The Dark Side of the Screen—A Resistance to Changing Times

This essay argues that black and white cinema spawned a resistance to changing times that is still very present in the new generation of directors who follow classic film traditions while subverting them with consistent narrative inventions.The Artist,the best picture Oscar award winner in 2012,is an example of this resistance as it pays homage to some of the greatest silent films of the first two or three decades of cinema history.“The Dark Side of the Screen”aims to underline that there is an unchanging power of the phantasmagoria so present in black and white movies,produced not only in the silent era but also in film noir through lighting effects and camera angles which characterize the work of major noir directors like Fritz Lang,Billy Wilder,and Orson Welles,who knew everything about the unutterable mysteries hidden on the dark side of the screen.

Art and Terror in Daniel Silva’s Spy Novel The Kill Artist

The importance of Daniel Silva’s past,close to a Portuguese cultural environment,will be relevant to understand the psychological profile of his popular protagonist and central character,Gabriel Allon,a melancholic man haunted by his past,but also someone who is a gifted art restorer,very sensitive to the values of loyalty and fidelity,which the author assumed to have inherited from his Portuguese family.Being a spy and an art expert,Allon seems to conciliate two contradictory sides of the human personality.The connection between Portuguese and American culture,in this writer’s background,could have been responsible for the creation of a character who can be,at the same time,very sensitive and very violent;an assassin who is an Israeli secret agent and the world’s finest restorer of the Old Masters’paintings.A perfect double who does justice to his creator’s double origin,which contributed to the success of The Kill Artist(2000),where terror is practiced as one of the fine arts by a hero very loyal and faithful to his complex cultural origins,living in a diaspora as the eternal wandering Jew.

Domestic noir in Anglo-American Literature

In order to highlight the contribution of Literature to the study of Domestic Violence,this essay will reflect on the relevance of some Anglo-American literary works,integrated in the Domestic Gothic or Domestic Noir,a subgenre of the psychological thriller,distinguished by the peculiarity of representing a woman in danger as its main character.The family can be the most commonly considered luminous space of harmony,affection and quiet domesticity,but everything can turn upside down whenever this stereotype is reversed drastically.The so-called domestic noir,a new genre popularized in 2013,deals with these dualities,demonstrating that gothic fiction has always been interested in family conflicts and domestic violence in its most varied forms,turning them into sources of terror so relevant to our time.

Intensive Agricultural Practices as Enhancers of the Dispersion of Invasive Species:Notification of the Observation of a Case with Robinia pseudoacacia L.in Alentejo(Southern Portugal)

Invasive forest species are a recurring problem,which in Portugal assume a somewhat mediatic role,both because of the impacts they cause on biodiversity,but also because they enhance the accumulation of high amounts of fuel load,increasing the risk of forest fires.However,in some areas of the country,such as the Alentejo(South of Portugal),the scarcity of water did not allow,until now,the dispersion and rapid growth of some of these species,namely Robinia pseudoacacia,which has always remained under control,and it was never a real problem.However,with the growth of intensive farming practices,associated with vineyards,olive groves and almond trees,water and nutrients became available,enabling this species to grow and disperse.This communication presents an observation of several sets of R.pseudoacacia specimens growing with different agricultural holdings,raising the hypothesis that intensive farming practices may,in the short term,contribute to the dispersion of invasive species in regions where they were not a problem,if the situations reported are not followed up and studies are carried out to confirm the observations described.

Data error propagation in stacked bioclimatic envelope models

Stacking is the process of overlaying inferred species potential distributions for multiple species based on outputs of bioclimatic envelope models(BEMs).The approach can be used to investigate patterns and processes of species richness.If data limitations on individual species distributions are inevitable,but how do they affect inferences of patterns and processes of species richness?We investigate the influence of different data sources on estimated species richness gradients in China.We fitted BEMs using species distributions data for 334 bird species obtained from(1)global range maps,(2)regional checklists,(3)museum records and surveys,and(4)citizen science data using presence-only(Mahalanobis distance),presence-background(MAXENT),and presence–absence(GAM and BRT)BEMs.Individual species predictions were stacked to generate species richness gradients.Here,we show that different data sources and BEMs can generate spatially varying gradients of species richness.The environmental predictors that best explained species distributions also differed between data sources.Models using citizen-based data had the highest accuracy,whereas those using range data had the lowest accuracy.Potential richness patterns estimated by GAM and BRT models were robust to data uncertainty.When multiple data sets exist for the same region and taxa,we advise that explicit treatments of uncertainty,such as sensitivity analyses of the input data,should be conducted during the process of modeling.

Using presence signs to discriminate between similar species

The Lusitanian and the Mediterranean pine voles(Microtus lusitanicus Gerbe,1879 and Microtus duodecimcostatus de Selys-Longchamps,1839)are fossorial sister species and have an allopatric pattern of distribution in Portugal,which includes a potential sympatry area in the centre of the country.The present study aimed to determine the validity of using presence signs in the field for discrimination of the two species in an area of sympatry(Northern Alentejo)and the characteristics that achieve the best classification accuracy.A total of 175 trapping plots were sampled across the study area.Prior to the set up of traps,ten presence signs were randomly selected for measure-ments of four variables:proportion of soil mounds,mean diameter of mounds,proportion of burrow openings and mean diameter of burrow openings.On the basis of a classification tree analysis,results showed that presence signs can be used to discriminate plots inhabited by one or the other species in the studied sympatry area.The character-istic that most accurately enables species identification is the proportion of burrow openings:for every ten pres-ence signs found in a plot,if more than eight have an opening,then it is inhabited by M.lusitanicus(i.e.mostly burrow openings with few or no mounds present);if eight or fewer have an opening,M.duodecimcostatus is present(i.e.mostly mounds with few or no burrow openings).

Temporal trends in areas at risk for concomitant tuberculosis in a hyperendemic municipality in the Amazon region of Brazil

Background Although preventable and curable,tuberculosis(TB)still occurs in poor or developing countries,mainly in metropolitan regions of larger cities.The disease is a serious public health problem,and is directly linked to social issues.We analyzed temporal trend variations in areas at risk for concomitant TB,and characterized the clinical and epidemiological profiles of cases in a hyperendemic municipality in the Amazon region of Brazil.Methods This ecological study was performed in the municipality of Manaus,in northern Brazil.The population comprised cases with concomitant pulmonary and extrapulmonary TB,registered on the Notifiable Diseases Information System(SINAN),between January 1,2009 and December 31,2018.For risk cluster detection,spatial and spatiotemporal scanning statistical techniques were used.The Spatial Variation in Temporal Trends(SVTT)approach was used to detect and infer clusters for significantly different time trends.Results Between 2009 and 2018,873 concomitant TB cases were registered in Manaus.By using purely spatial scanning statistics,we identified two risk clusters.The relative risk(RR)of the clusters was 2.21(95%confidence interval[CI]:1.57–2.88;P=0.0031)and 2.03(95%CI:1.58–2.58;P=0.0029).Using space-time scanning,we identified a risk cluster with an RR of 3.57(95%CI:2.84–4.41;P=0.014),between 2017 and 2018.For SVTT analyses,three clusters with spatial variations were detected in the significant temporal trends:SVTT 1(P=0.042),SVTT 2(P=0.046)and SVTT 3(P=0.036).Conclusions In Brazil,several TB-determining factors such as race/color,gender,low educational level and low income overlap in needy urban areas and communities,demonstrating that it is unlikely to reach the goals,agreed and launched with the END TB Strategy within the deadlines of international agreements,if there is no reduction in existing inequities determinants and risk of illness in the country.