Maturing the Old: Sophie's Journey towards Self-Recognition in Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

The proliferation of the Children’s Literature novels by Diana Wynne Jones has converted her into a prominent figure in the fantastic genre. Although several scholars have researched diverse aspects of Jones’s narratives, there may still be approaches to adopt. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse the book Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) by the abovementioned author and examine the protagonist Sophie’s transition from having a self-imposed personality to finding her true identity. To that end, we will firstly examine the biography of the author. Secondly, we will briefly explain the categorisation of Fantasy, followed by a contextualisation of this literary genre in the second half of the 20th century in comparison with Jones’s own standpoint as an avant-garde writer. Thirdly, we will focus on the aforesaid novel in relation to the importance of names, the opposition of fate and free will, and finally, Sophie’s search of her original identity. Lastly, we will provide a summary of the main conclusions we have previously come to regarding the entire journey

La Presencia de la mujer en las carreras tecnológicas

El presente artículo realiza un estudio estadístico de la presencia de la mujer en las carreras tecnológicas. Inicialmente, mostraremos la situación de las mujeres en las universidades españolas y compararemos estos resultados con los de las universidades europeas. A continuación, analizaremos la distribución de las mujeres en las diferentes áreas y comentaremos los factores que motivan la elección de su carrera universitaria. Posteriormente, analizaremos los datos de las mujeres matriculadas en las carreras tecnológicas para primer, segundo y tercer ciclo en España y, concretamente, en la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC). A continuación, mostraremos los datos de la presencia de mujeres en el doctorado y el máster del Departamento de Arquitectura de Computadores (DAC) de la UPC. Como veremos, los datos reflejan una situación que durante años ha tenido un comportamiento bastante homogéneo. A la vista de los resultados, cuestionaremos la necesidad e importancia de la presencia de las mujeres en las carreras tecnológicas. Finalmente, comentaremos algunas acciones para promocionar la presencia de las mujeres en las carreras tecnológicas. Citaremos algunas acciones que ya se están llevando a cabo en algunos de los centros en los cuáles impartimos docencia.Peer Reviewe

Is Active Voice Enough? Community Discussions on Passive Voice, MMIWG2S, and Violence against Urban Indigenous Women in San José, California

Men commit violence against Native American women at higher rates than other racial or ethnic groups. When violence against Indigenous women is discussed and written about, it is often in passive voice. Several scholars note the problem of using passive voice to talk about violence against women, but there is little research on how women themselves understand passive voice as connected to the violence perpetrated against them, and we found no literature on how Native women understand passive voice. This research asks how urban Native and Indigenous women understand passive language in relationship to violence. The authors, who are all members of the Red Earth Women’s Society (REWS), took up this conversation with urban Indigenous women in San José, California, in a year-long series of meetings that culminated in three focus-group discussions (FGD)/talking circles (TC) where Native women expressed their understanding of passive language and violence against Native women. From these exploratory talking circles, we found that Native women’s understanding of passive voice aligned with previous research on passive voice, but also contributed new insights

Maturing the Old: Sophie's Journey towards Self-Recognition in Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

The proliferation of the Children’s Literature novels by Diana Wynne Jones has converted her into a prominent figure in the fantastic genre. Although several scholars have researched diverse aspects of Jones’s narratives, there may still be approaches to adopt. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to analyse the book Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) by the abovementioned author and examine the protagonist Sophie’s transition from having a self-imposed personality to finding her true identity. To that end, we will firstly examine the biography of the author. Secondly, we will briefly explain the categorisation of Fantasy, followed by a contextualisation of this literary genre in the second half of the 20th century in comparison with Jones’s own standpoint as an avant-garde writer. Thirdly, we will focus on the aforesaid novel in relation to the importance of names, the opposition of fate and free will, and finally, Sophie’s search of her original identity. Lastly, we will provide a summary of the main conclusions we have previously come to regarding the entire journey

Papel de la serina treonina quinasa "altered disjunction (ald)" en la regulación de la integridad epitelial y progresión tumoral

Tesis doctoral inédita. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias, Departamento de Biología Molecular. Fecha de lectura: 21-06-201

