City Of Toledo Research Articles

The Collective Memory of the Fluvial Environment: The Loss of a Healthy Natural Environment in the City of Toledo (Spain) through Pollution

This research recovers the collective memory of elderly people who recall experiences lived alongside the Tagus River in the city of Toledo (Spain). The study develops an individual and collective narrative story to add to our understanding of the relationship between society and its environment during the years 1950–1970. A qualitative methodology is used through documentary analysis techniques and in-depth interviews. The results obtained from the testimonies reflect the influence that the Tagus River had as a natural heritage on the socialization and emotions of Toledo society. The sociological study carried out is unique, since it is the first in which, through collective memory, a contrast is made between the enjoyment of a natural fluvial environment in good condition compared to its current state of an ecosystem in deterioration.

Water transparency analysis in fish farming environment through unmanned aerial vehicles

Since water transparency in a fish farming environment is an important parameter in fish development, and it is important that the fish farmers be attentive to the control of the same. However, the process of measuring water transparency in fish ponds is usually done manually, which makes it expensive and inefficient. In order to solve this problem, a prototype was developed containing 2 optical sensors capable of capturing images in the NIR, R, G and B bands, connected to a microcomputer coupled to a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAS), in order to capture aerial images of water and estimate water transparency through an image processing algorithm. The prototype was tested by an experiment conducted in a rural estate of the city of Toledo – PR, where 66 images were captured on a conical target, constructed to serve as a reflective reference for the images, comparing the results with the measurements collected by a Secchi disk, using Pearson's correlation analysis. The results showed a strong correlation (r = 0.98) in the estimates made by the NIR band processing, followed by the RGB, R, G and B bands. The developed system proved to be effective in data collection, processing and analysis, optimizing the fish farming management.

Laws of Succession Ordinances by the Religious Leadership of Sephardi and Moroccan Jewish Communities and Their Economic, Social and Gender Implications

This paper discusses the innovativeness of the Inheritance Ordinance introduced in Toledo during the 12th century and later reintroduced in Fez in Morocco following the expulsion of Jewish communities from Spain and Portugal. Community leaders in Toledo, and after the expulsion also in Fes, transformed the laws of succession established in biblical times by granting women equal rights on matters of inheritance by marriage. The ordinance also granted unmarried daughters the right to inherit alongside their brothers despite the fact that, according to biblical law, daughters do not inherit when there are sons. Inheritance ordinances had significant social, financial and gendered implications on Jewish lives in many communities. The study will show that leaders of Sephardi Jewish communities were nothing less than advanced in their innovative and unprecedented ordinances related to women’s inheritance. Their innovativeness followed a number of preliminary conditions which enabled it. First and foremost was the authority vested in these Jewish leaders by the monarchy in various parts of Spain and Portugal. The laws of the kingdom in these countries granted women equal rights in succession laws. So as to avoid significant differences and reduce legislative gaps, ordinances were issued to correspond with national realities. Spain had been the world’s center of Jewish Halacha following the period of the Geonim—the heads of the ancient Talmudic academies of Babylonia and its sages—, and the Sephardic sages felt that their position allowed them to make bold decisions. The most innovative Jewish ordinance issued in this regard back in the 12th century was the Tulitula ordinance, originating from the city of Toledo, home to one of the largest and most affluent Jewish communities of the time. The regulation granted wives rights over their husbands’ inheritance regarding property established during their joint lives, as well as property which she had brought with her to the marriage. Following the Expulsion of Jews from Spain, the expelled sages, arriving in Morocco, reinstated the Tulitula ordinance in the newly established community of the city of Fez, further improving women’s position beyond the provisions of the original regulation. The new circumstances following the expulsion resulted in many Jewish communities in Morocco adopting the new version of the regulation. As they had been forced to wander from place to place, the expelled communities encountered severe problems involving family law. The ordinances spread throughout nearly all Jewish communities in Morocco. In the 19th century, a number of changes were introduced to the Fez ordinances, which in practice diminished women’s inheritance rights. However, the essence of the original ordinance was ultimately assimilated into Rabbinical and Supreme Court rulings of the State of Israel, due to its suitability to Israel’s modern inheritance laws and to the legislation of the Women’s Equal Rights Law in 1951. The leadership of Spanish sages and community leaders in various countries and of rabbinical judges in Fez, Morocco, had been both charismatic and rational and included modern components for coping with social change and new realities under the Kingdoms of Spain as well as following the expulsion.

