bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Revisiting Isabelle Eberhardt’s Lettres et Journaliers
Authors: Barsoum Marlène
Published: April 2014

Isabelle Eberhardt is considered the first Maghrebian writer of French expression (Edmonde Charles-Roux), not only because she traveled in the Maghreb and wrote in French, but rather because she had adopted the Maghreb as her permanent home, embraced its culture, and was an outspoken critic of colonization. Eberhardt traveled extensively in North Africa, at the turn of the twentieth century, and related her experiences in Lettres et Journaliers . This article examines how Eberhardt represents notions of trespass and the creation of the Other in relation to the colonial project. It also invites the reader to reconsider her life and writing from a contemporary perspective by viewing her travel narrative as a memoir of exile and dislocation and by framing the traveler in the context of a cosmopolitan discourse.
Alcestes and Her Sisters: Feminism, Sorority and Tragedy in Yourcenar and Simone’s Alcestes
Authors: Poniewaz Keith A.
Published: April 2014

This article examines the uses of tragedy for exploring the position of women in two adaptations of the Alcestes myth. The article begins with an analysis of Simone de Beauvoir’s use of tragedy (particularly in Le deuxième sexe ), and contextualizes her thinking on the tragic within her contemporaries’ analyses of tragedy and tragic myths. This analysis provides the background for interpretations of plays by Madame Simone (Pauline Porché) and Marguerite Yourcenar. Reading Simone and Yourcenar’s Alcestes adaptations in terms of the reception history of the tragic heroine, the paper shows that these plays explore notions of sorority and female agency in tragic myth to suggest a new pre-history for understanding the complex and under-theorized relationships between tragedy and French feminism.
« Vite elle se referme » : L’opacité dans Le Livre d’Emma de Marie-Célie Agnant
Authors: Curtis Lesley S.
Published: April 2014

Le Livre d’Emma (2001) de Marie-Célie Agnant soutient et développe la notion de l’opacité d’Édouard Glissant. Pour ce dernier, l’opacité sert à déjouer la réduction à l’uniformité de l’Autre qui fait partie des efforts occidentaux de comprendre l’Autre. L’idéal glissantien d’une coexistence des opacités nécessite l’acceptation de l’Autre sans le réduire aux normes imposées par une culture donnée. La protagoniste du roman d’Agnant, Emma Bratte, une Haïtienne hantée par les horreurs de la traite, nous suggère que cet idéal des opacités puisse être un modèle pour un monde véritablement post colonial. Or, le roman approfondit cette notion en montrant qu’il faut être l’auteur de sa propre opacité, qu’un désir de se faire comprendre limite l’efficacité de l’opacité d’une façon qui est parfois utile, et, enfin, que le passé et le présent, même s’ils sont opaques l’un vis-à-vis de l’autre, doivent coexister si l’on espère dépasser les horreurs et les effets continus du passé colonial.
ph-auto•bio•graphie : Ecrire La Vie Par Des Photos (Annie Ernaux)
Authors: Bacholle-Bošković Michèle
Published: April 2014

Cet article examine comment le « photojournal », qu’Annie Ernaux a choisi de faire figurer en tête de son recueil Écrire la vie (2011), a complexifié l’usage de la photo que l’écrivaine a fait dans son œuvre. Un dialogue s’établit en effet entre ces photos (visuelles) et les photos en prose déjà « connotées » – pour reprendre le terme de Barthes – dans d’autres textes. Avec le photojournal , Ernaux élargit son écriture autobiographique et représente le « Temps écrasé » barthésien. Puisqu’elle considère cette entreprise « phototextuelle » comme « [u]ne façon d’ouvrir un espace autobiographique différent » ( Écrire 8), nous offrons, pour la qualifier, le terme de ph-auto-bio-graphie pour lequel nous proposons en outre un pacte de lecture. Si photographie et autobiographie se marient ici comme dans la « photobiographie » de Gilles Mora, la ph-auto-biographie diffère de celle-ci dans la mesure où la pratique ernalienne a une visée et une portée universelles. Il s’agit bien par les photos d’écrire

la

vie, et non juste

sa

vie.
The Case for the Courtesan Novel Sub-Genre: Counter-Discourse and Intertextuality in de Chabrillan, de la Bigne, and de Pougy
Authors: Sullivan Courtney A.
Published: April 2014

This essay makes the case for a courtesan novel, a sub-genre of popular fiction by renowned demi - mondaines in France from the Second Empire through the Belle Époque, who challenged in their novels Alexandre Dumas's portrayal of Marguerite in his La Dame aux camélias (1848), claiming that this work do not only promotes unrealistic stereotypes of courtesans, but also harmful ones. After defining the characteristics of the genre, this essay examines the way Céleste de Chabrillan, who famously privileged the courtesan's response to her own alienation in her autobiographical Adieux au monde (1854) and her fictional la Sapho , inspired Louise (“Valtesse”) de la Bigne (who wrote as “Ego”) to also up her pen to write courtesan fiction just as her protegée Liane de Pougy would during the Belle Époque. In Isola , Ego paints the competitive and aspersive demi - monde at the dawn of the Belle Époque. The work, now long-forgotten, though popular when first released, entices readers with its efforts to humanize the demi - mondaine , to underscore the societal hypocrisies that fuel its existence, and to refute the stereotypes of the courtesan as a venal and heartless creature.
Entretien avec Yamina Benguigui. Retour sur Mémoires d’immigrés: l’heritage maghrébin
Authors: Mosher Sarah E.
Published: April 2014

