Realidad y ficción en las novelas de Mayra Montero: un acercamiento desde el nuevo periodismo

Esta tesis estudia seis de las novelas de la escritora cubano-puertorriqueña Mayra Montero desde las teorías del nuevo periodismo. En los textos narrativos de esta escritora se percibe una estrecha relación entre literatura y periodismo; la autora ha confesado en varias entrevistas que sus novelas surgen a menudo como resultado de un complejo proceso de investigación y de documentación sobre algún asunto que ha llamado poderosamente su atención. Ese suceso o conjunto de sucesos reales e históricos son el punto de partida sobre el que se apoya para construir unos relatos en los que se funde la información factual y contrastable con lo imaginado y lo inventado, que pertenece propiamente al mundo de la ficción. De esta primera constatación, brota el impulso para investigar y analizar los puntos de tangencia entre periodismo y ficción en la autora caribeña. Para ello hemos recurrido a las diferentes teorías sobre el nuevo periodismo y sobre los distintos tipos de novela que funden, en variadas dosis, realidad e imaginación. El recorrido por la narrativa de Montero nos ha permitido identificar las numerosas coincidencias y puntos de contacto entre formas discursivas pertenecientes a esferas y ámbitos diferentes, haciendo posible, además, que se pueda aquilatar cuidadosamente para cada caso el peso de cada uno de los componentes en lo que es en verdad un delicado juego de equilibrios. En las conclusiones destacamos que la novelas estudiadas no pueden ser consideradas ejemplos del nuevo periodismo ¿excepto quizá en un caso-, pero el haber puesto en juego ese marco conceptual no ha resultado un trabajo vano, pues ha servido para identificar algunos de los hilos con los que la autora ha trenzado sus novelas. Además, el recorrido detallado que hemos realizado a través de su narrativa mayor ha servido también para identificar algunas de las recurrencias temáticas, estructurales y técnicas que otorgan a la novelística de la escritora una particular coherencia y unidad, más allá de los asuntos puntuales que aborda en cada uno de sus textos. En el primer capítulo, se presenta un esbozo biográfico de la escritora, su obra periodística, y otros textos narrativos que no se incluyen en el estudio sobre el nuevo periodismo; abarca, asimismo, el marco teórico en el que se presentan las características del género y sus principales teóricos. En los capítulos subsiguientes se analizan las seis novelas que constituyen el corpus del estudio y se señalan, en cada uno, las múltiples tangencias entre formas discursivas pertenecientes a los distintos campos. En el segundo capítulo se estudian las tres novelas haitianas; en el tercero, las dos novelas cubanas; en el cuarto capítulo, la novela puertorriqueña. Por último, se incluyen las conclusiones y la bibliografía.Departamento de Literatura Española y Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparad

Integrated therapeutic services for children and young people with special needs

El objetivo fue determinar la efectividad de los servicios ofrecidos a niños, niñas y jóvenes con necesidades especiales en las áreas de psicología, terapia ocupacional y del habla-lenguaje en el contexto de un proyecto de base comunitaria. La investigación utilizó el enfoque multimetódico concurrente. Evaluó una muestra de 24 expedientes seleccionados al azar de todas las disciplinas. Se diseñaron dos plantillas (clínica y escolar) para obtener los datos de los expedientes. Entre los resultados se pueden mencionar que, más frecuencia de utilización tuvo la terapia ocupacional con un 79,2%, la terapia psicológica con un 54,2%, la terapia de hablalenguaje con un 37,5% y la de expresión creativa con un 16,7%. Respecto a la participación de los especialistas en las discusiones de casos, el 45,8% fueron en el área de psicología, el 29,2% en terapia ocupacional, el 12,5% en habla-lenguaje y el 4,2% en expresión creativa. El estudio alcanzó el 85% de los objetivos terapéuticos y logró que el 52% de las personas participantes aumentaran su desempeño escolar. Algunas conclusiones son: 1) que se cumplieron las metas terapéuticas del proyecto para cada una de las intervenciones; 2) que a pesar de que hubo cambios de terapeutas hubo consistencia en el progreso terapéutico; 3) la necesidad de reevaluar el peso de los aspectos psicosociales como factor que facilita u obstaculiza la terapia y, 4) confirmamos la necesidad de cambiar de un modelo de prevención a una perspectiva de refortalecimiento para el desarrollo de este tipo de proyectos.The objective was to determine the effectiveness of the offered services to children and youth with special needs in psychology, occupational therapy and speech-language areas in the context of a communitybased project. The research used the concurrent multi-method approach. A sample of 24 randomly selected files from all disciplines was assessed. To gain the data from the files, two templates (clinical and school-related) were designed. The results included that the area most often used was the occupational therapy with 79,2 %, the psychological therapy with 54,2 %, the speech-language therapy with 37,5 % and creative expression with 16,7 %. Regarding to the specialists participation in the discussions of cases, 45,8 % were in the area of psychology, 29,2 % in occupational therapy, 12,5 % in speechlanguage and 4,2 % in creative expression. The study reached 85 % of therapeutic goals and allowed that 52 % of the participants show an increase in their school performance. Some conclusions are: 1) the therapeutic goals of the project for each of the interventions were met; 2) even though some therapists were replaced there was consistency in the therapeutic progress; 3) there is a need to reevaluate the weight of the psychosocial aspects as factors that facilitate or hinders therapy, and 4) we confirm the need to change from a prevention model to a perspective of reinvigoration for the development of such projects

Natural vocalizations in the mammalian inferior colliculus are broadly encoded by a small number of independent multi-unit clusters

How complex natural sounds are represented by the main converging center of the auditory midbrain, the central inferior colliculus, is an open question. We applied neural discrimination to determine the variation of detailed encoding of individual vocalizations across the best frequency gradient of the central inferior colliculus. The analysis was based on collective responses from several neurons. These multi-unit spike trains were recorded from guinea pigs exposed to a spectrotemporally rich set of eleven species-specific vocalizations. Spike trains of disparate units from the same recording were combined in order to investigate whether groups of multi-unit clusters represent the whole set of vocalizations more reliably than only one unit, and whether temporal response correlations between them facilitate an unambiguous neural representation of the vocalizations. We found a spatial distribution of the capability to accurately encode groups of vocalizations across the best frequency gradient. Different vocalizations are optimally discriminated at different locations of the best frequency gradient. Furthermore, groups of a few multi-unit clusters yield improved discrimination over only one multi-unit cluster between all tested vocalizations. However, temporal response correlations between units do not yield better discrimination. Our study is based on a large set of units of simultaneously recorded responses from several guinea pigs and electrode insertion positions. Our findings suggest abroadly distributed code for behaviorally relevant vocalizations in the mammalian inferior colliculus.Responses from a few non-interacting units are sufficient to faithfully represent the whole set of studied vocalizations with diverse spectrotemporal properties

Spectrotemporal Processing in Spectral Tuning Modules of Cat Primary Auditory Cortex

Spectral integration properties show topographical order in cat primary auditory cortex (AI). Along the iso-frequency domain, regions with predominantly narrowly tuned (NT) neurons are segregated from regions with more broadly tuned (BT) neurons, forming distinct processing modules. Despite their prominent spatial segregation, spectrotemporal processing has not been compared for these regions. We identified these NT and BT regions with broad-band ripple stimuli and characterized processing differences between them using both spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) and nonlinear stimulus/firing rate transformations. The durations of STRF excitatory and inhibitory subfields were shorter and the best temporal modulation frequencies were higher for BT neurons than for NT neurons. For NT neurons, the bandwidth of excitatory and inhibitory subfields was matched, whereas for BT neurons it was not. Phase locking and feature selectivity were higher for NT neurons. Properties of the nonlinearities showed only slight differences across the bandwidth modules. These results indicate fundamental differences in spectrotemporal preferences - and thus distinct physiological functions - for neurons in BT and NT spectral integration modules. However, some global processing aspects, such as spectrotemporal interactions and nonlinear input/output behavior, appear to be similar for both neuronal subgroups. The findings suggest that spectral integration modules in AI differ in what specific stimulus aspects are processed, but they are similar in the manner in which stimulus information is processed

