Un clàssic del feminisme en català: La condició de la dona de Juliet Mitchell

Aquest article estudia la recepció a Catalunya d’una de les fundadores del pensament feminista contemporani: Juliet Mitchell. Les contribucions d’aquesta autora van ser fonamentals per a establir els límits de la relació entre el feminisme, el socialisme i la psicoanàlisi als anys setanta. Un dels seus llibres més importants, Woman’s State, es va publicar l’any 1971. En disposem d’una traducció catalana realitzada per Josep Vallverdú, sis anys després: La condició de la dona; el mateix any es va publicar La condición de la mujer, amb traducció de Julieta Diéguez Garza (es tracta d’una reedició per a la península d’una primera edició realitzada a Mèxic l’any 1974). En aquest estudi s’analitza la traducció catalana i es reflexiona sobre la seva importància en un context en què calia abastir de clàssics l’incipient teixit associatiu feminista.

Numerical schemes of diffusion asymptotics and moment closures for kinetic equations

We investigate different models that are intended to describe the small mean free path regime of a kinetic equation, a particular attention being paid to the moment closure by entropy minimization. We introduce a specific asymptotic-induced numerical strategy which is able to treat the stiff terms of the asymptotic diffusive regime. We evaluate on numerics the performances of the method and the abilities of the reduced models to capture the main features of the full kinetic equation.

Application of standard and refined heat balance integral methods to one-dimensional Stefan problems

The work in this paper concerns the study of conventional and refined heat balance integral methods for a number of phase change problems. These include standard test problems, both with one and two phase changes, which have exact solutions to enable us to test the accuracy of the approximate solutions. We also consider situations where no analytical solution is available and compare these to numerical solutions. It is popular to use a quadratic profile as an approximation of the temperature, but we show that a cubic profile, seldom considered in the literature, is far more accurate in most circumstances. In addition, the refined integral method can give greater improvement still and we develop a variation on this method which turns out to be optimal in some cases. We assess which integral method is better for various problems, showing that it is largely dependent on the specified boundary conditions.

Application of the combined integral method to Stefan problems

In this paper we present a new, accurate form of the heat balance integral method, termed the Combined Integral Method (or CIM). The application of this method to Stefan problems is discussed. For simple test cases the results are compared with exact and asymptotic limits. In particular, it is shown that the CIM is more accurate than the second order, large Stefan number, perturbation solution for a wide range of Stefan numbers. In the initial examples it is shown that the CIM reduces the standard problem, consisting of a PDE defined over a domain specified by an ODE, to the solution of one or two algebraic equations. The latter examples, where the boundary temperature varies with time, reduce to a set of three first order ODEs.

Improving the accuracy of heat balance integral methods applied to thermal problems with time dependent boundary conditions

In this paper the two main drawbacks of the heat balance integral methods are examined. Firstly we investigate the choice of approximating function. For a standard polynomial form it is shown that combining the Heat Balance and Refined Integral methods to determine the power of the highest order term will either lead to the same, or more often, greatly improved accuracy on standard methods. Secondly we examine thermal problems with a time-dependent boundary condition. In doing so we develop a logarithmic approximating function. This new function allows us to model moving peaks in the temperature profile, a feature that previous heat balance methods cannot capture. If the boundary temperature varies so that at some time t & 0 it equals the far-field temperature, then standard methods predict that the temperature is everywhere at this constant value. The new method predicts the correct behaviour. It is also shown that this function provides even more accurate results, when coupled with the new CIM, than the polynomial profile. Analysis primarily focuses on a specified constant boundary temperature and is then extended to constant flux, Newton cooling and time dependent boundary conditions.

PANG 3D

El projecte consisteix en una versió 3D del famós joc Pang. El joc original va ser publicat per Mitchell, una companyia que ja no existeix, el 1989 en format COIN-OP1. Des de la seva data de publicació va representar un gran èxit de públic i de vendes per a la companyia, que en va treure algunes versions més.

Modelling the cardiovascular system for automatic interpretation of the blood pressure curve

A four compartment model of the cardiovascular system is developed. To allow for easy interpretation and to minimise the number of parameters, an effort was made to keep the model as simple as possible. A sensitivity analysis is first carried out to determine which are the most important model parameters to characterise the blood pressure signal. A four stage process is then described which accurately determines all parameter values. This process is applied to data from three patients and good agreement is shown in all cases.