Dans cette entrevue qui a eu lieu le 2 septembre, 2010 à Suresnes, France, la réalisatrice franco-algérienne, Yamina Benguigui parle de sa carrière, ses films, et la lutte contre la discrimination en France. Sorti en 1997, son premier film Mémoires d’immigrés: l’héritage maghrébin est le premier documentaire à traiter du sujet de l’immigration maghrébine en France. En particulier Benguigui discute la réception du film en France et dans le monde entier, aussi bien que le rôle du cinéma engagé créé par des femmes arabo-musulmanes dans la période postcoloniale.
Less is Gore: Graphic Violence in the Fiction of Judith Gautier
Authors: Starr Juliana
Published: April 2014

The exceptionally beautiful Judith Gautier (1845–1917), daughter of Théophile Gautier and Italian opera diva Ernesta Grisi, was raised in the epicenter of Europe’s literary and artistic avant-garde. Among the weekly visitors to her parents’ home were Flaubert, Baudelaire, Delacroix, Dumas, Taine, Mallarmé, Puivis de Chavannes, and the Goncourt brothers. She became a best-selling novelist, an early champion of Richard Wagner, a successful journalist, musicologist and art critic, a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and the first woman elected to the prestigious Goncourt Academy. She was instrumental in introducing Europeans to both Chinese and Japanese poetry. Yet, despite these fascinating and remarkable achievements, critical studies devoted to her are limited to a handful of articles. I attempt to correct this oversight by examining the prominent place accorded to gore, gruesomeness, and the macabre in her works. In so doing, I hope to show how these texts, through their deft handling of traditionally “masculine” subject matter, not only provided an entrée to the rarefied, male-dominated world of nineteenth-century French letters, but also articulated a unique theory of the novel—one that sees fiction writing above all as the expression of the violence inherent to and existing inside representation itself.
Being Spike Jonze: Intertextuality and convergence in film, music video and advertising
Authors: Annesley James
Published: April 2014

For many, the films of Spike Jonze are metafictional works that rearticulate established postmodernist debates about ontology and identity. This article rejects these views and suggests that Jonze’s interest in metaphysical play is better explained as an engagement with the blurred boundaries of an increasingly convergent culture. Considering his advertisements and music videos alongside Being John Malkovich (Jonze, 1999) and Adaptation (Jonze, 2002) and reflecting upon the thematic and stylistic continuities that link them all together, the suggestion is that for Jonze these different practices can be read as parts of a creative whole. Made in a common production context, using a shared genepool of production staff and talent, and financed by media companies that are themselves continually merging and hybridizing, Jonze’s stories about celebrity and cinema do not just open ‘a metaphysical can of worms’, but speak more broadly about an environment in which the distinctions between the film business and other parts of the media are increasingly meaningless. The implication is that in narratives preoccupied with the ways in which supposedly different terrains bleed into each other, Jonze’s films, music videos and commercials offer a self-conscious vision of the intertextuality of the contemporary mediascape.
The tactical improvisation of space in the contemporary Hollywood action sequence
Authors: Jones Nick
Published: April 2014

This article applies the insights of Michel de Certeau’s influential text of sociological analysis The Practice of Everyday Life to the action sequences of contemporary Hollywood cinema. In so doing it demonstrates the extent to which these sequences can be read as spectacular displays of the spatial appropriation that de Certeau suggests characterize everyday life. For de Certeau, the everyday is controlled by bureaucratic and out-of-reach structures, their strategies of control dependent on the production of restrictive spaces; the individual, however, is able to gain agency through self-directed movement within these structures. In this way, simple acts such as walking and cooking become expressions of personal freedom within capitalist society. This article will illustrate the affinity between de Certeau’s ‘pedestrian tactics’ and the more outlandish feats of the action protagonists of a variety of Hollywood blockbusters. These protagonists temporarily appropriate space from monolithic controlling entities in a similar manner, Die Hard 4.0 (Wiseman, 2007), the Bourne trilogy (Liman, 2002; Greengrass, 2004, 2007) and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Bird, 2011) being representative examples of this process. Across these films independent individuals use ingenuity and improvisation to outmanoeuvre agents of systemic control, liberating themselves from spatial restrictions. In presenting such spectacular occupations the action genre and action sequence relate potentially alienating architectural spaces to the bodily coordinates of viewers, who can consequently take pleasure from the display of successful tactical actions within highly regulated environments. However, and in line with close readings of de Certeau, the article will conclude by investigating how tactics might be seen as inevitably and unavoidably subsumed within rigid strategic frameworks in the contexts of both everyday life and the action film.
Between colony and nation: Decolonial visions in Hong Kong independent cinema
Authors: Lee Vivian P. Y.
Published: April 2014

