Contemporary Hieroglyphics. Indicial Networks as Mass Culture Devices

Desde ciertas perspectivas se sostiene que la enorme variedad de la oferta y prácticas digitales impide la fijación de un ámbito compartido de sentido. Sin embargo, pensamos que la importancia para la configuración de los climas ideológicos y de opinión sigue estando en manos de los medios tradicionales de difusión masiva. El objeto de este trabajo se centra precisamente en sostener que el espacio público-político se articula en torno a interpretaciones compartidas y consensos limitadores. Desde la herramienta metodológica de la semiótica y el análisis del discurso se propone demostrar la absoluta vigencia de la -para algunas perspectivas desparecida- cultura de masas.From several perspectives, it is held that the enormous variety of digital products and services impedes the establishment of a shared environment of meaning. Nonetheless, we believe that the importance of the configuration of trends in ideology and opinion is still in the hands of the traditional mass media. The aim of this work centres precisely on affirming that the public-political space revolves around shared interpretations and limiting consensuses. Using the methodological tools of semiotics and discourse analysis, this work proposes to show that mass culture –which, according to some viewpoints, has disappeared– is still very much alive and kicking

Action recognition using the Rf Transform on optical flow images

The objective of this paper is the automatic recognition of human actions in video sequences. The use of spatio-temporal features for action recognition has become very popular in recent literature Instead of extracting the spatio-temporal features from the raw video sequence, some authors propose to project the sequence to a single template first. As a contribution we propose the use of several variants of the R transform for projecting the image sequences to templates. The R transform projects the whole sequence to a single image, retaining information concerning movement direction and magnitude. Spatio-temporal features are extracted from the template, they are combined using a bag of words paradigm, and finally fed to a SVM for action classification. The method presented is shown to improve the state-of-art results on the standard Weizmann action datasetPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Temporal segmentation of human actions in video sequences

Most of the published works concerning action recognition, usually assume that the action sequences have been previously segmented in time, that is, the action to be recognized starts with the first sequence frame and ends with the last one. However, temporal segmentation of actions in sequences is not an easy task, and is always prone to errors. In this paper, we present a new technique to automatically extract human actions from a video sequence. Our approach presents several contributions. First of all, we use a projection template scheme and find spatio-temporal features and descriptors within the projected surface, rather than extracting them in the whole sequence. For projecting the sequence we use a variant of the R transform, which has never been used before for temporal action segmentation. Instead of projecting the original video sequence, we project its optical flow components, preserving important information about action motion. We test our method on a publicly available action dataset, and the results show that it performs very well segmenting human actions compared with the state-of-the-art methods.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Cyberbullying Analysis in Intercultural Educational Environments Using Binary Logistic Regressions

The goal of this study is to analyze how religion, ethnic group, and race influence the likelihood of becoming either a cybervictim or cyberbully in intercultural educational environments. In the research, 755 students in secondary education were analyzed in the south of Spain through the Cyberbullying Scale for students with Cultural and Religious Diversity (CSCRD). The analyses were carried out using the Statistical Package SPSS and the STATA software. The results obtained from the Kruskal–Wallis H test showed significant differences according to these aspects, for both the cybervictim and cyberbully parameters. The results stemming from binary logistic regressions confirmed such differences and regarded those students who belong to the Muslim religion, the gypsy ethnic group and the Asian race as being more likely to become cybervictims. Furthermore, these analyses showed that Gypsy and Asian students were also more likely to be cyberbullies than other groups. The main conclusions state that minority groups are more likely to suffer cyberbullying in intercultural educational environments, and that students from these groups are also more likely to become cyberbullies

Correlational study on cyberbullying and social abilities in intercultural teenagers

This article analyzes the relationship between cyberbullying profile by racist reasons and social abilities in a group of intercultural teenagers living in Spain (N = 1478). The study includes participants aged between 12 and 16 years old (M = 13.99; SD = 1.352). Of these, 738 were male (49.9%) and 740 were female (50.1%). A correlational study was carried out using online tools with suitable psychometrics parameters (content-construct validity and reliability). The first one was a scale that measured social abilities, and the second one evaluated racist or xenophobic cyberbullying, differentiating the victim and aggressor profiles. The results indicated five main findings: (1) generally, the participants analyzed present all their social abilities; (2) for the most part, these participants do not normally experience cyberbullying; (3) a positive correlation exists between the majority of social abilities analyzed and the cybervictim profile. It was also observed a negative correlation between the social ability associated with the ability of making requests and this profile; (4) there is a positive correlation among the six social abilities analyzed and the cyberaggressor profile; (5) the racist or xenophobic cyberbullying are driven not only by the absence of social abilities, but in some cases, they are also driven by socio-demographic variables (i.e., age and gender). Likewise, this work shows how the absence of some social abilities in some participants involve racist or xenophobic experiences as victims and as aggressors, which may be of interest for the analysis of teenagers’ behavior in intercultural contexts, as well as according to age and gender. More transcultural research need to be carried out to know the global perspective of the link between social abilities and the different profiles of racist and xenophobic cyberbullying, framed in the context of social psychology and studies of mass communication.Autonomous City of Melill

