Among a wide range of numerical methods, the Discrete Element Method (DEM) was found to be effective for the calculation of engineering problems with granular materials. This approach considers the discontinuous nature of these materials and has proven to be a very useful tool to obtain complete qualitative information on calculations of groups of particles.

The code used in this work is developed within DEMPack, a specific software tool for modelling physical problems using the DEM. The computer program is adapted to meet the needs for representing the behaviour of railway ballast.

The Discrete Element Method (DEM) is an alternative approach that considers the discontinuous nature of granular materials, which has proven to be a very useful tool to obtain complete qualitative information on calculations of groups of particles. However, the computational cost of contact evaluation between Discrete Elements (DEs) is high and limits the calculation capability. In this regard, it should be noted that particle shape greatly affects contact calculation computational cost, being spherical DEs the less computational demanding type of particles.

From the point of view of micro-scale analysis, it is essential to represent the exact geometry of the grains. By contrast, if the interest lies in the behaviour of the granular material as a whole, particles geometry is not a determining factor. Therefore, for efficiency purposes, a trade-off between particle shape accuracy and computational cost needs to be achieved.

In this work, different approaches to represent ballast stones are assessed: spheres with rolling friction, sphere clusters, polyhedrons and superquadrics. The first two were chosen for further analysis.

Rolling friction allows avoiding excessive rotation when irregular shaped materials are simulated as spherical particles. This work presents a new insight for its application called the Bounded Rolling Friction model.

Regarding sphere clusters, there is a key point in the friction between elements. As they reproduce irregular particles using clumps of spheres rigidly joined, the cavities between those spheres introduce interlocks that increase friction. To overcome this drawback, a new contact model is proposed.

Finally, results of the application of both approaches are displayed, and conclusions are drawn as regards the convenience of using more accurate and computational demanding geometries.

Regarding the numerical method, the DEM is considered effective and powerful for the calculation of engineering problems with granular and discontinuous materials. Due to the fact that railroad ballast layer consists of discrete aggregate particles, the DEM is considered suitable for the simulation of particulate ballast material. However, the computational cost of contact calculation between irregular particles is high and limits the calculation capability.

From the point of view of micro-scale analysis, it is essential to represent the exact geometry of the particle. On the other hand, if the interest lies in the behaviour of the granular material as a whole, the geometry is not a determining factor. Besides that, setting up a simulation of granular material taking care of the exact geometry of each particle will not be efficient.

Current work presents different geometrical approaches for the representition of ballast stones: spheric particles with rolling friction, sphere clusters, polyhedrons and superquadrics; showing their advantages and drawbacks.

Finally, some simulation results, using spheric particles and sphere clusters, are displayed in order to evaluate
the convenience or not of using more accurate and computational demanding geometries in each case.

The development of full-scale laboratory tests to evaluate the behaviour of flexible metallic fences is unfunctional, accounting to the huge magnitude of the event. On the other hand, small-scale testing may lead to inaccurate results, due to the distortion in the contours (e.g. anchors of the metallic fences). These problems in laboratory testing have led to the popularization of the use of numerical methods.

In this study, the bonded Discrete Element Method (DEM) is used for the analysis of the behaviour of flexible metallic fences for rockfall protection. The bonded DEM is a modification of the classical DEM which assumes that bonds exist between particles, resisting their separation. In this case, the net cables are represented using rigid spheres joined by bond elements that are deformed according to an elasto-plastic law.

Calculations were carried out using the DEMPack program, a specific software developed in CIMNE for modelling with the bonded DEM. This software allows considering the inter-action between discrete and finite elements, which can be useful to represent the boundaries of the domain, such as the surface of the slope.

The code is firstly validated reproducing benchmark tests available in the literature. Finally, full-scale tests are computed in order to evaluate the energy dissipation capacity of the fence during a rockfall event.

We analyze the case of six countries of the region (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) that are using telecommunications and the new informational technologies as part of central strategies in political campaigns. It also discussed the potentials and limits of such campaigns. We conclude that cybercampaigns in Latin America are consolidated: their development advances in giant steps. However, this type of campaigns has its limitations for achieve its objectives, due to the low-educated electorate, disappointed in political class.

The presence of media and journalists in platforms such as Twitter inevitably comes with multiple ways of presenting themselves to the public. While the media face the challenge to upkeep their informational end, journalists have to find a balance between their personal and professional profile.

A comparative usability analysis of journalists and media Twitter accounts makes this an evident problem that will allow studying the phenomenon and proposing certain guidelines for action.

