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Plastic is a persistent problem in westernised cities. Yet it is also a key mediator, affording and assisting the everyday. In small apartments, it supports daily life by assisting with waste management, storage, and provisioning of affordable ornaments and furniture. Plastic, in this context, is a mundane and utilitarian substrate to apartment life, as well as being a problematic potential pollutant. Recognising the diverse contributions to research on high‐density living, this paper draws on vertical urbanism and relational ideas of home. It explores the socio‐material entanglements of plastic in apartments through household interviews across Melbourne, London, Barcelona, and Perth. The research reveals ways in which plastic mediates the material inequalities of high‐rise living, typified by entanglements of space constraint, transience, and waste management. The contribution is twofold. Theoretically, our work suggests a direction for socio‐materialities research in reframing ideas of home as a static, physical site, to one that is more contingent materially and spatially. As various households adapt and make do, their refuges in the sky are being reconfigured physically and symbolically by and through plastic. Relational approaches can help to reveal the mundane but critical entanglements of plastic and everyday life in apartments. Second, empirically, we show that mundane infrastructures matter; they shape the spaces and places of plastic and apartment inequalities. Thus, policy interventions that target household behaviours can only have a marginal impact on plastic consumption where uneven infrastructures remain. Moreover, they may direct attention away from where change might be more promising, such as wider social rules and meanings around plastic, and the materialities of building design/management for waste infrastructures both inside and outside the apartment. As a problem material, the elimination of plastic waste globally presents a particular challenge to ordinary and lower income apartment households that "make do" with the use of plastic. From a large empirical study, this paper analyses households' own accounts, revealing the socio‐material entanglements of plastic with waste, space, and time management. The authors point to the importance of spatial dimensions of domestic practices and the ways in which transience entangles with practice, influencing the meanings and logics of home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A description of a mentalization informed home‐based project, an adaptation of the ECID project (Equipo Clínico de Intervención a Domicilio), into a time‐limited first aid mental health team in response to heightened mental health needs during the COVID Pandemic in Barcelona, Spain is offered. ECID is a project with a developmental psychodynamic understanding of psychopathology and relational dynamics informing a highly flexible treatment approach. This paper describes a focus on the need for clinicians to take an active role whilst adapting to the specific needs and situation of each child and family, instead of continuing to ask them to adapt to what services can or are prepared to offer. Clinical examples are given to illustrate the value of an integrative community approach informed by both systemic and psychodynamic lenses. Specifically, we reflect on the benefits of a mentalization informed approach to working with families during high levels of psychosocial stress for both families and practitioners. We illustrate how of a mentalization informed clinical service can promote and support the development of a therapeutic alliance when internal safety is impacted by a very real external threat. Finally, preliminary data is presented regarding the impact of parental stress and trauma on children and adolescents' adaptation to a potentially traumatic situation as well as their capacity for returning to a progressive development pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of participatory democracy have long noted dynamic interactions and transformations within and between political spaces that can foster (de)democratisation. At the heart of this dynamism lie (a) the processes through which top‐down "closed" spaces can create opportunities for rupture and democratic challenges and (b) vice‐versa, the mechanisms through which bottom‐up, open spaces can be co‐opted through institutionalisation. This paper seeks to unpick dynamic interactions between different spaces of participation by looking specifically at two forms of participatory governance, or participatory forms of political decision making used to improve the quality of democracy. First, Mark Warren's concept of 'governance‐driven democratization' describes top‐down and technocratic participatory governance aiming to produce better policies in response to bureaucratic rationales. Second, we introduce a new concept, democracy‐driven governance, to refer to efforts by social movements to invent new, and reclaim and transform existing, spaces of participatory governance and shape them to respond to citizens' demands. The paper defines these concepts and argues that they co‐exist and interact in dynamic fashion; it draws on an analysis of case study literature on participatory governance in Barcelona to illuminate this relationship. Finally, the paper relates the theoretical framework to the case study by making propositions as to the structural and agential drivers of shifts in participatory governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bertie Russell's 2019 Antipode paper documents the emergence of a "new municipalist" movement, which approaches the city as a strategic entry point for a radically democratic politics. Given this movement's aspirations towards the transformation of the municipal state, how might state theory inform research and practice on new municipalism going forward? This is the question with which Russell concludes his paper and the question taken up here. The paper focuses on municipalist initiative Barcelona En Comú's endeavours towards the remunicipalisation of