The (ab)use of politics and eroticism in the culture of the Spanish Transition to democracy (1975–1982)

This dissertation analyzes the (ab)use of politics and eroticism within the framework of the Transition to democracy in Spain, its social and cultural impact—on literature, film, music, and popular media—, and its consequences. After a period of nearly four decades, when the country was subjected to a totalitarian regime, Spanish society underwent a process of democratic restoration. As a result, the two topics considered taboo during almost forty years of repression—i.e., politics and sexuality/eroticism—, gushed out fiercely. Every aspect of culture was influenced by and intrinsically linked to them. However, while we have been offered a more or less global approach to the Transition—the Transition as a whole—, and some studies have focused on diverse areas, no research to date has covered in depth the significance of those issues during that historical moment. Considering the facts stated above, it was imperative to conduct a more detailed analysis of the influence of both eroticism and politics on the cultural production of the Transition from different perspectives. Although the academic intelligentsia has often rejected them as expressions of mass culture, we must consider Pierre Bourdieu’s theories—in line with the tradition of classical sociology, that includes science, law, and religion, together with artistic activities—, Michel Foucault’s ideas on sexuality, and New Historicism, examining texts and their contexts. This work concludes that the (ab)use of both subjects during the Spanish Transition was a reaction to a repressive condition. It led to extremes, to societal transgression and, in most cases, to the objectification of women because of the impositions of a patriarchal society. It was, however, part of a learning and, in a sense, cathartic process that led, eventually, to the reestablishment of the status quo, to a more equitable and multicultural society where men, women, and any political or sexual tendencies are respected—at least, in theory.

Influences and advice of theatrical consumption. A study about the effect of the theatre critics and other instances of evaluation in the habits of theatre attendance

This article analyses the influence that different criticism stages of proceedings exert in the habits of theatre attendance. The study is based on the survey carried out specifically for this research in which 210 people, who attended a theatrical representation, were interviewed in three different theatres in the city of Valencia. The study has revealed the mouth to mouth importance in the decision of attending the theatre and its stronger influence on the audiences who less frequently go to theatrical representations. The results obtained have also made clear the existence of a narrow relation between the advice effect of the theatre critics and the patterns of attendance to the theatre, just like its bigger influence between theatres with commercial orientation and those which are addressed to the broad audiences.

Civic Humanism and the Classical Tradition in the Early Republic of Chile

The first decades of the 19th century constituted a period of profound change for Chile, the principal results of which were to be seen in the consolidation of the process of independence from Spanish dominion in 1818. The consequences were not limited to a revolution of military and political nature; they also included a renovation of the cultural panorama -at least among the educated patriots who made an effort to distance themselves ideologically from the Monarchy-, with the implicit challenge of establishing a new order for Chile, based on legitimate and universally recognizable foundations. The inspirational framework for these efforts is usually associated with other revolutionary examples -France and the United States- that preceded the emancipation processes in Spanish America, as well as with the discourses of illustrated liberalism. As we will attempt to demonstrate in this study, a new reading of the texts written by the Creoles that lead the Chilean independence process may, nonetheless, also reveal the relevance of the classical tradition as a model for the configuration and legitimization of the first Republican projects that especially admired the ideals of Republicanism.

Comparison of two field methods for estimating body fat in different Spanish Dance disciplines

The purpose of the present study was to investigate percentage body fat (%BF) differences in three Spanish dance disciplines and to compare skinfold and bioelectrical impedance predictions of body fat percentage in the same sample. Seventy-six female dancers, divided into three groups, Classical (n=23), Spanish (n=29) and Flamenco (n=24), were measured using skinfold measurements at four sites: triceps, subscapular, biceps and iliac crest, and whole body multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance (BIA). The skin-fold measures were used to predict body fat percentage via Durnin and Womersley's and Segal, Sun and Yannakoulia equations by BIA. Differences in percent fat mass between groups (Classical, Spanish and Flamenco) were tested by using repeated measures analysis (ANOVA). Also, Pearson's product-moment correlations were performed on the body fat percentage values obtained using both methods. In addition, Bland-Altman plots were used to assess agreement, between anthropometric and BIA methods. Repeated measures analysis of variance did not found differences in %BF between modalities (p<0.05). Fat percentage correlations ranged from r= 0.57 to r=0.97 (all, p<0.001). Bland-Altman analysis revealed differences between BIA Yannakoulia as a reference method with BIA Segal (-0.35 ± 2.32%, 95%CI: -0.89to 0.18, p=0.38), with BIA Sun (-0.73 ± 2.3%, 95%CI: -1.27 to -0.20, p=0.014) and Durnin-Womersley (-2.65 ± 2,48%, 95%CI: -3.22 to -2.07, p<0.0001). It was concluded that body fat percentage estimates by BIA compared with skinfold method were systematically different in young adult female ballet dancers, having a tendency to produce underestimations as %BF increased with Segal and Durnin-Womersley equations compared to Yannakoulia, concluding that these methods are not interchangeable.

Metagenomic detection of viral pathogens in Spanish honeybees: co-infection by Aphid Lethal Paralysis, Israel Acute Paralysis and Lake Sinai Viruses

The situation in Europe concerning honeybees has in recent years become increasingly aggravated with steady decline in populations and/or catastrophic winter losses. This has largely been attributed to the occurrence of a variety of known and "unknown", emerging novel diseases. Previous studies have demonstrated that colonies often can harbour more than one pathogen, making identification of etiological agents with classical methods difficult. By employing an unbiased metagenomic approach, which allows the detection of both unexpected and previously unknown infectious agents, the detection of three viruses, Aphid Lethal Paralysis Virus (ALPV), Israel Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV), and Lake Sinai Virus (LSV), in honeybees from Spain is reported in this article. The existence of a subgroup of ALPV with the ability to infect bees was only recently reported and this is the first identification of such a strain in Europe. Similarly, LSV appear to be a still unclassified group of viruses with unclear impact on colony health and these viruses have not previously been identified outside of the United States. Furthermore, our study also reveals that these bees carried a plant virus, Turnip Ringspot Virus (TuRSV), potentially serving as important vector organisms. Taken together, these results demonstrate the new possibilities opened up by high-throughput sequencing and metagenomic analysis to study emerging new diseases in domestic and wild animal populations, including honeybees.

Spanish Pragmatics

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Possibilidades e limites da avaliação da qualidade de vida : análise dos instrumentos WHOQOL e modelos clássicos de qualidade de vida no trabalho = Possibilities and limits of quality of life assessment : analysis of WHOQOL instruments and quality of work life classical models

Universidade Estadual de Campinas . Faculdade de Educação Física

Multiple classical limits in relativistic and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics

The existence of a classical limit describing the interacting particles in a second-quantized theory of identical particles with bosonic symmetry is proved. This limit exists in addition to the previously established classical limit with a classical field behavior, showing that the limit h -> 0 of the theory is not unique. An analogous result is valid for a free massive scalar field: two distinct classical limits are proved to exist, describing a system of particles or a classical field. The introduction of local operators in order to represent kinematical properties of interest is shown to break the permutation symmetry under some localizability conditions, allowing the study of individual particle properties.

Entanglement and classical instabilities: Fingerprints of electron-hole-to-exciton phase transition in a simple model

We propose a schematic model to study the formation of excitons in bilayer electron systems. The phase transition is signalized both in the quantum and classical versions of the model. In the present contribution we show that not only the quantum ground state but also higher energy states, up to the energy of the corresponding classical separatrix orbit, ""sense"" the transition. We also show two types of one-to-one correspondences in this system: On the one hand, between the changes in the degree of entanglement for these low-lying quantum states and the changes in the density of energy levels; on the other hand, between the variation in the expected number of excitons for a given quantum state and the behavior of the corresponding classical orbit.

Classical and quantum magnetoresistance in a two-subband electron system

We observe a large positive magnetoresistance in a bilayer electron system (double quantum well) as the latter is driven by the external gate from double to single layer configuration. Both classical and quantum contributions to magnetotransport are found to be important for explanation of this effect. We demonstrate that these contributions can be separated experimentally by studying the magnetic-field dependence of the resistance at different gate voltages. The experimental results are analyzed and described by using the theory of low-field magnetotransport in the systems with two occupied subbands.

Classical noncommutative electrodynamics with external source

In a U(1)(*)-noncommutative gauge field theory we extend the Seiberg-Witten map to include the (gauge-invariance-violating) external current and formulate-to the first order in the noncommutative parameter-gauge-covariant classical field equations. We find solutions to these equations in the vacuum and in an external magnetic field, when the 4-current is a static electric charge of a finite size a, restricted from below by the elementary length. We impose extra boundary conditions, which we use to rule out all singularities, 1/r included, from the solutions. The static charge proves to be a magnetic dipole, with its magnetic moment being inversely proportional to its size a. The external magnetic field modifies the long-range Coulomb field and some electromagnetic form factors. We also analyze the ambiguity in the Seiberg-Witten map and show that at least to the order studied here it is equivalent to the ambiguity of adding a homogeneous solution to the current-conservation equation.

Gauge invariance and classical dynamics of noncommutative particle theory

We consider a model of classical noncommutative particle in an external electromagnetic field. For this model, we prove the existence of generalized gauge transformations. Classical dynamics in Hamiltonian and Lagrangian form is discussed; in particular, the motion in the constant magnetic field is studied in detail. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3299296]

Continuous structural transitions in quasi-one-dimensional classical Wigner crystals

We study the structural phase transitions in confined systems of strongly interacting particles. We consider infinite quasi-one-dimensional systems with different pairwise repulsive interactions in the presence of an external confinement following a power law. Within the framework of Landau's theory, we find the necessary conditions to observe continuous transitions and demonstrate that the only allowed continuous transition is between the single-and the double-chain configurations and that it only takes place when the confinement is parabolic. We determine analytically the behavior of the system at the transition point and calculate the critical exponents. Furthermore, we perform Monte Carlo simulations and find a perfect agreement between theory and numerics.

Extending Bell's beables to encompass dissipation, decoherence, and the quantum-to-classical transition through quantum trajectories

In this paper, employing the Ito stochastic Schrodinger equation, we extend Bell's beable interpretation of quantum mechanics to encompass dissipation, decoherence, and the quantum-to-classical transition through quantum trajectories. For a particular choice of the source of stochasticity, the one leading to a dissipative Lindblad-type correction to the Hamiltonian dynamics, we find that the diffusive terms in Nelsons stochastic trajectories are naturally incorporated into Bohm's causal dynamics, yielding a unified Bohm-Nelson theory. In particular, by analyzing the interference between quantum trajectories, we clearly identify the decoherence time, as estimated from the quantum formalism. We also observe the quantum-to-classical transition in the convergence of the infinite ensemble of quantum trajectories to their classical counterparts. Finally, we show that our extended beables circumvent the problems in Bohm's causal dynamics regarding stationary states in quantum mechanics.