SGP-1: prediction and validation of homologous genes based on sequence alignments

Conventional methods of gene prediction rely on the recognition of DNA-sequence signals, the coding potential or the comparison of a genomic sequence with a cDNA, EST, or protein database. Reasons for limited accuracy in many circumstances are species-specific training and the incompleteness of reference databases. Lately, comparative genome analysis has attracted increasing attention. Several analysis tools that are based on human/mouse comparisons are already available. Here, we present a program for the prediction of protein-coding genes, termed SGP-1 (Syntenic Gene Prediction), which is based on the similarity of homologous genomic sequences. In contrast to most existing tools, the accuracy of SGP-1 depends little on species-specific properties such as codon usage or the nucleotide distribution. SGP-1 may therefore be applied to nonstandard model organisms in vertebrates as well as in plants, without the need for extensive parameter training. In addition to predicting genes in large-scale genomic sequences, the program may be useful to validate gene structure annotations from databases. To this end, SGP-1 output also contains comparisons between predicted and annotated gene structures in HTML format. The program can be accessed via a Web server at http://soft.ice.mpg.de/sgp-1. The source code, written in ANSI C, is available on request from the authors.

André spectral sequences for Baues-Wirsching cohomology of categories

We construct spectral sequences in the framework of Baues-Wirsching cohomology and homology for functors between small categories and analyze particular cases including Grothendieck fibrations. We also give applications to more classical cohomology and homology theories including Hochschild-Mitchell cohomology and those studied before by Watts, Roos, Quillen and others

Hedwig and The Angry Inch: el Plató més alternatiu

L'objectiu d'aquest article és mostrar com un mite antic, el mite dels tres gèneres, també anomenat de l'androgin de l'Aristòfanes del Simposi de Plató, esdevé per a John Cameron Mitchell la imatge adient per a explicar l'especial personalitat d'un home, Hedwig, que esdevé mitjançant una operació un androgin imperfecte, però que simbolitza la possibilitat d'una humanitat unida o l'acostament de móns diferents, de la mateixa manera que ell va pertànyer a les dues Berlín dividides per un mur que ara ja ha caigut, quedant restablerta així la unitat perduda.

Hedwig and The Angry Inch: el Platón más alternativo

El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cómo un mito antiguo, el mito de los tres géneros, también llamado del andrógino del Aristófanes del Simposio de Platón, deviene para John Cameron Mitchell la imagen idónea para explicar la personalidad especial de un hombre, Hedwig, que se convierte mediante una operación en un andrógino imperfecto, pero que simboliza la posibilidad de una humanidad unida o el acercamiento de mundos diferentes, al igual que él perteneció a las dos Berlín divididas por un muro que ahora ya ha caído, restableciéndose así la unidad perdida.

Hedwig and The Angry Inch: Plato at the Sundance Film Festival

The aim of this article is to show how an ancient myth, that of the three genres, also known as the myth of the androgynous by Aristophanes in Plato¿s Symposium, becomes for John Cameron Mitchell the suitable image in order to explain the peculiar personality of a man, Hedwig, who by means of a surgical operation becomes in his turn an imperfect androgynous but symbolises the need of a sole mankind or the unity of different worlds, just as he belonged to both Berlins divided by an already fallen wall, which permitted their inhabitants to recover their lost unity and identity.

Simple holographic polarogram

A new technique capable of obtaining quantitative values of the rotation angle of the polarization vector by using holography is presented. This is a two-stage holographic process; during the recording stage a hologram of the object of interest is obtained. The reference beam is composed of two beams that form a small angle between them and keep their polarization states at right angles to each other. In the reconstruction stage of the hologram, two images from the hologram are obtained along two different angles. As a result of the interference between these two images, a set of parallel fringes is formed at the image plane. The fringe contrast on the reconstruction is related to the angle of the polarization vector of the light at each position on the image plane. Measurements of the rotation of the polarization angle of a fraction of a degree were obtained. The main application of this technique is in the study of transient phenomena, where single-shot measurements are the only means of obtaining reliable data.

Gone with the Wind and the Southern Way of Life: the Civil War as described in Margaret Mitchell’s Novel

This essay examines the American Civil War of 1861 – 1865, which is also known as the bloodiest war that the United States has ever experienced. The pretext for the war was the abolition of slavery in the South, and after many battles the Southern states lost: as a consequence, they experienced major changes in their economic and social life. This interesting piece from American history can be traced out throughout the characters’ lives in the novel Gone with the Wind which has been thoroughly analyzed in order to draw nearer and to comprehend the changes in the Southern way of life before and after the war. The author, Margaret Mitchell, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up with the stories about the war. As a result, Gone with the Wind studies not only its causes, but also the years after its end – a period which is not generally a subject of history and receives little attention – and the effects that such reversals have on former planters and slaves. From the position of contemporaneity, the reader can see that such changes in a society do not end with the laying down of an act, or in this case the end of the war, but they continue during many years; thus, the modern world can draw conclusions and lessons for events that are happening at the moment.