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The paraspecific neutralisation of snake venom induced coagulopathy by antivenoms
(2018-04-19) Ainsworth, Stuart; Slagboom, Julien; Alomran, Nessrin; Plá, Davinia; Alhamdi, Yasir; King, Sarah I.; Bolton, Fiona M. S.; Gutiérrez, José María; Vonk, Freek; Toh, Cheng Hock; Calvete Chornet, Juan José; Kool, Jeroen; Harrison, Robert; Casewell, Nicholas
Snake envenoming causes several potentially lethal pathologies. The specific pathology is dictated by the toxin composition of venom, which varies by species, geography and ontogeny. This variation severely restricts the paraspecific efficacy of antivenoms used to treat snakebite victims. With a view to devising pathology-specific snakebite treatments, we assessed the procoagulant activity of 57 snake venoms and investigated the efficacy of various antivenoms. We find that procoagulant venoms act differentially on key steps of the coagulation cascade, and that certain monospecific antivenoms work in a previously unrecognised paraspecific manner to neutralise this activity, despite conventional assumptions of congener-restricted efficacy. Moreover, we demonstrate that the metal chelator EDTA is also capable of neutralising venom-induced lethality in vivo. This study illustrates the exciting potential of developing new, broad-spectrum, toxin-targeting antivenoms capable of treating key snakebite pathologies and advocates a thorough re-examination of enzyme inhibiting compounds as alternative therapies for treating snakebite victims.
Masked thinkers? Politics and ideology in the contemporary superhero film
(2017-07-01) Muñoz González, Rodrigo Antonio
This article analyzes the ideological representations in the discourse of contemporary superhero films. In recent years, there has been a tendency in the genre: The characters have become more self-conscious of their roles, even questioning the ‘greater good’ that they are trying to achieve. Thus, the ideological representations of two recent superhero films are studied. For the corpus of analysis, Iron Man (2008) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) would be selected to be examined based on a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, and using two categories: plot and characters (the second with two subcategories: biographic origin and objectives). The main results point out political contradictions at the discursive level and suggest a relation with current political issues of the contemporary capitalism. This work discusses how a text unfolds an ideology harbored in the meanings and values of an American-based production and political culture.
Más allá de la sangre: procesos de revictimización y periodismo sensacionalista
(2016) Muñoz González, Rodrigo Antonio
Diario Extra es un periódico conocido en Costa Rica por su tendencia sensacionalista. Sus noticias de feminicidios tienen una tónica en las que se "revictimiza" a la víctima: los elementos de la noticia muestran de forma vulnerable a la persona asesinada. Esta investigación estudia esta manifestación discursiva en las noticias de Diario Extra durante el año 2011. Se realizó una recopilación inicial de 117 notas, de las cuales 44 corresponden a asesinatos y violaciones sin un motivo claro por parte del victimario. Así, se seleccionaron 5 de estas notas para analizar con profundidad cómo funcionan los procesos de la revictimización. Los resultados arrojaron que estos procesos se valen de recursos semióticos para lograr apelar a la emotividad del lector ya que al crimen se le buscan muchos aristas para exagerarlo.
Critical resignation in Latin America: Transnational media and young people
(2023-12-19) Muñoz González, Rodrigo Antonio
Costa Rica is a Latin American country with historical close ties to the United States. This relationship is palpable in the prominence and relevance that content produced in the US has in local media diets. In this article, I analyse how young people in Costa Rica make sense of engaging with transnational media. My goal is to understand the modes in which audiences understand their consumption of foreign media, and how these media operate as a bridge to comprehend broader geopolitical dynamics. For this, I use the theory of cultural proximity to explore the forces that mobilise the reception practices of young audiences and to discern which elements they experience as culturally close. Drawing from a media consumption habits survey, 13 focus group discussions and 35 paired-interviews, I examine the ways in which political and aesthetic evaluations underpin the interpretation of transnational media. Moreover, I show that Costa Rican young audiences adopt a stance of critical resignation: an interpretative operation which entails the acceptance of a geopolitical situation of a perceived submission and inferiority, but a critical awareness of their attitudes towards and acceptance of media texts that come from abroad.
Mediations, popular cultures, and cartographies: Contemporary audiences in Latin America
(2024-09-26) Muñoz González, Rodrigo Antonio; Siles González, Ignacio
When we focus on meditations, we explore articulations of experiences, meanings, objects, and different kinds of agency from the micro to the macro. The popular appears when society and culture are mediated in the trenches of everyday life.