An Analysis of Forty Years of Gender Archetypes on the American Silver Screen

Hollywood has come under fire recently from producer Harvey Weinstein’s role in sparking the #MeToo movement to the predominantly white, male composition of the Academy Awards’ voting members. Yet the film industry also provides a platform to actors, directors, and other crew members -- through acceptance speeches and movies themselves -- to spread awareness about pressing societal issues, including climate change, sexual assault, racism, and homophobia. Art, especially film, has a tremendous effect on society and can either perpetuate stereotypes or dispel myths. For instance, Philadelphia (1993) brought into the mainstream the story of a man who was HIV+ and his wrongful termination lawsuit due to his HIV+ status. This film had an affirming impact on the LGBTQ+ community and helped those struggling with stigma from their status by inducing empathy in the public. My project is a close analysis of Academy Award-winning films, culminating in a multi-part meta-analysis and cultural criticism thesis on the portrayal of women in canonical and award-winning films over four decades. I demonstrate that these films’ stature and content reflect not only the awarders’ values but also the movie-goers. The Academy chooses nominees and winners that reflect the institution’s male, white-dominated disposition while at the same time occasionally awarding films that subvert what one would expect to be the Academy’s best interests. The Academy does not represent those who have been marginalized and do not necessarily have the power and ability to tell their stories or obtain the resources necessary to produce films on a large enough scale that they enter the purview of the Academy. Given these factors, the Academy’s choices reflect dominant culture’s views and opinions of women while occasionally promoting stories that center on people who have been oppressed and ostracized by society. These are the complex gender and social attitudes that this thesis uncovers. Grounded in theory straddling the fields of gender studies, film studies, and sexuality studies, I contextualize my analysis with data that reflects the real-world status of women. Ultimately, this paper explores and uncovers the subconscious stereotypes and ideas that audience members consume simply by watching a movie

Complex networks: new trends for the analysis of brain connectivity

Today, the human brain can be studied as a whole. Electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, or functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques provide functional connectivity patterns between different brain areas, and during different pathological and cognitive neuro-dynamical states. In this Tutorial we review novel complex networks approaches to unveil how brain networks can efficiently manage local processing and global integration for the transfer of information, while being at the same time capable of adapting to satisfy changing neural demands.Comment: Tutorial paper to appear in the Int. J. Bif. Chao

Efficiency, profitability and carbon footprint of different management programs under no-till to control herbicide resistant Papaver rhoeas

The present work examines the effects of different integrated weed management (IWM) programs on multiple herbicide-resistant Papaver rhoeas populations in terms of effectiveness, profitability and carbon footprint. With this aim a trial was established in a winter cereal field under no-till in North-Eastern Spain during three consecutive seasons. Four IWM programs with different intensification levels, from less (crop rotation, mechanical control, and no herbicides) to more intense (wheat monoculture with high chemical inputs), were established. The different strategies integrated in the four programs were efficient in managing the weed after three years, with increased effectiveness after management program intensification. Whereas low input program (which includes fallow season) represented less economic cost than the other programs, on average, no differences were observed on carbon foot print, considered as kg CO2eq kg−1 product, between the different programs, except in the crop rotation program due to the low pea yield obtained. The results from this study show that in the search for a balance between crop profitability and reduction of the carbon footprint while controlling an herbicide resistant population is challenging, and particularly under notill. In this scenario the short term priority should be to reduce the presence of multiple herbicide resistant biotypes integrating the different available chemical, cultural, and physical strategies.This work has been supported by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with project AGL2014-52465-C4-2-R. Dr. J. Torra obtained a Ramon y Cajal contract from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RYC2018-023866-I). Mr. F. Valencia-Gredilla obtained a PhD grant from the University of Lleida

Self-Assembly Behavior of Amphiphilic Janus Dendrimers in Water: A Combined Experimental and Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulation Approach

Indexación: Scopus.Acknowledgments: M.E.E.G. thank the Ph. D. scholarship (251115) from CONACyT. The authors would like to thank: Luis Elizalde-Herrera (CIQA) for his help running the NMR spectra; Gloria Macedo-Raygoza and Miguel J. Beltrán-García (UAG), for their help in the measuring of MALDI-TOF mass spectra; and Maricela Rodríguez-Nieto and Jorge Luis Menchaca (UANL), for their help with the AFM measurements. FDGN thanks to the USA Air Force Office of Scientific Research Awards.Amphiphilic Janus dendrimers (JDs) are repetitively branched molecules with hydrophilic and hydrophobic components that self-assemble in water to form a variety of morphologies, including vesicles analogous to liposomes with potential pharmaceutical and medical application. To date, the self-assembly of JDs has not been fully investigated thus it is important to gain insight into its mechanism and dependence on JDs’ molecular structure. In this study, the aggregation behavior in water of a second-generation bis-MPA JD was evaluated using experimental and computational methods. Dispersions of JDs in water were carried out using the thin-film hydration and ethanol injection methods. Resulting assemblies were characterized by dynamic light scattering, confocal microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Furthermore, a coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CG-MD) simulation was performed to study the mechanism of JDs aggregation. The obtaining of assemblies in water with no interdigitated bilayers was confirmed by the experimental characterization and CG-MD simulation. Assemblies with dendrimersome characteristics were obtained using the ethanol injection method. The results of this study establish a relationship between the molecular structure of the JD and the properties of its aggregates in water. Thus, our findings could be relevant for the design of novel JDs with tailored assemblies suitable for drug delivery systems. © 2018 by the authors.https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/23/4/96

Spin-dependent beating patterns in thermoelectric properties: Filtering the carriers of the heat flux in a Kondo adatom system

We theoretically investigate the thermoelectric properties of a spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas hosting a Kondo adatom hybridized with an STM tip. Such a setup is treated within the single-impurity Anderson model in combination with the atomic approach for the Green's functions. Due to the spin dependence of the Fermi wavenumbers the electrical and thermal conductances, together with thermopower and Lorenz number reveal beating patterns as function of the STM tip position in the Kondo regime. In particular, by tuning the lateral displacement of the tip with respect to the adatom vicinity, the temperature and the position of the adatom level, one can change the sign of the Seebeck coefficient through charge and spin. This opens a possibility of the microscopic control of the heat flux analogously to that established for the electrical current

Colored semi-transparent Cu-Si oxide thin films prepared by magnetron sputtering

Colored semi-transparent Cu-Si oxide thin films have been prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering from a single cathode of copper-silicon composition. Thin films of different composition and optical response were obtained by changing process parameters like the relative amount of copper in the target and the O2/Ar mixture of the reactive plasma gas. The film characteristics were analyzed by several techniques. Their optical properties (refractive index, absorption coefficient, color) have been correlated with the process parameters used in the film preparation as well as with the film stoichiometry and chemistry.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CEN-20072014, MAT2010-18447, MAT2010-21228, CSD2008–00023Junta de Andalucía P09-TEP5283, CTS-518