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Decoding Gender Aesthetics in Chinese Films
Get PDFAbstract
This research investigates the concept of gender aesthetics in contemporary Chinese cinema, analyzing how gender representations are shaped, contested, and negotiated under varying degrees of political, economic, and cultural influences. The primary aim is to decode how state ideologies, commercial imperatives, and independent creative expressions interact to influence cinematic portrayals of masculinity, femininity, and gender nonconformity. The films under examination are grouped into three distinct yet interrelated categories: New Main Melody films, Commercial Mainstream films, and Independent films, each reflecting differing degrees of state control, market interests, and creative autonomy.
Adopting a qualitative approach, the research utilizes feminist film theory, gender performativity analysis, ideological critique, and cinematographic analysis as primary methodologies. It closely examines narrative structures, visual styles, characterization, and thematic presentations within selected films, contextualizing these within broader socio-political frameworks, including state censorship, market dynamics, and cultural attitudes toward gender and sexuality.
The study consists of four analytical chapters, each dedicated to a distinct category of films:
The second chapter analyzes New Main Melody films, specifically focusing on The Climbers (2019) and My People, My Homeland (2020). It argues that these state-sponsored films prominently emphasize nationalist masculinity, patriotic heroism, and collective sacrifice, effectively promoting state-endorsed gender roles through a mechanism identified as prescriptive romanticism. In The Climbers, prescriptive romanticism manifests through idealized portrayals of masculinity explicitly linked to narratives of national pride, heroic self-sacrifice, and physical prowess, creating a rigid gender hierarchy that marginalizes female characters or confines them to supportive, narratively subordinate roles. Similarly, My People, My Homeland utilizes comedic elements to reinforce patriarchal values, positioning women primarily as subordinates within predetermined romantic frameworks that harmonize personal relationships with state ideologies. Furthermore, the chapter argues that these contemporary New Main Melody films represent an evolved version of revolutionary Main Melody cinema, incorporating commercial strategies to enhance popular appeal, while simultaneously serving as a utopian cinematic response to the socialist past—symbolically fulfilling the collective promises previously made by revolutionary narratives of the 20th century.
The third chapter examines Commercial Mainstream films, specifically analyzing Lost, Found (2018) and Goodbye Mr. Loser (2015). These films occupy a position of strategic "in-betweenness," carefully balancing the demands of commercial success, audience appeal, and state censorship regulations. Operating within this liminal space requires filmmakers to creatively embed subtle critiques and nuanced subversions of dominant gender norms beneath superficially compliant narratives. Lost, Found demonstrates this subtlety through a sophisticated exploration of female agency, single motherhood, and class disparities, employing suspenseful narrative structures and empathetic characterizations that indirectly challenge patriarchal assumptions without overt confrontation. Similarly, Goodbye Mr. Loser creatively utilizes comedic devices and body-swap tropes to question traditional masculine privileges and anxieties, embedding its critique within commercially palatable humor. The chapter argues that navigating this delicate interplay between censorship constraints and creative expression necessitates strategic narrative ambiguity, symbolic visual techniques, and indirect forms of social commentary. Thus, the creativity and ingenuity employed by filmmakers within this controlled environment represent an understated yet potent form of ideological negotiation and resistance, subtly questioning established gender roles while maintaining commercial viability and state approval.
The fourth chapter examines Independent films, specifically analyzing A Dog Barking at the Moon (2019) and Sunken Plum (2017). It highlights how independent cinema exercises greater creative autonomy to directly confront and challenge dominant gender discourses, presenting bold portrayals of LGBTQ+ identities, gender fluidity, and nonconformity. Due to relative ‘freedom’ from state-sponsored ideological constraints, independent filmmakers possess greater narrative and aesthetic flexibility, enabling them to critically interrogate issues such as heteronormativity, familial expectations, and societal discrimination against marginalized identities. In A Dog Barking at the Moon, filmmaker Xiang Zi utilizes non-linear storytelling, symbolic imagery, and surrealist aesthetics to explore generational conflicts, repressed sexualities, and the psychological damage caused by compulsory conformity. Likewise, Sunken Plum capitalizes on its autonomous creative space to foreground transgender experiences, emphasizing individual authenticity and the tension between personal identity and societal prejudice. Although these independent films often encounter challenges in domestic visibility due to censorship, their autonomy enables them to construct complex narratives that articulate resistance and alternative visions of gender representation. Consequently, independent cinema emerges as an essential site of artistic resistance, amplifying marginalized voices and countering state and commercial cinemas' prescribed gender aesthetics.
