“Fan Girls Going Rogue” The Reception of The Force Awakens and Rogue One with Female Fans

In the last 3 years Disney has released the 4 newest instalments to the Star Wars franchise, both of which are led by female protagonists, Rey (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi) and Jyn Erso (Rogue One). Although Star Wars fandom has mostly been associated with a rather poor stereotype of the male fanboy, female fans have been taking inspiration from the female characters of the series. Princess Leia aka General Leia Organa in the new instalments was one of the many faces on placards under the motto “A Woman’s Place is in The Resistance” in the Women’s March that occurred in Washington in early 2017. There has been some resistance to the female leads in the new films with criticism that Disney is spouting feminist propaganda and even rumours (which turned out to be false) that Rogue One was being re-shot to be anti-Trump. This study of 330 participants discusses how female reception to the new instalments has differed from the “die-hard” male fans and why this has occurred. Information gathered in the online survey indicated that female Star Wars fans had a positive response to the new female lead characters that were introduced in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: Rogue One. However, it was also apparent that they perceived a negative response to the new female characters but also to themselves by male Star Wars fans. The study addresses a literature gap on reception with female fans to Star Wars

‘Do you all want to die? We must throw them out!’: Class Warfare, Capitalism, and Necropolitics in Seoul Station and Train to Busan

The undead, and the notion of life beyond death, have long been important components of gothic literature, and, arguably, this is increasingly the case in modern popular culture. Carol Margaret Davison has noted that ‘many gothic works meditated on death and death practices as a signpost of civilisation’. This essay explores the ways in which ‘undead practices’ function as a signpost of social inequality in a society, with zombie narratives as a useful tool for theorising death and death practices. In particular, the link between zombies and necropolitics (where it is decided which people in society live and which will die) is made explicit in the South-Korean films Seoul Station and Train to Busan. As I argue here, in these films, zombies are culturally representative for a South-Korean audience that is viewing them, and moreover, are connected to South-Korean death practices. I argue that these films highlight important necropolitical practices in South Korean society today, with South-Korean audiences experiencing these zombie narratives differently to models outlined in previously published work on Western consumption of zombie narratives

Lies for the “Greater Good” – The Story of Horizon Zero Dawn

Since the advent of mass media, governments and academics have researched ways to manipulate information received by the general public. Reasons for this have ranged from propaganda to altruism, and debates have raged as to whether people have a ‘right’ to the truth and to the ethical implications of lying. This article investigates the way that lying for supposedly altruistic reasons is used in the narrative of the video game Horizon Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games, 2017). Horizon Zero Dawn is the story of a young girl named Aloy who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in which humans were decimated by the robots they had created hundreds of years before. This article analyses the way in which, within the narrative, governments and corporations implemented their plan to ensure humanity’s survival, and their justifications to lie to the general public about the lengths this plan would go to. This article examines how their justification for lying usurped the robots’ claim to inherit the Earth and the ethics behind it

The Incidence of Breast Cancer among Disabled Kansans with Medicare

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer disparities by disability status are poorly understood. While previous studies have shown increased odds of late stage at diagnosis, it is unclear whether the incidence of breast cancer varies by disability status. METHODS: To assess cancer incidence and stage at diagnosis among disabled and nondisabled Medicare beneficiaries in Kansas, a retrospective cohort study was conducted using linked Medicare enrollment and Kansas Cancer Registry data from 2007 to 2009. Disability status was determined by the indicator for the original reason for Medicare eligibility. RESULTS: Among the 651,337 Medicare beneficiaries included in the cohort, there were 2,384 cases of breast cancer. The age-adjusted incidence was 313 per 100,000 among female beneficiaries with disabilities and 369 per 100,000 among nondisabled female beneficiaries. The adjusted incidence rate ratio was 0.93 (95% CI 0.73-1.18). When assessing stage at diagnosis, there was no difference in the odds of late stage at diagnosis by disability status (OR = 1.02; 95% CI 0.68-1.50). CONCLUSION: No significant difference in incidence or stage at diagnosis was identified among this cohort. The use of Medicare eligibility to define disability status presented a number of limitations. Future studies should seek alternate definitions of disability to assess disparities in breast cancer incidence, including definitions using Medicare claims data

Crustal shortening, exhumation, and strain localization in a collisional orogen: the Bajo Pequeño Shear Zone, Sierra de Pie de Palo, Argentina