energy, and the ways in which the radical vision underpinning this has been frustrated. Putting these experiences into conversation with the theoretical work of Gill Hart, I develop an "open dialectical" account of the state, which understands the processes that constitute the state as articulated through the contingent mediations of "prosaic" practices. This state theory, I argue, sheds new light on the possibilities and frustrations facing new municipalist movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The everyday difficulties faced by working‐class women, including access to food, are aggravated in critical periods, such as wars and economic crises. However, the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was accompanied by a revolution, in the Republican zones, where women opened spaces for their emancipation. By examining social reproduction practices surrounding food in Barcelona during the years 1936–1939, we contribute to critical research on food sovereignty in the urban contexts. Our core findings inform the role of women in food provision and production, through individual subsistence agriculture, involvement in Barcelona's anarcho‐syndicalist agricultural collective, as well as in agriculture education and training programmes. Our research is based on original archival data, historical press and interviews with witnesses of the war. We conclude that revolutionary and transformative actions, including current food sovereignty practices, need to make gender justice a central goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Outcomes in the form of rates, fractions, proportions and percentages often appear in various fields. Existing beta and simplex distributions are frequently unable to exhibit satisfactory performances in fitting such continuous data. This paper aims to develop the normalised inverse Gaussian (N‐IG) distribution proposed by Lijoi, Mena & Prünster (2005, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 100, 1278–1291) as a new tool for analysing continuous proportional data in (0,1) and renames the N‐IG as proportional inverse Gaussian (PIG) distribution. Our main contributions include: (i) To overcome the difficulty of an integral in the PIG density function, we propose a novel minorisation–maximisation (MM) algorithm via the continuous version of Jensen's inequality to calculate the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters in the PIG distribution; (ii) We also develop an MM algorithm aided by the gradient descent algorithm for the PIG regression model, which allows us to explore the relationship between a set of covariates with the mean parameter; (iii) Both the comparative studies and the real data analyses show that the PIG distribution is better when comparing with the beta and simplex distributions in terms of the AIC, the Cramér–von Mises and the Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests. In addition, bootstrap confidence intervals and testing hypothesis on the symmetry of the PIG density are also presented. Simulation studies are conducted and the hospital stay data of Barcelona in 1988 and 1990 are analysed to illustrate the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical analysis of point processes often assumes that the underlying process is isotropic in the sense that its distribution is invariant under rotation. For point processes on ℝ2, some tests based on the K‐function and nearest neighbour orientation function have been proposed to check such an assumption. However, anisotropy and directional analysis need proper caution when dealing with point processes on linear networks, as the implicit geometry of the network forces particular directions that the points of the pattern have to necessarily meet. In this paper, we adapt such tests to the case of linear networks and discuss how to use them to detect particular directional preferences, even at some angles that are different from the main angles imposed by the network. Through a simulation study, we check the performance of our proposals under different settings, over a linear network and a dendrite tree, showing that they are able to precisely detect the directional preferences of the points in the pattern, regardless the type of spatial interaction and the geometry of the network. We use our tests to highlight the directional preferences in the spatial distribution of traffic accidents in Barcelona (Spain), during 2019, and in Medellin (Colombia), during 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Located between Marseille and Barcelona, Montpellier is one of the most attractive cities of the Mediterranean coast. It has more than 460,000 inhabitants and grows by 7,500 more inhabitants every year. This is largely due to its positive image and its freshly constructed neighbourhoods "Antigone" and "Port‐Marianne." From the late 1970s, the municipality's strategy was to organise the urban sprawl to the east and then towards the sea in the south of the city. The Lez, a small coastal river, well known for its spectacular flash floods, was the spine of this new urban growth. Internationally renowned architects and planners have been recruited to build these new "green" neighbourhoods (in French "éco‐quartiers") located on lands that used to be flooded regularly. This urban policy is largely due to the Montpellier's former mayor Georges Frêche and his deputy, the geographer Raymond Dugrand. The "urban planning" concept, or "urban design" projects, have largely been used by the local experts and officials to describe this development, but seem to be misused in this case. It has being mostly a political city‐project, still having the same objective as more than 30 years ago: to turn Montpellier towards the seaside. This paper will return to the strategy used at that time and, in retrospect, all the interrogations that have followed in terms of sustainable development and flood risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Nowadays, the popular 2.4‐GHz band is used in different systems, such as Wi‐Fi, Bluetooth, wireless sensor systems, and wireless cameras. Instead of the over‐crowded 2.4‐GHz Wi‐Fi