La evolución de la construcción discursiva de las trabajadoras domésticas en Chile:Una combinación de análisis crítico del discurso y lingüística de corpus

Este artículo examina la construcción discursiva de las trabajadoras domésticas en Chile y busca revelar cómo estos actores sociales son representados lingüísticamente a lo largo del tiempo. Para ello se utilizaron dos corpus del castellano de Chile (Codicach (Sadowsky, 2006); y esTenTen11 (Kilgarriff et al., 2014)) que fueron analizados utilizando una combinación de métodos propuestos por el Enfoque Histórico-Discursivo (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001, 2009) y metodologías de corpus (Baker, 2006; Baker et al., 2008). Los resultados evidencian una sistemática construcción negativa del discurso sobre las trabajadoras domésticas, específicamente en la utilización del término “nana”, caracterizadas como agentes pasivos, sin influencia en su representación. A pesar de que esta construcción parece ser constante en el tiempo (al menos desde mediados de 1990), un corpus más reciente reveló la existencia de contra-discursos que refutan estas asociaciones negativas y que construyen una representación discursiva de las trabajadoras domésticas como personas socialmente más empoderadas. This article examines the discursive construction of domestic workers in Chile and aims to unveil how these social actors are linguistically represented over time. To achieve this, I used two different corpora of Chilean Spanish (Codicach (Sadowsky, 2006) and esTenTen11 (Kilgarriff et al., 2014)), which were analysed in the light of Reisigl and Wodak’s (2001, 2009) Discourse-Historical Approach, combined with corpus methodologies (Baker, 2006; Baker et al., 2008). Results evidenced a normalized negative discursive construction of domestic workers, especially the term “nanny”, determined by an asymmetrical power relation in which domestic workers have little impact in how they are portrayed. Although this seems to have been the pattern, at least from the mid 1990’s, a more recent corpus revealed the existence of a resistant discourse which contests these negative associations, presenting domestic workers as socially more empowered

Beethoven Ahead of His Time: Sonata in C major No. 21 Op. 53

This research looks at the work of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata in C major No. 21 Op. 53. A historical, theoretical, and technical analysis helps set a foundation for a better comprehension of the work and influence the overall performance

Evaluating GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 on Grammatical Error Correction for Brazilian Portuguese

We investigate the effectiveness of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, two large language models, as Grammatical Error Correction (GEC) tools for Brazilian Portuguese and compare their performance against Microsoft Word and Google Docs. We introduce a GEC dataset for Brazilian Portuguese with four categories: Grammar, Spelling, Internet, and Fast typing. Our results show that while GPT-4 has higher recall than other methods, LLMs tend to have lower precision, leading to overcorrection. This study demonstrates the potential of LLMs as practical GEC tools for Brazilian Portuguese and encourages further exploration of LLMs for non-English languages and other educational settings.Comment: Accepted at LatinX in AI (LXAI) Research at ICML 202

Evolution of Implied Terms in the Contract of Employment

This essay provides a comprehensive exploration of the historical evolution of labour and labour law in the United Kingdom, tracing its progression from antiquity to modern times. It elucidates the changing dynamics of employment relationships and the legal protections afforded to workers, emphasizing the concept of implied terms, particularly trust and confidence, and their construction and utilization in case law. Through detailed analysis, it highlights the crucial role of implied terms in addressing contract ambiguity and unfair treatment, aiming to ensure a balanced relationship between employers and employees to prevent labour exploitation. The essay concludes by advocating for the recognition and preservation of implied terms as fundamental principles in employment contracts to safeguard workers' rights effectively

Land use and household energy dynamics in Malawi

Interventions to mitigate household air pollution (HAP) from cooking with solid fuels often fail to take into account the role of access to freely available woodfuels in determining fuel choice and willingness to adopt clean cooking technologies, key factors in mitigating the burden of HAP. We use national-scale remote sensing data on land use land cover change, and population representative data from two waves of the Malawi Living Standards Measurement Survey to explore the relationship between land use change and the type of fuel households use, time spent collecting fuel, and expenditures on fuel, hypothesizing that land use dynamics influence household-level choice of primary cooking fuel. We find considerable heterogeneity with respect to regeneration and deforestation/degradation dynamics and evidence of spatial clustering. We find that regeneration of forests and woodlands increases the share of households that collect fuelwood, whereas deforestation and degradation lead households to purchase fuelwood. We also find that a relatively large share of land under woody savannah or degraded forest (versus fully stocked forest) increases fuel collection time. Areas with regeneration happening at broader scale experience increases in fuel expenditures. Our findings have implications for the spatial targeting of interventions designed to mitigate HAP

Rubén Darío, como constante temática en la novela “Margarita, está linda la mar” de Sergio Ramírez Mercado, escritor nicaragüense (1998)