Social inclusion and equality between men and women

The objective of the research is focused on the study of the evolution of sexism as a cultural parameter in the Roma population whose people maintain recognition as an ethnic minority in Europe. The design selected for this study is descriptive. This study involves testing the reliability of the reduced version of the ambivalent sexism inventory (ASI; Glick and Fiske, 1996) scale among a representative group of the Roma population belonging to the city of Toledo. A representative sample of 44 people aged between 16 and 40 years was selected, with an average of 27.3. The results confirm the reliability of the scale and provide little differentiation and sex-disaggregated results. The responses on the items show a high degree of sexism among the participants. The obtained results give a better understanding of the scope of gender roles and, therefore, can help us to reorient interventions in the prevention of gender inequalities or early school dropouts among Roma girls.

Availability of geodata and use of open-source geotechnologies for cultural heritage. The case of Toledo (Spain)

Geotechnologies play an increasingly extensive and diverse role in our society. Their implementation in educational settings is growing at all levels, especially in higher education, and in a wide variety of disciplines. The analysis and management of cultural heritage are two of the areas where they are most used. The multiple, heterogeneous, and unspecific supply of geoinformation opens up considerable possibilities for learning and new opportunities for analysis by future specialists in cultural heritage, despite the difficulties in the management of, and approach to, the data. In a scenario in which open-source educational resources are increasingly important, this work presents an exploratory analysis of open sources of georeferenced information that facilitate access to geodata for teaching and learning on cultural heritage. As an example of the differences and shortcomings of the availability of georeferenced sources in Spain, this work presents a case study on the city of Toledo, recognised as a world heritage site.

Oxbow Lakes as Geological Archives of Historical Changes in Channel Substrate, Swan Creek, Toledo, Ohio (USA)

Efforts to restore urban rivers require an understanding of human-influenced changes in channel substrates. This study uses three naturally-occurring oxbows in a 3.5 km reach of Swan Creek, flowing through the City of Toledo, Ohio (USA) to reconstruct historical changes in channel substrate. Human impacts in the watershed were: 1) land clearance for agriculture (peaking in 1900-1920) and for suburban housing tracts (peaking in 1945-1970), followed by 2) the post-1940 creation of more efficient urban run-off systems from streets, parking lots, housing developments, and shopping centers. Historical aerial photographs and maps from 1935, 1940, 1950, 1963, 1974, and 1994 were georeferenced using ground control points, input to ArcGIS, and have root mean square error (RMSE) ranging from 0.19 - 0.77 m (average RMSE = 0.47 ± 0.20 m) when compared to the 2006 digital ortho quarter-quadrangle (DOQQ) image used as the basis for comparison. Results showed that channel sinuosity continually increased from 1.88 (1935) to 1.99 (2006). Two oxbows probably formed in 1913, and the third formed in 1940. Sediment cores and trenches were used to recognize historical channel substrates. Age control was provided by 14C geochronology and labels on food packaging materials found in flood layers. Grain-size analysis of channel substrates shows a historical coarsening-upward trend: the largest clast size interval (f5) changes from +0.78f in pre-1935 channels, to －1.15f in pre-1940 channels, to －1.69f in the 2006 channel. These results indicate recent urban runoff created fluvial pavements and increasing channel mobility as the stream removes legacy sediment from intrabasinal sediment storage.

