“Obra de arte yo too”: Eduardo Mendicutti on Soccer, Glamour and the “Beckham Effect”

La Susi en el vestuario blanco (2003) is a fictional chronicle of life in the Real Madrid locker room, a privileged insight into the sanctum sanctorum of the world’s richest soccer team. The hiring of Susi as glamour coach ostensibly aims to boost the competitive advantage of the galácticos in foreign as well as local markets (reflecting the reality of the club at the time). In Mendicutti’s homoeroticizing gaze, it also serves to uncover the homophobic substrate reportedly still common in male team sports, and teases at the anxieties of the players. This article explores the peculiar function of Susi as she sets the comic tone of the work and engages with the varied virilities before her. It examines the notions of “glamour” and “identification” both as tongue-in-cheek team objectives, and as phenomena with wider relevance for the way spectators relate to sport, and players to the world around them

Art at the biomedical interface: Trans/sculptural discourses in Guillem Viladot’s Ruth

The short epistolary novel Ruth by Guillem Viladot was published postumously in 2000 and received only brief press mention, in spite of its singular treatment of the subject of transsexuality which set it apart within the Catalan and Spanish literary panorama of the time. The portrayal of the psychological and emotional struggle experienced by the artist and sculptor Ruth before and after surgery, is heavily inflected by Viladot’s interest in Lacanian psychoanalysis, and runs in parallel with a discourse on the process of artistic creation. This article examines the way in which art functions as a metaphor for an alternative end-point (or at least outcome) of transitioning, which is ultimately more optimistic than the reality confronted by Ruth as she slides into psychosis. Drawing on the recent work of psychoanalyst Oren Gozlan which seeks to understand transsexuality as a creative act, the article argues that Viladot is prescient in seeing the possibilities in aesthetic discourse for our understanding of sexual difference and identity. At the same time, and with reference to Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex (2002) and its criticism, it underscores the contemporary relevance of the novel in questioning the still dominant sex/gender binary and cultural backwardness characteristic of debates around transsexuality

Parton model versus color dipole formulation of the Drell-Yan process

In the kinematical region where the center of mass energy is much larger than all other scales, the Drell-Yan process can be formulated in the target rest frame in terms of the same color dipole cross section as low Bjorken-x deep inelastic scattering. Since the mechanisms for heavy dilepton production appear very different in the dipole approach and in the conventional parton model, one may wonder whether these two formulations really represent the same physics. We perform a comparison of numerical calculations in the color dipole approach with calculations in the next-to-leading order parton model. For proton-proton scattering, the results are very similar at low x_2 from fixed target to RHIC energies, confirming the close connection between these two very different approaches. We also compare the transverse momentum distributions of Drell-Yan dileptons predicted in both formulations. The range of applicability of the dipole formulation and the impact of future Drell-Yan data from RHIC for determining the color dipole cross section are discussed. A detailed derivation of the dipole formulation of the Drell-Yan process is also included.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Addition Spectra of Quantum Dots in Strong Magnetic Fields

We consider the magnetic field dependence of the chemical potential for parabolically confined quantum dots in a strong magnetic field. Approximate expressions based on the notion that the size of a dot is determined by a competition between confinement and interaction energies are shown to be consistent with exact diagonalization studies for small quantum dots. Fine structure is present in the magnetic field dependence which cannot be explained without a full many-body description and is associated with ground-state level crossings as a function of confinement strength or Zeeman interaction strength. Some of this fine structure is associated with precursors of the bulk incompressible states responsible for the fractional quantum Hall effect.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures (available from [email protected]). Revtex 3.0. (IUCM93-010

Topological phase transition in a network model with preferential attachment and node removal

Preferential attachment is a popular model of growing networks. We consider a generalized model with random node removal, and a combination of preferential and random attachment. Using a high-degree expansion of the master equation, we identify a topological phase transition depending on the rate of node removal and the relative strength of preferential vs. random attachment, where the degree distribution goes from a power law to one with an exponential tail.Comment: The final publication is available at http://www.epj.or

PSD95 and nNOS interaction as a novel molecular target to modulate conditioned fear: relevance to PTSD

Stimulation of N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptors (NMDARs) and the resulting increase of nitric oxide (NO) production are critical for fear memory formation. Following NMDAR activation, efficient production of NO requires linking the 95 kDa postsynaptic density protein (PSD95), a scaffolding protein to neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS). A variety of previously studied NMDAR antagonists and NOS inhibitors can disrupt fear conditioning, but they also affect many other CNS functions such as motor activity, anxiety, and learning. We hypothesized that disrupting nNOS and PSD95 interaction in the amygdala, a critical site for fear memory formation, will reduce conditioned fear. Our results show that systemic treatment with ZL006, a compound that disrupts PSD95/nNOS binding, attenuates fear memory compared to its inactive isomer ZL007. Co-immunoprecipitation after fear conditioning showed a robust increase in the amygdala PSD95/nNOS binding, which was blocked by systemic pre-administration of ZL006. Treatment of amygdala slices with ZL006 also impaired long-term potentiation (LTP), a cellular signature of synaptic plasticity. Direct intra-amygdala infusion of ZL006 also attenuated conditioned fear. Finally, unlike NMDAR antagonist MK-801, ZL006 does not affect locomotion, social interaction, object recognition memory, and spatial memory. These findings support the hypothesis that disrupting the PSD95/nNOS interaction downstream of NMDARs selectively reduces fear memory, and highlights PSD95/nNOS interaction as a novel target for fear-related disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder

Improving predictions of critical shear stress in gravel bed rivers: Identifying the onset of sediment transport and quantifying sediment structure

Understanding when gravel moves in river beds is essential for a range of different applications but is still surprisingly hard to predict. Here we consider how our ability to predict critical shear stress (τ c ) is being improved by recent advances in two areas: (1) identifying the onset of bedload transport; and (2) quantifying grain‐scale gravel bed structure. This paper addresses these areas through both an in‐depth review and a comparison of new datasets of gravel structure collected using three different methods. We focus on advances in these two areas because of the need to understand how the conditions for sediment entrainment vary spatially and temporally, and because spatial and temporal changes in grain‐scale structure are likely to be a major driver of changes in τ c . We use data collected from a small gravel‐bed stream using direct field‐based measurements, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and computed tomography (CT) scanning, which is the first time that these methods have been directly compared. Using each method, we measure structure‐relevant metrics including grain size distribution, grain protrusion and fine matrix content. We find that all three methods produce consistent measures of grain size, but that there is less agreement between measurements of grain protrusion and fine matrix content

Resonant transmission through an open quantum dot

We have measured the low-temperature transport properties of a quantum dot formed in a one-dimensional channel. In zero magnetic field this device shows quantized ballistic conductance plateaus with resonant tunneling peaks in each transition region between plateaus. Studies of this structure as a function of applied perpendicular magnetic field and source-drain bias indicate that resonant structure deriving from tightly bound states is split by Coulomb charging at zero magnetic field.Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. B (1997). 8 LaTex pages with 5 figure

Resummation of nuclear enhanced higher twist in the Drell Yan process

We investigate higher twist contributions to the transverse momentum broadening of Drell Yan pairs in proton nucleus collisions. We revisit the contribution of matrix elements of twist-4 and generalize this to matrix elements of arbitrary twist. An estimate of the maximal nuclear broadening effect is derived. A model for nuclear enhanced matrix elements of arbitrary twist allows us to give the result of a resummation of all twists in closed form. Subleading corrections to the maximal broadening are discussed qualitatively.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; v2: minor changes in text, acknowledgement added; v3: mistake in fig. 1 correcte