Abstract: Biluminescent organic emitters show simultaneous fluorescence and phosphorescence at room temperature. So far, the optimization of the room-temperature phosphorescence in these materials has drawn the attention of research. However, the continuous-wave operation of these emitters will consequently turn them into systems with vastly imbalanced singlet and triplet populations, which is due to the respective excited-state lifetimes. This study reports on the exciton dynamics of the biluminophore NPB (N,N′-di(1-naphthyl)-N,N′-diphenyl-(1,1-biphenyl)-4,4-diamine). In the extreme case, the singlet and triplet exciton lifetimes stretch from 3 ns to 300 ms, respectively. Through sample engineering and oxygen quenching experiments, the triplet exciton density can be controlled over several orders of magnitude, allowing us to study exciton interactions between singlet and triplet manifolds. The results show that singlet−triplet annihilation reduces the overall biluminescence efficiency already at moderate excitation levels. Additionally, the presented system represents an illustrative role model to study excitonic effects in organic materials.

Abstract: The property of an organic molecule able to emit light efficiently from both their singlet and triplet excited states is called biluminescence. This dual state emission, particularly at room temperature, is difficult to achieve by purely organic molecules. It is possible only if the competitive thermal decay is suppressed effectively, enhancing the yield from the triplet state (i.e. phosphorescence) in addition to the conventional fluorescence. Biluminescence was identified in a simple host:guest system in which the biluminophore (i.e. an organic molecule showing biluminescence) NPB [N,N’-di(naphtha-1-yl)-N,N’- diphenyl-benzidine] is embedded in a rigid matrix, for example, the polymer PMMA [poly(methyl methacrylate)]. This system is unique not only due to the dual state emission, having fluorescence and phosphorescence emissions at 425nm and 530nm, respectively, but also because the large range of exciton lifetimes is extended up to nine orders of magnitude between nanosecond fluorescence and second phosphorescence. Up to date, efforts have been placed exclusively in the research of room temperature phosphorescence (RTP), although fluorescence can be observed from these systems as well. Therefore, the aim of this thesis was the investigation of the fundamental photophysical processes and characteristics of biluminescent organic molecules, in addition to their usage in promising applications as it will be described next. For instance, the most used approach for oxygen sensing is based on quenching of luminescent excited states, following a scheme of optical monitoring, i.e. correlating luminescence over-time data with oxygen concentrations. However, regardless whether one pursues fluorescence or phosphorescence quenching, they share a common drawback: They cannot monitor the effect of sample degradation due to extensive light exposure. In fact, one cannot distinguish between oxygen having penetrated the film and quenched the luminescence, or the sample being degraded over time due to e.g. photobleaching of the emitting molecules. The former represents an issue, especially for build-in applications. Now herein, it was proposed to use biluminescence to exclude degradation processes from oxygen sensing data evaluation, through a simple fluorescence-to-phosphorescence intensity ratio. This can be achieved, because it was proven here that the fluorescence is not directly quenched by oxygen, whereas the long-lived RTP is sensitive to it. Therefore, the fluorescence acts as self-referencing in a biluminescent sensor, which serves as an alternative solution to monitor oxygen concentrations. Additionally, the integration of the sensor into optoelectronic devices is considered as a potential future direction. Furthermore, it was revealed in this thesis that the difference in exciton lifetime yields to a significant limitation of luminescence efficiency, because of exciton accumulation under continuous illumination, causing bimolecular processes like singlet-triplet and triplet-triplet annihilation (STA and TTA, respectively), as well as optical saturation. All those processes occur already at moderate excitation intensities. It was demonstrated through sample engineering and oxygen quenching experiments, that the triplet exciton density can be controlled over several orders of magnitude, allowing to study exciton interactions between singlet and triplet manifolds. Consequently, the presented biluminescent system represents an illustrative role model to study excitonic effects in organic molecules. For example, in organic light-emitting diode materials, where the aforementioned effects i.e. STA, TTA and saturation, are application relevant but much more difficult to investigate. Mainly because light emission can be observed only from one state, instead of both states like in biluminescence.