Estimating the Importance of Hydrologic Conditions on Nutrient Retention and Plant Richness in a Wetlaculture Mesocosm Experiment in a Former Lake Erie Basin Swamp

The western basin of Lake Erie, the shallowest of the Laurentian Great Lakes in North America, is now plagued by harmful algal blooms annually due to nutrient discharges primarily from its basin. Water quality was impacted so significantly by toxic cyanobacteria in 2014 that the city of Toledo’s water supply was shut off, affecting hundreds of thousands of residents. A new agricultural land management approach, ‘wetlaculture (=wetland + agriculture)’, has a goal of reducing the need for fertilizer applications while preventing fluxes of nutrients to downstream aquatic ecosystems. A wetlaculture mesocosm experiment was set up on agricultural land near Defiance, Ohio, on the northwestern edge of the former ‘Great Black Swamp’. The mesocosms were randomly assigned to four hydrologic treatments involving two water depths (no standing water and ~10-cm of standing water) and two hydraulic loading rates (10 and 30 cm week−1). Nearby agricultural ditch water was pumped to provide weekly hydraulic loading rates to the mesocosms. During the two-year period, the net mass retention of phosphorus from the water was estimated to have averaged 1.0 g P m−2 in the wetland mesocosms with a higher hydraulic loading rate, while the highest estimated net nitrogen mass retention (average 22 g N m−2) was shown in the wetland mesocosms with 10 cm of standing water and higher hydraulic loading rate. Our finding suggests that hydrologic conditions, especially water level, contribute directly and indirectly to nutrient retention, partially through the quick response of the wetland vegetation community. This study provides valuable information for scaling up to restore significant areas of wetlaculture/wetlands in the former Great Black Swamp, strategically focused on reducing the nutrient loading to western Lake Erie from the Maumee River Basin.

Imigração haitiana no Brasil e saúde

This research aimed to identify and analyze barriers that prevented full and universal access to health services offered by the public health network, by Haitian immigrants residing in the city of Toledo, State of Parana. To achieve the objectives outlined in the research, a standardized questionnaire was applied, which had informants from Haitian immigrants living in the municipality. Based on the results found, the description of barriers to access to health services offered by SUS was carried out. From the data analysis, it was found that linguistic differences and the lack of circulation of information about SUS constituted the most severe barriers to access to public health services by Haitian immigrants.

A terapia do riso em ação no Oeste do Paraná, um relato de experiência do projeto Alegromicicina

Objetivo: Relatar a experiência de acadêmicos do curso de medicina no projeto de extensão “Construção de um elo entre a universidade e a comunidade: implantação do grupo Alegromicina na cidade de Toledo - Paraná.” Metodologia: Trata-se de um estudo descritivo exploratório de abordagem qualitativa do tipo relato de experiência sobre um projeto de extensão da Universidade Federal do Paraná no qual se realizou visitas a pacientes internados em um hospital, nas alas clínica e pediátrica e uma clínica de hemodiálise de Toledo, Paraná, entre os anos de 2017 a 2020. Os alunos trajavam-se de palhaços para a realização das visitas que preconizavam o diálogo, abordagens musicais, atividades na brinquedoteca do hospital ou mesmo nos leitos, adequando-se ao contexto e público abordado. Resultados: As ações realizadas pelo projeto atingiram em torno de 800 pessoas por ano e ao incentivar a alegria e o alívio, diminuíram o sofrimento no contexto de fragilidade emocional vivenciada pelos pacientes, acompanhantes e até profissionais de saúde. Assim, a experiência negativa relacionada à hospitalização também foi reduzida. A capacidade de perceber o paciente para além da sua enfermidade foi um dos aspectos positivos percebidos pelos discentes que puderam experienciar humanização e a integralidade do cuidado. Conclusão: O projeto Alegromicina, trouxe benefícios aos pacientes, acompanhantes, profissionais da saúde e os alunos participantes ao promover a humanização do ambiente hospitalar. A implantação de programas que utilizam o papel do palhaço e a realização de atividades lúdicas auxiliam no prognóstico das doenças e tornam a experiência da hospitalização menos traumática.

