The normalization of the cyborg: from futuristic artistic expression of mutilation to daily aesthetic beauty

The concept of mutilation as a permanent scarring of the integrity of the body has been overcome by the representation in visual culture of the cyborg, the bionic human and the genetically and bionically engineered mutant. Mutants with bionic prosthetics in the X-Men film trilogy, the bionic man in The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) and his companion The Bionic Woman (1976) as well as The Terminator (1984) with its sequels have contributed to create a new aesthetic perception of the artificial. From the Cyborg Manifesto to theories of Post-humanism and Trans-humanism, the arts have embraced the opportunity of realizing the conjunction between human and machine envisaged at first by Tommaso Marinetti in the Futurist Manifesto. Stelarc has contributed with his performances and body implants to explore new aesthetic forms that conceive the prosthesis as an evolutionary empowering design. If in the arts this approach has created aesthetic debates and polarizations between bioconservatism and technoprogressivism, how is the reality of mutilation approached by people in their daily lives? The paper analyzes whether the aesthetic perception of prosthetics is that of a permanent sign of mutilation or that of a new technological empowerment. “In the last two to three years many men have asked to have prosthetics without coverage, leaving the metal part visible. They tell me that a leg like this is more futuristic! Maybe they feel more masculine because the metallic leg gives them the sensation of being bionic, half human and half machine. Men under fifty especially request it. At the opposite end of the spectrum, women ask for symmetric prosthetics very similar to the one they lost.” Interview with Dr. X at the Limb Fitting Centre, London. If the visual arts have created an experience and imagination of post-humanity as the futuristic merging of human and machine that the public perceives as increasingly achievable, what are the new frontiers of aesthetic exploration? Are the aesthetics of post-humanity becoming those of a ‘normalization’ of cyborgology? The paper will argue that the contemporary aesthetics of futuristic empowerment look to artists and designers in order to deliver new modes of aesthetic consumption for a technology no longer perceived as reconstruction of a mutilation but as the empowering necessary framework to facilitate the transition from human to super-human

Study of BBˉ∗B\bar{B}^* and B∗Bˉ∗B^*\bar{B}^* interactions in I=1I=1 and relationship to the Zb(10610)Z_b(10610), Zb(10650)Z_b(10650) states

We use the local hidden gauge approach in order to study the $B\bar{B}^*$ and $B^*\bar{B}^*$ interactions for isospin I=1. We show that both interactions via one light meson exchange are not allowed by OZI rule and, for that reason, we calculate the contributions due to the exchange of two pions, interacting and noninteracting among themselves, and also due to the heavy vector mesons. Then, to compare all these contributions, we use the potential related to the heavy vector exchange as an effective potential corrected by a factor which takes into account the contribution of the others light mesons exchange. In order to look for poles, this effective potential is used as the kernel of the Bethe-Salpeter equation. As a result, for the $B\bar{B}^*$ interaction we find a loosely bound state with mass in the range $10587-10601$ MeV, very close to the experimental value of the $Z_b(10610)$ reported by Belle Collaboration. For the $B^*\bar{B}^*$ case, we find a cusp at $10650$ MeV for all spin $J=0,\,1,\,2$ cases.Comment: 23 pages, 20 figure

Wave functions of composite hadron states and relationship to couplings of scattering amplitudes for general partial waves

In this paper we present the connection between scattering amplitudes in momentum space and wave functions in coordinate space, generalizing previous work done for s-waves to any partial wave. The relationship to the wave function of the residues of the scattering amplitudes at the pole of bound states or resonances is investigated in detail. A sum rule obtained for the couplings provides a generalization to coupled channels, any partial wave and bound or resonance states, of Weinberg's compositeness condition, which was only valid for weakly bound states in one channel and s-wave. An example, requiring only experimental data, is shown for the $\rho$ meson indicating that it is not a composite particle of $\pi \pi$ but something else

Isospin breaking and f0(980)f_0(980)-a0(980)a_0(980) mixing in the η(1405)→π0f0(980)\eta(1405) \to \pi^{0} f_0(980) reaction

We make a theoretical study of the $\eta(1405) \to \pi^{0} f_0(980)$ and $\eta(1405) \to \pi^{0} a_0(980)$ reactions with an aim to determine the isospin violation and the mixing of the $f_0(980)$ and $a_0(980)$ resonances. We make use of the chiral unitary approach where these two resonances appear as composite states of two mesons, dynamically generated by the meson-meson interaction provided by chiral Lagrangians. We obtain a very narrow shape for the $f_0(980)$ production in agreement with a BES experiment. As to the amount of isospin violation, or $f_0(980)$ and $a_0(980)$ mixing, assuming constant vertices for the primary $\eta(1405)\rightarrow \pi^{0}K\bar{K}$ and $\eta(1405)\rightarrow \pi^{0}\pi^{0}\eta$ production, we find results which are much smaller than found in the recent experimental BES paper, but consistent with results found in two other related BES experiments. We have tried to understand this anomaly by assuming an I=1 mixture in the $\eta(1405)$ wave function, but this leads to a much bigger width of the $f_0(980)$ mass distribution than observed experimentally. The problem is solved by using the primary production driven by $\eta' \to K^* \bar K$ followed by $K^* \to K \pi$, which induces an extra singularity in the loop functions needed to produce the $f_0(980)$ and $a_0(980)$ resonances. Improving upon earlier work along the same lines, and using the chiral unitary approach, we can now predict absolute values for the ratio $\Gamma(\pi^0, \pi^+ \pi^-)/\Gamma(\pi^0, \pi^0 \eta)$ which are in fair agreement with experiment. We also show that the same results hold if we had the $\eta(1475)$ resonance or a mixture of these two states, as seems to be the case in the BES experiment