Overall, this research provides comprehensive insight into how gender aesthetics in Chinese cinema function as a site of ideological control, economic negotiation, and artistic resistance. It reveals that while state-sponsored films serve to reinforce official gender ideologies, commercial mainstream films exhibit cautious explorations within allowable boundaries, and independent films boldly challenge existing gender and sexual norms, offering significant avenues for subversion. The study contributes to academic discourse by demonstrating cinema’s complex role in reflecting, shaping, and contesting gender perceptions in contemporary Chinese society
Objective structured therapeutic examination (OSTE) for the assessment of psychodynamic intervention competencies in psychotherapy trainees.
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Dropout Trends among Laotian Hmong Minority Lifelong Learners in Adult Education
Get PDFThis study investigates the dropout decisions of Laotian Hmong minority students in higher education. Multiple methodological approaches were employed to provide a comprehensive analysis. First, an integrative review of the literature was conducted to explore theoretical perspectives on minority student attrition and the key factors contributing to their withdrawal from higher education. Additionally, a qualitative research design was utilized to examine patterns in the reasons for student dropout and the influence of familial factors on their educational experiences. A total of 11 Hmong minority students who had permanently withdrawn from a Laotian university participated in in-depth-interviews. The interview data were analyzed using a mixed procedure of deductive category assignment and inductive category formation. The findings indicate a distinct pattern, wherein the majority of student leavers attributed their dropout decisions to a single category of factors. More specifically, family-related factors emerged as the predominant reason for withdrawal. Given the strong familial ties among Hmong minority students, responsibilities such as caring for parents and supporting family members were found to significantly impact their educational persistence. This study highlights the need for further research and statistical validation of the identified variables to deepen the understanding of minority student attrition in higher education
Quantification of microbial fitness: costs of protein overexpression and phage infection
Get PDFFitness is the most fundamental variable in quantitative biology. It is used to understand and predict evolutionary dynamics, analyze the effects of gene expression, and evaluate how organisms interact with each other and their environment. Scalable, quantitative fitness measurements are therefore essential tools for microbial systems biology. The absence of practical, standardized methods for such measurements hampers progress and results in less comparable data across studies. In this work, we developed and applied two high-throughput techniques to address these challenges—one for bacterial fitness and the other for phage fitness. These methods significantly improve accessibility to fitness measurements and enabled us to tackle questions that were previously beyond scope due to infeasible experimental demands.
Protein overexpression is linked to many diseases and plays a central role in antibiotic resistance, particularly through drug targets or resistance genes like membrane-localized efflux pumps. Using a high-throughput colony-imaging technique, we performed a genome-wide analysis of overexpression fitness costs in Escherichia coli at finely resolved expression levels.
Our analysis revealed that most membrane proteins impose steep fitness costs, with bacterial growth collapsing abruptly once a critical expression threshold is exceeded.
The prevailing hypothesis for the high fitness costs of membrane proteins is the supposed saturation of the Sec translocon, the cornerstone of the primary membrane translocation pathway. Through the use of synthetic membrane proteins targeting different translocation pathways, we excluded Sec translocon saturation as the origin of
the fitness costs.
We used single-cell time-lapse imaging with fluorescently tagged membrane proteins to observe competition between membrane proteins during overexpression. These experiments showed that the overexpression costs stem from the displacement of endogenous membrane proteins. This displacement of the endogenous membrane proteome can abruptly diminish growth during membrane protein overexpression. Displacing 10% of the endogenous membrane proteins traps bacteria in a non-functional membrane proteome state.