The Bajo Pequeño Shear Zone (BPSZ) is a lower-crustal shear zone that records shortening and exhumation associated with the establishment of a new plate boundary, and its placement in a regional structural context suggests that local- to regional-scale strain localization occurred with progressive deformation. A kilometer-scale field and analytical cross section through the ~80 m thick BPSZ and its adjacent rocks indicates an early Devonian (405–400 Ma) phase of deformation on the western margin of Gondwanan continental crust. The earliest stages of the BPSZ, recorded by metamorphic and microstructural data, involved thrusting of a hotter orthogneiss over a relatively cool pelitic unit, which resulted in footwall garnet growth and reset footwall white mica 40Ar/39Ar ages in proximity to the shear zone. Later stages of BPSZ activity, as recorded by additional microstructures and quartz c-axis opening angles, were characterized by strain localization to the center of the shear zone coincident with cooling and exhumation. These and other data suggest that significant regional tectonism persisted in the Famatinian orogenic system for 60–70 million years after one microplate collision (the Precordillera) but ceased 5–10 million years prior to another (Chilenia). A survey of other synchronous structures shows that strain was accommodated on progressively narrower structures with time, indicating a regional pattern of strain localization and broad thermal relaxation as the Precordillera collision evolved.Fil: Garber, Joshua M.. University of California at Davis; Estados UnidosFil: Roeske, Sarah M.. University of California at Davis; Estados UnidosFil: Warren, Jessica. University of Stanford; Estados UnidosFil: Mulcahy, Sean R.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados UnidosFil: McClelland, William C.. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Austin, Lauren J.. University of Oregon; Estados UnidosFil: Renne, Paul R.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados UnidosFil: Vujovich, Graciela Irene. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Geología. Laboratorio de Tectónica Andina; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Crustal Shortening, Exhumation, and Strain Localization in a Collisonal Orogen: the Bajo Pequeno Shear Zone, Sierra de Pie de Palo, Argentina

The Bajo Pequeño Shear Zone (BPSZ) is a lower-crustal shear zone that records shortening and exhumation associated with the establishment of a new plate boundary, and its placement in a regional structural context suggests that local- to regional-scale strain localization occurred with progressive deformation. A kilometer-scale field and analytical cross section through the ~80 m thick BPSZ and its adjacent rocks indicates an early Devonian (405–400 Ma) phase of deformation on the western margin of Gondwanan continental crust. The earliest stages of the BPSZ, recorded by metamorphic and microstructural data, involved thrusting of a hotter orthogneiss over a relatively cool pelitic unit, which resulted in footwall garnet growth and reset footwall white mica 40Ar/39Ar ages in proximity to the shear zone. Later stages of BPSZ activity, as recorded by additional microstructures and quartz c-axis opening angles, were characterized by strain localization to the center of the shear zone coincident with cooling and exhumation. These and other data suggest that significant regional tectonism persisted in the Famatinian orogenic system for 60–70 million years after one microplate collision (the Precordillera) but ceased 5–10 million years prior to another (Chilenia). A survey of other synchronous structures shows that strain was accommodated on progressively narrower structures with time, indicating a regional pattern of strain localization and broad thermal relaxation as the Precordillera collision evolved

Comparison of two methods to identify live benthic foraminifera : a test between Rose Bengal and CellTracker Green with implications for stable isotope paleoreconstructions

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Paleoceanography, 21 (2006): PA4210, doi:10.1029/2006PA001290.The conventional method to distinguish live from dead benthic foraminifers uses Rose Bengal, a stain that reacts with both live and dead cytoplasm. CellTracker Green CMFDA is a fluorogenic probe causing live cells to fluoresce after proper incubation. To determine the more accurate viability method, we conducted a direct comparison of Rose Bengal staining with CellTracker Green labeling. Eight multicore tops were analyzed from Florida Margin (SE United States; 248-751 m water depths), near Great Bahama Bank (259-766 m), and off the Carolinas (SE United States; 220 m, 920 m). On average, less than half the Rose Bengal-stained foraminifera were actually living when collected. Thus, while Rose Bengal can significantly overestimate abundance, combined analyses of CellTracker Green and Rose Bengal can provide insights on population dynamics and effects of episodic events. Initial stable isotope analyses indicate that the CellTracker Green method does not significantly affect these important paleoceanographic proxies.Funding for this research was provided by the National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Program (grant #OCE-0139423; PI, D. McCorkle, WHOI) and NSF grants OCE-9911654 and OCE-0351029

Oligodendrocyte precursor cells engulf synapses during circuit remodeling in mice

Oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) give rise to myelinating oligodendrocytes throughout life, but the functions of OPCs are not limited to oligodendrogenesis. Here we show that OPCs contribute to thalamocortical presynapse elimination in the developing and adult mouse visual cortex. OPC-mediated synapse engulfment increases in response to sensory experience during neural circuit refinement. Our data suggest that OPCs may regulate synaptic connectivity in the brain independently of oligodendrogenesis

Parabacteroides distasonis:intriguing aerotolerant gut anaerobe with emerging antimicrobial resistance and pathogenic and probiotic roles in human health

Parabacteroides distasonis is the type strain for the genus Parabacteroides, a group of gram-negative anaerobic bacteria that commonly colonize the gastrointestinal tract of numerous species. First isolated in the 1930s from a clinical specimen as Bacteroides distasonis, the strain was re-classified to form the new genus Parabacteroides in 2006. Currently, the genus consists of 15 species, 10 of which are listed as 'validly named' (P. acidifaciens, P. chartae, P. chinchillae, P. chongii, P. distasonis, P. faecis, P. goldsteinii, P. gordonii, P. johnsonii, and P. merdae) and 5 'not validly named' (P. bouchesdurhonensis, P. massiliensis, P. pacaensis, P. provencensis, and P. timonensis) by the List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature. The Parabacteroides genus has been associated with reports of both beneficial and pathogenic effects in human health. Herein, we review the literature on the history, ecology, diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and genetics of this bacterium, illustrating the effects of P. distasonis on human and animal health