1,725 research outputs found
A tropological discussion on Toni Morrison's The Buest Eye: from metaphor to irony
Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e ExpressĂŁo. Programa de PĂłs-Graduação em Letras/InglĂŞs e Literatura Correspondente.The Bluest Eye, da escritora americana Toni Morrison, foi publicado em 1970 e serve como documento contra o preconceito racial sofrido pela comunidade negra americana, embora a estĂłria tenha sido ambientada na dĂ©cada de 40, o romance retrata uma realidade enfrentada atĂ© os dias atuais. O enredo da histĂłria gira em torno da personagem narradora (Claudia) e sua famĂlia (The MacTeers) em contraposição com a personagem central da trama (Pecola) e sua famĂlia (The Breedloves). Pecola sofre todos os tipos de rejeição possĂveis, desde a falta de amor e respeito em sua prĂłpria famĂlia, atĂ© a segregação da comunidade negra a qual pertence. Para Pecola, a Ăşnica forma de se sentir amada e considerada por todos seria se possuĂsse olhos azuis. Na verdade ela desejaria ter os olhos mais azuis possĂveis. Ao final do livro, apĂłs ter sido estuprada pelo pai e ter perdido as esperanças atravĂ©s da influĂŞncia do pastor local, Soaphead Church, Pecola fica louca, e volta-se para um mundo prĂłprio, insano e desequilibrado, dentro do qual acredita ter conquistado os olhos azuis que desejara. Esta dissertação utiliza a teoria dos tropos de Hayden White no sentido de analizar o nĂvel de percepção de mundo que os personagens do romance apresentam, principalmente Pecola e Claudia. De acordo com White, o ser humano possui quatro estágios distintos que representam o nĂvel de apreensĂŁo do mundo externo. As primeiras apreensões dos homenslimitam-se ao prĂłprio ser e, por isso, a compreensĂŁo de algo alĂ©m dos limites da individualidade torna-se complicada. No instante em que o outro Ă© visto e entendido apesar do espaço individual, o ser humano atinge uma percepção metonĂmica, caracterizando uma percepção mais ampla do mundo. O ser humano desconstrĂłi as apreensões individuais feitas atĂ© entĂŁo, pautando suas comparações no outro. Um terceiro estágio do desenvolvimento das apreensões humanas diz respeito Ă s reconstruções feitas resultantes de todas as conclusões tiradas a partir do confronto do "eu" com o "outro". Esse estágio denomina-se sinedĂłquico. A partir do momento em que o ser humano adquire uma consciĂŞncia maior do mundo externo e da participação individual neste mundo, englobando a diferenciação entre as diversas individualidades que interagem no mesmo, Ă© caracterizado um novo estágio do desenvolvimento das percepções humanas. Neste estágio, os homens adquirem uma visĂŁo irĂ´nica das coisas, atravĂ©s da qual seu ponto de vista crĂtico e sua capacidade de escolha possibilitam um entendimento mais completo dos fatos. Em The Bluest Eye, Pecola percebe um mundo destrutivo e cruel quando tenta transpor os limites do "eu". No entanto, a realidade que enxerga faz com que ela retroceda no processo e se prenda num mundo metafĂłrico, considerado insano e desequilibrado, mas no qual ela consegue realizar seus sonhos e ter seu desejo atendido. O que Morrison realmente quer Ă© mostrar a capacidade de auto destruição que a comunidade negra possui ao invĂ©s da preservação dos valores culturais e da defesa dos interesses da prĂłpria comunidade. PorĂ©m, o entendimento da comunidade Ă© retratado como limitado, o que contribui para a falta de solução de um problema vivenciado por muito tempo. Morrison acrescenta um comentário na edição de 1993 do romance justamente por que sua mensagem nĂŁo foi comprendida em sua totalidade, necessitando uma complementação elucidativa. Essa dissertação discutirá a ironia que há por trás dessa necessidade dada a reflexĂŁo, quase que induzida, proposta pela autora. A conseqĂĽĂŞncia de toda essa problemática Ă© um texto simbĂłlico metafĂłrico com relação Ă compreensĂŁo superficial demonstrada pelos personagens e pela prĂłpria comunidade negra, porĂ©m irĂ´nico no que diz respeito Ă reflexĂŁo e a auto crĂtica embutidos na mensagem do romance
Factorizations of Elements in Noncommutative Rings: A Survey
We survey results on factorizations of non zero-divisors into atoms
(irreducible elements) in noncommutative rings. The point of view in this
survey is motivated by the commutative theory of non-unique factorizations.
