The Perception of American Adolescent Culture Through the Dubbing and Fansubbing of a Selection of US Teen Series from 1990 to 2013

The present dissertation aims at analyzing the construction of American adolescent culture through teen-targeted television series and the shift in perception that occurs as a consequence of the translation process. In light of the recent changes in television production and consumption modes, largely caused by new technologies, this project explores the evolution of Italian audiences, focusing on fansubbing (freely distributed amateur subtitles made by fans for fan consumption) and social viewing (the re-aggregation of television consumption based on social networks and dedicated platforms, rather than on physical presence). These phenomena are symptoms of a sort of ‘viewership 2.0’ and of a new type of active viewing, which calls for a revision of traditional AVT strategies. Using a framework that combines television studies, new media studies, and fandom studies with an approach to AVT based on Descriptive Translation Studies (Toury 1995), this dissertation analyzes the non-Anglophone audience’s growing need to participation in the global dialogue and appropriation process based on US scheduling and informed by the new paradigm of convergence culture, transmedia storytelling, and affective economics (Jenkins 2006 and 2007), as well as the constraints intrinsic to multimodal translation and the different types of linguistic and cultural adaptation performed through dubbing (which tends to be more domesticating; Venuti 1995) and fansubbing (typically more foreignizing). The study analyzes a selection of episodes from six of the most popular teen television series between 1990 and 2013, which has been divided into three ages based on the different modes of television consumption: top-down, pre-Internet consumption (Beverly Hills, 90210, 1990 – 2000), emergence of audience participation (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1997 – 2003; Dawson’s Creek, 1998 – 2003), age of convergence and Viewership 2.0 (Gossip Girl, 2007 – 2012; Glee, 2009 – present; The Big Bang Theory, 2007 - present).

Frontal areas contribute to reduced global coordination of resting-state gamma activities in drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia

Schizophrenia has been postulated to involve impaired neuronal cooperation in large-scale neural networks, including cortico-cortical circuitry. Alterations in gamma band oscillations have attracted a great deal of interest as they appear to represent a pathophysiological process of cortical dysfunction in schizophrenia. Gamma band oscillations reflect local cortical activities, and the synchronization of these activities among spatially distributed cortical areas has been suggested to play a central role in the formation of networks. To assess global coordination across spatially distributed brain regions, Omega complexity (OC) in multichannel EEG was proposed. Using OC, we investigated global coordination of resting-state EEG activities in both gamma (30–50 Hz) and below-gamma (1.5–30 Hz) bands in drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia and investigated the effects of neuroleptic treatment. We found that gamma band OC was significantly higher in drug-naïve patients with schizophrenia compared to control subjects and that a right frontal electrode (F3) contributed significantly to the higher OC. After neuroleptic treatment, reductions in the contribution of frontal electrodes to global OC in both bands correlated with the improvement of schizophrenia symptomatology. The present study suggests that frontal brain processes in schizophrenia were less coordinated with activity in the remaining brain. In addition, beneficial effects of neuroleptic treatment were accompanied by improvement of brain coordination predominantly due to changes in frontal regions. Our study provides new evidence of improper intrinsic brain integration in schizophrenia by investigating the resting-state gamma band activity.

Student's cross-perception of the economic crises in the European Union and in Southeast Asia. EU Centre in Singapore Working Paper No. 11, December 2012

The financial crisis of 1997-1998 in Southeast Asia and the European Union’s financial crisis of 2008 followed by the sovereign debt crisis represented major policy events in the regions and beyond. The crises triggered policy adjustments with implications on economic and other policies. This paper aims at evaluating the perception of university students in the European Union (EU) and Southeast Asia on the management of these crises. It strives to confirm several ex ante assumptions about the relationship between students’ background, their policy orientation and their knowledge of the European Union and ASEAN policies. It also provides an analysis of the students’ evaluation of the geopolitical importance of the global regions and the EU and ASEAN policies. The paper is based on opinion surveys conducted during the first part of 2012 at four universities, two in the EU and two in ASEAN countries. In the eyes of EU and ASEAN students, the EU crisis is not being managed appropriately. The citizens of the EU surveyed were even significantly more critical of the EU’s anti-crisis measures than any other surveyed group. Their ASEAN counterparts were generally more positive in their evaluations.

