Malaga Research Articles

A time series analysis of the pricing behaviour of directly competitive 'low cost' airlines

This article discusses the competitive pricing behavior of airlines. The author collects data by route for cases where more than one airline is in direct competition. Data on fares is obtained from the Internet for two airlines with competing services to Alicante, Prague, and Malaga, departing from Nottingham East Midlands Airport in the United Kingdom, for the six working weeks up to and including the actual departure date. These data represent leisure traffic. The author also selected 2 domestic business destinations to illustrate price competition on business demand, where departure times were within a maximum of 20 minutes of each other; the author also compared competing services from London Gatwick (LGW) airport. The author concludes that one of the airlines studied is operating more characteristically as a low-cost carrier than the other. The influence of past fares is higher than the influence of the competitor's fares in one leisure travel case. The other leisure case suggests that the correlation between the series is more important than correlation within the series. The author sums up that it seems likely that each airline is preoccupied by the process of yield management and it is only through this that a competitor's fare offerings indirectly influence their behavior.

Perceived Quality in Sports Centers in Southern Spain: A Case Study

The aim of this study was to analyze the level of satisfaction in three municipal sports centers in the city of Malaga and to learn and analyze the characteristics of users older than 40 years of age in these centers. A total of 303 persons (123 men and 180 women) from three sports centers in the city of Malaga participated in this study (M = 58.14, SD = 7.16 years). The Evaluation of Perceived Quality in Sports Services test (CECASDEP) was used, and the results demonstrated that the different dimensions studied—sports center, activity space, locker rooms, program of activities, and trainer—were very positively correlated. The level of customer loyalty increased with user satisfaction and perceived quality of services as well as the age of the person. Users were also found to be more motivated to take part in physical activities due to greater satisfaction. The highest scores were given to the trainers, who played a key role in all three sports centers. In conclusion, we gathered important insights into perceived quality in different sports centers. This information can be used by sports managers to strengthen dimensions with lower scores and improve those with higher scores. In addition, the study confirms that the level of customer loyalty is related to the perceived quality scores. Therefore, the use of measuring instruments is recommended to optimize the quality of sports services.

Advocación mariana y ceremonial religioso en la documentación del Archivo de la Catedral de Málaga: una aproximación a las fiestas, misas y dotaciones

The present paper aims to make an approach to the Marian presence in the religious ceremony in the Cathedral of Malaga during the 16th-19th. The methodology to be followed to carry out our research has been the analysis of documentary sources of the Cathedral Archive of Malaga city, what has allowed a substancial social, religious and economic character and even identity information. Social outcomes where the Marian presence prevailed were the masses and festivities. Endowment offered by parishioners were collected in books of censuses, anniversaries and memories, and developed in the context of ideal to express their devotion.

Touristification in historic cities. Reflections on Malaga

This research analyses the consequences in the economy of the city, in the urban environment and in the life of residents affected by the massive arrival of tourists in the historic centre of Malaga in Andalusia, Spain. The research combines a mixed methodology consisting of analysis of urban plans and administrative documents, statistics, direct observation of tourism-related activities, the definition of a list of indicators and verification of their application in the case study. Mass tourism in a historic city is a cause of conflicts between visitors and residents, but there are also positive effects such as job creation, cosmopolitanism or the expansion of the cultural offer. This research shows that it is necessary to act on tourists-residents’ conflicts in order to avoid the transformation of historic centres into places that expel the neighbours to give place to tourists. Planning and urban management, the active participation of citizens, as well as an awareness by the public administration, are key issues to avoid that historic centres become emptied of urban content to be turned into a scene for tourist consumption. This is the first research of the kind developed in the city of Malaga, one of the Spanish cities where tourism is growing faster, thus, the results could be applied to other cases in the same situation in the country and the Mediterranean.

Increasing resolution of airborne pollen forecasting at a discrete sampled area in the southwest Mediterranean Basin

Daily fluctuations of the airborne pollen concentrations produce variations on symptomatology in allergic population. Such fluctuations are influenced by local vegetal coverage, flowering phenology, geography and climatology. Since 1991, airborne pollen of Malaga province (southern Spain) has been monitored in 7 different locations. Malaga station has been kept operational uninterruptedly throughout the studied period, while the rest of the stations only worked in periods of 2–4 years. Weekly, its pollen information is updated online to inform the population in order to prevent allergic diseases. Increasing the spatial resolution of pollen information would be very useful for allergic population living at unsampled locations. Due to the impossibility of keeping operational a high number of pollen stations covering the whole province of Malaga, the aim of this study is to create spatial models to extrapolate and forecast the pollen concentrations to Malaga province by using the concentrations registered at the capital as unique input. To do so, the relationships obtained between the airborne pollen concentrations detected at Malaga city and those detected at the other stations have been used to elaborate models for the main pollen types registered at the province. These models were spatially interpolated all over the province by using co-kriging techniques and the Compensated Thermicity Index as covariable. As result of this work, pollen distribution of the 8 most prevalent taxa has been depicted all over the whole Malaga province and an allergy alert system has been set up to extrapolate pollen information from Malaga to the whole province.