Deepening integration of Hong Kong’s commercial film production with Mainland China and the apparently inevitable marginalization of local-content films in the last ten years or so call for closer attention to the role and significance of independent films. As a critical art form, independent cinema in Hong Kong constitutes an alternative cultural space where artistic experimentation and sociopolitical critique generally avoided in mainstream productions are still actively pursued. Drawing upon recent writings on the Hong Kong independent film scene, this article explores the way in which independent films critically engage with the double hegemony of the national and the colonial in the postcolonial present. It argues that coloniality in Hong Kong is the result of the dual processes of British colonialism and decolonization in the name of ‘one country, two systems’, which effectively brings together the utilitarian aspirations and institutional excesses of colonial capitalism and socialist capitalism. Against this background, selected works by film-makers at different stages of their creative careers will be examined to shed light on the way in which decolonial visual thinking operates in the film text to intervene in the colonial/national discourse of history and identity in the post-handover era.
And then as farce: Globalization and ambivalence in Jo Nesbø and Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters (2011)
Authors: Archer Neil
Published: April 2014

This article will consider the aesthetic strategies of genre dialogue and parody in Morten Tyldum’s 2011 film Hodejegerne/Headhunters, based on the novel by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø. Situating the film within trans-national practices of production and distribution, the article argues that Tyldum and Nesbø’s film establishes a critical dialogue with its genre, its cinematic intertexts and the aesthetics of contemporary popular film. This dialogue in turn reflects and works through an ambivalence towards its own film-making contexts, and the socio-economic contexts of the global financial crisis within which both novel and film were produced. The article contends that such close study of the film’s ambivalent form provides a clearer picture of the practical issues confronting commercial cinema practices, in their efforts to negotiate national cinematic identity within a trans-national marketplace; as well as arguing for a more nuanced view of the way we read recent trends in the wider reception and discussion of popular world cinemas.
Reviews
Authors: Wide Thomas , Olszewska Zuzanna , Rogers Anna Backman , Basea Erato , Wroot Jonathan
Published: April 2014

Afghanistan in the Cinema, Mark Graham (2010) Urbana, Chicago and Springfield: Illinois University Press, 196 pp., ISBN: 9780252077128, p/bk, £14.99

‘Afghanistan, Good Governance and the Media’, seminar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 8 July 2011

Deleuze and the Cinemas of Performance: Powers of Affection, Elena Del Río (2012) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 240 pp., ISBN-13: 9780748649419, p/bk, £22.99

Deleuze and World Cinema, David Martin-Jones (2011) London: Continuum, 270 pp., ISBN-13: 9780826436429, p/bk, £19.99

Deleuze and Film, David Martin-Jones and William Brown (eds) (2012) Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 236 pp., ISBN-13: 9780748641208, p/bk, £21.99

Out of Time: Desire in Atemporal Cinema, Todd Mcgowan (2011) Minneapolis, London: University of Minneapolis Press, ix+285pp., ISBN: 9780816669967, p/bk, $25.00

Framing Film: Cinema and The Visual Arts, Steven Allen And Laura Hubner (eds) (2012) Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 273 pp., ISBN: 9781841505077, p/bk, £19.95
Small screen and big screen: Mobile film-making in Australasia
Authors: Schleser Max R. C. , Wilson Gavin , Keep Dean
Published: April 2014

Over the past decade, technological advances have enabled the transformation of mobile phones with built-in cameras into sophisticated digital media tools (smartphones), capable of recording, editing and sharing high definition video content across global communication networks. Advances in smartphone technologies, and in particular increased lens quality, data memory and improved camera functionality, have arguably contributed to the emergence of a new kind of film-maker who recognizes and exploits the creative potential presented by camera phones. In this article, the authors will examine the challenges and perceived opportunities for film-makers using camera phones in an Australasian media context, including the ways in which camera phones may facilitate innovative practices around the production, sharing and viewing of digital films. The subsequent emergence of dedicated festivals for the screening of video content captured on camera phones is driving interest in new forms, new genres and new practices in film-making. We outline ways in which these festivals provide ‘amateur’ and independent film-makers, along with audiences, with a vital platform to initiate discussion, debate and the sharing of video content produced by film-makers from culturally diverse backgrounds.
Mobile media, participation culture and the digital vernacular: 24-hours.in and the democratization of documentary
Authors: Vickers Richard
Published: April 2014

This article discusses the convergence of media technologies, participation culture and the new vernacular of mobile device photography. The author and Lincoln School of Media colleague, James Field, are developing a participatory interactive documentary project entitled 24-hours.in (www.24-hours.in), exploring new opportunities for participation, collaboration and the potential democratization of documentary production. Utilizing user-generated video captured on mobile phones and smart devices, the project is participatory whereby the audience contributes documentary videos around the theme of 24 hours in a city or location. With reference to Džiga Vertov’s seminal 1929 documentary film Man with a Movie Camera, the intention is for the videos to document the cities, the people that live there and their daily lives. The aim of the project is to have an open and collaborative platform to which anyone can contribute; for the audience as ‘user-producers’ to document their city or location, the people that live there and their daily lives. Building on Vertovian concepts, the project explores the potential the ubiquitous camera-phone ‘eye’ may offer for a unique and cumulative version of ‘cinema-truth’ to emerge. By exploring a model of participation we have moved away from the authorship of a single person towards mass authorship and a collaborative montage vision, and in doing so revisit Vertov’s aspirations for the democratization not just of technology but also of creativity.
The panorama between mobile visual platforms is a sentimental bond
Authors: David Gaby
Published: April 2014