Neural correlates of indicators of sound change in Cantonese: evidence from cortical and subcortical processes

Across time, languages undergo changes in phonetic, syntactic and semantic dimensions. Social, cognitive and cultural factors contribute to sound change, a phenomenon in which the phonetics of a language undergo changes over time. Individuals who misperceive and produce speech in a slightly divergent manner (called innovators) contribute to variability in the society, eventually leading to sound change. However, the cause of variability in these individuals is still unknown. In this study, we examined whether such misperceptions are represented in neural processes of the auditory system. We investigated behavioral, subcortical (via FFR), and cortical (via P300) manifestations of sound change processing in Cantonese, a Chinese language in which several lexical tones are merging. Across the merging categories, we observed a similar gradation of speech perception abilities in both behavior and the brain (subcortical and cortical processes). Further, we also found that behavioral evidence of tone merging correlated with subjects’ encoding at the subcortical and cortical levels. These findings indicate that tone-merger categories, that are indicators of sound change in Cantonese, are represented neurophysiologically with high fidelity. Using our results, we speculate that innovators encode speech in a slightly deviant neurophysiological manner, and thus produce speech divergently that eventually spreads across the community and contributes to sound change

A Threshold Equation for Action Potential Initiation

In central neurons, the threshold for spike initiation can depend on the stimulus and varies between cells and between recording sites in a given cell, but it is unclear what mechanisms underlie this variability. Properties of ionic channels are likely to play a role in threshold modulation. We examined in models the influence of Na channel activation, inactivation, slow voltage-gated channels and synaptic conductances on spike threshold. We propose a threshold equation which quantifies the contribution of all these mechanisms. It provides an instantaneous time-varying value of the threshold, which applies to neurons with fluctuating inputs. We deduce a differential equation for the threshold, similar to the equations of gating variables in the Hodgkin-Huxley formalism, which describes how the spike threshold varies with the membrane potential, depending on channel properties. We find that spike threshold depends logarithmically on Na channel density, and that Na channel inactivation and K channels can dynamically modulate it in an adaptive way: the threshold increases with membrane potential and after every action potential. Our equation was validated with simulations of a previously published multicompartemental model of spike initiation. Finally, we observed that threshold variability in models depends crucially on the shape of the Na activation function near spike initiation (about −55 mV), while its parameters are adjusted near half-activation voltage (about −30 mV), which might explain why many models exhibit little threshold variability, contrary to experimental observations. We conclude that ionic channels can account for large variations in spike threshold

Spiking network optimized for word recognition in noise predicts auditory system hierarchy

The auditory neural code is resilient to acoustic variability and capable of recognizing sounds amongst competing sound sources, yet, the transformations enabling noise robust abilities are largely unknown. We report that a hierarchical spiking neural network (HSNN) optimized to maximize word recognition accuracy in noise and multiple talkers predicts organizational hierarchy of the ascending auditory pathway. Comparisons with data from auditory nerve, midbrain, thalamus and cortex reveals that the optimal HSNN predicts several transformations of the ascending auditory pathway including a sequential loss of temporal resolution and synchronization ability, increasing sparseness, and selectivity. The optimal organizational scheme enhances performance by selectively filtering out noise and fast temporal cues such as voicing periodicity, that are not directly relevant to the word recognition task. An identical network arranged to enable high information transfer fails to predict auditory pathway organization and has substantially poorer performance. Furthermore, conventional single-layer linear and nonlinear receptive field networks that capture the overall feature extraction of the HSNN fail to achieve similar performance. The findings suggest that the auditory pathway hierarchy and its sequential nonlinear feature extraction computations enhance relevant cues while removing non-informative sources of noise, thus enhancing the representation of sounds in noise impoverished conditions