War Of Images, Images Of War

In this paper I return to incursions that I made in media analysis in two previous articles: “Japanese is to TV Like a Mulatto is to Beer: Racial stereotypes in Brazilian advertising” (Rial, 1995) and “War of Images, Images of war” (Rial 2007), the latter about rapes in Iraq and the near silence about them in the media. Although the articles involve quite diverse issues, both point to stereotyped representations of social differences in the media, the first article involves race, the second gender, ethnicity and religion. © 2016, Universidade Estadual de Campinas UNICAMP. All rights reserved.20164

Note: Energy convexity and density matrices in molecular systems

A novel appropriate definition for the density matrix for an interacting Coulombic driven atomic or molecular system with non-integer number of particles is given. Our approach leads to a direct derivation of the proposal reported by Perdew et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 1691 (1982)]10.1103/PhysRevLett.49.1691 and points out its suitability and perspective advances.Fil: Bochicchio, Roberto Carlos. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rial, Diego Fernando. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Investigaciones Matemáticas "Luis A. Santaló". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Matemáticas "Luis A. Santaló"; Argentin

Ensuring the quality of 3D printed medicines: Integrating a balance into a pharmaceutical printer for in-line uniformity of mass testing

Semi-solid extrusion (SSE) 3D printing has great potential to be integrated in a clinical setting, with the use of pre-filled and disposable pharma-ink syringes meeting regulatory good manufacturing practice (GMP) requirements. Uniformity of mass testing is a critical quality attribute and is carried out by weighing a specific amount of dosage units in a single batch and finding the average mass to evaluate any deviations. However, this test for small batches of 3D printed medicines may require weighing the entire manufactured batch. To overcome this limitation, an in-line analytical balance was implemented inside a GMP pharmaceutical 3D printer, with a specialised software-controlled weighing system for the automated mass uniformity testing of the entire printed batch. Three different dose batches (n = 28) of hydrocortisone pharma-ink were 3D printed and subjected to in-line mass uniformity testing. The developed software was capable of registering the weights of all individual printlets and accurately detecting any deviations within the accepted limits. Only one printlet was outside the accepted weight range, a result of the first print often being imperfect due to the semi-solid nature of the pharma-ink. The weight results were compared against an external analytical balance, and no significant differences were found. This study is the first to integrate an analytical balance inside a pharmaceutical printer, automating the dosage form mass uniformity testing which can save time, labour, and resources, whilst improving the quality control testing of 3D printed pharmaceuticals

History-based Self-Organizing Traffic Lights

Managing traffic in cities is nowadays a complex problem involving considerable physical and economical resources. Multi-agent Systems (MAS) consist of a set of distributed, usually co-operating, agents that act autonomously. The traffic in a city can be simulated by a MAS with different agents, cars and traffic lights, that interact to obtain an overall goal: to reduce average waiting times for the traffic users. In this paper, we describe an agent-based simulator to model traffic in cities.Using this simulator, we present a self-organizing solution to efficiently manage urban traffic. We compare our proposal with recent approaches, providing better results than classical and alternative self-organizing methods, with lower resources and investments

Smartphone-enabled 3D printing of medicines

3D printing is a manufacturing technique that is transforming numerous industrial sectors, particularly where it is key tool in the development and fabrication of medicinees that are personalised to the individual needs of patients. Most 3D printers are relatively large, require trained operators and must be located in a pharmaceutical setting to manufacture dosage forms. In order to realise fully the potential of point-of-care manufacturing of medicines, portable printers that are easy to operate are required. Here, we report the development of a 3D printer that operates using a mobile smartphone. The printer, operating on stereolithographic principles, uses the light from the smartphone’s screen to photopolymerise liquid resins and create solid structures. The shape of the printed dosage form is determined using a custom app on the smartphone. Warfarin-loaded Printlets (3D printed tablets) of various sizes and patient-centred shapes (caplet, triangle, diamond, square, pentagon, torus, and gyroid lattices) were successfully printed to a high resolution and with excellent dimensional precision using different photosensitive resins. The drug was present in an amorphous form, and the Printlets displayed sustained release characterises. The promising proof-of-concept results support the future potential of this compact, user-friendly and interconnected smartphone-based system for point-of-care manufacturing of personalised medications

Producing 'Human Elements Based Medical Technologies' in Biotech Companies: Some Ethical and Organisational Ingredients for Innovative Cooking

This article is based on the findings of an EU-funded qualitative research project, entitled 'From GMP to GBP: Fostering good bioethics practices [GBP] among the European biotechnology industry', which seeks to improve the understanding of bioethical issues through the observation of the daily practices in European biotechnology companies and proposes a methodology approaching ethical issues. The comparative study was carried out in biotech companies in France, Italy, Sweden, Hungary and Belgium which develop a wide range of new technologies, all of them involving human materials or where human subjects participate (in clinical trials). Based on our findings in these local settings, we suggest that the notion of bioethics and the way its production is theorised need to be re-conceptualised. We argue that material practices and moral statements are intermingled in inextricable ways that render the formation of bioethical concerns fully dependent on the organisational landscape in which it is embedded. More precisely, the here presented co-production model of moral statements and organisational practices presents a set of common factors that influence how bioethical discourses are shaped, despite the heterogeneity of their epistemic cultures. For example, the procedural design of cell-based-products, the modes of collecting and storing biological specimen, the relationship between patients and companies and technological transfers to emerging countries are defining components that contribute to the shaping process of bioethical concerns. Thus, the path dependency of bioethical concerns relies on an already existing, specific infrastructure and existing relationships within and outside a company rather than on external judgement subsequently applied to its objects, or a collection of processes of reasoning coming from external institutions