Technically, mobile images belong to the ‘point-and-shoot’ tradition. In this scheme, mobile visual applications have facilitated changes in both the aesthetic qualities of mobile images and their effortless sharing. This mobile technology has developed hand-in-hand with its many different imaginable uses; for instance, mobile modalities allowing families and friends to communicate enable the formation of strong audio-visual bonds. This type of ‘mobile visual habitus’ is created through various sharing channels and can activate creativity, affection and social networks. Taking into account the intimacy involved in the use of mobile visual apps, this article seeks to shed light on aspects of this everyday affective mobile visual usage. How does mobile technology change our relationships with our own mobile visualities, our strong ties (i.e., bonds with friends and family), and thus our own audio-visual private history construction and those of our loved ones? As this question is overly broad, no exact answer or position can be determined. Nevertheless, through micro-social networking examples, I intend to analyse how usage of mobile visual apps will continue to change, influencing and enlarging possible methods of communication and engagement through and with private mobile images. These overarching practices will definitely continue to have an increasing impact in connection with broader cultural and social changes.
Remediating Vertov: Man with a movie camera phone
Authors: Keep Dean , Berry Marsha
Published: April 2014

Using Džiga Vertov’s seminal experimental film Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), as the central text for this practice-led research, the authors have produced short experimental video works that explore cities through the lens of the mobile phone-camera. In this article the authors investigate the creative possibilities of camera-phone technology, and how in turn these technologies may extend or give rise to new modes of experimental and/or hybrid cinematic forms. With particular reference to the authors’ mobile videos (Spatial Threshold and Lifts), this article discusses the aesthetics, constraints and opportunities presented by camera-phone technologies and how these factors may influence the production of experimental mobile video.
‘E Vaine Toa’
Authors: Curley Karen , Schleser Max R. C.
Published: April 2014

“E Vaine Toa” was filmed and edited on location in Rarotonga during a 10 day production in November 2012. Working in collaboration with a mobile filmmaking crew from Massey University, Wellington and the Cook Islands National Council of Woman this mobile-mentary (mobile documentary) captures the voice of women in the Cook Islands and encourages their participation in governance and leadership.
The ELVSS files: International collaboration in mobile movie-making
Authors: Wagner Daniel
Published: April 2014

In March 2012, 40 students in three countries collaboratively engaged in trans-national movie-making with their mobile phones. In this global experiment, dubbed ‘Entertainment Lab for the Very Small Screen’ (ELVSS), the international teams (each containing members from all three countries) employed Web 2.0 platforms (Alexander 2006) to collaborate across space and time, creating mobile movies that explored issues around environmental sustainability.
The distributed artist
Authors: Rabe Benjamin
Published: April 2014

With powerful mobile computers in our pockets we are but at the beginning of not only letting creativity re-enter our daily routine (through the use of mobile devices), but also of embracing data as a new material, using electrons instead of atoms to reach out to and touch the observer. Artwork created in this way will become less static and eternal, and more interwoven and adaptable as we keep changing.
24 Frames 24 Hours
Authors: Schleser Max R. C. , Turnidge Tim
Published: April 2014

24 Frames 24 Hours defines mobile film-making in a cultural context. The study draws on new paradigms of participation and simultaneously analyses creative processes while developing connections in the local community in a global perspective. Besides the aesthetic refinement of mobile film-making, the research project is a prototype for community involvement through creative practices. Local communities engage in mobile film-making and shape representations about their communities and futures. Through a custom-design, user-interface with GPS functionality, mobile videos will be linked into a global collaborative documentary project. Innovation will manifest itself in leveraging into twenty-first-century creativity and new forms of self-expression.
HONO, the first digital storytelling and mobile-phone workshop with rangatahi
Authors: Antonczak Laurent
Published: April 2014

The project is called HONO (a kupu Māori/Maori word that can be translated to mean ‘to connect’), and it invites rangatahi to connect more meaningfully and relevantly with their communities using digital tools. On 14 September 2012, a team of rangatahi Māori got together to shoot two short documentaries using mobile phones. HONO, the first digital storytelling and mobile phone workshop with rangatahi was set over three days. It included full immersion on Hoani Waititi Marae for two days, and some working sessions with great (and ‘fast learner’) teenagers, which led to the production of a series of short mobile video stories produced with smartphones (Nokia X3 and iPhone 4S), which were edited into two final mobile-mentaries (Schleser 2011). HONO consisted of three parts: ‘Immersion and initiation’, ‘Filming and creation’ and ‘Editing and production’.
The pathos of the city: Wearable mobile technologies in public health
Authors: Rodrigues Lucena Tiago Franklin , Fleury Rosa Suélia Rodrigues , Rodrigues Mendes Cristiano Jacques Miosso , Gallicchio Domingues Diana Maria
Published: April 2014