band, this research offers the experience of using the 5‐GHz Wi‐Fi band, which provides more spectrum availability, more channels, larger bandwidth, faster data transmission, higher data rates, higher speed, and better quality of service compared to those of the 2.4‐GHz band. In this paper, practical implementation and testing of a cooperative spectrum sensing system are presented. The spectrum utilization in the 5‐GHz Wi‐Fi licensed band at six different locations is investigated to allow the transition of secondary users (SUs) to free bands. The spectrum measurement is performed on a centralized cooperative spectrum sensing system, which consists of a master cognitive radio node and five cognitive radio stations. The measurement and simulation results for the practical system are compared with the previous related measurements obtained in Singapore, Barcelona, North Dakota (USA), and Germany. They all agree that the spectrum is underutilized, and it needs to be better utilized for increasing the spectrum efficiency. The practical results show that the newly implemented system in the 5‐GHz range fulfills the requirements of users with high efficiency and high quality of service compared to those of the 2.4‐GHz system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geophysical surveys have been one of the most useful tools for non‐invasive archaeological field assessment. Whereas they have been regularly put into practice at the archaeological site of Santa Margarida (Martorell, Barcelona, Spain), the particular features of the site required a more specific strategy to identify the contact interface between anthropogenic and natural deposits and, therefore, to conclude the archaeological excavation. As the archaeological site is settled on Quaternary alluvia at the confluence of two rivers, and in the absence of built structures in some areas, it was extremely difficult to distinguish between anthropic layers and those silty or sandy natural deposits during fieldwork. Extensive soil survey by means of borehole logging, full‐coring, and Dynamic Penetrometer Super Heavy testing within this site has proved to be a useful strategy to identify the geological horizon and to map the original relief of past landscape before excavation tasks. This enabled us to plan our fieldwork better and to interpret particular features of the site. This paper aims at summarising the results of recent surveys and discussing the potential of this approach for the study of rural settlements and agrarian landscapes in the Middle Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyse the intensity and extent of agglomeration and co‐agglomeration of creative industries (CIs) in the metropolitan area of Barcelona (MAB). To do so, we use firm‐level geo‐located data to calculate distance‐based M and m functions of agglomeration and co‐agglomeration. Our results show that CIs are relatively more agglomerated than non‐CIs at short distances, and that each individual CI sector displays high levels of agglomeration (especially symbolic‐based sectors). Also, the co‐agglomeration of CIs and Non‐CIs is only observed for micro‐firms and that there is significant co‐agglomeration among symbolic‐based CI sectors. Finally, we confirm the role of the city‐centre of Barcelona as a magnet for CIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nationalist conflict in Catalonia and how it is lived and experienced by actors within it. It focuses on the people mobilised against independence who see themselves primarily as defenders of the Spanish Constitution and not of Spanish nationalism. Critics of civic nationalism in political theory and Nationalism Studies argue that anti‐nationalist rhetoric tends to be the expression of structural or hegemonic nationalism. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in Barcelona, I look at how the conflict has influenced discourse and language used in everyday life, how participants negotiate their identity, why people do (and do not) get involved in organisations that defend their political ideas, how they see themselves within the conflict and their perceptions of public space and its significance in relation to the constitution. An ethnographic approach explores these issues and discovers that although anti‐independence actors base their mobilisation in nationalism, civic nationalism cannot be reduced to just another form of nationalism. I aim to go beyond critics of civic nationalism to explore how my interlocutors act within and against nationalism, reproducing nationalist discourse in some aspect (boundaries of the nation) in order to challenge it in others (content and relevance of nationalism in everyday life). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the divergent economic trajectories of Barcelona and Madrid since Spain's transition to democracy. It highlights how Barcelona, the city that was better positioned four decades ago to emerge as the main Spanish economic hub, has lost out to Madrid. We argue that the contrasting trajectories of the two cities have less to do with the pull of Madrid as the capital of Spain, with the development of new infrastructure in the country, or with agglomeration economies, and more with institutional factors. A growing societal divide in Barcelona along economic, social, and identity lines has led to a greater breakdown of trust and to the development of strong groups with limited capacity to bridge with one another than in Madrid. This has entailed the emergence of negative externalities that have limited the economic potential for growth in Barcelona and facilitated the rise of Madrid as the main economic hub within Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pay what you want (PWYW) is an increasingly popular sales strategy in which consumers voluntarily decide how much to pay for a product or service. PWYW has often been described as an exercise in the "empathy economy," where consumers' payment choices might be seen as empowered expressions of their tastes and preferences, and sellers have a stronger incentive for empathizing with them. Beyond their economic interest, PWYW experiences