New Challenges for a Collaborative Urban Planning: Digital Platform for Promoting Relationship Between Local Administration and Citizens in the City of Malaga

The most conventional systems in the Urban Planning practice leave out needs and real social demands through inefficient management models in many cases. Nowadays there is a social, professional and institutional demand to transform these models into new ways of thinking and planning the city that are closer to its inhabitants. In fact, there is a high social involvement of people that are helping or developing activities in favour of their local communities. However, this social activism is not visible nor recognised as the one made by regulated associations. Undoubtedly, the use of new technologies offers a framework of opportunity in these new ways of ”making the city”, as well as it becomes a new area of work and research.In this sense, there are many experiences that incorporate technology as a resource to promote citizen participation in the management of cities. However, only some of them are effective and achieve the goal of becoming a useful tool for citizens. In the city of Malaga, there are already some digital tools at the service of citizenship, although these require a process of revision and updating that allows optimizing existing resources and increasing their impact as a participation tool. As a first step, it is necessary to identify the agents and social initiatives of existing participation in the city.The objective of this project is to create an interactive digital platform that shows the city of Malaga from a real social perspective, as it makes visible and map the emerging non regulated movements, neighbourhood initiatives and new urban trends with low visibility. Finally, the aim is to create a tool for collectives, associations, administrations and other urban agents to promote synergies and relationships among all of them. The incorporation of all of them is essential for the success of the platform as a participation tool. For this, a methodology of actions is established, and it begins with the identification of possible agents and the way of interaction with each one of them. The digital tool that is used is based on the use of geographic location systems.This article collects the results of the first phase of the research project that includes a methodological proposal for mapping the real social activist reality in cities and a functional test of the digital platform created for this. Likewise, an evaluation of the experience and possible improvements to be incorporated in the successive phases of the project is advanced

How New Technologies Can Promote an Active and Healthy City. Digital Platform to Identify Areas of Informal Sport Practice in the City of Malaga

In recent years the urban public space has become the largest casual sports infrastructure in cities and suburbs. WHO establishes a direct relationship between the Active Healthy City, social cohesion of communities and public space. This approach provides a framework for research and work on the design of the city and urban space as support for this sport practice. Moreover, new technologies provide an opportunity to promote the sport in the city.“Malaga Activa” digital platform project is an initiative that wants to promote the informal sport practice on the urban public space (outside the regulated sports facilities) and healthy living in the neighborhoods of the city of Malaga. This paper presents the results of the first phase of the project identifying the active sport areas in the public space -those in which physical and casual sport activities take place-. It also includes a methodology for the analisys and promotion of public space as an activator of phsycal activity, which includes a performance test of the created digital platform, as well as an assessment of the experience and possible improvements to be incorporated in the successive phases of the project.

Optimal allocation of public parking spots in a smart city: problem characterisation and first algorithms

ABSTRACTHaving a mechanism to mathematically model the problem of the optimal allocation of parking spots within cities could bring great benefits to society. According to the International Parking Institute, about 38% of the cars circulating throughout a city are looking for available parking spots, leading to increased pollution and subsequent health problems, as well as economic losses due to wasted man-hours. In the work presented here, a new mathematical model describing the problem of the optimal allocation of parking spots is proposed, along with an evolutionary algorithm to demonstrate how this model can be used in practice. A simulated annealing algorithm was implemented to test the effectiveness of this approach. The proposed strategy will allow users to find parking more quickly and easily, as well as lead to new services for the hot-topic of smart mobility. For the definition of the problem, a real map of the city of Malaga, Spain, was used along with Sumo software to carry out the simulations. The results clearly demonstrated that the proposed mechanism is capable of minimising the global cost of parking, implying a direct benefit for users.

