From Faking It to Making It: The Art of Cultural Adaptation in the Caribbean

This dissertation investigates tendencies of cultural negotiation and adaptation within a Caribbean context. Appropriately, it examines adapted texts, such as novel to film or biography to musical, and looks at sociocultural adaptive mechanisms as a means of coping with a colonial past and neocolonial present. Through my analyses of a variety of original texts and their visual adaptations, I map evolving cross-cultural perceptions of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and cultural exploitation. While drawing theories from Adaptation Studies, I aim to promote a more inclusive, well-rounded logic of how cultural discourses in the Caribbean gain strength and are reified in culture

Naturalism, Murder, and Identity in Three Short Stories of Ramon Ferreira

En sus varios cuentos premiados el autor cubano Ramón Ferreira le enseña a su lector el lado más oscuro y violento de la sociedad cubana de manera crudamente verosímil. Durante la época en que escribió, entre 1950 y 1960, mientras que el país sufría turbulencia política y social, Ferreira creaba historias sensacionalistas que mostraban escenas de asesinatos, ladrones, prejuicios, obsesiones, vicios, y cuestiones relacionadas con la falta de justicia en Cuba. Desde Cuba, Ferreira se inspiró en la evolución y el gran viaje del naturalismo que comenzó en Francia con Zola, pasando por España con Pardo Bazán, Sudamérica con varios como el chileno Augusto d\u27Halmar y la peruana Clorinda Matto de Turner, el Caribe con el puertorriqueño Matías González García y cubano Carlos Loveira, y transformándose en los Estados Unidos con autores como Frank Norris y Theodore Dreiser, para nombrar algunos. El naturalismo ha hecho un viaje extenso y cambiante desde su nacimiento, mostrando pequeñas modificaciones en el género con cada autor naturalista. Ramón Ferreira, [1921/2007] también se inclinaba hacia esta tendencia. Nació en la misma tierra que Emilia Pardo Bazán y vivió allí antes de mudarse a Cuba a los ocho años de edad, y estudió fotografía en los Estados Unidos cuando era joven, por lo que disfrutó de amplias oportunidades para informarse de las tendencias naturalistas internacionales, especialmente las de la primera parte del siglo XX. Muchas formas del naturalismo se inspiraron en la expansión y la industrialización de las ciudades. De manera semejante, en sus cuentos Ferreira nos lleva a la ciudad vibrante y cambiante de la Habana en que varios tipos de gente y sus distintas peculiaridades chocan. Para él, la Habana se convirtió en el ambiente perfecto para demostrar las debilidades de la sociedad de la época debido a la mezcla de gente tan variada. Así, el crimen, la violencia, el racismo, los prejuicios, el machismo, el choque entre las clases sociales y los estereotipos de la sociedad se transformaron en sus temas prominentes. En sus cuentos vemos cómo estas tensiones alienaban a los grupos `marginalizados\u27 de Cuba, impidiéndoles participar en la sociedad modernizada, por lo que se creaba una gran desventaja para esa gente diferente por sus ideales, su sexo, o su raza. Estas diferencias eran a menudo saldadas con la violencia. Aunque Ferreira se enfocaba en el ángulo grotesco de los abandonados de la época, en vez de enfocarse en el horror del acto criminal, subraya el ambiente social y la situación desventajosa de los protagonistas. Con esta técnica, Ferreira logró mostrar en la ciudad, en sus palabras, la penuria del lugar, el aspecto miserable de la gente, el estado ruinoso de sus casas, su ingenuidad al hablar, la zonas más oscuras del prejuicio, las leyes tiránicas impuestas por una sociedad machista, y la desesperación de los menos favorecidos forzados a luchar para sobrevivir (Papá, cuéntame, vii). En mi análisis de tres cuentos - Lazo de oro, Cita a las nueve, y Sueño sin nombre -- investigaré la manera en que el autor representa la violencia inspirada por la búsqueda de identidad, o más específicamente, por el asesino, durante estos tiempos de cambio social. Muestro cómo Ferreira aprovecha del naturalismo para explorar las capas menos favorecidas de la sociedad cubana

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Effects of fluoxetine on functional outcomes after acute stroke (FOCUS): a pragmatic, double-blind, randomised, controlled trial

Background Results of small trials indicate that fluoxetine might improve functional outcomes after stroke. The FOCUS trial aimed to provide a precise estimate of these effects. Methods FOCUS was a pragmatic, multicentre, parallel group, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial done at 103 hospitals in the UK. Patients were eligible if they were aged 18 years or older, had a clinical stroke diagnosis, were enrolled and randomly assigned between 2 days and 15 days after onset, and had focal neurological deficits. Patients were randomly allocated fluoxetine 20 mg or matching placebo orally once daily for 6 months via a web-based system by use of a minimisation algorithm. The primary outcome was functional status, measured with the modified Rankin Scale (mRS), at 6 months. Patients, carers, health-care staff, and the trial team were masked to treatment allocation. Functional status was assessed at 6 months and 12 months after randomisation. Patients were analysed according to their treatment allocation. This trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN83290762. Findings Between Sept 10, 2012, and March 31, 2017, 3127 patients were recruited. 1564 patients were allocated fluoxetine and 1563 allocated placebo. mRS data at 6 months were available for 1553 (99·3%) patients in each treatment group. The distribution across mRS categories at 6 months was similar in the fluoxetine and placebo groups (common odds ratio adjusted for minimisation variables 0·951 [95% CI 0·839–1·079]; p=0·439). Patients allocated fluoxetine were less likely than those allocated placebo to develop new depression by 6 months (210 [13·43%] patients vs 269 [17·21%]; difference 3·78% [95% CI 1·26–6·30]; p=0·0033), but they had more bone fractures (45 [2·88%] vs 23 [1·47%]; difference 1·41% [95% CI 0·38–2·43]; p=0·0070). There were no significant differences in any other event at 6 or 12 months. Interpretation Fluoxetine 20 mg given daily for 6 months after acute stroke does not seem to improve functional outcomes. Although the treatment reduced the occurrence of depression, it increased the frequency of bone fractures. These results do not support the routine use of fluoxetine either for the prevention of post-stroke depression or to promote recovery of function. Funding UK Stroke Association and NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme