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 Expressão. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês 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 estória tenha sido ambientada na década de 40, o romance retrata uma realidade enfrentada até os dias atuais. O enredo da história gira em torno da personagem narradora (Claudia) e sua família (The MacTeers) em contraposição com a personagem central da trama (Pecola) e sua família (The Breedloves). Pecola sofre todos os tipos de rejeição possíveis, desde a falta de amor e respeito em sua própria família, até a segregação da comunidade negra a qual pertence. Para Pecola, a única forma de se sentir amada e considerada por todos seria se possuísse olhos azuis. Na verdade ela desejaria ter os olhos mais azuis possíveis. Ao final do livro, após ter sido estuprada pelo pai e ter perdido as esperanças através da influência do pastor local, Soaphead Church, Pecola fica louca, e volta-se para um mundo próprio, 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 nível 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 nível de apreensão do mundo externo. As primeiras apreensões dos homenslimitam-se ao próprio ser e, por isso, a compreensão de algo além dos limites da individualidade torna-se complicada. No instante em que o outro é visto e entendido apesar do espaço individual, o ser humano atinge uma percepção metonímica, caracterizando uma percepção mais ampla do mundo. O ser humano desconstrói as apreensões individuais feitas até então, pautando suas comparações no outro. Um terceiro estágio do desenvolvimento das apreensões humanas diz respeito às reconstruções feitas resultantes de todas as conclusões tiradas a partir do confronto do "eu" com o "outro". Esse estágio denomina-se sinedóquico. A partir do momento em que o ser humano adquire uma consciência maior do mundo externo e da participação individual neste mundo, englobando a diferenciação entre as diversas individualidades que interagem no mesmo, é caracterizado um novo estágio do desenvolvimento das percepções humanas. Neste estágio, os homens adquirem uma visão irônica das coisas, através da qual seu ponto de vista crítico 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 metafórico, considerado insano e desequilibrado, mas no qual ela consegue realizar seus sonhos e ter seu desejo atendido. O que Morrison realmente quer é mostrar a capacidade de auto destruição que a comunidade negra possui ao invés da preservação dos valores culturais e da defesa dos interesses da própria comunidade. Porém, o entendimento da comunidade é 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 não foi comprendida em sua totalidade, necessitando uma complementação elucidativa. Essa dissertação discutirá a ironia que há por trás dessa necessidade dada a reflexão, quase que induzida, proposta pela autora. A conseqüência de toda essa problemática é um texto simbólico metafórico com relação à compreensão superficial demonstrada pelos personagens e pela própria comunidade negra, porém irônico no que diz respeito à reflexão e a auto crítica 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 $\chi^2_{{\rm SFH}}$ (analogous to the $\chi^2$ goodness-of-fit estimator) and $\Delta M/M$ (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

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

ATYPICAL REVERSE REACTION IN A MULTIBACILLARY PATIENT

A hanseníase é uma doença infectocontagiosa causada pelo Mycobacterium leprae que atinge preferen- cialmente pele e/ou nervos periféricos. Pode apresentar períodos de agudização denominados reações. Os dois tipos de reações hansênicas, tipo1 ou reversa e tipo 2 ou eritema nodoso, refletem o processo inflamatório imunomediado, envolvendo distintos mecanismos de hipersensibilidade. A reação tipo 1 corresponde a um súbito aumento da imuni- dade mediada por células sendo mais comum nas formas paucibacilares da doença e a reação tipo 2 é 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.