THE POLITICS OF SELF-REPRESENTATION

I am a visual artist who has been making film and videos since completing a Masters of Fine Arts in Moving Image at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 2002. I situate my practice amongst Experimental and Avant-Garde filmmakers and visual artists, however, unlike many of them I work with narrative, humour and specifically play with Hispanic American themes and aesthetics. This commentary focuses on four of my films made in the last ten years: Chica Pop (2010), Loin, Encore Plus Loin (Further, Even Further Away) (2016), La Puta, La Santa y La Viuda (The Whore, the Saint and the Widow) (2018) and Politics and Eggs (2019). I write, direct, perform and edit my own work with very limited external funds. I make low budget films, shot at home or in the street, using myself, friends and family as actors. This is done in combination with imagery obtained from the internet which I alter in post-production in order to create artisanal animations and video collages. This purposeful artisanal approach to animation, video-collage, rough sound and image treatment helps me to position my work in an ironic confrontation with mainstream cinema and in affiliation with avant-garde / experimental filmmaking and earlier Counter Cinema. My work draws from my familial experience of living in exile. My parents were exiled from Chile during Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1989). My father, Percy Matas is also a filmmaker and together with Raul Ruiz made a series of films about the Chilean exile in France (1973-1978). These films were performed and made by Chilean exiles and their families and became an historical document of Chilean exile in France during the 1970s. This approach to making film in the first person greatly influenced my own practice as it made me aware of the politics of selfrepresentation. Self- representation is at the core of my work, however, through this PhD research I have found many other unsuspected connections between my films that encompass the modes of production, including humour, post-production techniques, Hispanic American themes and aesthetics. I have realized how my experience of exile is always present in my films together with issues of cultural identity, displacement and gender. Analysing my films retrospectively has helped me to recognize the continuity and progression in my work, providing me with a clearer idea of where my practice needs to go in the future. The analysis of these four films serves as a platform from where to engage in a broader discussion about self- representation in film. My intention to underscore connections between the personal experience and politics represents an example of how self-representation can still stablish the personal as political in film. Reclaiming self-representation as a powerful political tool even in our time of social media’s exaltation of the visual, the personal still remains political

Content-Based Video Retrieval in Historical Collections of the German Broadcasting Archive

The German Broadcasting Archive (DRA) maintains the cultural heritage of radio and television broadcasts of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The uniqueness and importance of the video material stimulates a large scientific interest in the video content. In this paper, we present an automatic video analysis and retrieval system for searching in historical collections of GDR television recordings. It consists of video analysis algorithms for shot boundary detection, concept classification, person recognition, text recognition and similarity search. The performance of the system is evaluated from a technical and an archival perspective on 2,500 hours of GDR television recordings.Comment: TPDL 2016, Hannover, Germany. Final version is available at Springer via DO

Modeling of the mechano-chemical behavior of the nuclear pore complex: current research and perspectives

Recent evidence suggests that mechanical deformation of the cell nucleus regulates the nuclear import of the transcriptional activators of genes involved in primary physiological cell responses such as stem cell differentiation. In addition, this nuclear mechanosensing response is de-regulated in pathological states, such as cancer and neurodegeneration. One hypothesis that could greatly advance the field is that the deformation of the nuclear envelope activates nuclear pore complexes through a direct mechanical link. The understanding of this possible mechanism for nuclear pore complex stretch-activation entails studying the mechanical connection of this complex to the nuclear envelope at the nanoscale. The nanomechanics of the nuclear pore complex is thus emerging as a novel research field, bridging nanoscience with nanotechnology. This review examines the frontier of research methodologies that are potentially useful for building a computational model of this interaction. This includes, for example, electron tomography to assess the geometrical features of the nuclear pore complex and nanoindentation to estimate its mechanical properties and that of the nuclear envelope. In order to summarize the state-of-the-art and perspectives in the field of NPC nanomechanics, this review covers highly interdisciplinary experimental and theoretical research methodologies pertaining to the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, materials and mechanics

Morbidity and Mortality After Living Kidney Donation, 1999 2001: Survey of United States Transplant Centers

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75563/1/j.1038-5282.2001.00400.x-i1.pd

Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis and Cognitive Improvement using Transcervical Stenting with Protective Flow Reversal Technique

ObjectivesThe relationship between carotid artery stenosis and cognitive function in individuals without a history of stroke is not clear. The possible pathomechanisms of cognitive impairment include silent embolization and hypoperfusion. In this study the aim was to assess cognitive changes after transcervical carotid artery stenting with proximal cerebral protection by flow reversal in patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis, a novel technique that has been proved to decrease the number intraoperative emboli.Methods25 consecutive patients were assessed, of which 22 were men (88%) mean age of 74 years with severe asymptomatic carotid stenosis who underwent revascularization by carotid artery stenting (CAS) with flow reversal. Patients were evaluated 1 day before and 6 months after the procedure using a standardized neuropsychological battery. Test scores were adjusted according to age, sex, education level and were standardized (0–100). The mean of all the cognitive function scores yielded the global cognitive score (GCS).ResultsThere were no neurological complications during the procedure or during hospitalization in any patient. No deaths or cardiac complications occurred in any patient. The pre-procedure neuropsychological study showed cognitive impairment in: information processing speed in 15 patients (62.5%), visuospatial function in 14 (56.0%), memory in 18 (72.0%), executive functions in 14 (56.0%), language in three (12.0%), attention in 10 (40.0%), and global cognitive performance in eight (32.0%). Comparison of these scores with those obtained 6-month post-procedure showed significant improvement in GCS in all patients (p = .002), with a particularly marked gain in information processing speed (p = .018). Although significant improvement was not found for the remaining cognitive functions assessed, some gain was documented, and there was no deterioration.ConclusionsRevascularization by transcervical CAS with flow reversal for cerebral protection results in improved neurocognitive performance in asymptomatic elderly patients with severe carotid artery stenosis