Glacial rumblings from Jakobshavn ice stream, Greenland

Abstract The steep increase in Greenland’s glacial earthquake activity detected by the Global Seismographic Network since the late 1990s suggests that a close inspection of these events might provide clues to the nature and origin of such seismic activity. Here we discuss the detection of large, unexpected seismic events of extraordinarily long duration (10–40 min) occurring about once every 2 days, and localized in the ice stream that feeds the Earth’s fastest-moving glacier (Jakobshavn Isbræ) from the east. These ‘glacial rumblings’ represent an ice-mass wasting process that is greater and more frequent than glacial earthquakes have suggested. Probably triggered by calving, the rumblings are all very similar regardless of duration, and all end with a sharp, earthquake-like event in which the largest seismic amplitude is in the rumbling and that might signal the collapse of large ice masses upstream. By calculating the total amount of seismic energy released as rumblings, we estimate that the maximum seasonal amount of ice moved seismogenically down the ice stream is up to 12 km 3 , or ∼30% of the average annual iceberg discharge in Jakobshavn

Isolation and characterization of feline dental pulp stem cells

Objectives The aim of this study was to isolate feline dental pulp stem cells (fDPSCs) and characterize their clonogenic and proliferative abilities, as well as their multipotency, immunophenotype and cytogenetic stability. Methods Dental pulp was isolated by explant culture from two cats <1 year old at post mortem. Their clonogenicity was characterized using a colony-forming unit fibroblast assay, and their proliferative ability was quantified with a doubling time assay in passages 2, 4 and 6 (P2, P4 and P6, respectively). Multipotency was characterized with an in vitro trilineage differentiation assay in P2, and cells were immunophenotyped in P4 by flow cytometry. Chromosomic stability was evaluated by cytogenetic analysis in P2, P4 and P6. Results The fDPSCs displayed spindle and epithelial-like morphologies. Isolated cells showed a marked clonogenic capacity and doubling time was maintained from P2 to P6. Trilineage differentiation was obtained in one sample, while the other showed osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation. Immunophenotypic analysis showed fDPSCs were CD45−, CD90+ and CD44+. Structural and numerical cytogenetic aberrations were observed in P2–P4. Conclusions and relevance In this study, fDPSCs from two cats were isolated by explant culture and immunophenotyped. Cells displayed clonogenic and proliferative ability, and multipotency in vitro, and signs of chromosomic instability were observed. Although a larger study is needed to confirm these results, this is the first report of fDPSC isolation and in vitro characterization

A novel hanging spherical drop system for the generation of cellular spheroids and high throughput combinatorial drug screening

We propose a novel hanging spherical drop system for anchoring arrays of droplets of cell suspension based on the use of biomimetic superhydrophobic flat substrates, with controlled positional adhesion and minimum contact with a solid substrate. By facing down the platform, it was possible to generate independent spheroid bodies in a high throughput manner, in order to mimic in vivo tumour models on the lab-on-chip scale. To validate this system for drug screening purposes, the toxicity of the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin in cell spheroids was tested and compared to cells in 2D culture. The advantages presented by this platform, such as feasibility of the system and the ability to control the size uniformity of the spheroid, emphasize its potential to be used as a new low cost toolbox for high-throughput drug screening and in cell or tissue engineering.The authors thank the precious help of Alessandra Zonari and Rui Domingues for capturing the confocal images. The authors acknowledge the financial support from the FCT-Fundacao para a Ciencia e para a Tecnologia through the Ph.D. grants with the references SFRH/BD/73119/2010, SFRH/BD/69529/2010 and SFRH/BD/71396/2010. We acknowledge the financial support of FEDER through the program Operacional Factores de Competitividade - COMPETE and from FCT - the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia under the project PTDC/CTM-BIO/1814/2012. We also thank the support by the European Research Council grant agreement ERC-2012-ADG 20120216-321266 for the project ComplexiTE

Consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for fish products with health and environmental labels: Evidence from five european countries

Seafood products are important sources of protein and components of a healthy and sustainable diet. Understanding consumers’ preferences for fish products is crucial for increasing fish consumption. This article reports the consumer preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for different fish species and attributes on representative samples in five European countries (n = 2509): France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Consumer choices were investigated for fresh fish in a retail market under hypothetical situations arranged by a labelled choice experiment conducted for seven fish species: Cod, herring, seabass, seabream, salmon, trout, and pangasius. The results show the highest premiums for wild-caught fish than farm-raised alternatives. Ready-to-cook products are generally preferred to whole fish, whereas fish fillet preference is more species-specific. The results show positive premiums for a sustainability label and nutrition and health claims, with high heterogeneity across countries and species. With consumers’ preferences and WTP being largely country-and fish-dependent, businesses (fish companies, retailers, and others) should consider the specific market context and adapt their labelling strategies accordingly. Public authorities campaigns should inform consumers about the tangible benefits related with health and environmental labels