. This and previous isotope studies from the region suggest a lower reliance upon marine resources than for Atlantic and Cantabrian sites, although intra-regional patterns of neighbouring Mesolithic populations exhibit both fully terrestrial diets and diets with significant amounts of aquatic resources in them. We hypothesize that in the Central Mediterranean region of Spain the Late Mesolithic dietary adaptations imposed structural limits on demographic growth of the last foragers and favoured rapid assimilation by the earliest Neolithic populations.     

论马克思哲学的历史转向

马克思通过对宗教的批判确立了批判哲学的双重逻辑,即政治经济学批判与思辨哲学批判的统一,实现了哲学研究范式的历史转向。哲学的历史转向并不是说哲学成为历史学,而是强调哲学研究与历史研究的内在关联,即哲学摆脱了纯思辨的性质转向对人之存在的历史性研究,历史学既是建立在哲学研究的基础之上,同时也成为哲学研究的重要构成部分。从而将历史的事实、历史的逻辑和人之存在的历史性三者统一起来,超越了以往全部关于人类历史的学说,建构了一种全新的历史解释模式——生成论的历史解释模式。     

An Impact Analysis of the European Structural Funds on the Variation of the Rate of Employment and Productivity in Objective 1 Regions

Regional policies seek to enable regions to increase their competitiveness and development, and as such one priority objective of activities financed by Structural Funds is higher employment, higher productivity and economic activity. How efficiently the regions apply the funds is a fundamental issue for the development and continuity of regional policies. We, therefore, consider that determining the efficiency of European regional policies is an issue of high importance, and this is the main aim of this study. We have considered it appropriate to use the available information to apply a mathematical technique known as data envelopment analysis, which allows us to calculate the technical efficiency and inefficiency of the Structural Funds applied in the Objective 1 regions for the period 2000–2006. Furthermore, we wish to determine if the regions have been more efficient in increasing their levels of employment or in increasing productivity. Our study applies this methodology along with other methods such as regression analysis, profit analysis and factorial analysis to determine the variation in the rate of unemployment and productivity in these European Regions. The study reveals that only eight regions are efficient, although none of them is in all the models run.     

Systematic status of the Miocene darter ‘Liptornis’ hesternus Ameghino, 1895 (Aves,Suliformes, Anhingidae) from Patagonia,Argentina

Diederle, J.M., 1.8.2015. Systematic status of the Miocene darter ‘Liptornis’ hesternus Ameghino, 1895 (Aves, Suliformes, Anhingidae) from Patagonia, Argentina. Alcheringa 39, 589–594. ISSN 0311-5518.

Liptornis hesternus was established by Ameghino in the late 1800s on the basis of a cervical vertebra (NHMUK-A599) from the Santa Cruz Formation (Santacrucian, South American Land Mammal Age, early Miocene, Burdigalian Stage) of Patagonia, Argentina. Although taxonomic attributions were controversial, the specimen is now confidently assigned to Anhingidae. Recently, however, L. hesternus was designated a nomen dubium because of its uninformative diagnostic characters and apparent loss of the holotype. Nevertheless, NHMUK-A599 has been relocated and is redescribed here prompting referral to Anhinga. A combination of traits are shared with the extant Anhinga anhinga and A. melanogaster, and the material is dimensionally compatible with A. anhinga. The estimated body size of NHMUK-A599 would have been larger than A. minuta but less than A. grandis, A. subvolans, A. fraileyi and A. walterbolesi. Finally, Anhinga hesterna is considered valid and represents the stratigraphically oldest occurrence of the genus in South America and the southernmost yet recorded.

Juan M. Diederle [juandiederle@cicyttp.org.ar], Laboratorio de Paleontología de Vertebrados, Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción (CICYTTP-CONICET), Materi y España, E3105BWA Diamante, Entre Ríos, Argentina.     

El laberinto espacio-temporal en dos relatos de El llano en llamas de Juan Rulfo

The pattern of Latin American Boom criticism developed by Donald L. Shaw established that Juan Rulfo's protagonists are universal, not regional. In this interpretative mode, espoused by Graciela B. Coulson and others, Rulfo's characters are viewed as powerless to alter their own destinies. Humans are dominated and doomed by the hostile natural world that surrounds them. However, through a detailed analysis of Rulfo's technique and the internal and external structure of two of Rulfo's short stories in El llano en llamas—“No oyes ladrar a los perros” and “Es que somos muy pobres”—a new theoretical framework emerges for the study of Rulfo's work. In these two stories, Rulfo imagines the llano as a space that individuals control through their personal choices and actions. This article proposes, therefore, that Rulfo's protagonists are not victims of their environment, but rather the perpetrators of its violence.     

中国热点旅游城市旅游国际化水平定量评价研究

从国际旅游业发展水平和国际旅游业发展环境两大方面入手,构建了4层39个指标的评价体系,采用层次分析法,定量评价了中国27座热点旅游城市的旅游国际化水平。在此基础上,运用SPSS软件进行聚类分析,将中国热点旅游城市的旅游国际化水平划分为4种类型,最后分析了各城市旅游国际水平的优劣势和提升方向。     

旅游目的地游客感知价值的层次关系模型

顾客价值被认为是竞争优势的新来源,目前旅游领域游客感知价值研究多将感知价值的各维度置于同一层次,这样不利于对游客感知价值概念的深刻理解,也不利于旅游业界从操作层面上提升游客感知价值。本研究基于"途径-目的"理论,使用回归分析方法检验了目的地属性层的价值维度与结果层价值维度的关系。结果表明,旅游者对目的地属性层的价值感知显著影响对结果层的价值感知,其中,景观/环境和成本属性是影响中国旅游者体验结果的主导性因素。