The British public atitude survey regarding inflation and interest rates

The importance of achieving the price stability objective consists in remaining the inflation expectations close to the inflation target in the medium term. As part of its price stability objective, the Bank of England has the task of achieving a 2% inflation target, measured by the annual change in the consumer price index. Regarding these facts, the inflation expectations play a key role in the household and business decision because the inflation expectations are very important for the wage negotiation, and because inflation expectations play an important role in household’s savings decisions. In this article we focus upon the Bank of England / GfK NOP Attitude Survey. The first section deals with some aspects as: the random location, the sample design, the selection of the respondents and the confidence limits for observed survey data. The second section debates the latest trends in household inflation perceptions and expectations. The final section summarizes the public’s attitudes to interest rates and the conduct of the monetary policy.price stability, inflation risk, inflation expectations

Semantic Characterization of Context of Use and Contents for User-Centric Media Retrieval

When users access online media, they need and desire to get an experience tailored to their specific, personal context and situation. This is becoming more and more relevant with the ever-increasing amount of available contents users may choose from. In order to provide user-centric functionalities (such as relevant searches, content adaptation, customization and recommendation), both the annotation of contents with semantically rich metadata and an accurate model of the individual users and their respective contexts of use are needed. In this context, we propose a solution to automatically characterize both the context of use and the contents. It provides dynamic, adaptive user models, with explicit and implicit information; as well as content descriptors that may be later used to match the most suitable contents for each user. Users always keep a pivotal role throughout the whole process: providing new contents, contributing to moderated folks onomies, overseeing their own user model, etc

Modelado Semántico y Centrado en el Usuario de Servicios Adaptados al Contexto de Uso

Cuando los usuarios acceden a servicios telemáticos, esperan obtener experiencias cada vez más adaptadas a su contexto específico, en especial, ante la gran cantidad de contenidos en línea a su alcance a través de dichos servicios. Para que estos servicios proporcionen funcionalidades centradas en el usuario –por ejemplo, búsquedas relevantes, adaptación de contenidos, personalización y recomendación– es necesario que los contenidos estén anotados semánticamente y disponer de un modelo preciso que represente al usuario y su contexto de uso. En este escenario, presentamos un marco genérico de servicios centrados en el usuario basado en la caracterización semántica de los usuarios y su mapeo con los contenidos. En concreto, aplicamos dicho marco a un buscador semántico que caracteriza automáticamente tanto los contenidos a los que los usuarios pueden acceder como el contexto de uso desde el que se accede. La solución propuesta incluye modelos de usuario dinámicos y adaptativos, con información explícita e implícita; así como descriptores de los contenidos que pueden utilizarse para determinar cuáles son más adecuados para cada usuari

Servicios Centrados en el Usuario Basados en la Caracterización Semántica de los Contenidos y del Contexto de Uso.

Cuando los usuarios acceden a servicios telemáticos, esperan obtener experiencias cada vez más adaptadas a su contexto y situación específicos. Esto adquiere especial relevancia al aumentar la cantidad de contenidos en línea al alcance de los usuarios a través de dichos servicios. Con el fin de que los servicios telemáticos proporcionen funcionalidades centradas en el usuario –como, por ejemplo, búsquedas relevantes, adaptación de contenidos, personalización y recomendación– es necesario que los contenidos estén correctamente anotados (enriquecidos con metadatos semánticos) y disponer de un modelo preciso que represente al usuario junto con su respectivo contexto de uso. En este escenario, presentamos un marco genérico de servicios centrados en el usuario a partir de su caracterización semántica y del mapeo a los contenidos. En concreto, aplicamos dicho marco a un buscador semántico que caracteriza automáticamente tanto los contenidos a los que los usuarios pueden acceder como el contexto de uso desde el que acceden. La solución propuesta incluye, pues, modelos de usuario dinámicos y adaptativos, con información explícita e implícita; así como descriptores de los contenidos que pueden utilizarse para determinar cuáles son más adecuados para cada usuario. Durante todo este proceso, los usuarios mantienen un rol fundamental: proveyendo nuevos contenidos, contribuyendo a folksonomías moderadas, supervisando su propio modelo de usuario, etc

Extracting knowledge through friendsourcing: application to new financial services

Personalization has become a key factor for the success of new ICT services. However, the personal information required is not always available in a single site, but scattered in heterogeneous sources, and extracting knowledge from raw information is not an easy job. As a result, many organizations struggle to obtain knowledge on their users useful enough for their business purposes. This paper introduces a comprehensive personal data framework that opens the knowledge extraction process up to collaboration by the involvement of new actors, while enabling users to monitor and control it. The contributions have been validated in a financial services scenario where socioeconomic knowledge on some users is generated by tapping into their social network and used to assists them in raising money from their friends