Chinese-Spanish Immigrant Child Performance on Chinese Language Tests: A Case Study on Chinese-Spanish Children

Research on Chinese-speaking communities in recent years has accompanied growing interest in language acquisition and usage in Chinese immigrant children. Second-generation Chinese immigrants must navigate a highly complex linguistic environment rife with factors that affect their language proficiency. Overseas, Chinese children face greater difficulties in learning Chinese and show generally low Chinese proficiency compared to their non-immigrating counterparts. What exactly are the difficulties in the process of their Chinese learning? How can their Chinese language proficiency be precisely defined? What are the external and internal factors that influence their language skills? To solve these questions, we assessed 80 Chinese children ranging from 7-9 years of age in Malaga City, Spain, by issuing questionnaires, interviews, and language tests designed to reveal the relationship between their language proficiency and living conditions. Factors such as family environment, parents' occupation, parents' education, and language attitude and motivation are taken into consideration as crucial factors, which affect language proficiency. We also distributed a language test to 80 Chinese students at South Lake Primary School in Hubei Province to compare their language proficiency with that of the Spanish immigrant children overall, and to identify specific points of weakness. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used in the data analysis.

Sustainable Tourism and Residents’ Perception towards the Brand: The Case of Malaga (Spain)

A brand can turn a geographical location into a landmark and influences the tourist planification of a city. Although the world tourist sector recognizes Malaga as The Coast of Sun, this analysis also reveals several more elements, which should be substantiated if a rebranding is carried out. If the brand is well managed, the residents’ perspective must be taken into account. Avoiding the seasonality and keeping the destination in the future will allow the sustainable development of the tourism in the city of Malaga. In order to achieve the goals set in this research, a descriptive methodology has been used. This study has been carried out using a questionnaire in which 1230 residents have participated. Indeed, the results show that Malaga brand is being built under the concept of culture and that some attributes are vital for the territory’s image. This encourages economic growth and hence employment. This paper offers important implications to both public and private institutions insofar as they promote tourism campaigns.

Cortijo de San Isidro (La Rebanadilla) in the bay of Málaga, Spain: Observations on small finds from the burials. The seal-amulets

Durante este trabajo se aborda el estudio de los tres escarabeos y un sello o escaraboide localizados asociados a las tumbas mas antiguas de la necropolis fenicia arcaica de Cortijo de San Isidro (Malaga). La cronologia de finales del s. IX a.C. de las tumbas en las que se localizan hace que estemos ante los primeros ejemplos de estos materiales en la Peninsula Iberica, por el momento. Desde este trabajo se aborda su clasificacion tipologica y su comparacion con otros ejemplares localizados en otras areas del Mediterraneo, con la finalidad de determinar su procedencia y su cronologia comparativa.Palabras clave: Andalucia, Arqueologia fenicia, aegyptiaca, escarabeos, iconografia.

Water demand management strategies for water-scarce cities: The case of Spain

This paper provides an overview of pricing and non-pricing measures to reduce domestic water consumption at the household levels in five urban areas in Spain. Analyses are based on questionnaires sent to water utilities that provide water services in the metropolitan areas of Barcelona and Seville, the cities of Malaga and Saragossa and the region of Madrid. Our main contribution is that, compared to studies that are based on estimates of the water demand function, we asked directly the managers of the utilities on the effectiveness of the measures implemented. We found that all areas studied have implemented pricing and non-pricing measures to encourage the efficient use of water and that reduction in per capita water consumption has been the result of periods of drought, accompanied in certain cases by water restrictions and pricing and non-pricing measures. In all five areas studied, the utilities believe that non-pricing measures have had a greater impact on water consumption decisions compared to pricing measures.

Las panorámicas de Málaga dibujadas por Francis Carter en 1772-1773

Las tres vistas panorámicas de la ciudad de Málaga que Francis Carter dibujó en 1772-1773 y publicó en 1777 constituyen una valiosa fuente documental que permite conocer su entorno paisajístico, hoy transformado por crecimientos urbanos posteriores. Tras considerar su contexto general se aporta un análisis inédito, localizando sus puntos de vista y ángulos visuales comprendidos, para poner en valor la configuración de la ciudad representada, sus murallas, perfiles e hitos arquitectónicos en el paisaje malagueño de finales del XVIII. Aunque su valor artístico no es destacable, se corrobora su gran interés como testimonio de su época, considerando algunas vistas históricas de otros autores como referente comparativo, cotejando su fiabilidad y la precisión de los abundantes pormenores dibujados.

