Power of the intro:satirical representation of female gender norms and oppression throughout history in the opening sequence of Desperate Housewives

Abstract. Desperate Housewives is one of the most popular television series of our time. In the masculine entertainment industry, a show focusing on women has without doubt raised discussion. Past research has focused only on analyzing gender norms in the characters and the plot of the series, even accusing Desperate Housewives of supporting these old-fashioned models. This study obtains a new angle and aims to prove that through portraying norms Desperate Housewives, in fact, aims to break them and reveal society’s harmful gendered power structures. Furthermore, this study will focus on the show’s opening sequence. 21st century’s opening sequences rely on heavy symbolism and hidden meanings to convey the whole message of the show in a few seconds. Thus, the socio-critical agenda of the show can be identified through examining its symbolic opening. Discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis were used to identify rhetorical devices, symbols, metaphors and hidden meanings in the opening. Results show that Desperate Housewives portrays many female gender norms and gender inequality, for example motherhood, housewifery and housekeeping. The results also prove that Desperate Housewives is in fact a highly socio-critical satire that aims to make a mockery out of the old-fashioned gender norms that it seeks to change.Tiivistelmä. Täydelliset naiset on yksi aikamme suosituimmista televisio-ohjelmista. Miesvaltaisessa viihdeteollisuudessa täysin naisiin keskittyvä ohjelma herättää kiistämättä keskustelua. Aiempi tutkimus on poikkeuksetta keskittynyt analysoimaan sarjan jaksoja ja hahmoja tunnistaen niissä esiintyviä sukupuolinormeja ja -stereotypioita, sekä jopa väittänyt, että Täydelliset naiset tukee näitä vanhentuneita arvoja. Tämä tutkielma ottaa uuden näkökulman ja pyrkii todistamaan, kuinka normeja kuvaamalla Täydelliset naiset todellisuudessa rikkoo niitä ja paljastaa yhteiskunnassamme piileviä haitallisia sukupuolittuneita valtarakenteita. 2000-luvun television alkutekstit sisältävät paljon symbolismia, vertauskuvia ja piiloviestejä, sillä koko ohjelman viesti täytyy tiivistää muutamaan sekuntiin. Täten ohjelman yhteiskuntakriittinen ulottuvuus voidaankin tunnistaa sen alkuteksteistä. Diskurssianalyysin ja kriittisen diskurssianalyysin avulla retoriset keinot, symbolit, vertauskuvat tunnistettiin alkuteksteistä. Tulokset osoittavat, että Täydellisten naisten alkutekstit kuvastavat useita vanhanaikaisia sukupuolirakenteita, naisten sukupuolinormeja ja sukupuolten epätasa-arvoa, kuten normeja äitiydestä, kotirouvuudesta ja kodinhoidosta. Analyysi todistaa myös, että Täydelliset naiset on todellisuudessa yhteiskuntakriittinen satiiri, joka pyrkii stereotypian kautta saattamaan vanhanaikaiset sukupuolinormit epäsuotuisaan valoon

Sampling and PCR method for detecting pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum strains in onion harvest

Fusarium basal rot is a worldwide disease problem in onions, and causes substantial losses in onion production, both during the growing season and in the storage. To minimize the post-harvest losses, a protocol for screening of latent infections with pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum strains from harvested onions was developed. This protocol is based on a dual PCR test with primers specific for the fungal species and new SIX3 primers specific for the onion-pathogenic F. oxysporum strains. A pooled sample containing pieces from 50 harvested symptomless onions was prepared for the dual PCR using microwave disruption of the filamentous Fusarium fungi and Whatman FTA(TM) filter paper matrix technology, or as a reference protocol, by extracting DNA with a commercial kit. The two sample preparation protocols gave consistent results with the tested onion samples. Detection limit of the dual PCR protocol was 100 pg of F. oxysporum DNA, in a mixture with onion DNA, when the FTA card was applied. The new protocol reported here is simple and sensitive enough for routine testing, enabling the detection of latent infections in harvest lots even at the infection levels under 10%. Significance and Impact of the Study Fusarium basal rot causes serious problems in onion production. To minimize post-harvest losses, a simple protocol based on FTA(TM) technology and a dual PCR test with Fusarium oxysporum species-specific and pathogenicity-specific primers was developed. By testing pooled onion samples using this method, latent infections with F. oxysporum can be screened from a representative sample of the harvest. This screening method could be a useful tool to manage the post-harvest losses caused by latent infections with F. oxysporum and, with modification of the PCR protocol, with other Fusarium species pathogenic to onion.Peer reviewe

RIG-I signaling Is essential for influenza B virus-induced rapid interferon gene expression