The article describes the process of creation of a sensorized insole built with biomaterials (latex from Havea brasilienses) as a mobile wearable device. The insole will acquire physiological data (galvanic skin response, foot pressure, temperature) combined with locative systems (GPS) to create a kind of ‘emotional living map’ of the city. The system is enactive: Varela et al. define the concept, as the situation when ‘organism and environment enfold into each other and unfold from one another in the fundamental circularity that is life itself’. Previous tests show the insole is a good personal health assistant, especially for people with diabetes (who are potentially affected by foot ulcers). The biomaterial and pressure sensors used can predict some of the areas most affected and contribute to healing. An artistic background is also presented to show how artists using different technologies created the debate about art versus urban space versus body. Locative media art practices also contribute to the exploration of the dynamic processes used to create different maps. The project is a result of transdisciplinary research between arts and technoscience, and involves the collaboration between artists and biomedical engineers and other scientists from the Art and TechnoScience Laboratory and the Engineering and Innovation Laboratory (both at Gama College of the University of Brasilia) in collaboration with MediaLab – MIT-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Camera Culture Group).
Globalization, culture, class and mobile phone usage
Authors: Ciochetto Lynne
Published: April 2014

This article is intended to address a deficit in current information about new technology user patterns in the ‘developing world’. Western media primarily focuses on high-income western industrialized societies and ignores most other counties. Reporting on the Third World, especially Africa, is preoccupied with disasters, famines and conflict (disaster porn). General information and good news stories about the Third World are seen as of ‘low interest’ to western audiences. Research into patterns of media use in the field of cultural studies also tends to be preoccupied with developed countries, and recently there has been particular focus on the iPhone. This article explores the diversity in the international profile of mobile phone users across cultures and classes using seven case studies: Kenya, India, Brazil, China, Russia, New Zealand and the United States. This study is intended to demonstrate – through a review of literature and information from international databases – how user patterns vary widely cross-culturally, even in developed countries. The explanation for these variations is traced back to economics, cultural values and the wider socio-political context. Patterns in mobile phone use are closely related to social class and incomes, which in turn reflect the way people work and use their leisure time. Major differences occur between owning a mobile phone – or ‘feature phone’ – versus a smartphone. In the past, mobile phone usage was limited to texting and calling plus a few other features, while smartphones offer a much greater diversity of functions because of their access to the Internet. Differences between the two types of phone are diminishing as more mobile phones have access to the mobile web. The relatively high cost of smartphones means income levels play a key role in patterns of ownership. Because standards of living are higher in the developed world the class background of smartphone users is broader than in the developing world where ownership is concentrated in the affluent and middle classes. Cost remains the major consideration in most countries. In 2013 the popularity of the iPhone is being challenged by new competition from Samsung, as competition between ‘features’ intensifies.
Building egalitarian communities of communication through mobile ad hoc networks
Authors: Puchades Wenceslao García
Published: April 2014

This article intends to highlight the concept of egalitarian communities of communication through the latest developments of mobile technology and peer-to-peer (P2P) communication networks. With the help of the French author Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophical theory on the ‘inoperative community’, we will try to show how a community of communication among equals depends on its members’ anonymity, its infinite openness and its ubiquity. Taking these features as a starting point we will analyse how we can consider the so-called mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) as a real and paradigmatic model of ‘inoperative community’. Our aim is to propose the infrastructure underlying these networks as a model of a community of communication among equals, since it enables the anonymity, openness and ubiquity of its members.
Aesthetic disruptions: Mobile audio-visual experiences from urban peripheries of Rio de Janeiro
Authors: Leroux Liliane , Clinio Anne
Published: April 2014

This article focuses on the contemporary dissemination of audio-visual mobile technologies in Brazil, which interweave aesthetics, politics and culture. Signs of the phenomenon come from the do-it-yourself practices adopted in the daily lives of individuals and groups previously excluded from a broad access to cultural consumption and production. This new scenario happens as a result of the increasing embedding of mobile technologies in daily routines, and of the emergence of a networked culture that eradicates people’s dichotomous positions, such as transmitter/receptor, or active/passive. Based on concepts of heterotopia, we investigate a movement where cultural placements are simultaneously represented, contested and inverted. Our aim is to reflect on two issues: first, how audio-visual creation, through the propagation of mobile devices, becomes tactile material for anyone in urban slums and peripheral areas of Brazil; and second, the process of (self) creation that takes place through the engagement of these communities in film production. Based on the work of Jacques Rancière, we depart from the assumption that there is an equality postulated by art as the equal ability of anyone to experience any kind of life by exceeding the limits of what is expected of body, perception and affection.
Development and psychometric study to the Scale of Organizational Sources of Stress on Teaching in Higher Education
Authors: Jordão Filomena , Aragão Angélica
Published: May 2014

