"El Pájaro: Pincel y Tinta China" y "La Sombra Del Caminante": Dos Novelas Antidetectivescas de Ena Lucía Portela

This dissertation argues that the first two novels of Ena Lucía Portela: El pájaro: pincel y tinta china, published in 1998 and La sombra del caminante, in 2001 subvert the traditional detective formula in order to capture the real streets of Havana, unmasking the violence supposedly eradicated as a result of the Cuban revolutionary project that started in 1959, and therefore manifesting its failure. I provide an overview of the history of the detective and anti-detective genres both in the world and in Cuba, and I situate Portela´s novels in the Special Period, an economic depression that began in 1989. Using the typology of Stefano Tani, I examine Portela’s books as anti-detective, establishing El pájaro as a meta-fictional anti-detective novel, and La sombra as an innovative anti-detective novel.Doctor of Philosoph

Disordered enthalpy–entropy descriptor for high-entropy ceramics discovery

The need for improved functionalities in extreme environments is fuelling interest in high-entropy ceramics1,2,3. Except for the computational discovery of high-entropy carbides, performed with the entropy-forming-ability descriptor4, most innovation has been slowly driven by experimental means1,2,3. Hence, advancement in the field needs more theoretical contributions. Here we introduce disordered enthalpy–entropy descriptor (DEED), a descriptor that captures the balance between entropy gains and enthalpy costs, allowing the correct classification of functional synthesizability of multicomponent ceramics, regardless of chemistry and structure. To make our calculations possible, we have developed a convolutional algorithm that drastically reduces computational resources. Moreover, DEED guides the experimental discovery of new single-phase high-entropy carbonitrides and borides. This work, integrated into the AFLOW computational ecosystem, provides an array of potential new candidates, ripe for experimental discoveries

A super‐hard high entropy boride containing Hf, Mo, Ti, V, and W

Super-hard (Hf,Mo,Ti,V,W)B2 was synthesized by boro-carbothermal reduction and densified by spark plasma sintering. This composition was produced for the first time as a single-phase ceramic in the present research. The optimized ceramic had a single hexagonal AlB2-type crystalline phase with a grain size of 3.8 µm and homogeneous distribution of the constituent metals. The Vickers hardness exhibited the indentation size effect, increasing from 27 GPa at a load of 9.8 N to as high as 66 GPa at a load of 0.49 N. This is the highest hardness reported to date for high entropy boride ceramics