Compared to bacterial fitness measurements, techniques for quantifying phage fitness remain significantly underdeveloped and often rely on century-old methods like the plaque assay. This severely limits throughput in phage fitness measurements and therefore systematic comparisons of phage phenotypes, such as their amplification rates in bacterial populations and their bactericidal effects under varying environmental conditions, are rare. To address this gap, we developed a novel high-throughput approach termed PHORCE (Phage-Host Observation for Rate Estimation from Collapse Events). PHORCE uses a minimal mathematical model to analyze bacterial population growth and collapse dynamics under phage predation, enabling accurate quantification of lytic phage amplification rates.
Our findings demonstrate that the amplification rate quantified through PHORCE reliably captures the bactericidal effect of phages, independent of the initial bacterial and phage population sizes and for different growth conditions. Using this approach, we observed amplification rate differences of more than three orders of magnitude across E. coli phages. Moreover, PHORCE revealed that phage-antibiotic interactions are primarily influenced by the antibiotic rather than the phage. For instance, the ribosome-inhibiting antibiotic doxycycline exhibited antagonistic interactions with phage amplification, whereas the DNA-damaging antibiotic nitrofurantoin showed synergistic effects. By enabling quantitative, high-throughput characterization of phage phenotypes, PHORCE provides a robust framework for systematic phage studies and facilitates screens to identify phage candidates for antibacterial therapeutics.
The results of this thesis highlight the importance of developing high-throughput methods and show that their application leads to a comprehensive knowledge gain and can have an impact on various areas of microbiology, biomedicine and biotechnology
Asprosin als molekularer Marker für das Marfan-Syndrom (ASPMFS)
Get PDFPatienten mit Marfan-Syndrom zeichnen sich morphologisch durch einen typischen asthenischen
Hochwuchs und gleichzeitige Arachnodaktylie aus. Klinisch betrachtet besteht das größte Risiko
in der Entwicklung einer progressiven Aortendilatation, die nicht selten tödlich durch eine Ruptur
oder Dissektion endet. Marfan-Syndrom wird durch Mutationen im FBN1 Gen verursacht, welche
mit Störungen der Fibrillin-1 Synthese einhergehen. Dies führt zu einer beeinträchtigten Integrität
und Stabilität der extrazellulären Matrix.
Vor einigen Jahren wurde ein hauptsächlich aus dem weißen Fettgewebe stammendes Hormon
namens Asprosin entdeckt. Dieses entsteht als Spaltprodukt während der Synthese von Fibrillin-
1 und weist metabolische Aktivität auf. Es unterliegt einer zirkadianen Rhythmik, die an den
Hungerzustand gekoppelt ist, und im ZNS nicht nur einen Hungerstimulus erzeugt, sondern auch
in der Leber Glucose freisetzt. Verschiedene Arbeiten stellten die Bedeutung von Asprosin im
Kontext mit Erkrankungen des metabolischen Syndroms dar oder prognostizierten das Potential
von Asprosin entweder als mögliches Markerhormon oder aber als mögliche Zielstruktur in
pharmakologischen Zusammenhängen.
Angesichts des gemeinsamen Vorläuferproteins von Fibrillin-1 und Asprosin sowie der
metabolischen Rolle des Asprosins auf marfanoide Phänotypen scheint ein Zusammenhang
zwischen Marfan-Syndrom und Asprosin plausibel.
In dieser Arbeit wurde eine umfassende klinische Querschnittsstudie im Fall-Kontroll-Vergleich
von insgesamt 130 Patienten bei Kindern und Erwachsenen mit quantitativer Analyse des
Asprosins im Speichel durchgeführt. Ziel dieser Studie war es, die Bedeutung von Asprosin als
molekularen Marker für Marfan-Syndrom im Hinblick auf verschiedene klinische Einflussgrößen
zu untersuchen.
Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Asprosin weniger zur Erstdiagnose des Marfan-Syndroms geeignet
ist, sondern sich vielmehr als ein risikostratifizierender Marker hinsichtlich Aortendilatation und
potenzieller Operationsindikation eignet. Zudem konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Messung von
Asprosin im Speichel eine nicht-invasive Möglichkeit zur Bestimmung von Asprosin darstellt
Computational Modelling of Brain Network Dynamics in Psychotic and Affective Disorders
Get PDFThis dissertation explores the role of dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) as an intermediate phenotype linking neurobiological characteristics and clinical outcomes in psychotic and affective disorders. The thesis aims to reveal alterations in dFC in psychotic and affective patients, study the impact of neurobiology on static and dynamic FC patterns, and identify neurobiological processes which might contribute to static and dynamic FC changes in psychotic and affective disorder.
Study I, which compared dFC patterns of patients with recent-onset psychosis (ROP), patients with recent-onset depression (ROD), individuals with a clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR), and healthy individuals, found diagnosis-specific alterations in ROP and ROD patients as well as transdiagnostic alterations exhibited by all patient groups. We also identified a dFC pattern which was significantly correlated with psychosis symptom severity across the patient groups. Study II investigated the relationship between neurobiological characteristics and static and dynamic FC using brain network modelling, identifying FC correlates of global coupling and excitatory synaptic coupling, as well as model fits. In addition, this study investigated the effect of altering regional model parameters on global FC, showing that distinct small subsets of regions produced outsized effects on static and dynamic FC and regional effects were correlated with network structure. Study III employed brain network modelling of static and dynamic FC to reveal an increase in regional recurrent excitation in CHR individuals and ROD patients compared to healthy controls and ROP patients.
Integrating the findings from these three studies, this dissertation contributes to the understanding of the role of dFC in psychotic and affective disorders, providing evidence for neurobiological underpinnings and clinical consequences of alterations to dFC
New approaches for investigating microbial food webs across ecosystems
Get PDFMicrobial communities drive essential ecosystem processes such as organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling. However, the complex dynamics of microbial food webs, including the role of trophic interactions and environmental factors, are not yet fully understood, as disentangling biotic and abiotic factors remains challenging.
This thesis explores microbial food webs across various ecosystems, ranging from wastewater treatment plants and maize rhizospheres to alpine soils and forest canopies. Using metatranscriptomics or metabarcoding with group-specific primers, the complex interplay of biotic and abiotic factors that drive microbial diversity, community composition, and function are uncovered. In addition, this thesis facilitates the exploration and integration of functional traits for protists by providing a functional trait database for Amoebozoa - a widespread and dominant protist group - as well as introducing workflows for the investigation and comparison of physiological traits of individual protist taxa based on de novo transcriptomes.
We show that microbial food webs are strongly shaped by predation. In wastewater treatment plants, predation by protists and microscopic metazoans facilitated the removal of parasites. In the maize rhizosphere, predation by protists drove prokaryote community turnover, along with plant immune responses, root zones, or the effects of root manipulations. However, biotic interactions are not limited to predation. On canopy bark surfaces, microbial community assembly was shaped by an interplay of biotic and abiotic factors, specifically by competition between bacteria and fungi, symbioses between algae and fungi, bark topology, and environmental conditions. Furthermore, abiotic factors partly influenced microbial communities indirectly through biotic interactions. For example, seasonal changes affected predator communities in alpine soils and wastewater treatment systems, which, in turn, shaped the prey communities through selective predation pressure. In addition, analyses of the functional traits of protists revealed: First, variations in Amoebozoa and Cercozoa communities across ecosystems affected not only the taxonomic composition but also the functional composition. Second, even the physiological traits of individual protist taxa, including closely related strains, exhibit remarkable variation.
Collectively, these findings highlight the central role of biotic interactions in structuring microbial communities and emphasize the advantages of functional traits and holistic, molecular-based approaches for studying microbial communities. The insights into the complexity of microbial food webs, combined with the established methodologies and tools, will allow future studies to deepen our understanding of the astonishing diversity of microorganisms – particularly of protists
Die onkogenen Effekte der B-Zell-spezifischen Mutation von MYD88L265P im autochthonen Mausmodell
Get PDFDas diffus großzellige B-Zell-Lymphom (DLBCL) gehört zu den aggressiven Non-Hodgkin-Lymphomen und ist eine molekularbiologisch heterogene Erkrankung mit hoher genetischer Variabilität. In etwa 18% der Fälle finden sich MYD88-Mutationen (engl. Myeloid differentiation primary response 88); dabei handelt es meistens um die Variante MYD88 L265P. Besonders häufig, in fast einem Drittel der Fälle, kommt MYD88 L265P in der ABC- beziehungsweise
Non-GCB-DLBCL Gruppe vor, die mit einer schlechteren Prognose assoziiert ist.
