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The Romanesque churches dotted along the Way of Saint James are magnificent examples of cultural heritage, and their analysis from the perspective of cultural astronomy may, in an unobtrusive manner, provide information of hitherto unexplored facets of these treasures. This study aims to examine the pilgrimage road as a communication channel and to seek possible regional variations in the Christian kingdoms of Leon, Castile, Navarre and Aragon. Seen as a whole, the Romanesque churches of our sample present two main orientation patterns: towards either the ecclesiastical and astronomical equinox or to certain Easter Sunday celestial phenomena. However, equinoctial orientations are present only in Leon and Navarre, while Easter appears with more or less significance in every kingdom. The Camino de Santiago constitutes a sacred landscape with a common heritage, with a certain degree of cultural diversity that depends on the territory. These subtle differences have surfaced only in light of archaeoastronomical investigations.

The relevance of coal oxy-firing in fluidized bed reactors has increased during the last years as an alternative for the development of CO2 capture technologies. The addition of biomass in the fuel blend is well-known in conventional combustion, but few experiences are found under oxy-combustion conditions. This paper discusses the results obtained when oxy-firing anthracite and corn stover in a lab-scale fluidized bed, paying attention to pollutant emissions, deposition rates and composition of the ashes. While SO2 emissions are affected by the chlorine content supplied with the biomass, NOx are much more dependent on operating conditions in a similar way to conventional combustion. As concerns the ash composition, chlorine is detected in fly ashes while the bed solids are mostly composed by aluminosilicates. Oxy-firing increases the chlorine detected in fly ashes in comparison to the air-fired tests. Deposition rates are barely modified by the O2/CO2 atmosphere; severe deposition is only detected for the blend with the highest chlorine content. Mixed Ca-K sulfates are found in deposits, minimizing the risk of chlorine-induced corrosion. The work described in this paper is being partially funded by the R+D Spanish National Program from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, under the Project ENE2012- 39114. The project is also co-funded by the European Commission (European Regional Development Funds). Peer reviewed

Understanding and addressing the complex effects of climate change on planetary health requires a multidisciplinary approach. Here, experts share their experience working at the intersection of health and climate. Their Voices advocate for cooperation, rethinking the concept of sustainability,and urge for immediate action to preserve global health.

In the last decade, forestry policies in Spain have undergone changes needed to comply with the European and world directives on forest conservation. The elaboration of strategic plans has to take into account the State organization (Central and Autonomous Regional Governments share the responsibilities), resulting in agreed documents, effective at a national level and fulfilling the peculiarities and aspirations of each region. The most recent development has been the elaboration of a Strategy for Conservation and Sustainable Use of Forest Genetic Resources, which can be seen as a consequence of, among other factors, the implementation of the Spanish Strategy for Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity along with Spain's participation in the European Forest Genetic Resources Programme. This document arose from the lack of approaches to the conservation of population diversity of forest species in the current policies, and as a means to promote and coordinate activities on conservation and use of genetic resources. The Strategy has been arranged through a participative process involving the ForestAdministration, Research Centres and Universities. The document includes a definition of priorities and proposals of activities, which are mainly focused on optimising the efficiency of existing tools and infrastructures and on increasing synergy among different initiatives. Implementation of the Strategy is expected to occur through the development of National Action Plans. Finally, coordination mechanisms must be enhanced in order to maintain the levels of cooperation achieved during the elaboration process.

There is growing interest in the potential of grassroots innovations for the transition towards more just and sustainable societies. Nevertheless, there is lack of clear normative discussion regarding these processes. The paper strives to propose and test a framework that enables an analysis of how and in which sense specific grassroots innovation processes may be contributing to the construction of more just societies. To this end, we connect elements of the multi-level perspective on sociotechnical transitions (frequently used in the analysis of grassroots innovations) with elements of the capability approach, which offers a multi-dimensional perspective to justice. The framework is used to address two purposively selected empirical cases in two key sectors in Spain: an energy cooperative and a food purchasing group. We draw on the information of 25 individual interviews with members of these two cases, on observation, and on secondary sources. Information was processed by means of a qualitative content analysis. We draw on predefined categories from the framework, which was refined during the analysis. The paper illustrates that grassroots innovations may be contributing to justice in several aspects: they expand capabilities in different dimensions, improve public reasoning processes, and create better structural conditions for human flourishing. Nevertheless, these processes are not free of tensions and contradictions.

In Press. Most of the existing buildings in Spain lack any thermal insulation in their envelope. They are in urgent need to be refurbished to reduce their energy consumption. The standard solution for the rehabilitation of facades is to incorporate thermal insulation materials to reduce heat transmission. This work proposes an extension of the conventional approach: the installation of Trombe walls on sunny facades incorporating an outer layer of thermochromic mortar, the thermochromic Trombe wall (TTW). This improves the energy performance of the existing buildings by enhancing their solar gains. This paper describes the design and configuration of the new TTW system. While traditional solutions can be evaluated with a simple heat transfer equation, a complex energy model is needed to evaluate TTW. Energy simulation is used to determine parameters that influence thermal performance. Thermochromic mortar transition temperature is designed to achieve maximum efficiency. The results obtained from the parametric study were used to determine the aspects of the construction of the first prototype on a laboratory test cell. The information obtained from the experiment will be used for the calibration of the energy model that will establish the potential for the incorporation of the TTW to the existing buildings. This work is part of the tasks developed for the project BIA2014-56827-R ‘Development of an intelligent coating mortar based on thermochromic ecoefficient cements (MICET)’ funded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness). The construction system analysis was produced under funding of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness project BIA 2017-83231-C2-1-R: ‘HABITA-RES: Nueva herramienta integrada de evaluación para áreas urbanas vulnerables. Hacia la autosuficiencia energética y a favor de un modelo de habitabilidad biosaludable’. Peer reviewed