Topics covered include unique factorization up to order and similarity, 2-firs,
and modular LCM domains, as well as UFRs and UFDs in the sense of Chatters and
Jordan and generalizations thereof. We recall arithmetical invariants for the
study of non-unique factorizations, and give transfer results for arithmetical
invariants in matrix rings, rings of triangular matrices, and classical maximal
orders as well as classical hereditary orders in central simple algebras over
global fields.Comment: 50 pages, comments welcom
Interactive semantic feedback for intuitive ontology authoring
The complexity of ontology authoring and the difficulty to master the use of existing ontology authoring tools, put significant constraints on the involvement of both domain experts and knowledge engineers in ontology authoring. This often requires substantial effort for fixing ontologies defects (e.g. inconsistency, unsatisfiability, missing or unintended implications, redundancy, isolated entities). The paper argues that ontology authoring tools should provide immediate semantic feedback upon entering ontological constructs. We present a framework to analyse input axioms and provide meaningful feedback at a semantic level. The framework has been used to augment an existing Controlled Natural Language-based ontology authoring tool – ROO. An experimental study with ROO has been conducted to examine users' reactions to the semantic feedback and the effect on their ontology authoring behaviour. The study strongly supported responsive intuitive ontology authoring tools, and identified future directions to extend and integrate semantic feedback
Measuring cluster peculiar velocities with the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effects: scaling relations and systematics
The fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) intensity due to
the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect are the sum of a thermal and a kinetic
contribution. Separating the two components to measure the peculiar velocity of
galaxy clusters requires radio and microwave observations at three or more
frequencies, and knowledge of the temperature T_e of the intracluster medium
weighted by the electron number density. To quantify the systematics of this
procedure, we extract a sample of 117 massive clusters at redshift z=0 from an
N-body hydrodynamical simulation, with 2x480^3 particles, of a cosmological
volume 192 Mpc/h on a side of a flat Cold Dark Matter model with Omega_0=0.3
and Lambda=0.7. Our simulation includes radiative cooling, star formation and
the effect of feedback and galactic winds from supernovae. We find that (1) our
simulated clusters reproduce the observed scaling relations between X-ray and
SZ properties; (2) bulk flows internal to the intracluster medium affect the
velocity estimate by less than 200 km/s in 93 per cent of the cases; (3) using
the X-ray emission weighted temperature, as an estimate of T_e, can
overestimate the peculiar velocity by 20-50 per cent, if the microwave
observations do not spatially resolve the cluster. For spatially resolved
clusters, the assumptions on the spatial distribution of the ICM, required to
separate the two SZ components, still produce a velocity overestimate of 10-20
per cent, even with an unbiased measure of T_e. Thanks to the large size of our
cluster samples, these results set a robust lower limit of 200 km/s to the
systematic errors that will affect upcoming measures of cluster peculiar
velocities with the SZ effect.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, MNRAS, in press. Figures 3 and 4 now contain
more recent observational data. Other minor revisions according to referee's
comment
Deriving star formation histories from photometry using energy balance spectral energy distribution modelling
Panchromatic spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting is a critical tool for determining the physical properties of distant galaxies, such as their stellar mass and star formation rate. One widely used method is the publicly available MAGPHYS code. We build on our previous analysis (Hayward & Smith 2015) by presenting some modifications which enable MAGPHYS to automatically estimate galaxy star formation histories (SFHs), including uncertainties, based on ultra-violet to far-infrared photometry. We use state-of-the art synthetic photometry derived by performing three-dimensional dust radiative transfer on hydrodynamic simulations of isolated disc and merging galaxies to test how well the modified MAGPHYS is able to recover SFHs under idealised conditions, where the true SFH is known. We find that while the SFH of the model with the best fit to the synthetic photometry is a poor representation of the true SFH (showing large variations with the line-of-sight to the galaxy and spurious bursts of star formation), median-likelihood SFHs generated by marginalising over the default MAGPHYS libraries produce robust estimates of the smoothly-varying isolated disk simulation SFHs. This preference for the median-likelihood SFH is quantitatively underlined by our estimates of (analogous to the goodness-of-fit estimator) and (the integrated absolute mass discrepancy between the model and true SFH) that strongly prefer the median-likelihood SFHs over those that best fit the UV-to-far-IR photometry. In contrast, we are unable to derive a good estimate of the SFH for the merger simulations (either best-fit or median-likelihood) despite being able to obtain a reasonable fit to the simulated photometry, likely because the analytic SFHs with bursts superposed in the standard MAGPHYS library are insufficiently general/realistic.Peer reviewe
Fluid-membrane tethers: minimal surfaces and elastic boundary layers
Thin cylindrical tethers are common lipid bilayer membrane structures,
arising in situations ranging from micromanipulation experiments on artificial
vesicles to the dynamic structure of the Golgi apparatus. We study the shape
and formation of a tether in terms of the classical soap-film problem, which is
applied to the case of a membrane disk under tension subject to a point force.