Caesarean Birth vs. Vaginal Delivery: Effects upon Maternal Satisfaction, Maternal Confidence and Maternal Perception of the Newborn Behaviour

In order to test the hypothesis that caesarean birth has negative consequences upon newly mothers’ satisfaction and perceptions, women delivering by caesarean birth (WCB) were compared with women delivering by vaginal birth (WVB). Subjects: 180 newly mothers; 93 WCB and 87 WVB. Instruments: A Socio-Demographic Questionnaire developed for this research, the Childbirth Perceptions Questionnaire and the Mother and Baby Scales. Results: WCB had significantly lower scores in perceptions of baby as alert/responsive and nearly significant lower scores for baby as alert during feeds. WVB showed a significantly higher level of satisfaction with delivery and conduct during labour, as also had significantly lower scores for perceptions of baby as irritable during feeds and for lack of confidence in feeds. After controlling for the kind of anesthesia received in labour, three conclusions must be taken into account: 1) between WCB with regional anaesthesia and WCB with general anaesthesia there is only one significant difference, with the former having higher scores for perception of baby as alert during feeds; 2) between WVB with regional anaesthesia and WVB with no anaesthesia there are only two significant differences, with the former having higher scores for lack of confidence in feeding and having lower scores for global confidence; 3) between WCB with regional anaesthesia and WVB with regional anaesthesia four significant differences emerge, with the former having a lower level of satisfaction with delivery and conduct in labour and having lower scores for perception of baby as alert responsive, and also having higher scores of perception of baby as irritable in feeds and higher scores for lack of confidence in feeding. Data seem compatible with the hypothesis that caesarean birth has some negative consequences upon mothers’ satisfaction and perceptions and, for this reason, psychological surveys should constitute a routine procedure in maternity hospitals, especially when newly mothers pertain to families affected by risks of psychological or social nature.

Global adaptation of spring bread and durum wheat lines near-isogenic for major reduced height genes

The effect of major dwarfing genes, Rht-B1 and Rht-D1, in bread (Triticum aestivum L.) and durum (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum) wheats varies with environment. Six reduced-height near-isogenic spring wheat lines, included in the International Adaptation Trial (IAT), were grown in 81 trials around the world. Of the 56 IAT trials yielding > 3 Mg ha(-1), the mean yield of semidwarfs was significantly greater than tails in 54% of trials; in the 27 trials yielding < 3 Mg ha-1, semidwarfs were superior in only 24%. Sixteen pairs of semidwarf-tall near-isolines were grown in six managed drought environment trials (DETs) in northwestern Mexico. In these trials, semidwarfs outyielded talls in all but the most droughted environment (2.5 Mg ha(-1)). The effect of the height alleles varied with genetic background and environment. For both yield and height, variance components for allele and environment by allele interaction were larger than those for genetic background and genetic background by environment. Pattern analysis showed that tall and semidwarf lines had similar adaptation to stressed environments (< 2.8 Mg ha(-1), low rainfall), while semidwarfs yielded more in less stressed environments (> 4.3 Mg ha(-1), high rainfall). The best adapted near-isogenic pair had a Kauz background, where the tall was only 16% taller than the dwarf. In the Kauz-derived pair, the semidwarf outyielded the tall in only 13% of trials with no differences in low yielding trials. This supports the idea that '' short talls '' may be useful in marginal environments (yield < 3 Mg ha(-1)).