Jesuits and Conversos in Sixteenth-Century Toledo

Abstract In the early days of the Society of Jesus, the city of Toledo was among the locations where the affinity between the order and the local population of Jewish converts was most patent. Bolstered by members of the most prominent converso lineages, such as the de la Palma and Hurtado families, the order grew exponentially in the final decades of the sixteenth century. Additionally, the Jesuits were active in the controversy surrounding the endorsement of the statutes of purity of blood. They opposed Cardinal Silíceo both directly—by means of their attempts to settle in the city—and indirectly—through their ties with his main detractors in the cathedral council. They also played a prominent role in the memorialist crisis before the eventual approval of the statutes of purity of blood in the Society of Jesus.

Using Flickr Geotagged Photos to Estimate Visitor Trajectories in World Heritage Cities

World tourism dynamics are in constant change, as well as they are deeply shaping the trajectories of cities. The “call effect” for having the World Heritage status has boosted tourism in many cities. The large number of visitors and the side effects, such as the overcrowding of central spaces, are arousing the need to develop and protect heritage assets. Hence, the analysis of tourist spatial behaviour is critical for tackling the needs of touristified cities correctly. In this article, individual visitor spatiotemporal trajectories are reconstructed along with the urban network using thousands of geotagged Flickr photos taken by visitors in the historic centre of the World Heritage City of Toledo (Spain). A process of trajectory reconstruction using advanced GIS techniques has been implemented. The spatial behaviour has been used to classify the tourist sites offered on the city’s official tourist map, as well as to identify the association with the land uses. Results bring new knowledge to understand visitor spatial behaviour and new visions about the influence of the urban environment and its uses on the visitor spatial behaviour. Our findings illustrate how tourist attractions and the location of mixed commercial and recreational uses shape the visitor spatial behaviour. Overflowed streets and shadow areas underexplored by visitors are pinpointed.

Beauty or Blight? Abundant Vegetation in the Presence of Disinvestment Across Residential Parcels and Neighborhoods in Toledo, OH

Urban vegetation can generate social and ecological benefits, so vegetation abundance is commonly treated as a proxy for greater benefits. A repeated finding in environmental justice research related to urban vegetation is that commonly marginalized populations live in neighborhoods with less vegetation. However, urban vegetation can function as amenity or disamenity depending on the context and the characteristics of the vegetation. In areas of disinvestment, overgrown vegetation may indicate neglect and lead to negative social outcomes. For example, previous research in the shrinking city of Toledo, Ohio, showed that areas with concentrated residential vacancy and high representation of traditionally marginalized populations also had relatively high vegetation abundance. This can be largely attributed to spontaneous, weedy vegetation in areas of concentrated vacancy. Equal vegetation cover therefore should not necessarily be equated with environmentally just outcomes. Here, we used several high-resolution data sets to study the relationships among vegetation abundance, vegetation quality, and property parcel occupancy on residential land in Toledo. Our results demonstrate that vacant residential land had more abundant vegetation than comparable occupied parcels according to two common metrics (tree canopy cover and the normalized difference vegetation index). Compared to occupied parcels, vacant parcels also had higher rates of blight associated with overgrown vegetation, as recorded during a citywide ground-based survey of property conditions. There were more vacant parcels overall in areas of disinvestment, and on a per-parcel basis, vacant parcels in these high-vacancy areas were also greener relative to nearby occupied parcels than vacant parcels in low-vacancy areas. This indicates that vacant parcels play a disproportionately large role in greening on residential land in areas of disinvestment. These results reinforce the idea that simply quantifying vegetation abundance may be insufficient for understanding urban social-ecological outcomes. Incorporating parcel occupancy data along with multiple strands of information about vegetation type and condition provides context to understand where abundant vegetation functions as amenity versus disamenity. These perspectives are especially relevant in shrinking cities like Toledo where legacies of urban socioeconomic change have produced widespread areas of disinvestment and land abandonment.

