The Orality of a Silent Age: The Place of Orality in Medieval Studies

'The Orality of a Silent Age: The Place of Orality in Medieval Studies' uses a brief survey of current work on Old English poetry as the point of departure for arguing that although useful, the concepts of orality and literacy have, in medieval studies, been extended further beyond their literal referents of spoken and written communication than is heuristically useful. Recent emphasis on literate methods and contexts for the writing of our surviving Anglo-Saxon poetry, in contradistinction to the previous emphasis on oral ones, provides the basis for this criticism. Despite a significant amount of revisionist work, the concept of orality remains something of a vortex into which a range of only party related issues have been sucked: authorial originality/communal property; impromptu composition/meditated composition; authorial and audience alienation/immediacy. The relevance of orality to these issues is not in dispute; the problem is that they do not vary along specifically oral/literate axes. The article suggests that this is symptomatic of a wider modernist discourse in medieval studies whereby modern, literate society is (implicitly) contrasted with medieval, oral society: the extension of the orality/literacy axis beyond its literal reference has to some extent facilitated the perpetuation of an earlier contrast between primitivity and modernity which deserves still to be questioned and disputed. Pruning back our conceptions of the oral and the literate to their stricter denotations, we might hope to see more clearly what areas of medieval studies would benefit from alternative interpretations

Target Defense against Periodically Arriving Intruders

We consider a variant of pursuit-evasion games where a single defender is tasked to defend a static target from a sequence of periodically arriving intruders. The intruders' objective is to breach the boundary of a circular target without being captured and the defender's objective is to capture as many intruders as possible. At the beginning of each period, a new intruder appears at a random location on the perimeter of a fixed circle surrounding the target and moves radially towards the target center to breach the target. The intruders are slower in speed compared to the defender and they have their own sensing footprint through which they can perfectly detect the defender if it is within their sensing range. Considering the speed and sensing limitations of the agents, we analyze the entire game by dividing it into partial information and full information phases. We address the defender's capturability using the notions of engagement surface and capture circle. We develop and analyze three efficient strategies for the defender and derive a lower bound on the capture fraction. Finally, we conduct a series of simulations and numerical experiments to compare and contrast the three proposed approaches.Comment: To be presented at the 2023 American Control Conference - May 31 - June 2, 2023, in San Diego, CA, US

Mengoli's mathematical ideas in Leibniz's excerpts

In the seventeenth century many changes occurred in the practice of mathematics. An essential change was the establishment of a symbolic language, so that the new language of symbols and techniques could be used to obtain new results. Pietro Mengoli (1626/7–86), a pupil of Cavalieri, considered the use of symbolic language and algebraic procedures essential for solving all kinds of problems. Following the algebraic research of Viète, Mengoli constructed a geometry of species, Geometriae Speciosae Elementa (1659), which allowed him to use algebra in geometry in complementary ways to solve quadrature problems, and later to compute the quadrature of the circle in his Circolo (1672). In a letter to Oldenburg as early as 1673, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) expressed an interest in Mengoli's works, and again later in 1676, when he wrote some excerpts from Mengoli's Circolo. The aim of this paper is to show how in these excerpts Leibniz dealt with Mengoli's ideas as well as to provide new insights into Leibniz's mathematical interpretations and commentsPeer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Ancient Greek Mythology in the Modern Albanian Epic, Songs of the Frontier Warriors

A discussion of the Albanian epic, Songs of the Frontier Warriors, parallels to Greek and Roman mythology, and Illyrian history

WRITING AND LITERARY ACTIVITY IN THE VERNACULAR IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND

У статті розглянуто процес виникнення і функціонування різних форм текстової фіксації на англійських територіальних діалектах давнього періоду розвитку англійської мови як наслідок розвитку суспільних функцій мови та розширення сфер функціонування її писемної форми в період формування англосаксонського суспільства. В історичній перспективі простежено становлення основних текстових категорій і видів текстів давньоанглійської писемності на основі функціональної класифікації писемних пам’яток давнього періоду. Описано формування англійської писемної традиції в соціолінгвістичному контексті та зазначено основні рукописні тексти-джерела деяких давньоанглійських писемних пам’яток