Application of analytic hierarchy process for measuring and comparing the global performance of intensive care units

Purpose: To develop a model for the global performance measurement of intensive care units (ICUs) and to apply that model to compare the services for quality improvement. Materials and Methods: Analytic hierarchy process, a multiple-attribute decision-making technique, is used in this study to evolve such a model. The steps consisted of identifying the critical success factors for the best performance of an ICU, identifying subfactors that influence the critical factors, comparing them pairwise, deriving their relative importance and ratings, and calculating the cumulative performance according to the attributes of a given ICU. Every step in the model was derived by group discussions, brainstorming, and consensus among intensivists. Results: The model was applied to 3 ICUs, 1 each in Barbados, Trinidad, and India in tertiary care teaching hospitals of similar setting. The cumulative performance rating of the Barbados ICU was 1.17 when compared with that of Trinidad and Indian ICU, which were 0.82 and 0.75, respectively, showing that the Trinidad and Indian ICUs performed 70% and 64% with respect to Barbados ICU. The model also enabled identifying specific areas where the ICUs did not perform well, which helped to improvise those areas. Conclusions: Analytic hierarchy process is a very useful model to measure the global performance of an ICU. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Perception of concurrent sentences with harmonic or frequency-shifted voiced excitation:performance of human listeners and of computational models based on autocorrelation

Keyword identification in one of two simultaneous sentences is improved when the sentences differ in F0, particularly when they are almost continuously voiced. Sentences of this kind were recorded, monotonised using PSOLA, and re-synthesised to give a range of harmonic ?F0s (0, 1, 3, and 10 semitones). They were additionally re-synthesised by LPC with the LPC residual frequency shifted by 25% of F0, to give excitation with inharmonic but regularly spaced components. Perceptual identification of frequency-shifted sentences showed a similar large improvement with nominal ?F0 as seen for harmonic sentences, although overall performance was about 10% poorer. We compared performance with that of two autocorrelation-based computational models comprising four stages: (i) peripheral frequency selectivity and half-wave rectification; (ii) within-channel periodicity extraction; (iii) identification of the two major peaks in the summary autocorrelation function (SACF); (iv) a template-based approach to speech recognition using dynamic time warping. One model sampled the correlogram at the target-F0 period and performed spectral matching; the other deselected channels dominated by the interferer and performed matching on the short-lag portion of the residual SACF. Both models reproduced the monotonic increase observed in human performance with increasing ?F0 for the harmonic stimuli, but not for the frequency-shifted stimuli. A revised version of the spectral-matching model, which groups patterns of periodicity that lie on a curve in the frequency-delay plane, showed a closer match to the perceptual data for frequency-shifted sentences. The results extend the range of phenomena originally attributed to harmonic processing to grouping by common spectral pattern.

Public perception of carbon capture and storage in relation to hydraulic fracturing: content analyses, survey results, and policy proposals

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) can contribute significantly to addressing the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions problem. Despite widespread political support, CCS remains unknown to the general public. Public perception researchers have found that, when asked, the public is relatively unfamiliar with CCS yet many individuals voice specific safety concerns regarding the technology. We believe this leads many stakeholders conflate CCS with the better-known and more visible technology hydraulic fracturing (fracking). We support this with content analysis of media coverage, web analytics, and public lobbying records. Furthermore, we present results from a survey of United States residents. This first-of-its-kind survey assessed participants’ knowledge, opinions and support of CCS and fracking technologies. The survey showed that participants had more knowledge of fracking than CCS, and that knowledge of fracking made participants less willing to support CCS projects. Additionally, it showed that participants viewed the two technologies as having similar risks and similar risk intensities. In the CCS stakeholder literature, judgment and decision-making (JDM) frameworks are noticeably absent, and public perception is not discussed using any cognitive biases as a way of understanding or explaining irrational decisions, yet these survey results show evidence of both anchoring bias and the ambiguity effect. Public acceptance of CCS is essential for a national low-carbon future plan. In conclusion, we propose changes in communications and incentives as programs to increase support of CCS.