Arabic Translation from Bait Al-Hikma to Toledo School of Translators: Key Players, Theorization and Major Strategies

Throughout history, Arab scholars have produced a number of important works in different fields, which helped boost human civilization. This was achieved thanks to the utmost efforts made by a panel of prominent translators working in Bait Al-Hikma (Lit. House of Wisdom) in Baghdad. These translators transmitted Greek, Persian and Indian works into Arabic during the ‘Golden Arabic Era of translation’ which goes back to the Abbassid Caliphate (750 CE- 1258 CE). Likewise, translation movement in Al-Andalus took its systematic and intensive shape at the beginning of 12th century CE with the establishment of Toledo School of Translators in the city of Toledo. However, translations produced in Al-Andalus were chiefly rendered from Arabic into Latin and Old Spanish, mainly by non-Arab translators. The present paper explores the schools of translation in Baghdad and Toledo and the main strategies or methods used by each of these schools. This overview will demonstrate the importance of taking into consideration Arabs’ translation theorization in line with western theories of translation. The paper also reveals that Arab translators were not mere transmitters of Greek philosophy and ancient knowledge, but great thinkers who adapted Greek, Indian and Persian ideas to their own thought.

THE ROLE OF THE TOLEDO AS A CENTER FOR THE TRANSFER OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE OF MEDIEVAL EASTERN SCIENTISTS TO EUROPE

In article based on the careful analysis of the scientific literature devoted to history of the translations in Spain the 12-13th centuries, opened the role of the city of Toledo as the center of distribution of scientific knowledge of scientists of the Muslim East in Europe.

Meteorological factors driving airborne grass pollen concentration in central Iberian Peninsula

Grasses are a taxonomic group of considerable environmental importance, playing a major ecological role as well as making a significant contribution to the world’s economy, since they include valuable crop and pasture species. Grass pollen allergens are also among the main causes of respiratory allergies worldwide. The interpretation of airborne grass pollen concentrations is a particularly complex task, given the marked diversity of pollen-emitting species and the influence of weather-related variables. This paper examines the influence of meteorological variables on flowering in the species contributing most to airborne grass pollen concentrations. This study was carried out in the surroundings of the city of Toledo (Spain), a Mediterranean city located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula. Temperature was the variable most influencing flowering onset, which was also affected by relative humidity, rainfall and hours of sunlight. The flowering period of grass species that flower at the start of spring (Bromus rubens and Hordeum leporinum) began earlier in years with higher mean winter temperatures, while the species that flower from mid to late spring (Trisetaria panicea and Dactylis glomerata subsp. hispanica), the flowering period began earlier in years with higher cumulative rainfall in winter and spring, which were also the years with the highest mean temperatures. Research into the influence of weather-related variables on grass phenology can shed important light on variations in airborne pollen concentrations, which determine the potential period of exposure for allergy sufferers.

Depopulation of Toledo's historical centre in Spain? Challenge for local politics in world heritage cities

The historical centre of the city of Toledo (Spain) was declared a World Heritage City by UNESCO in 1986. Since then, it has lost almost a quarter of its population in favour of the city outskirts, outside the city walls. There are a number of reasons for this population abandonment. Like many cities around the world which share the similar characteristics of being a popular tourist attraction with a historical centre, Toledo is threatened by the same problems: gentrification, loss of shops for residents in favour of tourist shops, tourist rental properties still without effective regulations, and so on. A greater proportion of the older population live in the historical centre compared to outside the city walls and the proportion of children continues to decrease. This article analyses this situation in detail, offering alternatives for its recovery. The main novelty of the manuscript is the proposal of a higher level of citizen participation than there is to achieve the objective of population recovery, with collaboration among citizen associations, residents and local authorities.

Young people’s uncertainty about the future: Education system, training, and transition to employment in Spain

The general context of precariousness of employment affects youth in Spain. Delving deeper into the axes that traverse this uncertainty, we present part of a cross-sectional study on the perception of young people in the city of Toledo, in which an ad hoc questionnaire was used for data collection to compare the results at the Spanish and European level. The sample includes 505 people aged between 16 and 24 years. The main findings indicate a general dissatisfaction with the training received and a lack of adaptation of the transition system to the labor market, elements that repeat themselves in the perception of different agents regarding this context. Significant differences were found regarding the perception of problems considering the education level of the parents and aspects related to the autonomy of the young people, such as living independently or living off of their own income. This represents clear similarities with young Europeans and especially in the Spanish case but presents specific difficulties for young people in regions such as Castilla-La Mancha.Received: 09 October 2019Accepted: 23 March 2020Published online: 19 May 2020