Questions emerge rapidly: Can media corporatize a social tool that is essentially personal? Must a journalist inform, give his/her opinion as a common citizen, in an account created under his professional profile? Can media and journalists profiles co-exist in the same social network? The answers to these questions present us with new professional and ethical challenges that are worthy of further study.

The financial crisis of recent years has led the company to review and be aware of the importance to maintain ethical behavior, to strengthen the management of their own identity from values and from there to manage your image and corporate reputation transparent and reliable. In this context, communication and responsible relationship with its stakeholders, become a driving force of Corporate Social Responsibility within the organization, feeding each other, looking for a triple win: Business-Society-State.

In this difficult and uncertain present context, communication appears to be essential in the process of gradually becoming better aware of sustainable development, mainly when it comes to how the corresponding reports are devised. It seems to be an especially delicate matter inherently presenting a risk for the organization. Should one remain silent? Or should one speak out? And if so, how should one put things and how far should the level of uncertainty be revealed?

So, communication around Sustainable Development constitutes an emerging problem area whose significance goes well beyond the usual speculation related to crisis communication which latter only addresses one of its facets.

In the present article, works covering organizational communication are reviewed, focusing on the existing scientific literature on the subject. We shall thus be led to re-direct our attention to the conceptual and theoretical origins of the communication and organization couple, taking a special interest in the underlying epistemological foundations.

The results reveal the structure of the automobile market in all cases where several competing groups depending on the price. We also found significant differences in the midrange segment in both periods analyzed, both in the case of students driving license as in the case of students without such authorization.

This article offers a perspective on communication management in the mentioned framework based on an empirical research. The highlights have been given by foreign trade companies from Segovia (Spain) that operate in the broad range of activities covered by this study.

This research uses a comparative questionnaire about the management between the main enologicaltourism websites of two important origin denominations: La Rioja and Ribera del Duero.

Like that, we’ll be able to analyze and reflect about different communication strategies which use every wine region to obtain more tourists and economic benefits.

This article is part of a project on information science, and investigates how intercultural reality is carried out. In this case, this is applied to the local newspapers Ajá (Perú) and La Cuarta (Chile) which are highly read in both countries. At the same time, this study allows to observe how otherness and self image are perceived, and as a consequence, the development of intercultural journalism.

The goal of these intercultural studies in the area of Communication and Journalism is definitely to set bridges among cultures, and it creates the opportunity of identifying diversity which would lead us to a better intercultural understanding and respect.

Only a deep understanding of the purpose of Public Relations holistic (committed to the progress and well-being of the country) and the empathic comprehension of positions and demands of the various social actors will legitimize extractive activities in conflict scenarios (such as can currently be seen in Peru) and the consequent strengthening of the financial dynamics of the country; the increase in rates of employment, the reduction of extreme poverty; and the creation of solidarity links between business class and society: both gathered in a joint and civic work.

When we refer to Social Responsibility, this implies a new concept in the model of management of the company or organization. Concretely, when the organization voluntarily assume ethics, by means of actions and campaigns, in the relationship with their environment and with each of their stakeholders.

In this article, we make a reflection about the meaning and the importance of the management of social responsibility in media. We will remark some cases and testimonies from which we can study in detail the most important items to obtain an effective management of social responsibility in media. In addition to this, we will present some indicators from which it is possible to measure social responsibility in media considering also previous research by the author of this article about the cases of the following Peruvian companies: ATV, Radio Capital and Perú.21.

Both experiences were part of a thesis (Chauca, 2012), which aims to describe how networks of public opinion are built in Web 2.0, and how these networks provoke a response from the traditional media. The thesis was based on three theoretical perspectives: sociology of message production, construction of public opinion and computer-mediated discourse analysis. These perspectives helped to analyze the content produced by internet users, and also the way the media spread those contents. Bloggers and editors of different media were interviewed to know their production routines.

The research pretends to show the wine sector and enological-tourism to many people with a spectacular and interactive way. It pretends to value Valladolid as a city able to develop enological-tourism’s activities in the world.

For that we contacted with professionals of the area to obtain arguments and answers about Valladolid as a city of wine festival. The results explain that Valladolid is good for doing these activities and to be considered a city of wine.

The article concludes that the communication dimension is part of any government conflict management approach; therefore, it should be embedded within a national system for conflict management that puts the priority in the prevention and transformation of conflicts, rather than on the administration of crisis.

