Películas y opresión: una unidad didáctica de inglés como lengua extranjera para enseñanza secundaria

Se trata del diseño de una Unidad Didáctica de Lengua Inglesa para 1º de Bachillerato usando fragmentos de las películas "Braveheart" (Mel Gibson, 1995), "Regreso al Futuro" (Robert Zemeckis, 1985) y "Casablanca" (Michael Curtiz, 1942) para introducir y explorar el tema de la Opresión y de la Resistencia contra la Opresión. Esta Unidad Didáctica enfatiza el uso del Aprendizaje Cooperativo, del Enfoque Comunicativo y el uso del arte para la Enseñanza Emocional

The Representation of Masculinity in Daniel Craig's James Bond Films

The Representation of Masculinity in Daniel Craig’s James Bond deals with how the three films in which Daniel Craig has played the role of Agent 007, a.k.a. James Bond, have changed with regards to previous films in the long-running saga. This means this essay will deal with the films Casino Royale (Campbell 2006), Quantum of Solace (Forster 2008) and Skyfall (Mendes 2012). The essay centres on the Old Man/New Man/New Lad theory of masculinity, which states that men are represented and behave according to three perspectives of masculinity: the Old Man is the traditional, rugged man; the New Man is usually more sensitive, and the New Lad is often immature and boisterous. The character of James Bond has had a development along the years, combining many features of the Old Man and some of the New Man. Recently, though, a little of the New Lad has leaked into the representation of the character. I will look at elements such as respect to authority, sexuality, profession, identity, control of technology, consumerism and nationalism, comparing how they appear in the three films analysed and how they are represented in the previous ones. With this in mind, some changes in the attitudes and tastes of the public might be brought to the fore. The essay will deal with questions about Bond’s possible misogyny, his roguish behaviour, the presence of believable villains in his films and the growing explicitness of sex in the later films, among others

Selective Purcell enhancement of two closely linked zero-phonon transitions of a silicon carbide color center

Point defects in silicon carbide are rapidly becoming a platform of great interest for single photon generation, quantum sensing, and quantum information science. Photonic crystal cavities (PCC) can serve as an efficient light-matter interface both to augment the defect emission and to aid in studying the defects' properties. In this work, we fabricate 1D nanobeam PCCs in 4H-silicon carbide with embedded silicon vacancy centers. These cavities are used to achieve Purcell enhancement of two closely spaced defect zero-phonon lines (ZPL). Enhancements of >80-fold are measured using multiple techniques. Additionally, the nature of the cavity coupling to the different ZPLs is examined.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

The Stability and Manufacturability of Emerging Thin Film Photovoltaic Technologies

In order for a photovoltaic device to be commercially viable it must have a production cost and operational stability commensurate with its final application. Both of these properties are influenced by many factors, including the production of the active materials and the deposition techniques used to fabricate it. In this thesis, the stability and manufacturability of two emerging photovoltaic materials are examined: organic semiconducting polymers and organic-inorganic perovskites. Organic semiconducting polymers are commonly synthesised through reactions utilising metal catalysts, which can remain with the polymer after synthesis, necessitating the investigation of their influence on photovoltaic devices. This work shows that the presence of the residual catalyst palladium in PCDTBT organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices caused significant reductions in power conversion efficiency and an additional increase in efficiency loss during the first 60 hours of operation. It is also shown, however, that only minor losses occurred in PFD2TBT-8 OPV devices at high Pd concentrations, highlighting the need to examine individual material systems. Despite being a very new technology, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have already achieved comparable performance to silicon solar cells, making it important to investigate the stability of such devices. The operational stability of PSCs in the inverted architecture was characterised, showing lifetimes of <300 hours. Using spectroscopic and device characterisation techniques, the major loss mechanisms were revealed to be reactions with water and oxygen, resulting the in the decomposition of the perovskite. It is also examined how the addition of hydroiodic acid to the perovskite precursor solution affects the performance and stability of spin and spray coated PSCs. Finally, the effects of deposition temperature and additional annealing on the operational stability of PSCs was investigated