The influence of mother’s personality on the decision about the elective cesarean section: a pilot study with a sample of 16 new mothers

To investigate the psychological profile of a sample of new mothers, who requested an elective caesarean section (CS), compared with a group of women who had a CS in emergency. Women who chose CS without medical indications showed more somatic anxiety levels, expressed with a hypochondriac rumination and an obsessive way to control their body. This seems associated with more neuroticism and more symptoms of depression which may lead to a higher risk of develop postnatal depression

Functional assessment of cancer therapy questionnaire for breast cancer (FACT-B+4): Italian version validation

BACKGROUND: Improvements in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment led to an increased incidence of survivors' rate. The healthcare system has to face new problems related not only to the treatment of the disease, but also to the management of the quality of life after the diagnosis. The aim of this study was to validate the Italian version of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Breast (FACT-B+4) questionnaire and to evaluate its reliability. METHODS: The questionnaire was administered twice, with an interval of three days between each administration, to a cohort of women of the Breast Surgical Unit, PoliclincoUmberto I. Cronbach's alpha was used as a measure of the internal consistency of the Italian version. RESULTS: The Italian version of the tool was administered to 55 subjects. The Cronbach's alpha for most scores registered values >0.7, both at baseline and at the follow-up analysis, therefore the subscale showed good internal consistency. CONCLUSIONS: The Italian version of FACT-B+4 demonstrated acceptable reliability properties in the Breast Unit patients. The use of this questionnaire seemed to be effective and in line with the results derived from the English and Spanishversions. Internal consistency and validity had similar performance results

Perinatal depression and patterns of attachment: a critical risk factor?

Background. This study aims to verify if the presence and severity of perinatal depression are related to any particular pattern of attachment. Methods. The study started with a screening of a sample of 453 women in their third trimester of pregnancy, who were administered a survey data form, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Experience in Close Relationship (ECR). A clinical group of subjects with perinatal depression (PND, 89 subjects) was selected and compared with a control group (C), regarding psychopathological variables and attachment patterns. Results. The ECR showed a prevalence of “Fearful-Avoidant” attachment style in PND group (29.2% versus 1.1%, < 0.001); additionally, the EPDS average score increases with the increasing of ECR dimensions (Avoidance and Anxiety). Conclusion. The severity of depression increases proportionally to attachment disorganization; therefore, we consider attachment as both an important risk factor as well as a focus for early psychotherapeutic intervention

Meson-baryon components in the states of the baryon decuplet

We apply an extension of the Weinberg compositeness condition on partial waves of L = 1 and resonant states to determine the weight of the meson-baryon component in the Delta(1232) resonance and the other members of the baryon decuplet. We obtain an appreciable weight of pi N in the Delta(1232) wave function, of the order of 60%, which looks more natural when one recalls that experiments on deep inelastic and Drell Yan give a fraction of pi N component of 34% for the nucleon. We also show that, as we go to higher energies in the members of the decuplet, the weights of the meson-baryon component decrease and they already show a dominant part for a genuine, non-meson-baryon, component in the wave function. We write a section to interpret the meaning of the Weinberg sum rule when it is extended to complex energies and another one for the case of an energy-dependent potential

Políticas Públicas de Educação: Os Tutores da Educação Superior na modalidade a distância.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo conhecer a percepção, no que se refere à Educação Superior e a Educação a Distância (EaD), dos tutores, que atuam na modalidade a distância em uma Instituição Privada de Educação Superior. São levantados também os dados referentes, a sua formação, área e origem da instituição que nas quais se formaram e ainda, investiga qual o papel que desempenham e reconhecem no sistema que estão inseridos. A hipótese do trabalho é que características de formação acadêmica dos tutores a distância que exercem as atividades na Educação Superior são insuficientes como suporte pedagógico ao trabalho com as ferramentas tecnológicas atuais presentes na EaD. A pesquisa teve caráter de uma investigação qualitativa, com coleta de dados dos currículos lattes e entrevistas possibilitando o tratamento estatístico dos mesmos. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que os tutores, de modo geral, tem uma visão distorcida e preconceituosa sobre a Ead. Destaca-se também a nítida diferenciação nos conceitos de Educação e EaD entre os tutores com formação na área de educação e de exatas. O enfoque do primeiro está atrelado ao conceito de educação e o segundo ao mercado de trabalho e a qualificação profissional. Obtivemos como resultado positivo a demonstração que a ausência de ferramentas virtuais ao longo da graduação ou pós graduação, não inviabilizam o trabalho nesta modalidade de ensino