Traducción y accesibilidad audiovisual: dos propuestas de guion audiodescriptivo para dos fragmentos de Toy Story 4

Este Trabajo de Fin de Grado presenta la audiodescripción de la película de animación Toy Story 4. Para la realización del guion audiodescriptivo (GAD), las autoras han tenido en cuenta las disposiciones de la Norma UNE (2005) realizando un análisis previo de la bra, una confección del guion y, finalmente, revisión y corrección del mismo. Las autoras han llevado a cabo un riguroso trabajo desde el principio no solamente consultando la literatura sobre Audiodescripicón sino también el marco legal donde esta de desarrolla. Ha sido un trabajo ambicioso desde el principio, pues quisieron completar su producto con una evaluación de usuario que les diera el feeback necesario para continuar con su labor de audiodescriptoras. A pesar de los problemas que les han ido surgiendo a lo largo de le elaboración tanto del GAD como del trabajo, han sabido resolverlos de forma autónoma, siguiendo las pautas marcadas y llegando a conclusiones muy maduras y profesionales. Se trata en definitiva de una aportación importante en el panorama de la Traducción accesible

Long-Term Dynamic Humoral Response to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccines in Patients on Peritoneal Dialysis

COVID-19; Booster; Chronic kidney diseaseCOVID-19; Refuerzo; Enfermedad renal crónicaCOVID-19; Reforç; Malaltia renal crònicaIntroduction. Patients on peritoneal dialysis (PD) present an impaired humoral response against SARS-CoV-2, at least after the initial vaccination and booster dose. Until now, the effect of a fourth dose has not been established. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the long-term dynamics of the humoral response of PD patients to multiple doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, focusing on the effect of the fourth dose. Methods. This is an analysis of the prospective and multicentric SENCOVAC study. We included patients on PD without additional immunosuppression that had received at least 3 SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine doses. We evaluated anti-spike antibody titers after the initial vaccination, third and fourth doses, using prespecified fixed assessments (i.e., baseline, 28 days, 3, 6, and 12 months after completing the initial vaccine schedule). Breakthrough infections were also collected. Results. We included 164 patients on PD (69% males, 62 ± 13 years old). In patients who had received only two doses, the rates of positive humoral response progressively decreased from 96% at 28 days to 80% at 6 months, as did with anti-spike antibody titers. At 6 months, 102 (62%) patients had received the third vaccine dose. Patients with the third dose had higher rates of positive humoral response (p = 0.01) and higher anti-spike antibody titers (p < 0.001) at 6 months than those with only 2 doses. At 12 months, the whole cohort had received 3 vaccine doses, and 44 (27%) patients had an additional fourth dose. The fourth dose was not associated to higher rates of positive humoral response (100 vs. 97%, p = 0.466) or to statistically significant differences in anti-spike antibody titers as compared to three doses (p = 0.371) at 12 months. Prior antibody titers were the only predictor for subsequent higher anti-spike antibody titer (B 0.53 [95%CI 0.27–0.78], p < 0.001). The 2 (1.2%) patients that developed COVID-19 during follow-up had mild disease. Conclusions. PD presents an acceptable humoral response with three doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines that improve the progressive loss of anti-spike antibody titers following two vaccine doses.The present project has been supported by Diaverum, Vifor Pharma, Vircell, Fundación Renal Iñigo Álvarez de Toledo, and ISCIII FEDER funds RICORS2040 (RD21/0005)

Cómo grita la tipografía. Procesos de mediación cultural y condición de lo visible

Cada discurso se entrelaza en una compleja red de otros discursos, instituciones, prácticas de poder y producción simbólica cuya importancia es decisiva en la configuración de lo social. El cuerpo de dichos discursos es el objeto de esta propuesta que reflexiona sobre el carácter mediador de la tipografía y ejemplifica, con el uso de los caracteres góticos durante el nazismo y previamente la lucha entre caracteres góticos frente a romanos en el Renacimiento, la operación cultural de las formas de visualización en la era digital. El impacto de las tecnologías de la información afecta a la construcción del imaginario moderno, con el que la modernidad justifica su propia dinámica, su trama cultural y cognitiva, su formación histórica. La tipografía es un elemento central de ese imaginario contemporáneo y, en tanto signo, se convierte en el escenario de la lucha entre diferentes definiciones y significados: una lucha por la posesión del signo que se extiende hasta las áreas más triviales de la vida cotidiana. Es por eso que el tipo grita