also deserve significant attention in the social sciences given that they challenge several key assumptions of rational choice and neoclassical economic theory, as well as conventional consumer behavior and pricing theories. This paper analyzes three plays performed at the Beckett Theater in Barcelona using PWYW with very profitable outcomes. Our analysis shows that socio‐psychological factors, such as payments attributed to others and satisfaction with the play, are the best predictors of customer payments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the effect of job accessibility on job-education mismatch in the metropolitan area of Barcelona with regard to both public and private transport. Transit accessibility is defined in terms of the spatial distribution of employment relative to travel time by public transport, whereas accessibility by private transport is approximated by car availability. The results obtained from a joint model for car ownership, employment selectivity and mismatch confirm that car availability matters for job-education mismatch. Moreover, public transport connectivity to job locations favours the matching between schooling and occupation in the urban labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The collective dimension of everyday life plays a key role on how daily mobility patterns are drawn, especially considering relationships at the household level. However, previous literature regarding spatiotemporal behaviour has, above all, focused on individual characteristics detached from their immediate social contexts. By adopting a relational perspective this paper aims to explore how the combination of individual and household‐related variables can exert different mobilities in a Mediterranean metropolis such as Barcelona. Based on travel times and trip purposes reported in a traditional travel survey, both gender and social status are first confirmed as significant factors shaping daily mobility. Second, the relationships in the household emerge as relevant as individual characteristics when understanding one's everyday mobility patterns. In particular, the presence of children is regarded as a clear spatiotemporal constrictor, which is especially acute for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the local policy that has promoted the formation of a cluster of knowledge-based activities in the city of Barcelona. After decades of economic and industrial stagnation in a district called Poblenou, in the year 2000 the City Council of Barcelona implemented a plan to renew the area's urban and economic structure. Under the development plan, knowledge-based firms were encouraged to set up in the area and thus to create a cluster of advanced activities. This paper examines the success of this local policy and aims to determine whether cluster amenities have played a part in attracting knowledge-based firms. First, we evaluated the cluster implementation via a 'difference-in-differences' analysis, comparing the increase in the percentage of knowledge-based firms in this specific area with the increase of these firms in other local areas. Second, to determine whether the cluster amenities are an important element in attracting knowledge-based activities, we perform a multivariate regression to see if cluster amenities (as valued by firms in a survey) do have an effect on the decision of knowledge-intensive firms to locate in the district. El propósito de este artículo es evaluar la política local que ha favorecido la formación de un conglomerado de actividades basadas en conocimiento en la ciudad de Barcelona. Después de décadas de estancamiento económico e industrial en un distrito llamado Poblenou, el Ayuntamiento de Barcelona implementó en el año 2000 un plan para renovar la estructura urbana y económica de la zona. Siguiendo el plan de desarrollo, se animó a las empresas de actividades basadas en conocimiento a que se establecieran en este área, creando con ello un conglomerado de actividades avanzadas. Este artículo examina el éxito de esta política local e intenta determinar si los servicios de conglomerado han jugado un papel a la hora de atraer a empresas de actividades basadas en conocimiento. Primero, evaluamos la implementación del conglomerado por medio de un análisis de diferencia en diferencias, al comparar el aumento del porcentaje de empresas de actividades basadas en conocimiento en este área específica con el aumento de estas empresas en otras áreas locales. Segundo, para determinar si las amenidades de conglomerado son un elemento importante a la hora de atraer actividades basadas en conocimiento, realizamos una regresión multivariante para observar si las amenidades de conglomerado (así valoradas por las empresas en una encuesta) afectan a la decisión de las empresas basadas en conocimiento de ubicarse en este distrito. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper provides a bridge between the literature examining the economic impact of air services and the literature analyzing the determinants of bilateral FDI flows. I estimate a gravity equation for the determinants of bilateral FDI flows between the Spanish region of Catalonia, home to the airport of Barcelona, and countries of all over the world for the period 2002-2015. I find evidence that the reduction in travel time due to the availability of nonstop flights scheduled with sufficient frequency increases the amount of FDI due to the enhanced transmission of information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the transition in Barcelona's city council's urban policy during 20 years of uninterrupted political control. It focuses particularly on several trends within Pasqual Maragall's period in office (1982-1997) and argues that issues of leadership, extramunicipal policy and electoral rationality are fundamental to understanding the full complexity of this transition. The paper seeks to locate the Barcelona experience in a comparative context and calls for a greater sensitivity to the contemporary political geography of the European urban left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the main observations