Working environments given the great instability and turbulence of modern times, have become more demanding and stressful for most workers. Specifically in higher education teaching context this phenomenon is alarmingly increasing (Winefield, 2000). For this reason, we consider important to acknowledge the potential sources of stress in specific working contexts, given the role that this knowledge might have on the assumption of preventive primary and secondary intervention measures on occupational stress, which are themselves the most efficient ones (Lamontagne, Keegel, Louie, Ostry, & Landsbergis, 2007).The purpose of this study is to develop an instrument and carry out a preliminary psychometric study to the Scale of Organizational Sources of Stress on Teaching in Higher Education. We based the development of the scale on literature review and on the results of content analysis of individual interviews to higher education academics. Initially composed by 28 items, the scale was applied to 236 academics of public and private higher education organizations (university and polytechnic) in Oporto. After the exploratory factor analysis and the internal consistency analysis of the factors extracted, which collectively explain 55,4% of total variance, the scale was composed by 20 items grouped into four factors: characteristics of the job (α = .87), organizational climate (α = .85), career development (α = .78) and working conditions (α = .74). The final factors structure reveals a discriminating power between the factors, which leads us to believe that the scale is able to differentiate the various sources of stress in this type of work contexts. Studies to validate the scale nationwide are now a priority.
A psicologia como neurociência cognitiva: Implicações para a compreensão dos processos básicos e suas aplicações
Authors: Gonçalves Óscar F. , Sampaio Adriana , Mesquita Ana , Petrosyan Annie , Pinheiro Ana P. , Carvalho Sandra , Leite Jorge , Coutinho Joana , Osório Ana , Oliveira-Silva Patrícia
Published: May 2014

O presente artigo procura ilustrar o modo como os desenvolvimentos das neurociências cognitivas poderão ajudar a compreender alguns dos processos psicológicos básicos e, simultaneamente, ser traduzidos para importantes domínios da psicologia aplicada, particularmente no domínio clínico. Exemplificaremos a partir de algumas linhas de investigação programática em curso nas diferentes subsecções do Laboratório de Neuropsicofisiologia da Escola de Psicologia da Universidade do Minho. As potencialidades metodológicas proporcionadas pela neurofisiologia, neuroimagiologia, neuromodelação, psicofisiologia, neurobioquímica e neurogenética serão exemplificadas nas suas aplicações à linguagem (e suas implicações para a compreensão da esquizofrenia), funcionamento sócio-cognitivo (e implicações para a compreensão das perturbações do neurodesenvolvimento), funcionamento executivo (com implicações para a compreensão das perturbações do espectro obsessivo), empatia (e implicações para a compreensão da psicoterapia), mecanismos de stress (com implicações para a compreensão das perturbações de ansiedade), e, finalmente, comportamento animal (com implicações para o conhecimento dos sistemas sensoriais e perceptuais).
The Anterior Cingulate Gyrus Signals the Net Value of Others' Rewards
Authors: Apps Matthew A. J. , Ramnani Narender
Published: April 2014

Evaluating the costs and benefits of our own choices is central to most forms of decision-making and its mechanisms in the brain are becoming increasingly well understood. To interact successfully in social environments, it is also essential to monitor the rewards that others receive. Previous studies in nonhuman primates have found neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that signal the net value (benefit minus cost) of rewards that will be received oneself and also neurons that signal when a reward will be received by someone else. However, little is understood about the way in which the human brain engages in cost–benefit analyses during social interactions. Does the ACC signal the net value (the benefits minus the costs) of rewards that others will receive? Here, using fMRI, we examined activity time locked to cues that signaled the anticipated reward magnitude (benefit) to be gained and the level of effort (cost) to be incurred either by a subject themselves or by a social confederate. We investigated whether activity in the ACC covaries with the net value of rewards that someone else will receive when that person is required to exert effort for the reward. We show that, although activation in the sulcus of the ACC signaled the costs on all trials, gyral ACC (ACCg) activity varied parametrically only with the net value of rewards gained by others. These results suggest that the ACCgplays an important role in signaling cost–benefit information by signaling the value of others' rewards during social interactions.
How to Infer Relative Fitness from a Sample of Genomic Sequences
Authors: Dayarian Adel , Shraiman Boris I
Published: April 2014

Mounting evidence suggests that natural populations can harbor extensive fitness diversity with numerous genomic loci under selection. It is also known that genealogical trees for populations under selection are quantifiably different from those expected under neutral evolution and described statistically by Kingman’s coalescent. While differences in the statistical structure of genealogies have long been used as a test for the presence of selection, the full extent of the information that they contain has not been exploited. Here we demonstrate that the shape of the reconstructed genealogical tree for a moderately large number of random genomic samples taken from a fitness diverse, but otherwise unstructured, asexual population can be used to predict the relative fitness of individuals within the sample. To achieve this we define a heuristic algorithm, which we test in silico, using simulations of a Wright–Fisher model for a realistic range of mutation rates and selection strength. Our inferred fitness ranking is based on a linear discriminator that identifies rapidly coalescing lineages in the reconstructed tree. Inferred fitness ranking correlates strongly with actual fitness, with a genome in the top 10% ranked being in the top 20% fittest with false discovery rate of 0.1–0.3, depending on the mutation/selection parameters. The ranking also enables us to predict the genotypes that future populations inherit from the present one. While the inference accuracy increases monotonically with sample size, samples of 200 nearly saturate the performance. We propose that our approach can be used for inferring relative fitness of genomes obtained in single-cell sequencing of tumors and in monitoring viral outbreaks.
The Lengths of Admixture Tracts
Authors: Liang Mason , Nielsen Rasmus
Published: April 2014

