Since the 1950s Spain has developed a set of policies aimed at stimulating ownership through subsidies mainly in the form of interest rates or mortgage quotas to developers and households neglecting other forms of housing provision, for instance social rent. That system provided one off benefit to the developer and/or the purchaser and could not be reused to help other households. The financial crisis in 2008 evidenced the weakness of the Spanish housing system in providing affordable and secure shelter by means other than homeownership. The existent housing provision system failed to avoid the large number of evictions while simultaneously banks became owners of a large amount of empty dwellings. To some extent, the severity of the situation exerted considerable political pressure to devise a new framework for action to alleviate the housing problem in Spain. In this paper based on the post -crisis evidence we argue the need to reformulate approaches to provide adequate and affordable housing for certain collectives in Spain.
There are fifteen autochthonous species within the subfamily Leuciscinae (Cyprinidae) in Spain, all of them endemic except for two. The diversity, peculiarity and complex taxonomic position of most of these species make them an interesting group to study. In the present work, 456 specimens of 11 species were studied. Cleithra, opercular and pharyngeal bones were extracted from each specimen. These bones were compared and measured morphologically to obtain biometric indices. The biometric differences for each bone and for the three bones together were analysed using these indices by means of Principal Component Analyses. The results show a direct relationship between morphological and biometrical differences and similarities. Besides, this osteological comparison partially agrees with the present taxonomic position of these species, contributing to the difficult systematics and phylogeny of this group.
The article is a continuation of the author’s paper given at the professional conference on historical collections in Olomouc in 2013, which was published in the proceedings of the conference, Bibliotheca Antiqua.1 The author has corrected and expanded some of the data on the life story of Count Pötting on the basis of information from Pötting’s handwritten Diary from 1664-1674 (Diario del conde de Pötting, embajador del Sacro Imperio en Madrid). She provides an overview of the books that are known to have formed part of Pötting’s book collection (26 manuscripts, mostly codices comprising more units, and 46 printed books from the 16th and 17th centuries have been recorded as yet)., Jaroslava Kašparová., and Článek je pokračováním příspěvku předneseného na konferenci k historickým fondům v Olomouci v roce 2013, jehož písemná podoba vyšla ve sborníku Bibliotheca Antiqua.
Eucoleus schvalovoj Kontrimavichus, 1963 (Nematoda: Capillariidae) is redescribed. The original description of this species was brief and inadequate in thal it was based on just a few specimens removed from the Eurasian otter, Lutra lutra (Linnaeus, 1758) in the Khabarovsk region, USSR. Detailed morphological study of several specimens of E. schvalovoj from the oesophagus of L. lutra from Spain revealed new characters, above all in males, and allows for a better characterisation of this species. Since its original description £. schvalovoj has only been recorded in Spain.
The generic diagnosis of Mehdiella Seurat, 1918 is emended based on study and redescription of Mehdiella microstoma (Drasche, 1884) from the caecum of Testudo graeca Linnaeus, 1758 collected in Settat, Morocco and on study and description of a new species, Mehdiella petterae sp. n., from the large intestine of Testudo hermanni (Gmelin, 1789) collected in Catalonia, Spain. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies revealed substantial differences in the structure of the mouth and the caudal end, and made possible to differentiate the new species from the others. SEM studies showed the real and sound characteristics of the genus Mehdiella, namely number of anal papillae 2 instead of 3, post-anal papillae pedunculate or sessile instead sessile.
Co-occurrence of species with similar trophic requirements, such as odonates, seems to depend both on them occupying different microhabitats and differing in their life-cycles. The life cycles of the dragonflies Boyeria irene and Onychogomphus uncatus were studied in two consecutive years, mainly by systematic sampling of larvae in seven permanent head courses that constitute the upper basin of the River Águeda, western Spain, in the central part of the ranges of these two species. The size ranges of the last five larval stadia of both species were established based on biometric data. The eggs of the egg-overwintering aeshnid hatched in late spring and early summer and for the gomphid hatching peaked in middle-late summer. Both species showed mixed voltinism with "cohort splitting". B. irene had a dominant three-year development (partivoltinism), with some developing in two years (semivoltinism). O. uncatus requires four, sometimes three years to complete development (all partivoltine). B. irene larvae spent the winter before emergence in the last three, maybe four stadia, as a "summer species". O. uncatus mainly behaved as a "spring species", most larvae spending the last winter in the final larval stadium.