related to geotechnical properties and tool changes that characterize the different tunnel drives in a database of 33 km of EPB tunnel records from the Barcelona area. The data have been examined in detail with regard to cutting tool replacement and performance of the mechanized excavation. The database includes tunnels in soft soils, in hard and medium rocks and in mixed soil-rock conditions; tool changing records and geotechnical properties. Transverse and longitudinal geotechnical heterogeneity are accounted for systematically. Longitudinal heterogeneity is used to subdivide the drives in the database into homogeneous units. Transverse (within section) heterogeneity is described by a set of newly developed impact factors FI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an analysis to identify the degree of spatial segregation among different communities of residents in Barcelona. We elaborate a theoretical setting as an extension of the monocentric framework, yielding the creation of mixed spatial units. Our idea is to assess the extent to which spatial segregation is connected to the urban spatial structure, the neighbourhood's status, and the spatial autocorrelation. As a novelty, we perform the empirical exercise by relying on an original database that gathers information for the period 1947–2011. Estimations emphasize that Barcelona increasingly shows a spatial segregation pattern that is based mostly on the gentrification of high‐skill workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Augustan Roman temple at Barcino has been a key element during the last 60 years in the research of the colony's urban development. Its peculiar elongated and narrow plan, first proposed in 1835, and its location at the highest point of the ancient city have dictated our understanding of the urban layout of Barcino by conditioning the shape of the city's forum and affecting the interpretation of the archaeological excavations carried out in the area since then. This paper proposes an alternative plan of the temple, based on data drawn from recent archaeological excavations, topographical analysis, typological comparisons, and the study of written sources. Our alternative hypothesis for the temple permits an in-depth reinterpretation of the plan of the forum and the evolution of the urban plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates on the total or partial privatization of water usually follow the rationale that efficient and rational management is best left to the private sphere. In this paper and using a historical example, we attempt to assess critically this assumption arguing that efficiency and rationality in resource management are and have been an asset of collective management as well. We present the case of the Barcelona Water Company, run by its workers during the Spanish Civil War, to illustrate how in certain cases, gains in economic efficiency and rational management that had been impossible to accomplish under standard private management, were achieved by collective action. Workers management during this period not only improved efficiency and rationality but to a large extent did so also procuring equity and fairness in the provision of water to the citizens of Barcelona despite the harsh conditions brought about by the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Please cite this paper as: Dadvand P, Basagana X, Figueras F, Sunyer J, Nieuwenhuijsen M. Climate and group B streptococci colonisation during pregnancy:present implications and future concerns. BJOG 2011;118:1396-1400. The available evidence on the impact of climate on human bacterial infections is very limited. We studied the impact of climatic factors on maternal group B streptococci (GBS) colonisation during pregnancy in Barcelona, Spain, in the period 2001-2005. Averages of daily temperature, relative humidity, and heat index (perceived temperature) over weeks 32-36 of gestation, measured by the closest of three meteorological monitors to the maternal place of residence were assigned to each subject. Logistic regression models were developed to extract adjusted odds ratios for continuous and categorical (quartiles) exposures. We detected increased risks of GBS colonisation in higher ambient temperatures and humidity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Swimming pools constitute an important part of the expanding suburban landscapes of many cities of southern Europe. Yet we know relatively little about their characteristics and especially about whether or not they capture a substantial part of urban water for the benefit of a few that could be used for other more essential tasks, especially in periods of scarcity. In this paper, taking the metropolitan region of Barcelona as a case study, we estimate the number of residential (private) swimming pools in this area, their characteristics and their water consumption. Our analysis is set against the context of important changes in the nature of the urbanisation process in Barcelona and in other southern European cities, namely the expansion of low-density growth and with this the expansion of outdoor water uses such as gardens planted with turf grass and swimming pools. However, results do not seem to support the assumption that swimming pools take a substantial part of the domestic water resources of the region or that they are a luxury affordable only by the very rich. Swimming pools represent little over 1 per cent of total domestic water consumption of the Barcelona region and they can be found in both higher and lower income municipalities. Nevertheless, swimming pools tend to be more often found in richer municipalities, which are also those observing higher per capita water consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical accounts of the development of a modern city have paid a great deal of attention to the evolution of the water supply and the sanitation systems while the recognition of water as an element of social power and political conflict remains less studied. This paper highlights the relationship between the water cycle and its management and social conflicts in the development