Abstract: Every year, thousands are selectively killed and displaced in social cleansing campaigns in Colombia announced in publicly-posted pamphlets. Also known as the “black hand”, the selective killings have become a hallmark of the country’s poorest neighborhoods. Often perpetrated by neighbors, under the auspices of paramilitary groups and with the complicity or even participation of local police, these murders are touted as the necessary procedures of order in places where official justice cannot reach. Drug users, petty criminals, LGBTQ folk and especially trans women, are the preeminent targets of such campaigns. Already largely labeled as deviant or marginal, those whose lives are threatened and who dare make official complaints are dismissed by those institutions tasked with their safety. Purgare invites a consideration of social cleansing not from the perspective of the violence of its perpetrators, but through those who stand in resistance against it. This project accompanies a group of trans women who, faced with the extra-legal and legal dismissal of their lives, take recourse to magic to protect themselves and to reassert a modicum of agency. Bringing together photojournalism, anthropology, and artistic representation, the series and essay inhabits the magically real space created by these women, illuminating the powers they conjure in the worlds they create. Purgare stages the journeys of transformation crafted by these self-styled witches through their manipulations of plants and energies to forge lasting and powerful connections between new peoples and novel worlds. Purgare is imagined between disciplines and knowledges in an effort to expand the bounds of story-telling traditionally produced about violence. It builds a space in which those who struggle against structural violence can meet to create new representations of themselves and together weave novel images of power and possibility. Based on the stories of Stefania Grajales, Paola Caicedo and Catalina Lozano.

Abstract: Las Malinches vs the Great Social Network’ is a visual album by a Colombian music band, specially put together for this graduation project. The soundtrack narrates the group’s formation process, in response to the connectivity programs introduced by Facebook in the global south. The album portrays the band’s state of paralysis in the face of these connectivity programs. Finally, the album celebrates existing communication systems that could present a less corporate alternative to the American platform. The album contains videos that contextualize and satirize Facebook’s charitable endeavors and additionally, it includes original music that acts as counter narrative to Zuckerberg’s neoliberal and possibly neocolonial gospel. The electro-cumbia songs, written specifically for this graduation project, question the inevitable position of Facebook. They mix local rhythms with western sounds and thus propose a new musical language in which both influences merge. Orality is used as a tool for knowledge creation, a fundamental practice in South American cultures. The visual album is distributed by means of a raspberry pi, aiming to show the public that there are alternatives to share content in hybrid spaces where physicality is as important as digital connectivity. This allows us to think about the ‘internet outside the internet’. It works as the starting point for the creation of community networks that, in the end, demonstrate how the narratives of the large tech-companies might be forceful, but they are certainly not inevitable. Resumen: ‘Las Malinches vs the Great Social Network’ es un álbum visual de una banda de música colombiana, elaborado especialmente para este proyecto de graduación. La banda sonora narra el proceso de formación del grupo, en respuesta a los programas de conectividad introducidos por Facebook en el sur global. El álbum retrata el estado de parálisis de la banda frente a estos programas de conectividad. Finalmente, el álbum celebra los sistemas de comunicación existentes que podrían presentar una alternativa menos corporativa a los de la plataforma estadounidense. El álbum contiene videos que contextualizan y satirizan los esfuerzos caritativos de Facebook y, además, incluye música original que actúa como contranarrativa del evangelio neoliberal y posiblemente neocolonial de Zuckerberg. Las canciones de electro-cumbia, escritas específicamente para este proyecto de graduación, cuestionan la inevitable posición de Facebook. Mezclan ritmos locales con sonidos occidentales y así, proponen un nuevo lenguaje musical en el que se fusionan ambas influencias. La oralidad se utiliza como herramienta para la creación de conocimiento, retomando esta práctica fundamental de las culturas sudamericanas. El álbum visual se distribuye mediante una raspberry pi, con el objetivo de mostrar al público que existen alternativas para compartir contenidos en espacios híbridos donde la fisicalidad es tan importante como la conectividad digital. Esto nos permite pensar en "Internet fuera del Internet". El proyecto funciona entonces como el punto de partida para la creación de redes comunitarias que, al final, demuestran cómo las narrativas de las grandes empresas tecnológicas pueden ser poderosas, pero ciertamente no son inevitables.