Influenza B virus causes annual epidemics and, along with influenza A virus, accounts for substantial disease and economic burden throughout the world. Influenza B virus infects only humans and some marine mammals and is not responsible for pandemics, possibly due to a very low frequency of reassortment and a lower evolutionary rate than that of influenza A virus. Influenza B virus has been less studied than influenza A virus, and thus, a comparison of influenza A and B virus infection mechanisms may provide new insight into virus-host interactions. Here we analyzed the early events in influenza B virus infection and interferon (IFN) gene expression in human monocyte-derived macrophages and dendritic cells. We show that influenza B virus induces IFN regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) activation and IFN-λ1 gene expression with faster kinetics than does influenza A virus, without a requirement for viral protein synthesis or replication. Influenza B virus-induced activation of IRF3 required the fusion of viral and endosomal membranes, and nuclear accumulation of IRF3 and viral NP occurred concurrently. In comparison, immediate early IRF3 activation was not observed in influenza A virus-infected macrophages. Experiments with RIG-I-, MDA5-, and RIG-I/MDA5-deficient mouse fibroblasts showed that RIG-I is the critical pattern recognition receptor needed for the influenza B virus-induced activation of IRF3. Our results show that innate immune mechanisms are activated immediately after influenza B virus entry through the endocytic pathway, whereas influenza A virus avoids early IRF3 activation and IFN gene induction. IMPORTANCE Recently, a great deal of interest has been paid to identifying the ligands for RIG-I under conditions of natural infection, as many previous studies have been based on transfection of cells with different types of viral or synthetic RNA structures. We shed light on this question by analyzing the earliest step in innate immune recognition of influenza B virus by human macrophages. We show that influenza B virus induces IRF3 activation, leading to IFN gene expression after viral RNPs (vRNPs) are released into the cytosol and are recognized by RIG-I receptor, meaning that the incoming influenza B virus is already able to activate IFN gene expression. In contrast, influenza A (H3N2) virus failed to activate IRF3 at very early times of infection, suggesting that there are differences in innate immune recognition between influenza A and B viruses

An incremental modular technique for checking LTL-X properties on Petri nets

Model-checking is a powerful and widespread technique for the verification of finite state concurrent systems. However, the main hindrance for wider application of this technique is the well-known state explosion problem. Modular verification is a promising natural approach to tackle this problem. It is based on the "divide and conquer" principle and aims at deducing the properties of the system from those of its components analysed in isolation. Unfortunately, several issues make the use of modular verification techniques difficult in practice. First, deciding how to partition the system into components is not trivial and can have a significant impact on the resources needed for verification. Second, when model-checking a component in isolation, how should the environment of this component be described? In this paper, we address these problems in the framework of model-checking LTL\X action-based properties on Petri nets. We propose an incremental and modular verification approach where the system model is partitioned according to the actions occurring in the property to be verified and where the environment of a component is taken into account using the linear place invariants of the system

Inventory of long and short term future needs of food chain users for future functions of internet

vokKVIKA

Association between birth weight and educational attainment : an individual-based pooled analysis of nine twin cohorts

Background There is evidence that birth weight is positively associated with education, but it remains unclear whether this association is explained by familial environmental factors, genetic factors or the intrauterine environment. We analysed the association between birth weight and educational years within twin pairs, which controls for genetic factors and the environment shared between co-twins. Methods The data were derived from nine twin cohorts in eight countries including 6116 complete twin pairs. The association between birth weight and educational attainment was analysed both between individuals and within pairs using linear regression analyses. Results In between-individual analyses, birth weight was not associated with educational years. Within-pairs analyses revealed positive but modest associations for some sex, zygosity and birth year groups. The greatest association was found in dizygotic (DZ) men (0.65 educational years/kg birth weight, p=0.006); smaller effects of 0.3 educational years/kg birth weight were found within monozygotic (MZ) twins of both sexes and opposite-sex DZ twins. The magnitude of the associations differed by birth year in MZ women and opposite-sex DZ twins, showing a positive association in the 1915-1959 birth cohort but no association in the 1960-1984 birth cohort. Conclusion Although associations are weak and somewhat inconsistent, our results suggest that intrauterine environment may play a role when explaining the association between birth weight and educational attainment.Peer reviewe

Meals in western eating and drinking

Meals are a way of organizing eating into events that have a particular structure and form, and they play an indisputable and even self-evident role within the rhythms and routines of everyday life. In late modern societies, concern about the fate of meals has arisen in both public and academic discourse. It has been suggested that eating is characterized today by individualization, destructuration, and informalization and that communal meals are increasingly being replaced by snacks and solitary eating. This chapter focuses on meals in today’s affluent societies and reflects on why meals are considered important, how meals are defined, and what material elements and social dimensions they contain. It looks at how societal and cultural changes and ecological concerns may influence the organization and future of meals, and it suggests that the content of meals will change in response to the need to diminish the ecological burden of food production and consumption. In particular, plant-based options will at least partly need to replace meat and other animal-based foods. However, there is no reason to expect that the meal as a social institution will break down. Despite the fact that not all meals are characterized by conviviality and companionship, they continue to serve as a significant arena of human sociability and togetherness. Sharing food is, after all, an essential part of being human.Non peer reviewe

Polygenic Scores Predict Alcohol Problems in an Independent Sample and Show Moderation by the Environment

Peer reviewe