The distribution of admixture tract lengths has received considerable attention, in part because it can be used to infer the timing of past gene flow events between populations. It is commonly assumed that these lengths can be modeled as independently and identically distributed (iid) exponential random variables. This assumption is fundamental for many popular methods that analyze admixture using hidden Markov models. We compare the expected distribution of admixture tract lengths under a number of population-genetic models to the distribution predicted by the Wright–Fisher model with recombination. We show that under the latter model, the assumption of iid exponential tract lengths does not hold for recent or for ancient admixture events and that relying on this assumption can lead to false positives when inferring the number of admixture events. To further investigate the tract-length distribution, we develop a dyadic interval-based stochastic process for generating admixture tracts. This representation is useful for analyzing admixture tract-length distributions for populations with recent admixture, a scenario in which existing models perform poorly.
Chromosomal Evolution and Patterns of Introgression inHelianthus
Authors: Barb Jessica G , Bowers John E , Renaut Sebastien , Rey Juan I , Knapp Steven J , Rieseberg Loren H , Burke John M
Published: April 2014

Knowledge of the nature and extent of karyotypic differences between species provides insight into the evolutionary history of the genomes in question and, in the case of closely related species, the potential for genetic exchange between taxa. We constructed high-density genetic maps of the silverleaf sunflower (Helianthus argophyllus) and Algodones Dune sunflower (H. niveus ssp. tephrodes) genomes and compared them to a consensus map of cultivated sunflower (H. annuus) to identify chromosomal rearrangements between species. The genetic maps of H. argophyllus and H. niveus ssp. tephrodes included 17 linkage groups each and spanned 1337 and 1478 cM, respectively. Comparative analyses revealed greater divergence between H. annuus and H. niveus ssp. tephrodes (13 inverted segments, 18 translocated segments) than between H. annuus and H. argophyllus (10 inverted segments, 8 translocated segments), consistent with their known phylogenetic relationships. Marker order was conserved across much of the genome, with 83 and 64% of the H. argophyllus and H. niveus ssp. tephrodes genomes, respectively, being syntenic with H. annuus. Population genomic analyses between H. annuus and H. argophyllus, which are sympatric across a portion of the natural range of H. annuus, revealed significantly elevated genetic structure in rearranged portions of the genome, indicating that such rearrangements are associated with restricted gene flow between these two species.
Duodenogastrojejunum Annular Internal Drainage for Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome: A Modified Staveley’s Surgery
Authors: Liu Wen
Published: April 2014

INTRODUCTION: Superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMAS) is caused by acute or chronic compression of the third part of the duodenum in the aortomesenteric angle. Staveley’s duodenojejunostomy (DJ) is an option when conservative management fails. In current case study, we reported a modified technique in treating the young patients who presented with a long-term history of intractable SMAS.

METHODS: Twelve patients presented with history of supper abdominal pain, nausea, distension and postprandial vomiting as well as weight loss. The finding of a significant narrowing of aortomesenteric angle and substantial duodenal compression established by endoscopic ultrasound and contrast-enhanced spiral CT, was in good agreement with a diagnosis of SMAS. Conservative treatment including enteral feeding failed to relieve the symptoms. Five cases were performed by traditional DJ and the other seven patients were applied with a modified DJ by duodenum-gastro-jejunum annular internal drainage. The patient health-related quality of life was evaluated by EQ-5D and SF-12 in all the cases within 1-yr and 3-yr follow ups.

RESULTS: There was no marked intra-abdominal hemorrhage, anastomotic leakage, postoperative infection and stromal hemorrhage / ulcers in all cases. There was no difference with respect to the intraoperative blood loss and urine output, and postoperative emerging time of negative fluid balance between the DJ and modified DJ groups. Compared to the traditional DJ, the modified procedure had an increased operation time (2.67 ± 0.29 vs 1.83 ± 0.29, P=0.03) and surgical stress score (SSS) (0.19 ± 0.02 vs 0.14 ± 0.01, P=0.02). Within postoperative one-month, sixty percent (3 cases) of DJ group had recurrent vomiting and epigastric pain and one patient need reoperation. During the 1-year and 3-year follow-ups, the recurrence cases of intermittent abdominal pain, distension and nausea were two and one respectively in DJ group. The patients in both groups showed increased weight gains in the follow ups. The patients with the modified DJ surgery showed not reflux gastritis, anastomotic ulcer and stricture with a complete relief of symptoms and a relatively higher SF-12 (PCS) compared to the DJ surgery (1-yr: 30.5 ± 3.1 vs 36.9 ± 3.2, P=0.04; 3-yr: 32.1 ± 3.1 vs 38.9 ± 3.2, P=0.04).

