Criticism and censorship in the South African "alternative" Press with particular reference to the cartoons of Bauer and Zapiro (1985-1990)

Includes bibliography.Cartooning is an extremely heterogeneous practice whose genealogy can be traced back to caricature. This paper does not concern itself with the diversity that can be found in the cartoons of Derek Bauer and Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro), but rather chooses to focus on the potential of cartooning as a critical art practice. Given that the "flipside" of criticism is censorship, the effects of censorship on cartooning together with cartooning's response to censorship will also be examined. Cartoons published in the alternative press after the 1985 declaration of a State of Emergency, but preceding the unbanning of political organisations in February 1990, which comment directly on press or political censorship, as well as those which raise issues pertinent to censorship, provide the basis for examining the converse notions of criticism and censorship. Having said this it should also be stated at the outset that whilst this paper focuses on particular cartoons produced in specific historical circumstances, it is also intended that this paper will have broader implications for the development of a contemporary critical art practice. This paper proceeds from the premise that criticism and censorship are oppositional and antagonistic concepts which seldom appear alone. Criticism, particularly when expressed publicly and directed at specific interest groups (eg. a ruling elite) frequently evokes censorship, whilst censorship and repression in turn breed criticism and resistance

Lanidor : national sucess, international challenge

This case study analyses the success and the internationalization barriers faced by the Lanidor Group, a leading Portuguese ready-to-wear brand and retailer. Lanidor initiated its activity in 1966 as a knitwear brand with a core business of thread commercialization, and has evolved since to a “Life Style” concept, which extends beyond apparel. Lanidor is now the largest chain of feminine ready-to-wear stores in Portugal and is transforming itself into a brand with a strong international presence, with two hundred and thirty-seven stores in twelve countries: two-hundred and seven of which in Portugal, and thirty stores in Spain, Switzerland, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Angola, Lebanon, Qatar, Ecuador and Mozambique. In 1999, when Lanidor reached a high level of national market coverage and found that the saturated national market conditioned further expansion of the Lanidor Woman brand, the Spanish market became a priority for them. At the time, Spain seemed to be the natural path for growth, however, the LA Woman brand has been struggling to survive in the competitive neighbouring market. The Lanidor Group is now considering entry in Poland, but there are diverging views within the management on whether to enter with franchises or with wholly-owned stores. On the one hand, the view that the best strategy would be through franchising, because it would minimize the investment and risk involved in setting up the international operations and would facilitate a rapid international expansion of the Lanidor Woman brand. On the other hand, the view that the best strategy would be through wholly owned stores, because franchising in different countries, far apart, could not be effectively controlled and would limit the detection of poor service and management quality, which would ultimately harm the brand‟s image. Expansion through wholly owned stores would be slower, but sounder and Lanidor‟s stores would become the brand image, thus reducing marketing and advertising costs. This case study illustrates the success story of a national brand and the challenges faced to expand to international markets

Redução de perdas tecnicas em redes primarias de distribuição de energia eletrica

Orientador : Christiano Lyra FilhoTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de ComputaçãoDoutorad

Sistemas de calibração automático para transceivers NG-PON2

The current society is increasingly dependent on communication services, requiring better and faster connections, predicting in a near future connections in the order of hundreds of Gbit/s. During the data transmissions, the increase of speed reflects an increase of the error ratio due to factors such as noise, reductions of signal or jitter, which for low speed these were not emphasized so much. This project involves the development of a BER test system for both continuous and Burst mode of the transmission, demonstrating the viability of communication over the next-generation technology, NG-PON2, which uses high transmission rates (10 Gbit/s). For this purpose, an FPGA architecture was implemented that allows for long distances in the optical network, high transmission rates. This choice reflects a more economical alternative in relation to commercial equipment and has several advantages, such as the flexibility to reprogram and prepare the architecture according to the needs of the user. To achieve the proposed requirements, the project was divided into three parts. In the first part an architecture was developed that allows to obtain the error rate during a continuous mode transmission. In order to obtain the real-time viability of the communication referred and to have control over the system, an interface was developed between the computer and the FPGA to change certain characteristics of the communication channel. This is the second part of the project. The last part of the project has an architecture similar to the previous one, that is, instead of the transmission to be done in continuous mode, it is performed in mode Burst, being this the requirement with more interest to the technology NG-PON2. Finally, proof of concept was performed through an optical network provided by the company PICadvanced that allowed the validation of the different parts of the project. These validations will allow the development of new modules that will later contribute to the main project that is under development in the company PICadvanced, which aims at the construction of an automatic calibration board for the XFP transceivers.A sociedade atual depende cada vez mais dos serviços de comunicação, exigindo melhores ligações e mais rápidas, prevendo-se num futuro próximo a necessidade de ligações na ordem das centenas de Gbit/s. O aumento dos ritmos de transmissão refletem um aumento no que se refere à taxa de erro (BER), uma vez que o impacto associado a fatores como ruı́do ou interferência entre sı́mbolos, é maior do que para baixos ritmos. Este trabalho foca-se no desenvolvimento de um sistema de teste BER, tanto para uma transmissão contı́nua como para transmissão em rajadas, que demonstre a viabilidade da comunicação sobre a tecnologia da próxima geração, Next Generation Passive Optical Network 2 (NG-PON2), que utiliza débitos de transmissão elevados (10 Gbit/s). Para este efeito foi implementado uma arquitetura em Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) que possibilita para longas distâncias na rede ótica, elevados ritmos de transmissão. Esta escolha reflete uma alterativa mais económica em relação aos equipamentos comerciais e apresenta vantagens tais como a flexibilidade de reprogramar e preparar a arquitetura de acordo com as necessidades do utilizador. Para cumprir os requisitos propostos o projeto dividiu-se em três partes. Numa primeira parte do projeto desenvolveu-se uma arquitetura que permite adquirir a taxa de erros durante uma transmissão contı́nua. Com o intuito de analisar a viabilidade em tempo real da comunicação em questão, bem com o utilizador ter controlo sobre o sistema, alterando certas caracterı́sticas do canal de comunicação, desenvolveu-se numa segunda parte do projeto uma interface entre o computador e a FPGA. Numa última parte do projeto desenvolveu-se uma arquitetura semelhante à anterior, na qual se permite igualmente adquirir a taxa de erros com transmissão em rajadas (Burst), sendo este um dos requisitos de maior interesse na tecnologia NG-PON2. Por fim, a prova de conceito foi realizada através de uma rede ótica disponibilizada pela empresa PICadvanced, que permitiu a validação das diversas partes do projeto. Estas validações vão permitir a conceção de novos módulos que posteriormente vão contribuir para o projeto fonte que está em desenvolvimento na empresa PICadvanced, que visa a implementação de uma placa de calibração automatizada para os transceptores 10 Gigabit Small Form Factor Pluggables (XFP).Mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica e Telecomunicaçõe

Modified DBSCAN Algorithm for Microscopic Image Analysis of Wood

The analysis of the intern anatomy of wood samples for species identification is a complex task that only experts can perform accurately. Since there are not many experts in the world and their training can last decades, there is great interest in developing automatic processes to extract high-level information from microscopic wood images. The purpose of this work was to develop algorithms that could provide meaningful information for the classification process. The work focuses on hardwoods, which have a very diverse anatomy including many different features. The ray width is one of such features, with high diagnostic value, which is visible on the tangential section. A modified distance function for the DBSCAN algorithm was developed to identify clusters that represent rays, in order to count the number of cells in width. To test both the segmentation and the modified DBSCAN algorithms, 20 images were manually segmented, obtaining an average Jaccard index of 0.66 for the segmentation and an average index M=0.78 for the clustering task. The final ray count had an accuracy of 0.91. (c) 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Transoesophageal Echocardiography for Monitoring Liver Surgery: Data from a Pilot Study

A pilot study aimed to introduce intraoperative monitoring of liver surgery using transoesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is described. A set of TEE measurements was established as a protocol, consisting of left atrial (LA) dimension at the aortic valve plane; mitral velocity flow integral, calculation of stroke volume and cardiac output (CO); mitral annular plane systolic excursion; finally, right atrial area. A total of 165 measurements (on 21 patients) were performed, 31 occurring during hypotension. The conclusions reached were during acute blood loss LA dimension changed earlier than CVP, and, in one patient, a dynamic left ventricular (LV) obstruction was observed; in 3 patients a transient LV systolic dysfunction was documented. The comparison between 39 CO paired measurements obtained by TEE and PiCCO2 revealed a statistically significant correlation (P < 0.001, r = 0.83). In this pilot study TEE successfully answered the questions raised by the anesthesiologists. Larger cohort studies are needed to address this issue

Delivering of Proteins to the Plant Vacuole-An Update

Trafficking of soluble cargo to the vacuole is far from being a closed issue as it can occur by different routes and involve different intermediates. The textbook view of proteins being sorted at the post-Golgi level to the lytic vacuole via the pre-vacuole or to the protein storage vacuole mediated by dense vesicles is now challenged as novel routes are being disclosed and vacuoles with intermediate characteristics described. The identification of Vacuolar Sorting Determinants is a key signature to understand protein trafficking to the vacuole. Despite the long established vacuolar signals, some others have been described in the last few years, with different properties that can be specific for some cells or some types of vacuoles. There are also reports of proteins having two different vacuolar signals and their significance is questionable: a way to increase the efficiency of the sorting or different sorting depending on the protein roles in a specific context? Along came the idea of differential vacuolar sorting, suggesting a possible specialization of the trafficking pathways according to the type of cell and specific needs. In this review, we show the recent advances in the field and focus on different aspects of protein trafficking to the vacuoles

Eighteenth century technological efficiency: the reuse of Brazilian sugar chest wood in Portuguese cabinet manufacture

We studied decorative Portuguese furniture from the 18th century Clérigos Church in Porto, to identify the woods used, to analyze their possible origin and understand the criteria for wood choice, according to sample location. We identified wood from Acacia sp., Castanea sativa, Couratari sp. and Dalbergia nigra. D. nigra, Acacia sp. and Couratari sp. may have arrived from Brazil, according to their natural distribution and the Portuguese colonial routes; C. sativa was abundant in the North Region of Portugal. In the 18th century, golden metal brass over black furniture was in fashion in Portuguese ecclesiastical cabinet making. Due to its dark colour, Dalbergia nigra was a desirable wood for the exposed structures of ecclesiastical furniture, such as top drawers and top tables. Couratari is a pale wood. Therefore, it was used in the inner structure of the drawers and legs. Acacia wood was also used in internal parts due to its durability. C. sativa was local and extensive; its wood was used in the inner structures, where it could not be seen. Marks were found in the Couratari wood, which indicated that the timber from chest boards employed to carry sugar from Brazil to Portugal was reused. The high silica content of Couratari wood makes it ideal for building “sugar chests”.POCI 2010 (Programa Operacional Ciência e Inovação 2010). Government and the European Union by the FEDER (Fundo Europeu para o Desenvolvimento Regional). Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Wood identification of 18th century furniture. Interpreting wood naming inventories

The 18th century Portuguese church furniture represents an extraordinary richness recognised worldwide, which demands safeguarding and valorisation. The identification of the wood of furniture artworks is the most important component for its comprehension and preservation. In this work wood anatomical characters of an 18th century Portuguese decorative furniture set from the Colegiada de São Martinho de Cedofeita, in Porto, were analysed to identify the woods used for manufacturing and to clarify their common names. Furthermore, the objectives were to recognise some of the criteria for choice of wood as well as the source of each wood. The woods identified from 16 fragments belong to Apuleia sp., Acacia sp., Neolamarckia sp. and Castanea sativa. Apuleia sp. and Acacia sp. woods most likely arrived from Brazil, while the Neolamarckia sp. woods likely arrived from India and the C. sativa woods from Portugal. The results are in accordance with the known Portuguese colonial sea routes of the 15th -18th centuries. Interestingly the terms found in the inventories can refer to finishing methods instead to the name of the woods, as for instance “oil wood” can refer to “oiled wood” or “linseed oiled wood”. The species choice may be related to the mechanical properties of the wood as well as the original tree size. Two large planks of Acacia sp. were used for the top of the “Portuguese arcaz”, and Apuleia sp. was found on main structural elements of this set of furniture, suggesting that wood colour was also important. Woods from Neolamarckia sp. and C. sativa, were also identified, being Castanea wood present only in the most recent pieces of the furniture set