Este trabajo sobre Rubén Darío, como constante temática en la novela “Margarita, está linda la mar” de Sergio Ramírez Mercado, nos llevó a realizar un estudio exhaustivo de la obra, para contribuir con los docentes y estudiantes universitarios, el cual tiene su punto de partida en la verdadera historia nicaragüense ya que las dos tramas narradas involucraron a dos personajes importantes como son: Rubén Darío, el máximo exponente del modernismo mundial y Anastasio Somoza García fundador de una dinastía que oprimió al pueblo nicaragüense por casi 50 años. El propósito de este trabajo es reflejar o demostrar que Rubén Darío, es una constante temática en la obra Margarita, está linda la mar, así como el propósito del autor al incluirlo para develar muchos aspectos de la vida del poeta que han permanecido ocultos, así como una serie de sucesos relacionados con el ajusticiamiento de Anastasio Somoza García que ocurrió también en León, pero en diferentes épocas históricas. La metodología empleada en la realización de esta investigación documental fue el análisis minucioso y profundo del contexto histórico literario mundial, hispanoamericano y nicaragüense, a la vez también aplicado a la obra la cual está influida por la nueva novelística hispanoamericana e inmersa en este contexto, Es importante mencionar que esta obra tiene todos los elementos caracterizadores de la nueva novela histórica como: los hechos verídicos, los personajes principales que pueden ser inventados, el propósito principal como es ofrecer una visión verosímil de una época histórica preferiblemente lejana; además los procedimientos y técnicas de la nueva novela como: el Fragmentarismo, el collage, el esperpento y clisés cinematográfica. Con esta novela el autor penetra al territorio de lo escrito, de lo no documentado, de una realidad extraliteraria que estaba escondida, distanciada de la verdadera historia y que él, valiéndose de la broma, la ironía, la burla, lo cómico; nos hace desembocar en una segunda historia que nos ayude a encontrar nuestra verdadera identidad de cara a un mundo sujeto a grandes transformacione

Words make people think, ... but pictures make people feel: The effect negative vs. positive images on charitable behavior

We ran an experiment where the subjects initially played a four-round dictator game, after which each subject was shown either a set of positive images or a set of negative images. Finally the subjects played another four-round dictator game.
The effect of the sign of images shown is clear on the players’ behaviors: positive images have moderate effects on charitable behavior while negative images dramatically increase charity.
We could therefore infer from our experimental results that showing negative images of the Haitian and Chilean catastrophes to the international public would have significant positive impacts on international donations to the victims and the rebuilding programs in both countries

Inconsistencies over time in 5% of NetAffx probe-to-gene annotations

BACKGROUND: DNA microarray probes are designed to match particular mRNA transcripts, often based on expressed sequences like ESTs, or cDNAs, many times incomplete. As a result, the relations between probes and genes can change as the sequence data are updated. However, it is frequent that the reported results of microarray analyses are given just as lists of genes without any reference to the underlying probes. RESULTS: We show for a particular commercial microarray design that the number of probes associated to some genes change with time. These changes concern approximately 5% of the probe sets across the history of annotation releases over a two year span. CONCLUSION: We recommend to report probe set identifiers when publishing microarray results, and to submit those analyses to microarray public databases to ensure that the interpretation of the data is updated with the latest set of annotations

Relationships between soil physicochemical properties and nitrogen fixing, nitrifying and denitrifying under varying land-use practices in the northwest region of Argentina

The aim of this study was to evaluate the response pattern of diazotrophic microbes, denitrifiers and nitrifiers to different types of land use management, such as soybean monoculture (M) during 5 and 24 years (M5 and M24) and soybean-maize rotation (R) during 4 and 15 years (R4 and R15) in two subsequent years at the time point of flowering. Soil samples from a site recently introduced into agriculture (RUA) and a pristine soil under native vegetation (NV) were used as controls. Abundances of different functional groups of microbes were assessed using the direct quantification of marker genes by quantitative real-time PCR using extracted DNA from rhizosphere samples. In addition, soil chemical and physical properties were analysed and correlated with the abundance data from the functional microbial groups under investigation. Overall, the results indicate that the abundance of nifH genes was higher under R treatments compared to M treatments. The abundance of ammonium monooxygenase genes amoA (AOA) was generally higher under rotation systems and decreased under M24. RUA evidenced a negative effect on the establishment and development of AOA communities. The influence of land use on nirS abundance was inconsistent. However, R treatments showed a high abundance of nirK genes compared to M treatments. In both growing seasons, the abundance of nosZ genes was higher under NV compared with the other treatments. Furthermore, M24 treatment was related to strongly changed chemical and physical soil properties compared with the other sites. As expected, soil samples from RUA showed the strong dynamics of measured parameters indicating the high sensitivity of soils under transition to environmental parameters. Our results also indicated that the long-term crop rotation modified the abundance of the investigated microbial groups compared to the monoculture and increased soil chemical and physical quality. Therefore, our results provide evidence for a stimulatory effect of the long-term crop rotation on the abundance of microbes involved in N transformation.Fil: Perez Brandan, Carolina Gabriela. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Meyer, Annabel. Helmholtz Center Munich German Research Center For Environmental Health; AlemaniaFil: Meriles, Jose Manuel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas Físicas y Naturales. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal; ArgentinaFil: Huidobro, Jorgelina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria; ArgentinaFil: Schloter, Michael. Helmholtz Center Munich German Research Center For Environmental Health; AlemaniaFil: Vargas Gil, Silvina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigaciones Agropecuarias; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

K2D2: Estimation of protein secondary structure from circular dichroism spectra

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Circular dichroism spectroscopy is a widely used technique to analyze the secondary structure of proteins in solution. Predictive methods use the circular dichroism spectra from proteins of known tertiary structure to assess the secondary structure contents of a protein with unknown structure given its circular dichroism spectrum.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed K2D2, a method with an associated web server to estimate protein secondary structure from circular dichroism spectra. The method uses a self-organized map of spectra from proteins with known structure to deduce a map of protein secondary structure that is used to do the predictions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The K2D2 server is publicly accessible at <url>http://www.ogic.ca/projects/k2d2/</url>. It accepts as input a circular dichroism spectrum and outputs the estimated secondary structure content (alpha-helix and beta-strand) of the corresponding protein, as well as an estimated measure of error.</p