Als Bestandteil des TLR-Signalweges und des My-T-BCR-Proteinkomplexes ist der Signaladapter MyD88 an der Aktivierung von NF-κB beteiligt, und bildet einen zentralen Knotenpunkt im Netzwerk der ABC-DLBCL-Tumorbiologie. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit war, einen Modellorganismus zu generieren, der unter Verwendung von MYD88 L265P den Pathomechanismus der besonders aggressiven Subentität ABC-DLBCL simuliert.
Zu diesem Zweck wurde ein konditionales Allel entwickelt, das die B-Zell-spezifische Expression von Myd88p.L252P, dem murinen orthologen Gen des humanen MYD88p.L265P, aus seinem endogenen Lokus ermöglicht. Ein funktionales Allel wurde generiert, das nach Cre-vermittelter Rekombination zur Expression der Myd88p.L252P mRNA und dessen Translation in
Protein führt. Beobachtungen an den transgenen Mäusen zeigten, dass die B-Zell-spezifische Expression von Myd88p.L252P die Entstehung lymphoproliferativer Organmanifestationen induziert und mit einem verkürztem Gesamtüberleben assoziiert ist. Es wurde nicht nur die Entwicklung diffuser lymphoproliferativer Erkrankung beobachtet, sondern auch gelegentlich
das Auftreten von Infiltraten, die morphologisch und immunhistochemisch dem ABC-DLBCL ähneln. Klonalitätsanalysen bestätigten, dass die umschriebenen Lymphoproliferationen mit DLBCL-ähnlicher Morphologie klonalen Ursprungs waren.
Es folgten weitere Untersuchungen einer humanen DLBCL-Kohorte. Hier zeigte sich erneut, dass der ABC-DLBCL-Subtyp überproportional häufig die MYD88p.L265P-Mutation aufweist und mit einer erhöhten Expression von BCL2 korreliert. Um die humane Erkrankung möglichst
realitätsnah zu simulieren, wurde das Myd88-Allel mit einem BCL2-Überexpressionsallel kombiniert. Die gleichzeitige Myd88p.L252P Expression und BCL2-Überexpression in vivo provozierte die Entwicklung von Lymphomen, deren Morphologie und Immunphänotyp am ehesten dem ABC-DLBCL entsprechen.
Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit konnte ein Mausmodell etabliert werden, das auf der B-Zell-spezifischen Myd88p.L252P-Expression basiert und eine dem humanen ABC-DLBCL ähnliche Erkrankung reproduziert
Praktik(en) schriftlichen Argumentierens in den Fächern Deutsch, Biologie und Geschichte. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung kontextueller, struktureller und sprachlicher Merkmale schriftlicher Argumentationen
Get PDFWird in den Fächern Deutsch, Biologie und Geschichte eigentlich gleich argumentiert? Diese Frage steht im Zentrum der vorliegenden explorativen Studie zur Praktik des schriftlichen Argumentierens. In Anlehnung an den Habitusbegriff nach Bourdieu wird die Praktik des schriftlichen Argumentierens in den Fächern Deutsch, Biologie und Geschichte in den gymnasialen Jahrgangsstufen 7, 9 und 12 anhand von Schüler*innentexten, Erwartungshorizonten, Lehrer*innenbeurteilungen und Lehrwerksaufgaben rekonstruiert. Zudem werden die Schüler*innentexte auch hinsichtlich spezifischer sprachlicher Merkmale untersucht. Die Studie gibt Hinweise darauf, dass das schriftliche Argumentieren in den drei Fächern unterschiedlich ist. Dies wiederum könnte bedeuten, dass der Deutschunterricht keine Argumentationskompetenzen anbahnen kann, die dann in die anderen Fachkontexte transferiert werden können