Resumen: La Piscina Romano es una piscina al aire libre tradicional de la ciudad de Milán, construida en el año 1920, que funciona solo en los meses de verano y luego se vacía y se cierra durante el resto del año. Mi objetivo ha sido crear una instalación de parque temporal dentro del área de la piscina, para volverla útil en meses en que está vacía. El complejo balnear está ubicado en un área central de la ciudad de Milán, en una zona residencial y predominantemente universitaria, con una importante presencia del de Milán. La Piscina Romano tiene un área de 17.400m2 aprox. y sólo un 29% de su área es funcional durante todo el año. El estado actual de este complejo balnear es un espacio totalmente fragmentado y desarticulado, de áreas abandonadas y sub-utilizadas, que quise integrar y refuncionalizar dentro del proyecto de parque temporal. La idea de crear un parque surgió con la intención de ampliar el parque de juegos de la piscina Romano hacia la piscina grande. Partiendo del concepto “La piscina que se convierte en parque”, luego también hice lo contrario, es decir, “el parque que se convierte en piscina”, esto quiere decir que el área de juego actual se ha convertido en una especie de piscina metafórica. De esta manera, los integré, pero también creé una ambigüedad entre uno y otro, disolviendo los límites entre ellos y produciendo un único espacio recreativo, dentro de una paradoja: no un parque y una piscina, sino un parque acuático y recreativo. Diseñé una obra de street painting en el suelo de todo el complejo para crear una metáfora. Los gráficos del suelo inundaron todo el balneario e integraron todas las piezas. En el edificio de vestieres decidí en cambio, crear un parque cubierto para permitir que la dinámica social alrededor del área de juegos al aire libre continúe desarrollándose a pesar del frío, y para que los niños, padres y ancianos tengan un lugar de encuentro cómodo en los meses más fríos del año. Por otro lado, quería retomar el complejo escultórico “Los Baños Misteriosos” de Giorgio De Chirico, actualmente ubicado en la Trienal de Milán, trasladándolo a la Piscina Romano como parte del proyecto de parque temporal, agregando valor al parque. Finalmente, lo que había imaginado como un parque de estación se convirtió en un dispositivo permanente. Las esculturas adquirieron un papel protagónico y el proyecto se convirtió en un escenario para exhibirlas. El resultado es una especie de parque acuático y recreativo, pero con esculturas valiosas.

Abstract: On hearing about the massacre that took place in 1928 in Ciénaga, Colombia; Úrsula – a character from One Hundred Years of Solitude – wonders if history keeps repeating itself. Her concern, voiced in in the 1978 novel by Nobel Prize laureate Gabriel García Márquez, is entirely valid today, 500 years after the arrival of the first Europeans in America and nearly a hundred years after the massacre at the banana plantations. Nowadays, it’s not the Spanish crown or the United Fruit Company that are changing the sociopolitical panorama of Latin America, but technological giants form Silicon Valley colonizing the countries of the global south by creating dependency on their digital platforms. Three cases of colonialism in Latin America are examined to understand the evolution of the colonial system that has always been surrounded by a halo of inevitability. The first chapter, In the Name of God, studies colonialism as a system established after the arrival of the Spanish in America. The second chapter, In the Name of Progress, examines the colonial logic behind the United Fruit Company’s actions in South America and the Caribbean. The third chapter, In the Name of Information, reflects on current forms of colonialism through connectivity initiatives led by surveillance capitalist companies like Facebook. As a conclusion, an alternative to the colonial narrative is proposed, which consists of an emancipatory discourse, based on the texts of the Brazilian Oswald Andrade and Oswaldo Costa and Italian philosopher Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi. Resumen: Al enterarse de la masacre ocurrida en 1928 en Ciénaga, Colombia; Úrsula, un personaje de "Cien Años de Soledad", se pregunta si la historia sigue repitiéndose. Su preocupación, expresada en la novela de 1978 del premio Nobel Gabriel García Márquez, es plenamente válida hoy, 500 años después de la llegada de los primeros europeos a América y casi cien años después de la masacre de las bananeras. Hoy en día, no es la corona española, ni la United Fruit Company, las que están cambiando el panorama sociopolítico de América Latina, sino los gigantes tecnológicos de Silicon Valley que colonizan los países del sur global creando dependencias a sus plataformas digitales. Para comprender la evolución del sistema colonial que siempre ha estado rodeado de un halo de inevitabilidad, se examinan tres casos de colonialismo en América Latina. El primer capítulo, "En nombre de Dios", estudia el colonialismo como un sistema establecido tras la llegada de los españoles a América. El segundo capítulo, "En nombre del progreso", examina la lógica colonial detrás de las acciones de la United Fruit Company en América del Sur y el Caribe. El tercer capítulo, "En nombre de la información", reflexiona sobre las formas actuales de colonialismo a través de iniciativas de conectividad lideradas por empresas que abogan por el capitalismo de vigilancia como Facebook. Como conclusión, se propone una alternativa a la narrativa colonial, que consiste en un discurso emancipatorio, basado en los textos del brasileño Oswald Andrade y Oswaldo Costa y del filósofo italiano Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi.

Abstract: The conservation of migratory species poses significant challenges that may be countered by detailed knowledge about the sites used by migrants throughout the annual cycle. We present the rst GPS-tracking data on the migration of declining Caspian terns Hydroprogne caspia breeding in the Baltic Sea. For 39 Caspian terns from colonies along a latitudinal gradient from 57 to 65°N, we identified key migratory routes, stopovers and wintering areas. In autumn these seabirds migrated using coastal and freshwater stopovers along six routes to reach their wintering areas across the Sahel, the Nile River Basin and the southern Iberian Peninsula. In spring, adults returned to the breeding grounds in the Baltic using a time optimizing strategy by reducing time at stopover by 78%, whereas most subadults remained sedentary and some performed only partial return migrations. Of the stopover sites used in both seasons, 58% are protected and have a reported management plan. Conservation strategies in wintering areas, stopover sites that are not protected or had not been previously recognized, and the inclusion of the species in important migratory yways across Europe and Africa will be important to prevent further population declines of a species that depends on aquatic habitats.