Toledo, siglos XII-XV. La coexistencia de cristianos (latinos y mozárabes), musulmanes y judíos. Una síntesis

Durante cuatro siglos, cristianos (de rito romano o visigótico), musulmanes y judíos coexistieron en la ciudad de Toledo. Pero tal coexistencia, antes de terminar de manera trágica, se caracterizó por muchos matices y atravesó circunstancias diversas. Cuando los llamados mozárabes (cristianos arabizados de rito visigótico) se fundieron en la masa cristiana de rito latino y lengua hispánica, después de dominar en la ciudad durante largo tiempo, los musulmanes (mudéjares), nunca muy numerosos, alcanzaron cierto apogeo en el siglo XIV, antes de quedar parcialmente marginalizados en el XV. En cuanto a los judíos, debido al papel que desempeñaban en la gestión del dinero, fueron objeto de la ira y el furor popular, sobre todo en los siglos XIV y XV, incluso después de su conversión, fingida o sincera, a la fe cristiana.

Armaduras de lazo toledanas. Evolución de las trazas geométricas con estrellas de ocho puntas y su relación con los diferentes sistemas constructivos empleados

La ciudad de Toledo, sede permanente del poder durante casi seis siglos tras la ocupación romana, fue dominada por visigodos y omeyas hasta su conquista castellana. Su evolución arquitectónica la convierte es un enclave idóneo para el desarrollo de la carpintería de armar. Sus armaduras de lazo suponen un magnífico ejemplo donde entender el oficio a través de las posibilidades geométricas y constructivas exploradas por quienes las realizaron. Se analizan las trazas geométricas y su implantación desde los ejemplos más sencillos y numerosos con estrellas de ocho puntas hasta las complejas trazas de geometría radial; la evolución de las armaduras de par y nudillo, que, mediante la prefabricación, posibilitó construir complejas armaduras de siete paños con lacería.

CONSUMO DE SUPLEMENTOS NUTRICIONAIS POR PRATICANTES DE ATIVIDADE FÍSICA

Introdução: o presente trabalho teve como assunto a atividade física (AF) per si, enquanto que o tema central tratou do consumo de suplementos nutricionais por indivíduos que desenvolvem práticas de AF em academias. Objetivo: realizar pesquisa de consumo de suplementos nutricionais por praticantes de atividade física em academias da cidade de Toledo – Paraná, avaliar o consumo destes suplementos e identificar o perfil dos usuários. Metodologia: trata-se de um estudo descritivo-exploratório e com abordagem quantitativa. A coleta de dados foi operacionalizada a partir da aplicação de um questionário semi-estruturado, que permitiu ao pesquisador a obtenção de informações referentes ao perfil dos participantes, bem como ao consumo de suplementos nutricionais e demais fatores associados. Resultados: A amostra foi composta por 410 indivíduos, com idade média de 27,6 anos, sendo a maioria do sexo masculino (n= 236; 58%), com ensino superior completo (n= 139; 34%) e praticante de musculação (n= 402; 98%). Do total de participantes, verificou-se que 43,9% (n= 180) alegou fazer uso de suplementos, por necessidade de aumentar a energia (n= 126; 30,7%) e para otimizar os resultados (n= 103; 25,1%), sendo que a utilização dos suplementos se deu, especialmente, por iniciativa própria (n= 87; 21,2%). Os suplementos mais consumidos pelos participantes eram Whey Protein (n= 132; 32,2%), aminoácidos de cadeia ramificada (BCAA) (n= 87; 21,2%) e creatina (n= 84; 20,5%). Conclusão: o consumo de suplementos entre a amostra pesquisada mostrou-se inferior ao registrado em pesquisas congêneres. Entretanto, demais dados foram semelhantes aos apresentados na literatura.