El Huerto de Uso Docente como herramienta de formación e investigación y un espacio de encuentro en la Universidad

Los huertos urbanos a lo largo de su historia han estado fuertemente vinculados a momentos de crisis políticas y económicas. En España, coincidiendo con la crisis financiera del 2007 y el estallido de la burbuja inmobiliaria, los proyectos de huertos urbanos han aumentado de manera considerable. La Universidad de Málaga se ha sumado a estos proyectos con dos iniciativas de agricultura urbana: Jaulas Abiertas y el Huerto de Uso Docente del Facultad de Ciencias. Ambos proyectos comparten el objetivo de acercar los fundamentos de la agricultura urbana a los alumnos y a cualquier persona interesada en un entorno abierto y distendido. El proyecto del Huerto de Uso Docente, ubicado en la Facultad de Ciencias, se ha convertido en un aula abierta en estos últimos cuatro años donde hemos llevado a cabo un amplio número de actividades. Actividades enmarcadas dentro del ámbito docente de asignaturas propias de planes de estudios así como actividades de investigación, formación y extensión vinculadas de manera transversal con la gestión y el manejo de los recursos naturales propio de los agroecosistemas urbanos y del propio espacio en sí. Un espacio de encuentro, dentro del seno de la propia Universidad, auto gestionado de forma horizontal entre las personas que lo componemos, donde además de aprender sobre agricultura urbana compartimos tiempo y experiencias entre nosotras.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Generic 3D Representation via Pose Estimation and Matching

Though a large body of computer vision research has investigated developing generic semantic representations, efforts towards developing a similar representation for 3D has been limited. In this paper, we learn a generic 3D representation through solving a set of foundational proxy 3D tasks: object-centric camera pose estimation and wide baseline feature matching. Our method is based upon the premise that by providing supervision over a set of carefully selected foundational tasks, generalization to novel tasks and abstraction capabilities can be achieved. We empirically show that the internal representation of a multi-task ConvNet trained to solve the above core problems generalizes to novel 3D tasks (e.g., scene layout estimation, object pose estimation, surface normal estimation) without the need for fine-tuning and shows traits of abstraction abilities (e.g., cross-modality pose estimation). In the context of the core supervised tasks, we demonstrate our representation achieves state-of-the-art wide baseline feature matching results without requiring apriori rectification (unlike SIFT and the majority of learned features). We also show 6DOF camera pose estimation given a pair local image patches. The accuracy of both supervised tasks come comparable to humans. Finally, we contribute a large-scale dataset composed of object-centric street view scenes along with point correspondences and camera pose information, and conclude with a discussion on the learned representation and open research questions.Comment: Published in ECCV16. See the project website http://3drepresentation.stanford.edu/ and dataset website https://github.com/amir32002/3D_Street_Vie

Low Temperature Properties of Selected Kramers Rare Earth Oxychlorides

In this work, we present low temperature magnetic and electronic properties measured on selected Kramers rare earth oxychlorides REOCl, RE Nd, Gd, Dy which adopt the PbFCl type of structure. Prepared powder samples were characterized by means of standard structural, magnetic and electronic methods as X ray diffraction 300 K , heat capacity 0.3 K 12 K and susceptibility measurements 2 K 300 K, at ambient pressure and hydrostatic pressures up to 0.68 0.01 GPa . Our results indicate new transition to the ordered magnetic state for GdOCl and NdOCl compound at temperatures of 5 K and 1.5 K, respectively. We found small increase of magnetization saturation value of dysprosium oxychloride with an applied hydrostatic pressure, but no remarkable changes occur to antiferromagnetic transition temperature TN 9.2 K when a moderate hydrostatic pressure p 0.68 0.01 GPa was applied. Observed deviations from the CurieWeiss behavior below 26 K can be caused by the vicinity of the magnetic ordering temperature, or another magnetic effects. The single crystal experiments which will solve this opened question are in progres

Health‐Related Quality of Life in Kidney Donors From the Last Five Decades: Results From the RELIVE Study

Live donation benefits recipients, but the long‐term consequences for donors remain uncertain. Renal and Lung Living Donors Evaluation Study surveyed kidney donors (N = 2455; 61% women; mean age 58, aged 24–94; mean time from donation 17 years, range 5–48 years) using the Short Form‐36 Health Survey (SF‐36). The 95% confidence intervals for White and African‐American donors included or exceeded SF‐36 norms. Over 80% of donors reported average or above average health for their age and sex (p 1 SD below norm). Obesity, history of psychiatric difficulties and non‐White race were risk factors for impaired physical health; history of psychiatric difficulties was a risk factor for impaired mental health. Education, older donation age and a first‐degree relation to the recipient were protective factors. One percent reported that donation affected their health very negatively. Enhanced predonation evaluation and counseling may be warranted, along with ongoing monitoring for overweight donors. Questionnaires completed by 2544 living donors 5 to 48 years postnephrectomy show that 80% have average or better health‐related quality of life for their age and sex based on SF‐36 norms and that obesity, history of psychiatric difficulties and nonwhite race are risk factors for poor health‐related quality of life outcomes, whereas being older, having more education and/or being a first‐degree relation to the recipient predict better outcomes.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100300/1/ajt12434.pd