Generating realistic urban traffic flows with evolutionary techniques

In this article we present a novel approach for calculating realistic traffic flows for traffic simulators, called Flow Generator Algorithm (FGA). We start with an original map from OpenStreetMap and traffic data collected at different measurement points, published by the city’s authorities, to produce a model consisting of the simulation map and a series of traffic flows (routes + vehicles) which match the real number of vehicles at those streets. Our approach does not need a full dataset to calculate the flows. In fact, just a few measurement points indicating the number of vehicles in the analyzed time interval were used. This and the use of evolutionary algorithms for such a complex task make our proposal different from the studies found in literature. Despite the fact we have chosen the SUMO traffic simulator for our experiments, this idea can be easily adapted to others. We have tested our proposal on two geographical areas of the city of Malaga, comprising different map sizes, number of sensors and vehicles, and have achieved measurement values from the simulation that are closer to the real values, showing an error lower than 10%. Our algorithm, as well as the realistic scenarios generated by using it, can be used as the basis for other research approaches, especially those focused on road traffic optimization.

Rediseño del Mercado de Salamanca: una pieza emblemática del estilo Neomudéjar

In the city of Malaga there are several emblematic buildings, in which it can be observed many different architectural styles.This is caused by the crossin of cultures that have been happening over the centuries. Among them, is the Mercado de Salamanca, located in the neighborhood of Molinillo, built at the beginning of the 20th century in Neomudejar style. In addition to its historical and social value, it has a great artistic value, although nowadays it can be seen a great deterioration caused by the passage of time. For this reason, a total remodeling is necessary to provide a new added value, combining the historic part of the building with the needs of the new times. Reinforcing simultaneously its civil functionality and tourist attraction.

José Spreafico, Enrique Facio y Sabina Muchart. Nuevos datos sobre fotógrafos malagueños del siglo XIX y principios del XX

Las investigaciones en los archivos de Málaga, Olot (Gerona) y diversos lugares de Italia, nos han permitido precisar las fechas y los lugares de nacimiento y muerte de tres de los más importantes fotógrafos activos en Málaga en el siglo XIX y comienzos del XX -José Spreafico. Enrique Facio y Sabina Muchart-, así como los lugares en los que vivieron y otras actividades a las que se dedicaron, adernás de la fotografía. También aportamos datos sobre otros fotógrafos de la ciudad.

Sinceridad, economía, racionalismo y neomudéjar. Arquitectura de ladrillo en la Málaga del siglo XIX

Se estudian en este artículo los principales ejemplos en Málaga capital de la denominada "arquitectura de ladrillo" del siglo XIX, término con el que se definen las edificaciones cuyos exteriores dejan a la vista este material. Se atienden las razones estéticas, económicas e ideológicas que determinanel uso de esta modalidad constructiva, se especifica su relación con el neomudéjar, se fijan sus diferencias con el resto de la arquitectura decimonónica y se analizan los edificios por tipologías.

Estudio de la red viaria malagueña: las vías de comunicación hacia Antequera y Vélez-Málaga en los siglos XVIII y XIX

El presente trabajo realiza un estudio de la apertura de los primeros itinerarios viarios de la provincia de Málaga en el siglo XVIII y su posterior evolución en la centuria decimonónica. Con el trazado de estos nuevos caminos desde la capital malagueña hasta Antequera y Vélez-Málaga se pretendía, en el primero de ellos, construir una vía por la que transportar los productos mercantiles al interior del país, además de favorecer la apertura de un paso hacia la Corte. Por su parte, la importancia de un camino que enlazase con Vélez se centraba en la necesidad de conseguir un transporte rápido y más seguro de productos agrícolas, especialmente, vino y pasas, hasta el puerto de Málaga.

Música en honor de los Santos Patronos de Málaga Ciriaco y Paula

El culto y la devoción que la ciudad de Málaga ha tributado a sus patronos san Ciriaco y santa Paula a través de la historia se reflejan en la música litúrgica en su honor que se custodia en el Archivo de la Catedral de Málaga. Rituales, fiestas, procesiones y músicos como Sanz, Iribarren, Torrens u Ocón conforman estas celebraciones en las que la música era parte fundamental.

Life cycle study of different constructive solutions for building enclosures

The construction sector must advance in a more sustainable way and to achieve this goal, the application of global methodologies is needed. These methodologies should take into account all life stages of a building: planning, design, construction, use and demolition. The quantity and variety of the materials used in building construction condition the buildings' environmental and energy impacts. Life Cycle Assessment offers a standardized framework to evaluate the environmental loads of a product, process or activity. This work aims to demonstrate the feasibility of using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to select facilities in the construction sector, which minimize environmental and energy impacts. To facilitate the understanding of the proposed methodology, a comparative LCA is performed, to determine the type of thermal insulating material in a double sheet ceramic façade and its thickness, which allows reducing the environmental impacts associated to the enclosure. The three most used enclosure types used in the city of Malaga (Spain) have been selected for this study. The results show the adequacy of the procedure used.