Effect of reading sport chronicles on the perception of justice and the predisposition to protest actions in soccer

In this study three chronicles from national newspapers (one generalist and two sport press) were analyzed. The chronicles belong to Spain’s soccer final of the King’s Cup in 2014. The aim of the study was to know if there was any influence on the readers’ perception of justice and consequently if this influence could cause a particular predisposition to participate in acts of protest. 462 university students participated. The results showed that different chronicles caused differences in the perception of justice depending on the chronicle read. However, a clear influence on the willingness to participate in acts of protest was not obtained. These results should make us think about the impact of sport press and its influence, and to be aware of the indirect responsibility of every sector on the antisocial behaviors generated by soccer in our country.

The perception of the African-American community through the eyes of the Hispanic media in the U.S.: a critical discourse analysis of the reporting of the death of Michael Brown

In this paper, 36 English and 38 Spanish news articles were selected from English and Spanish newspapers and magazines published in the U.S.A. from August 2014 to November 2014. All articles discuss the death of Michael Brown, the ensuing protests and police investigations. A discourse analysis shows that there are few differences between reporting by the mainstream and the Hispanic media. Like the mainstream media, the Hispanic media adopts a neutral point of view with regard to the African-American minority. However, it presents a negative opinion with regard to the police. It appears that the Hispanic media does not explicitly side with the African-American community, but rather agrees more with the mainstream media’s opinion and is substantially influenced by it.

Global efficiency of innovative rotational mold directly heated by thermal fluid

The article is focused on analysis of global efficiency of new mold for rotational molding of plastic parts, being directly heated by thermal fluid. The overall efficiency is based on several items such as reduction of cycle time, better uniformity of heating-cooling and low energy consumption. The new tool takes advantage of additive fabrication and electroforming for making the optimal manifold and cavity shell of the mold. Experimental test of a prototype mold was carried out on an experimental rotational molding machine, developed for this purpose, measuring wall temperature, and internal air temperature, with and without plastic material inside. Results were compared with conventional mold heated into an oven and to theoretical simulations done by Computational Fluid Dynamic software (CFD). The analysis represents considerable improvement of cycle time related to conventional methods (heated by oven) and better thermal uniformity to conventional procedures by direct heating of oil with external channels. In addition to thermal analysis an energetic efficiency study was done. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 52:1998-2005, 2012. © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers Copyright © 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers.

A Comparative Study on the Homeroom Teachers’ Perception of the School guidance in Korea and Finland

This study has four major purposes. First, it compares school guidance of homeroom teachers in Korea and Finland, in order to understand the reality of education, based on the teachers’ perceptions. Secondly, it also considers the topic within its historical, social, and cultural backgrounds, from a critical standpoint. Thirdly, it investigates the direction of the improvement of school guidance, based on the analysis of similarities and differences between Korea and Finland, with regards to the meaning, practice, and environmental factors of the school guidance. Lastly, the influential factors surrounding the school guidance are noted by analysing empirical data from a microscopic approach, and extending the understanding of it into a social context. As for the methods, it employs thematic analysis approach through 10 homeroom teacher interviews in the lower secondary schools. As a result, firstly, the teachers in both countries assumed similarly, that the role of the teacher was not only to teach the subject, but also to care about every aspects of the students’ development in their school life. In addition, they accepted the fact that school guidance became more significant. However, the school guidance became the top priority for the Korean teachers, while teaching subject is the main task for the Finnish teachers. Secondly, the homeroom teachers in both countries hoped to have a better working environment, to perform school guidance concerning education budget for the resources of school guidance, tight curriculum, and increasing the teachers’ tasks. Thirdly, the school guidance in Korea seemed to be influenced by social expectation and government demand, whereas, the Finnish teachers considered school guidance in more aspects of adjustment and academic motivation, rather than resolving the social problems. Fourthly, the Korean teachers perceived that the trust and respect from the society and home became weakened, also expressing doubts about the educational policies and the attitude of the government with regards to school guidance. On the other hand, the Finnish teachers believed that they were trusted and respected by the society. However, blurred lines in the roles and accountability between the homeroom teachers, home, and the society were also controversial among the teachers in both countries. To sum up, Finland needs to ameliorate the system and conditions for school guidance of the homeroom teachers. The consensus on the role and tasks of Finnish homeroom teachers for school guidance seem to be also necessary. Meanwhile, Korea should improve the social system and social consciousness of the teacher, school guidance, and schooling, preceding the reform of the education system or conditions.

Pharmacists’ knowledge and perception of topical antibacterial drug dispensing in community pharmacy setting in Kedah, Malaysia

Purpose: To assess Pharmacists’ Perceptions and Experiences of Topical Antibacterial Drug Dispensing in Community Pharmacy Setting in Kedah State, Malaysia in order to minimize drug resistance issues. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving a pre-validated questionnaire was conducted in community pharmacies within Kedah State, Malaysia. Descriptive statistics and Spearman’s correlation coefficient were used for data analysis. The collected were analysed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 18.0. Results: The result shows that, 53.4 % of CPs in Kedah State perceived that topical antibacterial is not necessary for every topical bacterial infection. Fusidic acid was the most frequently dispensed topical antibacterial drug while superficial wound was reported to be the most frequently encountered topical bacterial infection. CPs (12.60 %) encountered antibacterial resistance cases but none reported them. The drug that had resistance issue was neomycin. Conclusion: CPs in Kedah State, Malaysia generally have the right perceptions on the dispensing of topical antibacterial drugs. However, their knowledge on the rational use of topical antibacterial drugs and vigilance on antibacterial resistance issue need improvement.

Perception Of Oral And Maxillofacial Surgeons, Orthodontists And Laypersons In Relation To The Harmony Of The Smile.

Harmony is one of the main objectives in surgical and orthodontic treatment and this harmony must be present in the smile, as well as in the face. The aim of the present study was to assess the perceptions of professionals and laypersons in relation to the harmony of the smile of patients with or without vertical maxillary alterations. Sixty observers (oral and maxillofacial surgeons, orthodontists and laypersons) reported the degree of harmony of six smiles using an objective questionnaire and the participants indicated if there was a need for corrective surgery or not. The classification of observers was recorded on a Likert scale from 1 to 5. Mixed regression was used to determine differences between the three groups. Statistically significant differences were found only for the harmony of the smile between the oral and maxillofacial surgeons and laypersons, with laypersons being more critical when assessing the smile. There was no statistical difference between the other groups for the harmony of the smile or the indication of corrective surgery. The patterns of greater or lesser harmony determined by observers during the smile were similar to those found in the literature as the ideal standard in relation to vertical maxillary positioning. Laypersons had a tendency to be more critical in relation to facial harmony than surgeons, although no statistical differences were found in the other groups in relation to the harmony of the smile or indication for the corrective surgery. In addition, the patterns of greater or lesser harmony of the smile determined by the participants were similar to those found in the literature as the ideal standard in relation to vertical maxillary positioning. Overall, the present study demonstrates that adequate interaction between surgeons, orthodontists and laypersons is essential in order to achieve facial harmony with orthodontic and/or surgical treatment. Opinion of specialists and laypersons about the smile in relation to the vertical positioning of the maxilla.

[the Perception Of Behavior Related To Mindfulness And The Brazilian Version Of The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory].

Mindfulness is a practice and a form of consciousness which has been the basis for innovative interventions in care and health promotion. This study presents mindfulness, describes and discusses the process of cultural adaptation of The Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI) to Brazilian Portuguese. From the original version of this pioneering instrument for assessing mindfulness two translations and two back-translations were made. These were evaluated by a committee of 14 experts (Buddhists, linguists, health professionals), who helped to create two versions for the first pre-test, based on which suggestions were made by a sample of 41 people of the population through interviews. Considering the difficulties in understanding the concepts that are unfamiliar to the Brazilian culture, a new version was prepared with additional explanations, which underwent a further evaluation of the experts and a second pre-test with 72 people. This process aimed at addressing the limitations and challenges of evaluating mindfulness in a country of western culture through a self-report instrument based on Buddhist psychology. With appropriate levels of clarity and equivalence with the original instrument, the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory adapted for Brazil is presented.