Patterns and determinants of fertility in Melbourne

Period fertility has fluctuated markedly in Australia over the last fifty years. The last peak occurred in 1971, and in that year the Department of Demography of the Australian national University carried out in Melbourne the first major fertility survey ever conducted in Australia. This research is based on data from the Melbourne Family Survey, which has proved to be an excellent vehicle for the analysis of many aspects of Australian family formation. The thesis first establishes the physiological setting in which the childbearing of the Melbourne respondents took place, and then goes on to discuss patterns of contraceptive use both within marriage cohorts and within different social groups. This is followed by analyses of cohort fertility patterns and the timing of childbearing. The effect on current fertility of age at marriage is examined both through cumulative marital fertility rates and through multivariate analyses, the latter simultaneously providing indications of social characteristics that influence current family size. A simple model based on the birth intervals of non-contraceptors is next developed, and applied to examine the effects of both volitional and non-volitional fecundity depressants on reproductive performance; contraceptive effectiveness; and parity-specific patterns of family formation. While average completed family size was found to vary little between marriage cohorts and, within marriage cohorts, to vary litter between women with different social characteristics, the tempo of childbearing was found to have been far from stable in the recent past. Changes in family building patterns can be summarized as a compression of the childbearing span of women married in the 1950s and, among women married after 1960, a return to the longer spacing patterns which characterized women who married during the Depression and the Second World War. Such changes have been largely responsible for fluctuations in period marital fertility rates in the recent past: only if the tendency to postpone childbearing is accompanied by some dramatic attitudinal changes (of which we have no evidence) can we expect the average completed family size of the most recently married women in the sample to decline significantly

Human vtRNA1-1 Levels Modulate Signaling Pathways and Regulate Apoptosis in Human Cancer Cells

Regulatory non-protein coding RNAs perform a remarkable variety of complex biological functions. Previously, we demonstrated a role of the human non-coding vault RNA1-1 (vtRNA1-1) in inhibiting intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis in several cancer cell lines. Yet on the molecular level, the function of the vtRNA1-1 is still not fully clear. Here, we created HeLa knock-out cell lines revealing that prolonged starvation triggers elevated levels of apoptosis in the absence of vtRNA1-1 but not in vtRNA1-3 knock-out cells. Next-generation deep sequencing of the mRNome identified the PI3K/Akt pathway and the ERK1/2 MAPK cascade, two prominent signaling axes, to be misregulated in the absence of vtRNA1-1 during starvation-mediated cell death conditions. Expression of vtRNA1-1 mutants identified a short stretch of 24 nucleotides of the vtRNA1-1 central domain as being essential for successful maintenance of apoptosis resistance. This study describes a cell signaling-dependent contribution of the human vtRNA1-1 to starvation-induced programmed cell death

Analysis of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and its Metabolites in Plasma and Urine by HPLC-DAD and GC-MS

In Europe, the compound 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, Ecstasy, Adam), in addition to cannabis, is the most abused illicit drug at all-night "techno” parties. Methods for the determination of MDMA and its metabolites, 4-hydroxy-3-methoxymethamphetamine (HMMA), 3,4-dihydroxymethamphetamine (HHMA), 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), 4-hydroxy-3-methoxyamphetamine (HMA), and 3,4-dihydroxyamphetamine (HHA), in biological fluids were established. Plasma and urine samples were collected from two patients in a controlled clinical study over periods of 9 and 22 h, respectively. MDMA and MDA were determined in plasma and urine by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) after solid-phase extraction on cation-exchange columns. Acidic or enzymatic hydrolysis was necessary to detect HMMA, HMA, HHMA, and HHA, which are mainly excreted as glucuronides. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used for confirmation. Sample extraction and on-disc derivatization with heptafluorobutyric anhydride (HFBA) were performed on Toxi-Lab SPEC solid-phase extraction concentrators. After administration of a single oral dose of 1.5 mg/kg body weight MDMA, peak plasma levels of 331 ng/mL MDMA and 15 ng/mL MDA were measured after 2 h and 6.3 h, respectively. Peak concentrations of 28.1 µg/mL MDMA in urine appeared after 21.5 h. Up to 2.3 µg/mL MDA, 35.1 µg/mL HMMA, and 2.1 µg/mL HMA were measured within 16-21.5 h. Conjugated HMMA and HHMA are the main urinary metabolites of MDM

Deterministic coupling of delta-doped NV centers to a nanobeam photonic crystal cavity

The negatively-charged nitrogen vacancy center (NV) in diamond has generated significant interest as a platform for quantum information processing and sensing in the solid state. For most applications, high quality optical cavities are required to enhance the NV zero-phonon line (ZPL) emission. An outstanding challenge in maximizing the degree of NV-cavity coupling is the deterministic placement of NVs within the cavity. Here, we report photonic crystal nanobeam cavities coupled to NVs incorporated by a delta-doping technique that allows nanometer-scale vertical positioning of the emitters. We demonstrate cavities with Q up to ~24,000 and mode volume V ~ $0.47({\lambda}/n)^{3}$ as well as resonant enhancement of the ZPL of an NV ensemble with Purcell factor of ~20. Our fabrication technique provides a first step towards deterministic NV-cavity coupling using spatial control of the emitters.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure