Violencia sexual contra las mujeres (Tema Central)

La violencia sexual contra las mujeres tiene diferentes manifestaciones, todas ellas constituyen una violación de sus derechos humanos, conforme lo determina el Estatuto de Roma y la jurisprudencia internacional. En América Latina, la violencia sexual contra las mujeres ha sido una de las formas de represión desde el Estado, en las situaciones de conflicto armado, pero también es parte de la cotidianidad de las mujeres, el riesgo de ser violadas es una realidad con la que deben convivir.

Estudio de los aspectos teórico-prácticos del delito de trata de personas con fines de explotación sexual y su prueba en el proceso penal acusatorio (Tema Central)

El delito de trata de personas es considerado como un tema de interés actual para la sociedad, en vista de que se encuentra catalogado como la nueva forma de esclavitud moderna, el entender que el término “trata” el término oficial utilizado por Naciones Unidas para hacer referencia al comercio de seres humanos y a la explotación por parte de terceros a estos, especialmente en los ámbitos: sexual, laboral, militar, religioso e incluso familiar, ha permitido que nuestro país, debido a los compromisos adquiridos con la comunidad internacional, adopte el principio de la debida diligencia para implementar políticas destinadas a la prevención, persecución y protección en esta clase de delito, y que cada vez su estudio y conocimiento general se debe incrementar para evitar que existan más víctimas de un delito de lesa humanidad, como está considerado la trata de personas.

Del abuso sexual a la construcción del lesbianismo

El presente trabajo hace un recorrido teórico por el territorio del abuso sexual infantil en niñas y las repercusiones que se producen en la construcción del lesbianismo, tomando como eje central el incesto. La violencia sexual de por sí es conflictiva, porque descoloca los sentidos propios del cuerpo, la identidad, deconstruye la sexualidad eminentemente infantil, ahora perdida. El acto incestuoso complica el escenario, porque echa por la borda las significaciones de las relaciones parentales que sostienen y organizan la cultura y que permite relacionarse a papá-mama-hijos/as desde las ternuras. Analiza el abuso sexual infantil incestuoso como acto perverso que cosifica al otro abyectándolo a lo in-mundo (objeto-cosa)1 de lo cual se puede gozar. El cuerpo ilegitimado desde las prácticas perversas, no tendrá otra alternativa sino buscar formas codificar el acto, y asumir el cuerpo vejado. Aborda al lesbianismo, no como única alternativa del abuso sexual incestuoso, sino como alternativa inconsciente que rechaza al agresor. Además indaga sobre los sentidos del lesbianismo y la homofobia.

¿Galantería o acoso sexual callejero?

Esta investigación pretende analizar porqué los “piropos”, o en general cualquier acto o expresión de naturaleza sexual dirigida a la mujer mientras ésta hace uso del espacio público, no constituyen “galantería”. Por el contrario, en virtud de su contenido sexual y de las circunstancias de poder que las recubren, se tratan de comportamientos que pueden ser entendidos como acoso sexual callejero. Con ese propósito, en el primer capítulo se realiza un estudio sobre cuestiones que constituyen la causa de la existencia de este fenómeno social: la dicotomía público/privado y el deber ser de los sexos. El análisis de estas dimensiones permite entender cómo el acoso sexual callejero se trata de una manifestación misógina basada en la desigualdad social histórica de la mujer. En el segundo capítulo de esta tesis se analizan las consecuencias del acoso sexual callejero en la vida de las mujeres y los medios jurídicos para enfrentarlos. Se identifica cómo el acoso sexual callejero vulnera los derechos a la autonomía, a la libertad y a la seguridad de las mujeres y se estudian los posibles remedios legales para sancionar y disuadir estos comportamientos.

Análisis de la problemática jurídica en el Ecuador, frente al reconocimiento legal del trabajo sexual como derecho constitucional

La presente investigación, enfocará primordialmente, la problemática jurídica actual frente a los derechos y obligaciones de quienes se encuentran en este grupo de trabajo. Así como sobre cómo cuáles serían las posibles soluciones jurídicas para el real ejercicio de sus derechos constitucionales. El lector podrá encontrar, los articulados que rigen la relación laboral del trabajador en general y la problemática jurídica actual, frente al reconocimiento del trabajo sexual como una modalidad de trabajo. Resultado de encuestas realizadas a trabajadoras de sexo de la ciudad de Azogues en el mes de marzo del 2015, así como entrevistas efectuadas directamente a las lideresas de las diferentes Asociaciones de trabajadoras del sexo que estuvieron presente en la ciudad de Quito, durante el III Encuentro de Trabajadoras del Sexo “Emputadas por Nuestros Derechos” y que acudieron con propuestas de ser reconocidas como trabajadoras en la Asamblea Nacional. Por otro lado, se planteó posibles soluciones jurídicas que permitirán hacer efectivo el goce del derecho al trabajo, tal como manda la Constitución, “un derecho y un deber social”. Frente a la propuesta del grupo de trabajadoras del sexo de ser reconocidas como autónomas, se consideró como solución jurídica, la necesidad de presentar un proyecto de ley especial que regule la actividad, el mismo que deberá ser aprobado por la Asamblea Nacional. Como trabajo sexual subordinado, se consideró necesario incluir un capítulo especial dentro del Código del Trabajo para regular la relación laboral.

Visual Object Recognition Using Deformable Models of Vehicles

This workshop paper reports recent developments to a vision system for traffic interpretation which relies extensively on the use of geometrical and scene context. Firstly, a new approach to pose refinement is reported, based on forces derived from prominent image derivatives found close to an initial hypothesis. Secondly, a parameterised vehicle model is reported, able to represent different vehicle classes. This general vehicle model has been fitted to sample data, and subjected to a Principal Component Analysis to create a deformable model of common car types having 6 parameters. We show that the new pose recovery technique is also able to operate on the PCA model, to allow the structure of an initial vehicle hypothesis to be adapted to fit the prevailing context. We report initial experiments with the model, which demonstrate significant improvements to pose recovery.

Biologically motivated model for object detection and identification in real-world scenes

The classical computer vision methods can only weakly emulate some of the multi-level parallelisms in signal processing and information sharing that takes place in different parts of the primates’ visual system thus enabling it to accomplish many diverse functions of visual perception. One of the main functions of the primates’ vision is to detect and recognise objects in natural scenes despite all the linear and non-linear variations of the objects and their environment. The superior performance of the primates’ visual system compared to what machine vision systems have been able to achieve to date, motivates scientists and researchers to further explore this area in pursuit of more efficient vision systems inspired by natural models. In this paper building blocks for a hierarchical efficient object recognition model are proposed. Incorporating the attention-based processing would lead to a system that will process the visual data in a non-linear way focusing only on the regions of interest and hence reducing the time to achieve real-time performance. Further, it is suggested to modify the visual cortex model for recognizing objects by adding non-linearities in the ventral path consistent with earlier discoveries as reported by researchers in the neuro-physiology of vision.

Sexual symbolism in the Early Neolithic of the southern Levant: pestles and mortars from WF16

WF16 is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in the Southern Levant that has produced an important collection of ground stone artefacts. These include one explicit and one ambiguous representation of a phallus – the latter may be a human head and shoulders. The authors note the visual similarity of certain pestles from WF16 to phalli and suggest that such artefacts and their use may have been imbued with sexual metaphor. As such, the most potent references to sex, reproduction and fertility in the early Neolithic may not be the exotic figures claimed to be ‘Mother Goddesses’ but located in the most mundane of domestic artefacts.

Object displays and control of dynamic systems

Recent work has suggested that for some tasks, graphical displays which visually integrate information from more than one source offer an advantage over more traditional displays which present the same information in a separated format. Three experiments are described which investigate this claim using a task which requires subjects to control a dynamic system. In the first experiment, the integrated display is compared to two separated displays, one an animated mimic diagram, the other an alphanumeric display. The integrated display is shown to support better performance in a control task, but experiment 2 shows that part of this advantage may be due to its analogue nature. Experiment 3 considers performance on a fault detection task, and shows no difference between the integrated and separated displays. The paper concludes that previous claims made for integrated displays may not generalize from monitoring to control tasks.

Maternal label and gesture use affects acquisition of specific object names

Ten mothers were observed prospectively, interacting with their infants aged 0 ; 10 in two contexts (picture description and noun description). Maternal communicative behaviours were coded for volubility, gestural production and labelling style. Verbal labelling events were categorized into three exclusive categories: label only; label plus deictic gesture; label plus iconic gesture. We evaluated the predictive relations between maternal communicative style and children's subsequent acquisition of ten target nouns. Strong relations were observed between maternal communicative style and children's acquisition of the target nouns. Further, even controlling for maternal volubility and maternal labelling, maternal use of iconic gestures predicted the timing of acquisition of nouns in comprehension. These results support the proposition that maternal gestural input facilitates linguistic development, and suggest that such facilitation may be a function of gesture type.

Direct versus indirect sexual selection: genetic basis of colour, size and recruitment in a wild bird

Indirect and direct models of sexual selection make different predictions regarding the quantitative genetic relationships between sexual ornaments and fitness. Indirect models predict that ornaments should have a high heritability and that strong positive genetic covariance should exist between fitness and the ornament. Direct models, on the other hand, make no such assumptions about the level of genetic variance in fitness and the ornament, and are therefore likely to be more important when environmental sources of variation are large. Here we test these predictions in a wild population of the blue tit (Parus caeruleus), a species in which plumage coloration has been shown to be under sexual selection. Using 3 years of cross-fostering data from over 250 breeding attempts, we partition the covariance between parental coloration and aspects of nestling fitness into a genetic and environmental component. Contrary to indirect models of sexual selection, but in agreement with direct models, we show that variation in coloration is only weakly heritable (h(2) < 0.11), and that two components of offspring fitness-nestling size and fledgling recruitment-are strongly dependent on parental effects, rather than genetic effects. Furthermore, there was no evidence of significant positive genetic covariation between parental colour and offspring traits. Contrary to direct benefit models, however, we find little evidence that variation in colour reliably indicates the level of parental care provided by either males or females. Taken together, these results indicate that the assumptions of indirect models of sexual selection are not supported by the genetic basis of the traits reported on here.

Research note: amendments to the model for predicting age at sexual maturity for growing pullets of layer strains following changes in photoperiod

A model was published by Lewis et al. (2002) to predict the mean age at first egg (AFE) for pullets of laying strains reared under non-limiting environmental conditions and exposed to a single change in photoperiod during the rearing stage. Subsequently, Lewis et al. (2003) reported the effects of two opposing changes in photoperiod, which showed that the first change appears to alter the pullet's physiological age so that it responds to the second change as though it had been given at an earlier age (if photoperiod was decreased), or later age (if photoperiod was increased) than the true chronological age. During the construction of a computer model based on these two publications, it became apparent that some of the components of the models needed adjustment. The amendments relate to (1) the standard deviation (S.D.) used for calculating the proportion of a young flock that has attained photosensitivity, (2) the equation for calculating the slope of the line relating AFE to age at transfer from one photoperiod to another, (3) the equation used for estimating the distribution of AFE as a function of the mean value, (4) the point of no return when pullets which have started spontaneous maturation in response to the current photoperiod can no longer respond to a late change in photoperiod and (5) the equations used for calculating the distribution of AFE when the trait is bimodal.

Change in the effect of constant photoperiods on the rate of sexual maturation in modern genotypes of domestic pullet

1. Data for modern egg-type hybrids reared on constant daylengths show that, as expected, they mature more quickly than earlier genotypes. However, the constant photoperiod which gives earliest sexual maturity has not changed as a result of selection and is 10 h for both early and modern genotypes. 2. Further analysis showed that the rate of delay in sexual maturity for constant photoperiods above 10 h is similar for modern and for early hybrids ( +0.29 d for each incremental one hour of photoperiod), the response of modern hybrids below 10 h ( +4.22 d for each one-hour reduction in photoperiod) is more than double that of early hybrids ( +1.71 d/h).