Mighty Real: Trans Femme Embodiment, Queer Nightlife, and the Cultural Politics of Transmisogyny

This dissertation explores trans femme cultural performance forms in the shadow of queer social representation and stratified civic incorporation in USAmerican public life across the 20th and 21st centuries. Mighty Real stakes a claim in the centrality of trans femme cultural and narrative production in queer and gay culture and in intellectual accounts of queer nightlife studies. The two primary objectives of this dissertation are: to trace the material and performance histories of trans feminine people working across culture industries in (music, literary, performance, and nightlife scenes); and to sketch an account of the specific forms of discrimination, exclusion, and disposability that trans femmes navigate in doing so. Entering into debates in critical drag histories, queer/trans performance theory, gender and feminist studies, and LGBTQ+ historiography, this dissertation identifies a critical oversight in scholarship when it comes to the relation between material experience and performance in the lives of the street queen and the femme queen, two trans femme embodiments that figure into queer studies and queer of color critique in spectacular yet scornful ways, particularly when it comes to sex work and erotic labor. Through the figures of the street queen and the femme queen, it moves from an analysis of the figures’ roles within these discourses to reappraise two queer nightlife performance genres (i.e., lipsyncing and feeling cunt) as trans feminine practices of embodiment. Drawing on archival and multisite ethnographic research of the drag pageant circuit, DIY drag scenes, and house ball culture across Chicago, New York, Paris, and Berlin, this reappraisal enters into queer nightlife scholarship and popular performance discourses to spotlight the ways that the lipsyncing and feeling cunt serve as embodied practices of trans desiring and pedagogies of erotic power

Screening of conditions for rapid freezing of human oocytes: preliminary study toward their cryopreservation.

One hundred and twenty-one freshly-collected human oocytes and 839 unfertilized human oocytes after insemination were cryopreserved by vitrification. The cryoprotectants used were dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and sucrose. Vital staining and morphological criteria were used to assess injuries to cells. Variation of the time exposure to DMSO and sucrose, and cryoprotectants concentrations, followed by extraction-dilution in sucrose without freezing made it possible to study chemical toxicities. Variation of cryoprotectant concentrations followed by immersion in liquid nitrogen, thawing, extraction, and dilution made it possible to choose optimal conditions for vitrification. The sucrose concentration upon extraction after freezing and thawing which was lower than that during soaking enhanced the oocyte survival rate as did the choice of duration and temperature of soaking. No parthenogenetical activation of these unfertilized ovum was observed. This study indicates that with a certain combination of DMSO and sucrose concentrations up to 80% of morphologically intact human oocytes can be recovered after rapid freezing and thawing

Título: Historia romana (latine).

Sign.: a8, b-z6, [et]6, [cum]6, [rum]6, A6, B-C8Min. p. inic.46 lín.[PARTE 1](sign. a3) Liber primus: 'P. Candidi de ciuilibus Romanorum bellis ex Apiano Alexandrino in latinum traductis.' [PARTE 2] (sign. t2): Epistola: 'P. Candidi in libros Appia[n]i sophistae Alexa[n]drini ad Nicolaum quintum summum po[n]tificem Praefatio incipit foelicissim

Evaluation of a synthetic serum substitute to replace fetal cord serum for human oocyte fertilization and embryo growth in vitro.

A comparison was made between a serum substitute. UltroSer G (Gibco, Ghent, Belgium) (2%) (medium B) and 10% human fetal cord serum (medium A), as regards their ability to support 1-cell and 2-cell mice embryo development in vitro. Sixty percent and 56% of the 1-cell embryos reached the expanded blastocyst stage when cultured in media A and B, respectively. Eighty-four percent and 88% of 2-cell embryos reached the expanded blastocyst stage when cultured in media A and B, respectively. A prospective randomized study was then performed to evaluate this synthetic serum substitute in human in vitro fertilization. Among 141 ovum pick-up (OPU), oocytes retrieved in 74 cases were processed in medium A and oocytes retrieved in 67 others in medium B. In media A and B, the fertilization rate was 67% and 44.3% respectively, and the pregnancy rate/OPU 23% and 9%, respectively. The pregnancy rate/transfer was 28.8% and 12.2% respectively, and the implantation rate/transferred embryo 9.5% and 4.2%. In the human sperm survival assay, the vitality and residual motility after 24 hours of incubation were significantly lower in medium B. In conclusion, UltroSer G successfully sustained the development in vitro of mouse embyros. However in human, it reduced sperm survival, oocyte fertilization, and embryo viability

Renal effects of Ramipril in experimental tachycardiomyopathy

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Development of an algorithm which generates functional floor plans for residential buildings based on modular construction

