The middlebrow Spanish Civil War film: a site of mediation between culture and history.

Films set during or immediately after the Spanish Civil War have a long tradition in Spain, one which spans the entire spectrum of filmic genres, from propaganda to musicals to art-house. This genre has not abated since the turn of the century, it has become increasingly ubiquitous and since the late 1990s, undeniably ‘middlebrow’. Yet this prolific genre, on the whole, is largely snubbed by films critics and academic researchers alike. The old adage of ‘oh not another civil war film’ remains widely recurrent in the press, but the fact that many, if not all, of these productions deal with narrative tropes that are of profound social relevance warrants further investigation. By analysing the primacy of emotion and affect in two films, Blind Sunflowers (Los Girasoles Ciegos, 2009) and The Sleeping Voice (La voz dormida, 2011), this article argues that civil war films constitute a sub-genre of the Spanish middlebrow which is exceptionally, yet controversially, well-suited to the exploration of socially and culturally traumatic themes

Influence of social facilitation and gender differences on purchasing behavior of consumers in a mall

Consumers were observed in order to investigate whether it is more likely that lone or group shoppers will make a purchase and to what extent gender differences in purchasing behavior exist. As shoppers exited a Georgia mall, variables such as gender, group orientation, and the presence or absence of a package were recorded. Observations revealed that of 1269 shoppers, nearly 54% of lone shoppers made purchases, compared to 41% of group shoppers, and women carried packages more often than did men. Both the comparison of lone versus group shoppers and the difference in men\u27s and women\u27s buying showed p\u3c.05 from a test for significance between two proportions. Contrary to the social facilitation theory, group shoppers did not consume more than lone individuals. This study suggests that social facilitation effects may be unique to particular environments

Complex genome evolution in Anopheles coluzzii associated with increased insecticide usage in Mali.

In certain cases, a species may have access to important genetic variation present in a related species via adaptive introgression. These novel alleles may interact with their new genetic background, resulting in unexpected phenotypes. In this study, we describe a selective sweep on standing variation on the X chromosome in the mosquito Anopheles coluzzii, a principal malaria vector in West Africa. This event may have been influenced by the recent adaptive introgression of the insecticide resistance gene known as kdr from the sister species Anopheles gambiae. Individuals carrying both kdr and a nearly fixed X-linked haplotype, encompassing at least four genes including the P450 gene CYP9K1 and the cuticular protein CPR125, have rapidly increased in relative frequency. In parallel, a reproductively isolated insecticide-susceptible A. gambiae population (Bamako form) has been driven to local extinction, likely due to strong selection from increased insecticide-treated bed net usage

A simple trapped-ion architecture for high-fidelity Toffoli gates

We discuss a simple architecture for a quantum Toffoli gate implemented using three trapped ions. The gate, which in principle can be implemented with a single laser-induced operation, is effective under rather general conditions and is strikingly robust (within any experimentally realistic range of values) against dephasing, heating and random fluctuations of the Hamiltonian parameters. We provide a full characterization of the unitary and noise-affected gate using three-qubit quantum process tomography

The influence of the stratospheric state on North Atlantic weather regimes

Stratosphere-troposphere coupling is often viewed from the perspective of the annular modes and their dynamics. Despite the obvious benefits of this approach, recent work has emphasised the greater tropospheric sensitivity to stratospheric variability in the Atlantic basin than in the Pacific basin. In this study, a new approach to understanding stratosphere-troposphere coupling is proposed, with a focus on the influence of the stratospheric state on North Atlantic weather regimes (during extended winter, November to March). The influence of the strength of the lower stratospheric vortex on four commonly used tropospheric weather regimes is quantified. The negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation is most sensitive to the stratospheric state, occurring on 33% of days following weak vortex conditions but on only 5% of days following strong vortex conditions. An opposite and slightly weaker sensitivity is found for the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Atlantic Ridge regime. For the North Atlantic Oscillation regimes, stratospheric conditions change both the probability of remaining in each regime and the probability of transitioning to that regime from others. A logistic regression model is developed to further quantify the sensitivity of tropospheric weather regimes to the lower stratospheric state. The logistic regression model predicts an increase of 40-60% in the probability of transition to the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation for a one standard deviation reduction in the strength of the stratospheric vortex. Similarly it predicts a 10-30% increase in the probability of transition to the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation for a one standard deviation increase in the strength of the stratospheric vortex. The stratosphere-troposphere coupling in the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, Integrated Forecasting System model is found to be consistent with the re- analysis data by fitting the same logistic regression model

Differential Uptake of Gold Nanoparticles by 2 Species of Tadpole, the Wood Frog (Lithobates Sylvaticus) and the Bullfrog (Lithobates Catesbeianus)

Engineered nanoparticles are aquatic contaminants of emerging concern that exert ecotoxicological effects on a wide variety of organisms. We exposed cetyltrimethylammonium bromide–capped spherical gold nanoparticles to wood frog and bullfrog tadpoles with conspecifics and in combination with the other species continuously for 21 d, then measured uptake and localization of gold. Wood frog tadpoles alone and in combination with bullfrog tadpoles took up significantly more gold than bullfrogs. Bullfrog tadpoles in combination with wood frogs took up significantly more gold than controls. The rank order of weight-normalized gold uptake was wood frogs in combination \u3e wood frogs alone \u3e bullfrogs in combination \u3e bullfrogs alone \u3e controls. In all gold-exposed groups of tadpoles, gold was concentrated in the anterior region compared with the posterior region of the body. The concentration of gold nanoparticles in the anterior region of wood frogs both alone and in combination with bullfrogs was significantly higher than the corresponding posterior regions. We also measured depuration time of gold in wood frogs. After 21 d in a solution of gold nanoparticles, tadpoles lost \u3e83% of internalized gold when placed in gold-free water for 5 d. After 10 d in gold-free water, tadpoles lost 94% of their gold. After 15 d, gold concentrations were below the level of detection. Our finding of differential uptake between closely related species living in similar habitats with overlapping geographical distributions argues against generalizing toxicological effects of nanoparticles for a large group of organisms based on measurements in only one species

Chromosome position effects on gene expression in Escherichia coli K-12

In eukaryotes, the location of a gene on the chromosome is known to affect its expression, but such position effects are poorly understood in bacteria. Here, using Escherichia coli K-12, we demonstrate that expression of a reporter gene cassette, comprised of the model E. coli lac promoter driving expression of gfp, varies by ∼300-fold depending on its precise position on the chromosome. At some positions, expression was more than 3-fold higher than at the natural lac promoter locus, whereas at several other locations, the reporter cassette was completely silenced: effectively overriding local lac promoter control. These effects were not due to differences in gene copy number, caused by partially replicated genomes. Rather, the differences in gene expression occur predominantly at the level of transcription and are mediated by several different features that are involved in chromosome organization. Taken together, our findings identify a tier of gene regulation above local promoter control and highlight the importance of chromosome position effects on gene expression profiles in bacteria