Son of depression, man of anxiety : Frank Wheeler's American patriarchal masculinity in Richard Yates's 'Revolutionary Road'

With the beginning of the Cold War, the United States experienced a return to traditional gender roles and to the most extreme patriarchal values. As a result, throughout the 1950s, the United States were mainly sexist and misogynist. Likewise, the hegemonic masculinity of the time, which men had to conform to in order to avoid being ostracized, was extremely demanding and it also exacerbated the gender inequalities. This TFM analyzes Richard Yates's debut novel Revolutionary Road (1961) through the lens of Masculinities Studies, arguing that it criticizes both the gender inequalities and the hegemonic, patriarchal masculinity of 1950s America.Amb l'inici de la Guerra Freda, els Estats Units van experimentar una tornada al rols de gènere tradicionals i als valors patriarcals més extrems. Per això, els Estats Units, durant la dècada dels 50 es van caracteritzar per ser extremadament sexistes i misògins. Tantmateix, la masculinita hegemònica de l'época, a la que els homes havíen d'adaptar-se per tal d'evitar l'ostracisme, era especialment exigent i exacerbava les desigualtats de gènere. En aquest TFM argumento que la novel·la primerenca del Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (1961), és precisament una crítica d'aquests desigualtats de gènere i de la masculinitat hegemònica als Estats Units dels 50.Con el inicio de la Guerra Fría, los Estados Unidos experimentaron una vuelta a los roles de género tradicionales y a los valores patriarcales más extremos. En consecuencia, durante la década de los 50, los Estados Unidos se caracterizaron por ser extremadamente sexistas y misóginos. Así mismo, la masculinidad hegemónica de la época, a la cual los hombres debían adaptarse para evitar el ostracismo, era extremadamente exigente a la vez que exacerbaba las desigualdades de género. En este TFM argumento que la opera prima del novelista Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road (1961), critica, precisamente, las desigualdades de género y la masculinidad hegémonica en los Estados Unidos de los años 50

Static and Dynamic Portfolio Methods for Optimal Planning: An Empirical Analysis

Combining the complementary strengths of several algorithms through portfolio approaches has been demonstrated to be effective in solving a wide range of AI problems. Notably, portfolio techniques have been prominently applied to suboptimal (satisficing) AI planning. Here, we consider the construction of sequential planner portfolios for domainindependent optimal planning. Specifically, we introduce four techniques (three of which are dynamic) for per-instance planner schedule generation using problem instance features, and investigate the usefulness of a range of static and dynamic techniques for combining planners. Our extensive empirical analysis demonstrates the benefits of using static and dynamic sequential portfolios for optimal planning, and provides insights on the most suitable conditions for their fruitful exploitation

Managing financial constraints: Undercapitalization and underwriting capacity in spanish fire insurance

Reinsurance is a vital financial device for enhancing underwriting capacity, ceding risks and mitigating financial distress. By supplying financial resources and services, reinsurance can facilitate growth and expansion in the insurance business. Focusing on the insurance sector in the emerging Spanish economy and using a novel dataset on fire insurance companies, this paper examines the role of fire insurance in the capital formation, the importance of reinsurance as a vehicle for expanding the country’s domestic underwriting capacity, and how the capital import impacted on the balance of payment, from the introduction of the first comprehensive legislation regarding insurance in 1908 to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936. Considering the situation of undercapitalization, the singularities of the insurance market, and the changes in regulatory schemes, we find that foreign reinsurance became a key financial vehicle for increasing the underwriting capacity in Spain. We also show the struggle for an emerging market to find ways to keep balance of current accounts and raise capital when the financial infrastructure is underdeveloped. The diffusion of reinsurance networks from the core of industrial Western countries towards emerging economies was one of the mechanisms for financial modernization on a global scale

Asymmetric Localization of Components and Regulators of the Mitotic Exit Network at Spindle Pole Bodies.

International audienceMost proteins of the Mitotic Exit Network (MEN) and their upstream regulators localize at spindle pole bodies (SPBs) at least in some stages of the cell cycle. Studying the SPB localization of MEN factors has been extremely useful to elucidate their biological roles, organize them in a hierarchical pathway, and define their dynamics under different conditions.Recruitment to SPBs of the small GTPase Tem1 and the downstream kinases Cdc15 and Mob1/Dbf2 is thought to be essential for Cdc14 activation and mitotic exit, while that of the upstream Tem1 regulators (the Kin4 kinase and the GTPase activating protein Bub2-Bfa1) is important for MEN inhibition upon spindle mispositioning. Here, we describe the detailed fluorescence microscopy procedures that we use in our lab to analyze the localization at SPBs of Mitotic Exit Network (MEN) components tagged with GFP or HA epitopes

Automated algorithm selection: survey and perspectives

It has long been observed that for practically any computational problem that has been intensely studied, different instances are best solved using different algorithms. This is particularly pronounced for computationally hard problems, where in most cases, no single algorithm defines the state of the art; instead, there is a set of algorithms with complementary strengths. This performance complementarity can be exploited in various ways, one of which is based on the idea of selecting, from a set of given algorithms, for each problem instance to be solved the one expected to perform best. The task of automatically selecting an algorithm from a given set is known as the per-instance algorithm selection problem and has been intensely studied over the past 15 years, leading to major improvements in the state of the art in solving a growing number of discrete combinatorial problems, including propositional satisfiability and AI planning. Per-instance algorithm selection also shows much promise for boosting performance in solving continuous and mixed discrete/continuous optimisation problems. This survey provides an overview of research in automated algorithm selection, ranging from early and seminal works to recent and promising application areas. Different from earlier work, it covers applications to discrete and continuous problems, and discusses algorithm selection in context with conceptually related approaches, such as algorithm configuration, scheduling, or portfolio selection. Since informative and cheaply computable problem instance features provide the basis for effective per-instance algorithm selection systems, we also provide an overview of such features for discrete and continuous problems. Finally, we provide perspectives on future work in the area and discuss a number of open research challenges.Pascal Kerschke, Holger H. Hoos, Frank Neumann, Heike Trautman