Dissertação de Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Civil apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de CoimbraUm dos objetivos fundamentais da arquitetura e da engenharia civil é a construção e reabilitação de edifícios habitacionais. Estas áreas colaboram entre si para desenvolver soluções que satisfaçam os desejos do cliente incluindo as preferências estéticas e os requisitos técnicos legais, e, obviamente, tendo em conta a segurança, funcionalidade e o conforto da construção. Isto poderá ser atingido através dum processo iterativo que usualmente começa por um leque pequeno de soluções, das quais uma é escolhida e seguidamente modificada até se obter o projeto final da habitação. Este procedimento demora habitualmente um tempo substancial. Por outro lado, a construção modular constitui um método inovador baseado num conceito de casa adaptável e flexível, que consiste na organização de soluções uniformes em bloco, pré-fabricadas em aço enformado a frio, numa grelha organizacional de múltiplos de uma unidade básica, quase como se de um jogo de Lego® se tratasse. Esta tecnologia é altamente sustentável e permite modificações na construção final durante o seu período de vida útil. Por fim, os custos são minorados e a relação custo-benefício é majorada. Assim, a presente dissertação objetiva o desenvolvimento dum algoritmo que gere várias soluções de plantas de arquitetura baseado em módulos arquitetónicos de construção modular previamente estudados. Este objetivo foi atingido através da implementação em Java® deste algoritmo que testa e combina 3 módulos de arquitetura modular até encontrar todas as soluções que obedeçam a determinadas restrições.One of the fundamental objectives of architecture and civil engineering is to construct and rehabilitate residential buildings. Both parties collaborate in order to provide solutions that fit the client’s desires, satisfy legal requirements, while granting aesthetic preferences and, obviously, are functional, safe and satisfy serviceability requirements. This may be accomplished by an iterative process which commonly starts from a spectrum of a few solutions, where one is chosen and arranged until achieving the final building design. This process takes a substantial amount of time. On the other hand, modular construction presents an innovative constructive method based on a flexible and adaptive housing concept, which consists on arranging uniform modular solutions, pre-fabricated on cold formed steel, on an organizational grid of multiple numbers of a basic unit, almost as if it was a Lego® game. This technology is highly sustainable and allows modifications on the solutions during its life cycle. Last but not least, costs are diminished and energy efficiency is improved. Therefore the objective of the present dissertation is the development of an algorithm that generates multiple floor plan design solutions based on previously studied architectural modules of modular construction. This objective was accomplished by implementing the algorithm in Java® which tests and combines 3 modules of modular construction until it reaches every solutions that obey specific constraints

Optimization of a transfer carriage along crane girders

peer reviewedDrever International S.A., located in Liège and part of SMS Siemag Group, is a market leader for continuous annealing furnaces and galvanizing plants for steel and stainless steel strips. Liège University and Drever International collaborate for many years in R & D. For the heat treatment of the strips (automotive qualities), it is necessary to use a transfer carriage in order to translate along crane girders an induction furnace (with a weight of about 60 tons) and a mobile cooler system (having a weight around 20 tons). This carriage, which has several overhangs, consists of I beams and box girders and integrates devices to compensate torsional effects. The design of this equipment is guided by the respect of strict deflection criteria, imposed by the pro-duction conditions. An optimization of the presently used carriage was required, especially in terms of total weight. A study aimed at proposing several new carriage configurations and discussing their respective advantages and drawbacks has been initiated and, as a result, the most promising configuration has been selected and carefully designed, including the fabrication and erection constraints. The use of tubular sections appeared quickly as an evidence, leading at the end to a very significant decrease of the weight and fabrication costs, while satisfying requests in terms of resistance, deformation and stiffness. In the paper, the way on how tubes have been used to achieve the industrial goals is presented and illustrated

Early activation of endothelin system and vascular endothelial growth factor in experimental pulmonary hypertension

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Prediction of individual response to controlled ovarian hyperstimulation by means of a clomiphene citrate challenge test.

A clomiphene citrate (CC) challenge test was carried out in 114 patients to evaluate the capacity of this test to predict the patient's individual response to controlled ovarian hyperstimulation (COH) performed with a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist and human menopausal gonadotrophins (hMG) for in vitro fertilization. The sum of follicle-stimulating hormone measured before and after CC intake, is the parameter that correlated best with subsequent response to COH. The upper limit of the reference value for this parameter, established by considering the CC challenge test performed on 26 patients who became pregnant, was 26.03 mIU/mL. Twenty patients who presented a CC challenge test result above the reference value were compared with patients with a normal test result. For these 20 patients, COH required more hMG and was cancelled in 25% of the cases (instead of 1% in the control group). The number of follicles aspirated, oocytes retrieved, and embryos obtained were on average six times lower than in patients with a CC challenge test result within the reference value, and no pregnancy was obtained. We concluded that CC challenge test provides a reliable individual prognosis for the ovarian response to COH