Queer Bodies: Homoeroticism, Sensuality, And Erotica In Postmodern Fine Art Photography

The queer body– describes the sum of assumptions and biases attributed to queer people, whereby a person’s own queer identity or expression is overshadowed by the generalizations, (mis)perceptions, and stereotypes that society imposes on that individual. Central to the scope of this thesis is the reality whereby the ostracization of queer people involves the association between the very body of the queer person with sexual acts deemed both deviant and immoral by a cis-heteronormative society. Society renders the queer body as pejoratively deviant simply on the basis of its existence alone, where any form of varied gender or sexual expression is viewed as damaging to preestablished societal values and norms. There is a relationship between the queer body and post-modern photography from the 1980s and early 90s, which illustrates the implications of subtext on an artist\u27s work, the dichotomy of pornography and fine art, objectification, and fetishization, government censorship of ‘obscene’ works and body taboo as a subversive tool used by queer artists who sought to disrupt the status quo of a heteronormative society bent on continued ostracization of queer people and queer subject matter from public display

Els negotiatores de Narbona i el vi català

La relació entre epigrafia amfòrica i epigrafia lapidària ha permès la identificació de certs personatges que sembla que hagin participat en el comerç del vi català. La seva procedència, Narbona, documenta, d'una banda, la important funció comercial d'aquesta ciutat en època d'August, però també la seva relació amb la difusió i la comercialització del vi català a França.Some names on amphoric stamps and headstones have made possible to identify some people who seem to have played a role in the trade of Catalonian wine. Their origo, Narbonne, show, not only the importance of this city in commerce in the age of Augustus, sed also its connection with distribution and trade of Catalonian wine in France

Vertical Product Line Extension Strategies: An Evaluation of Brand Halo Effect according to Range Level

International audienceThe brand halo effect for vertical product line extensions is analyzed using the central nucleus theory. The empirical study is based on experimentation linked to six brands in the automotive sector. This research shows that central brand associations are transferred to the vertical product line extension regardless of range level-low, middle or high-end range-and that such transference systematically reinforces linkages between such associations and the product line extensions. In contrast, the transfer of peripheral associations appears to be range-dependent, increasing or decreasing linkages between such associations and the product line extension according to the range level considered

Star formation in the giant HII regions of M101

The molecular components of three giant HII regions (NGC 5461, NGC 5462, NGC 5471) in the galaxy M101 are investigated with new observations from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the NRAO 12-meter, and the Owens Valley millimeter array. Of the three HII regions, only NGC 5461 had previously been detected in CO emission. We calculate preliminary values for the molecular mass of the GMCs in NGC 5461 by assuming a CO-to-H_2 factor (X factor) and then compare these values with the virial masses. We conclude that the data in this paper demonstrate for the first time that the value of X may decrease in regions with intense star formation. The molecular mass for the association of clouds in NGC 5461 is approximately 3x10^7 Mo and is accompanied by 1-2 times as much atomic mass. The observed CO emission in NGC 5461 is an order of magnitude stronger than in NGC 5462, while it was not possible to detect molecular gas toward NGC 5471 with the JCMT. An even larger ratio of atomic to molecular gas in NGC 5471 was observed, which might be attributed to efficient conversion of molecular to atomic gas. The masses of the individual clouds in NGC 5461, which are gravitationally bound, cover a range of (2-8) x 10^5 Mo, comparable with the masses of Galactic giant molecular clouds (GMCs). Higher star forming efficiencies, and not massive clouds, appear to be the prerequisite for the formation of the large number of stars whose radiation is required to produce the giant HII regions in M101.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Service Recommendations with Deep Learning: A Study on Neural Collaborative Engines

Background: The present paper aims to investigate the adoption of Neural Networks for recommendation systems and to propose Deep Learning architectures as advanced frameworks for designing Collaborative Filtering engines. Recommendation systems are data-driven infrastructures which are widely adopted to create effective and cutting-edge smart services, allowing to personalize the value proposition and adapt it to changes and variations in customers’ preferences. Method: Our research represents an exploratory investigation on the adoption of Neural Networks for Recommendation Systems, inspired by the findings of a recent study on service science that highlighted the suitability of those models for designing cutting-edge recommenders capable of overcoming stable traditional benchmarks like the Singular Value Decomposition and the k-Nearest Neighbors algorithms. Following this study, we designed a more “complex” Feed-Forward Neural Network, trained on the “Movielens 100K” dataset using the Mean-Squared Error function to approximate the model loss generated and the Adaptive Moment Estimation algorithm (Adam) for the parameters optimization. Results: The results of this study demonstrate the primary role of Feed-Forward Neural Networks for designing advanced Collaborative recommenders, consolidating and even improving the outcomes of the work that inspired our research. Conclusion: Given these assumptions, we confirm the suitability of Feed-Forward Neural Networks as effective recommendation algorithms, laying the foundations for further studies in neural-based recommendation science