of the city of Barcelona in the twentieth century. Necessities, perceptions, and visions of water have changed during the last century influenced by economic, political, social and environmental contexts, prompting a new water culture not free of contradictions. The Barcelona case also provides an opportunity to examine the discourses of public managers shifting from the supply-led strategies towards water-demand management approaches, the impact of the most polemical decisions related to water policy, and the vision of water as a source of social conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between city and affection as revealed through an investigation into the feelings and emotions of a sample of inhabitants of Barcelona and São Paulo towards their cities. A study of affection in the context of a city has its origin in the assumption that it is possible to develop an ethical-affective rationality in the creation of spaces of both public and private interest, a dimension that can serve to optimize the action of the inhabitants of a city. The theoretical/methodological approach adopted was essentially interdisciplinary, with a basis in social psychology, as can be seen in the data-gathering instrument. In order to assess the city's affective dimension, individual interviews were carried out and a questionnaire was applied to individuals in groups. In the latter subjects were asked to make a drawing representing their city and to answer some questions regarding this pictorial representation. The sample consisted of 200 subjects, half of whom were from Barcelona and half from São Paulo. Most were in the age range 18-35, undergraduate or graduate students, with females and residents of the metropolitan areas of the two cities studied being in the majority. The qualitative data were classified according to their meaning and content, using the categories that had been established in the pilot study, namely contrasts, insecurity, pleasantness, and belonging. A statistical analysis was then performed on the resulting categories. After being categorized, catalogued, and qualified by metaphors, the responses gave the following images: city of contrast, city of attraction, city of destruction, city of surprises, city of movement, and pleasant city. These images show feelings and emotions about Barcelona and São Paulo that act as representations. This presents the need to revise the affective dimension in the meaning structure of cognitive maps as proposed by Lynch. As a result, the new category of affective maps is therefore proposed, as being the category that expresses affective meanings and serves as an indication of the level of esteem for the city, two aspects that act as reference points for the involvement and participation of a city's inhabitants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daily meteorological records for Barcelona, Spain, start unofficially in 1780. The records are of very good quality, although the metadata are far from complete. This study gives the general characteristics of the daily instrumental records, details of the data sources together with the reconstruction of the daily and monthly pressure series. In the second part of this paper, a separate time series made up of three (deterministic, periodic and random) components is analysed, and a methodological approach based on the cumulative deviation from the mean is then used to homogenize the monthly pressure series. Published in 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at how cities can function in much the same way as nations in the construction of political projects. Taking Pasqual Maragall’s mobilization of Barcelona during his period as mayor of the city (1982–97) as an example, it explores how locally dependent politicians attempt to exploit ‘spaces of engagement’ (Cox 1998) to escape from the territorial and scalar limitations which city councils have to operate within. It argues that mayors can embody cities, and explores how Maragall located himself within a set of performatively, discursively and institutionally constructed visions of Barcelona embedded in wider economic, political and cultural spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a smoking control programme carried out in Sant Jraume I Santa Magdalena Hospital in Mataró (Barcelona, Spain) involving the entire hospital staff. The general objectives of the programme were: (1) to reduce tobacco consumption among hospital staff and (2) to create an awareness of their exemplary role as health professionals. In order to achieve these aims, different activities were carried out: lectures on the consequences of smoking; restrictions on smoking in hospital areas; and smoking cessation help for those who wished to give up smoking. To measure the effectiveness of the intervention, a survey of smoking habits and attitudes among the hospital staff was conducted before the start of the programme in 1986 and repeated two and a half years later in 1989. The population studied in both surveys (n = 298 and n = 304) was similar by sex, age, and professional status. Regarding tobacco consumption there was the same proportion of never smokers, while the percentage of current smokers was reduced by 11 between the two surveys (51 to 40%), and the ex-smokers group showed an increase (16 to 23%). These differences were significant. There was also a remarkable change in attitudes among the health professionals, especially with regard to their disposition to give advice to stop smoking. The results show a reduction of the prevalence of smoking among the hospital staff and a positive change in their attitudes towards smoking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A calendar of events related to various congresses and conventions is presented which include one titled "RSM Clinicopathology Papers Prize Meeting and Stater of the Art Lecture" by the Royal Society of Medicine on March 18, 2010 in London, England, one titled "25th Annual EAU Congress" on April 16-20, 2010 in Barcelona, Spain, and one titled "1st World Congress of Pediatric Urology" on May 28-30, 2010 in San Francisco, California.