CONCLUSION: The case study showed that the modified procedure with duodenum annular internal drainage is feasible in relieving the symptoms when conservative treatment fails in young adults with SMAS. The new procedure increases surgery time and SSS. However, it potentially reduces the recurrence rate and postoperative complications of duodenal obstruction and antiperistalsis and improves quality of life. Further study will be required for effectiveness and safety of the modified procedure in the people with SMAS with longstanding history.
Yield loss and economic thresholds of yellow nutsedge in irrigated rice as a function of the onset of flood irrigation
Authors: Westendorff Nixon da Rosa , Agostinetto Dirceu , Ulguim André da Rosa , Perboni Lais Tessari , Silva Bruno Moncks da
Published: April 2014

Yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) is adapted to flooding and reduces yield in irrigated rice. Information on the competitive ability of this weed with the crop and the size of the economic damage caused is lacking. Mathematical models quantify the damage to crops and support control decision-making. This study aimed to determine yield losses and economic thresholds (ET) of this weed in the culture according to weed population and time of onset of irrigation of the crop. The field study was conducted in the agricultural year of 2010/2011 in Pelotas/RS to evaluate the competitive ability of BRS Querência in competition with different population levels of yellow nutsedge and two periods of onset of flood irrigation (14 and 21 days after emergence). The hyperbolic model satisfactorily estimated yield losses caused by yellow nutsedge. Population of yellow nutsedge was the variable most fitted to the model. The delay of seven days for the beginning of rice irrigation causes decrease in competitive ability of BRS Querência, and based on the ET calculated to the price paid for rice, it is necessary between two and thirteen plants m-2 weed to justify the control in the first and second period of irrigation, respectively. Increases in yield, price paid for rice and control efficiency of the herbicide, besides reduction of costs of controlling promote reduction of ET of yellow nutsedge in rice crops, justifying the adoption of control measures even at smaller weed population.
Fisiologia e produção da soja tratada com cinetina e cálcio sob deficit hídrico e sombreamento
Authors: Fioreze Samuel Luiz , Rodrigues João Domingos , Carneiro João Paulo Costa , Silva André do Amaral , Lima Marcelo Bruno
Published: April 2014

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar o efeito da cinetina e do cálcio sobre as características fisiológicas e produtivas de plantas de soja submetidas a estresses por deficit hídrico e sombreamento na fase de florescimento. Utilizou-se o delineamento de blocos ao acaso, em arranjo de parcelas subdivididas com quatro repetições. Plantas de soja cultivadas em vasos de 38 dm³ foram submetidas à aplicação de cálcio e cinetina, de forma isolada e combinada, no início do florescimento e, em seguida, submetidas a estresse por deficit hídrico e por sombreamento por 12 dias. Após o período de estresse, as plantas foram conduzidas até a maturação com suprimento adequado de água e radiação. A aplicação de cálcio e cinetina promoveu a manutenção do conteúdo relativo de água nas plantas, após quatro dias de deficit hídrico. O extravasamento de eletrólitos celulares, medido ao final do período de estresse, foi menor em plantas tratadas com cálcio e cinetina. A assimilação de CO2 foi reduzida pela imposição do estresse, principalmente do deficit hídrico, e a produção de grãos nos dois ambientes foi reduzida na mesma intensidade.
Capacidade combinatória e parâmetros genéticos de genótipos de pinhão-manso quanto a caracteres morfoagronômicos
Authors: Santana Ulisses Andrade , Carvalho José Luiz Sandez de , Blank Arie Fitzgerald , Silva-Mann Renata
Published: April 2014

O objetivo deste trabalho foi determinar as capacidades geral e específica de combinação, os parâmetros genéticos e a correlação entre caracteres morfoagronômicos, em acessos de pinhão-manso (Jatropha curcas). Utilizou-se o delineamento experimental de blocos ao acaso, com três repetições. Foram avaliados os caracteres: PR, produção de sementes; AP, altura de planta; NRS, número de ramos secundários; NFF, número de flores femininas; DC, diâmetro de colo; P100, massa de 100 sementes; AR, altura de ramificação; e DCO, diâmetro de copa. A capacidade geral de combinação foi significativa para PR, NRS, DC, P100 e AR, enquanto a capacidade específica foi significativa apenas para NFF e NRS. As estimativas de herdabilidade foram superiores a 70%, em NRS, NFF, DC e AR. Observou-se correlações genotípicas positivas entre NRS e DC (0,942), NRS e AP (0,762), NRS e DCO (0,798), NRS e PR (0,759), DC e AP (0,738), DC e DCO (0,844), DC e PR (0,802), e DCO e PR (0,742); e negativas entre NRS e AR (-0,665), e DC e AR (-0,687). O NFF explicou mais de 50% da variação dos híbridos de pinhão-manso. A capacidade geral de combinação é preponderante na maioria das características avaliadas.
Clima organizacional: análise fatorial confirmatória de modelos de mensuração concorrentes
Authors: Kinpara Daniel Ioshiteru , Laros Jacob Arie
Published: April 2014

O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar qual modelo de mensuração para a Escala Clima Organizacional (ECO) ajusta-se melhor aos dados. Quatro modelos concorrentes foram comparados: 1) o modelo de sete fatores de Laros e Puente-Palacios; 2) um modelo de cinco fatores derivado do modelo anterior; 3) um modelo de seis fatores baseado na teoria de campo vital de Lewin; e 4) um modelo de três fatores baseado na teoria de motivação de McClelland. Foram analisados os dados de 9.901 respondentes da ECO. Os resultados de análise fatorial confirmatória indicaram o modelo de três fatores como o melhor. Todos os modelos mostram ajuste suficiente aos dados. Sugere-se que a escolha do modelo baseie-se na finalidade de uso da escala.