Currently, the Press interrelates with the new communication platforms (contained in the changing spectrum of Digital Journalism) that constantly used multimedia Internet resources, the immediacy of virtual social networks and the Microblogging. Within this scenario, Journalism Genders take a new importance in Print Media (newspapers, supplements, journalistic magazines, among others), setting up a methodology that safeguards professional ethics, helping journalists in the composition of substantial texts with appealing narrative, product of rigorous research, as well as specialized and multidisciplinary approach in line with the demands of the 21st century.

The social networks and this pedagogic model have allowed the establishment of effective channels of communication between the members of the indigenous communities of Amatlán de Quetzalcóatl and San Sebastian Cuentepec in the State of Morelos, Mexico, and the academy. This strategy contributes to the strengthening of the collective memory, stimulates social entrepreneurship, and promotes the exercise of a responsible tourism, committed to the sustainability of these indigenous communities.

This article aims to identify the strategies of public relations that the Peruvian government has employed in the management of the social conflicts related to the mining activity in Cajamarca, Peru; and determine if these strategies were conceived from a systemic and symmetrical perspective. At the same time, it proposes the use of the press clipping as a public relations tool for systematizing the published information about the conflict; and in a second phase proceed with a qualitative content analysis.

The article, starting from an analytical contextualization, aims to demonstrate how Data Journalism, whose use is clear from existing technologies linked to data processing, supplementing the various forms and contents, giving way to a new specialty of Journalism and, specifically, Investigative Journalism.

On the other hand, after analyzing the discourse of “Al fondo hay sitio”, it was easy to see that we have confused, naively, inclusion with redemption within a framework of convergence space-time of two contradictory cultural codes that permanently relate and interact from guidelines of race and class that function as semantic cores that shape, on the other hand, a determined social relationship and interaction of power and symbolic violence between his characters.

The first kind of press indirectly talks to the readers about the Chile expected, whether on the second kind the message comes in an explicit and direct way, which leaves nothing to open interpretation. Our work is about two different ways to build a nation, which depend on the characteristics of both media and on the relevant style to their target public. Nevertheless, their styles are not simply a rhetoric issue.

The Web 2.0 TV not only allows this massmediatic TV to migrate to a ubiquitous environment, flexible and powerful (that of cloud computing and mobility) but invites the audience to be part of as a production crew of this new television, which workflow is similar to the TV of the twentieth century, and to the new workflows purposed by major Internet players in the second decade of the XXI century. In Externado University this phenomena has been investigated thorough an empirical and intense way the migrated to Internet television, with a workflow similar to the 20th century massive TV, but with the intervention of actors (prosumer-students) in a more flexible and open way than the “representative” television. In addition of this, the arrival of Google Hangouts, which advocates for an opening to the end user with web skills, and social networks as a potential audience, which may also be involved in the production, the future of the TV in this century becomes by definition not only democratic, but also “direct” about this political organization form.

From the above and way of results, the text identifies key for this type of transmedia systems, which are applied as instructional strategies for teaching in basic education levels in secondary and high schools, as evidenced in the The Odyssey study. Finally, in conclusion exposes the importance of exploring the possibilities offered by the study and reflection transmedial in areas that transcend the world of entertainment.

In the proposed numerical strategy, the fluid is handled using the Particle Finite Element Method (PFEM) to tackle the issues resulting from extreme changes of geometry, such as mesh distortion and free-surface evolution. Additionally, the Papanastasiou model is employed as a regularization technique to overcome the

computational difficulties associated with the classical Bingham model. The solid structure, on the other hand, is represented by the hypoelastic constitutive model and simulated using the conventional Finite Element Method (FEM). The coupling between the fluid and the structure is achieved via a monolithic approach, called Unified formulation. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the correctness and the robustness of the proposed formulation, in 2D and in 3D. Special attention is devoted to the analysis of the convergence behavior of the proposed computational framework, the effect of the regularization on the numerical results and the 3D effects. Moreover, detailed comparisons between the simulated results and experimental data are performed so that the concerned problems and results can serve as benchmarks.

landslides in sensitive clays. The dynamic modelling of the landslides is carried

out using a novel continuum approach, the particle finite element method,

complemented with an elastoviscoplastic constitutive model. The multiwedge

failure mode in the collapse is captured successfully, and the multiple retrogressive

failures that have been widely observed in landslides in sensitive clays

are reproduced with the failure mechanism, the kinematics, and the deposition

being discussed in detail. Special attention has been paid to the role of the clay

sensitivity on each retrogressive failure as well as on the final retrogression distance

and the final run‐ out distance via parametric studies. Moreover, the

effects of the viscosity of sensitive clays on the failure are also investigated

for different clay sensitivities.