Abstract: As the demand for English language skills among non-native speakers globally has grown steadily so too has the number of ‘global textbooks’ for ELT aimed at a world market. Concurrently, critical perspectives of the expansion of English have begun to challenge the view that native speaker contexts ‘own’ English. Based on the aforementioned, and on reflective approaches to culture, our objective is to analyze critically the representations of speakers of English as a second or foreign language offered by two global ELT textbooks, to discuss the issues of essentialization and reproduction of stereotypes about the “nonnative” speakers of English and their sociocultural characteristics in the constructed image. To achieve this purpose, we apply a methodology based on a sociocognitive approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Van Dijk, 2013), the concept of sociocultural knowledge as stated by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and critical perspectives of culture according to Holliday, Kullman, and Hyde (2004). Our findings indicate that, though the books include ‘non-native’ speakers in an attempt to address multiculturalism, their representation is generic, portraying a reified image of their sociocultural traits and presenting diversity mostly through national labels.

Abstract: The article analyses the Resurrection of Christ, a fresco commissioned from Pinturicchio by Pope Alexander VI in 1492 as part of his project to renovate the Borgia Apartments in the Vatican. The analysis focuses on a detail of the painting: the figures of what seems to be a group of indigenous warriors located at the centre of the fresco. The main purpose of the paper is to identify the iconographic meaning and sources of this particular image. The central claim is that Pinturicchio used specific scenes from Christopher Columbus’s Diario to create, biased by a misconception of the New World, the first painted image of America in Europe.

Abstract: Culicoides sonorensis biting midges are well-known agricultural pests and transmission vectors of arboviruses such as vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). The epidemiology of VSV is complex and encompasses a broad range of vertebrate hosts, multiple routes of transmission, and diverse vector species. In temperate regions, viruses can overwinter in the absence of infected animals through unknown mechanisms, to reoccur the next year. Non-conventional routes for VSV vector transmission may help explain viral maintenance in midge populations during inter-epidemic periods and times of adverse conditions for bite transmission. In this study, we examined whether VSV could be transmitted venereally between male and female midges. Our results showed that VSV-infected females could venereally transmit virus to uninfected naïve males at a rate as high as 76.3% (RT-qPCR), 31.6% (virus isolation) during the third gonotrophic cycle. Additionally, VSV-infected males could venereally transmit virus to uninfected naïve females at a rate as high as 76.6% (RTqPCR), 49.2% (virus isolation). Immunofluorescent staining of micro-dissected reproductive organs, immunochemical staining of midge histological sections, examination of internal reproductive organ morphology, and observations of mating behaviors were used to determine relevant anatomical sites for virus location and to hypothesize the potential mechanism for VSV transmission in C. sonorensis midges through copulation. Resumen: Los Culicoides son plagas agrícolas bien conocidas y vectores de transmisión de arbovirus como el virus de la estomatitis vesicular (VSV). La epidemiología de VSV es compleja y abarca una amplia gama de hospedadores vertebrados, múltiples rutas de transmisión y diversas especies de vectores. En las regiones templadas, los virus pueden invernar en ausencia de animales infectados a través de mecanismos desconocidos, para volver a ocurrir el próximo año. Las rutas no convencionales para la transmisión del VSV pueden ayudar a explicar el mantenimiento viral en las poblaciones de vectores durante los períodos interepidémicos y los momentos de condiciones adversas para la transmisión por picadura. En este estudio, examinamos si VSV podría transmitirse de forma venérea entre Culicoides machos y hembras. Nuestros resultados mostraron que las hembras infectadas con VSV podían transmitir el virus de forma venérea a machos no infectados a una tasas tan altas como 76,3% (RT-qPCR) o 31,6% (aislamiento del virus) durante el tercer ciclo gonotrófico. Además, los machos infectados con VSV podrían transmitir el virus a hembras no infectadas a tasas entre 76,6% (RT-qPCR) y 49,2% (aislamiento del virus). Adicionalmente se utilizaron tinción inmunofluorescente de órganos reproductores micro-disecados, tinción inmunoquímica de secciones histológicas de Culicoides para examinar la morfología de órganos reproductores y se hicieron observaciones de los comportamientos de apareamiento para determinar los sitios anatómicos relevantes para la ubicación del virus y para formular hipótesis sobre el mecanismo potencial de transmisión del VSV en C. sonorensis a través de la cópula.