Cinema Demand in Spain: A Cointegration Analysis

In this paper we explain the decline in cinema attendance in Spain since 1968. We use a cointegration analysis to estimate an individual demand function for cinema, with annual data and in terms of average attendance per inhabitant. We find that cinema is a luxury good and that its demand is elastic with respect to its price. We also show that television acts as a deterrent with regard to cinema attendance. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Learning Disabilities in Guatemala and Spain: A Cross‐National Study of the Prevalence and Cognitive Processes Associated with Reading and Spelling Disabilities

The main purposes of this research were twofold. We examined the samenesses about learning disabilities (LD) in Guatemala and Spain, two countries with the same language but cultural, political, and educational differences, first analyzing data about the prevalence of reading and spelling disabilities in Guatemala City and the Spanish region of the Canary Islands. The focus of the second study was to determine whether there are cross‐national patterns of significant differences in cognitive processes associated with reading and spelling disabilities from a developmental approach in these two cultural contexts. We found some differences in the prevalence of specific LD in reading between both countries but we did not find significant differences between Guatemalan and Spanish reading‐disabled children in cognitive processes that are involved in reading and spelling acquisition in spite of the cultural and educational differences between the two countries.     

Gender Verifications in Sport: From an East/West Antagonism to a North/South Antagonism

This paper aims to analyze gender verifications in sport from a socio-historical approach. These medical controls intended to keep men from competing in women's international competitions. Some female athletes are put through a masculinization trial, because of morphologies and performances judged as too masculine. Facing these athletes who disrupt the representation of a binary construction between the male sex and the female sex, sports institutions attempt to maintain a sexual bi-categorization. More precisely, this paper will present the ‘symbolic’ suppression of tests since 2000. Thereafter, authorities only rely on an aesthetic and visual assessment of female bodies and no longer use tests in a systematic and obligatory fashion. This reveals the moving boundary subjectively plotted between the masculine and the feminine, which become all the more blurred when the ‘race and class markers’ interfere with the ‘sex markers’.     

Effects of changing speed on knee and ankle joint load during walking and running

Joint moments can be used as an indicator of joint loading and have potential application for sports performance and injury prevention. The effects of changing walking and running speeds on joint moments for the different planes of motion still are debatable. Here, we compared knee and ankle moments during walking and running at different speeds. Data were collected from 11 recreational male runners to determine knee and ankle joint moments during different conditions. Conditions include walking at a comfortable speed (self-selected pacing), fast walking (fastest speed possible), slow running (speed corresponding to 30% slower than running) and running (at 4 m · s^?1 ± 10%). A different joint moment pattern was observed between walking and running. We observed a general increase in joint load for sagittal and frontal planes as speed increased, while the effects of speed were not clear in the transverse plane moments. Although differences tend to be more pronounced when gait changed from walking to running, the peak moments, in general, increased when speed increased from comfortable walking to fast walking and from slow running to running mainly in the sagittal and frontal planes. Knee flexion moment was higher in walking than in running due to larger knee extension. Results suggest caution when recommending walking over running in an attempt to reduce knee joint loading. The different effects of speed increments during walking and running should be considered with regard to the prevention of injuries and for rehabilitation purposes.     

Pawns in a Chess Game

The Spanish Service was established in June 1939, two months after the end of the civil war in Spain and shortly before the start of the Second World War. Its implementation was strongly affected by these conflicts in the context of new international relations. Therefore, this study of the Spanish Service during 1939–1945 allows not only a better understanding of the communicational strategies developed by the BBC, but also of the complex Anglo-Spanish relations and the important role played by the Spanish-language broadcasts therein. The study is mainly based on archival documents from the National Archives in London and memoirs.     

德国应用科技大学的办学特点及启示

应用型大学办学模式的探讨需要广开思路,洋为中用。德国应用科技大学办学经验启示我们找准人才培养定位,实施灵活多样的人才培养模式,加大人才培养的实践力度,提高教师专业实践技能,突出科研的应用与转化等。