A tether forms from the elastic boundary layer near the point of application of
the force, for sufficiently large displacement. Analytic results for various
aspects of the membrane shape are given.Comment: 12 page
A Mathematical Basis for Satisficing Decision Making
This paper presents an analysis of the satisficing decisionmaking process in a simple organization under multiple objectives. The role of aspiration levels or reference objective levels is stressed and a conceptual model of this behavior is presented.
A specification or rather modification of the mathematical concept of a value (utility) function that describes the satisficing behavior is given; the modified value function, called the achievement scalarizing function, should not be only order preserving but also order approximating in a certain sense. It is shown that the notions of reference objective levels and achievement scalarizing functions form a mathematical basis not only for satisficing decision making but also for Pareto optimization; this basis is an alternative to or even stronger than the approaches based on weighting coefficients or typical value functions. This mathematical basis, which can also be considered as a generalization of the goal programming approach in multiobjective optimization, results in pragmatic approaches to many problems of multiobjective analysis, including the problem of interactive assessment of solutions to economic models for policy analysis and planning purposes
ATYPICAL REVERSE REACTION IN A MULTIBACILLARY PATIENT
A hansenĂase Ă© uma doença infectocontagiosa causada pelo Mycobacterium leprae que atinge preferen- cialmente pele e/ou nervos perifĂ©ricos. Pode apresentar perĂodos de agudização denominados reações. Os dois tipos de reações hansĂŞnicas, tipo1 ou reversa e tipo 2 ou eritema nodoso, refletem o processo inflamatĂłrio imunomediado, envolvendo distintos mecanismos de hipersensibilidade. A reação tipo 1 corresponde a um sĂşbito aumento da imuni- dade mediada por cĂ©lulas sendo mais comum nas formas paucibacilares da doença e a reação tipo 2 Ă© reconhecida como alteração na imunidade humoral, sendo mais comum nas formas multibacilares. O presente artigo tem o objetivo de demonstrar um caso de reação reversa, ou seja, tipo 1 em um paciente compro- vadamente multibacilar. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Lepra; Mycobacterium leprae. Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae that primarily affects the skin and/or peripheral nerves. It can have periods of acute reactions known as type 1 or reverse and type 2 or erythema nodosum. These reactions reflect the immune-mediated inflammatory process involving different mechanisms of hypersensitivity. The type 1 reaction corresponds to a sudden increase in cell-mediated immunity is more common in paucibacillary forms of the disease and type 2 reaction is recognized as changes in humoral immunity, is more common in multibacillary. This article aims to demonstrate a case of reverse reaction in a multibacillary patient. KEYWORDS – Leprosy, multibacillary; Mycobacterium leprae.
HIV Prevention in Care and Treatment Settings: Baseline Risk Behaviors among HIV Patients in Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania.
HIV care and treatment settings provide an opportunity to reach people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) with prevention messages and services. Population-based surveys in sub-Saharan Africa have identified HIV risk behaviors among PLHIV, yet data are limited regarding HIV risk behaviors of PLHIV in clinical care. This paper describes the baseline sociodemographic, HIV transmission risk behaviors, and clinical data of a study evaluating an HIV prevention intervention package for HIV care and treatment clinics in Africa. The study was a longitudinal group-randomized trial in 9 intervention clinics and 9 comparison clinics in Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania (N = 3538). Baseline participants were mostly female, married, had less than a primary education, and were relatively recently diagnosed with HIV. Fifty-two percent of participants had a partner of negative or unknown status, 24% were not using condoms consistently, and 11% reported STI symptoms in the last 6 months. There were differences in demographic and HIV transmission risk variables by country, indicating the need to consider local context in designing studies and using caution when generalizing findings across African countries. Baseline data from this study indicate that participants were often engaging in HIV transmission risk behaviors, which supports the need for prevention with PLHIV (PwP). TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01256463
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