Shakespeare and the Greek Romance: A Study of Origins

This is the first study to relate the Greek romances to Elizabethan drama. It focuses upon the Greek romance materials in Shakespeare’s plays to clarify the background of his art and to illuminate the relationship between the two literatures. The Greek romance tradition is described historically and traced through the works of Boccaccio and Cervantes, as well as other continental and English writers. Then, full attention is given to those plays of Shakespeare which utilize the Greek materials. The notes are full and, with the aid of the extensive index, can serve as a manual of the Greek romance materials in Renaissance literature. A bibliographic appendix lists the known editions, translations, and adaptations of Greek romances from about 1470 to about 1642. The manuscript history is reviewed briefly. Thorough, careful, the book will be indispensable for concerned scholars and libraries. Carol Gesner is professor of English at Berea College.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_british_isles/1033/thumbnail.jp

Aspects of Historicity in the Gospel of John: Implications for Investigations of Jesus and Archaeology

Of the many tensions characterizing the Gospel of John, one of its perplexities most needing to be addressed critically is the set of issues related to aspects of historicity.1 On one hand, John is the most spiritual, theological, and symbolic of the canonical Gospels, leading scholars in recent decades to take seriously the literary features of the work. On the other hand, there is more archaeological, topographical, and apparently historical material in John than in any other Gospel, or even in all three combined

Geometric algorithms for cavity detection on protein surfaces

Macromolecular structures such as proteins heavily empower cellular processes or functions. These biological functions result from interactions between proteins and peptides, catalytic substrates, nucleotides or even human-made chemicals. Thus, several interactions can be distinguished: protein-ligand, protein-protein, protein-DNA, and so on. Furthermore, those interactions only happen under chemical- and shapecomplementarity conditions, and usually take place in regions known as binding sites. Typically, a protein consists of four structural levels. The primary structure of a protein is made up of its amino acid sequences (or chains). Its secondary structure essentially comprises -helices and -sheets, which are sub-sequences (or sub-domains) of amino acids of the primary structure. Its tertiary structure results from the composition of sub-domains into domains, which represent the geometric shape of the protein. Finally, the quaternary structure of a protein results from the aggregate of two or more tertiary structures, usually known as a protein complex. This thesis fits in the scope of structure-based drug design and protein docking. Specifically, one addresses the fundamental problem of detecting and identifying protein cavities, which are often seen as tentative binding sites for ligands in protein-ligand interactions. In general, cavity prediction algorithms split into three main categories: energy-based, geometry-based, and evolution-based. Evolutionary methods build upon evolutionary sequence conservation estimates; that is, these methods allow us to detect functional sites through the computation of the evolutionary conservation of the positions of amino acids in proteins. Energy-based methods build upon the computation of interaction energies between protein and ligand atoms. In turn, geometry-based algorithms build upon the analysis of the geometric shape of the protein (i.e., its tertiary structure) to identify cavities. This thesis focuses on geometric methods. We introduce here three new geometric-based algorithms for protein cavity detection. The main contribution of this thesis lies in the use of computer graphics techniques in the analysis and recognition of cavities in proteins, much in the spirit of molecular graphics and modeling. As seen further ahead, these techniques include field-of-view (FoV), voxel ray casting, back-face culling, shape diameter functions, Morse theory, and critical points. The leading idea is to come up with protein shape segmentation, much like we commonly do in mesh segmentation in computer graphics. In practice, protein cavity algorithms are nothing more than segmentation algorithms designed for proteins.Estruturas macromoleculares tais como as proteínas potencializam processos ou funções celulares. Estas funções resultam das interações entre proteínas e peptídeos, substratos catalíticos, nucleótideos, ou até mesmo substâncias químicas produzidas pelo homem. Assim, há vários tipos de interacções: proteína-ligante, proteína-proteína, proteína-DNA e assim por diante. Além disso, estas interações geralmente ocorrem em regiões conhecidas como locais de ligação (binding sites, do inglês) e só acontecem sob condições de complementaridade química e de forma. É também importante referir que uma proteína pode ser estruturada em quatro níveis. A estrutura primária que consiste em sequências de aminoácidos (ou cadeias), a estrutura secundária que compreende essencialmente por hélices e folhas , que são subsequências (ou subdomínios) dos aminoácidos da estrutura primária, a estrutura terciária que resulta da composição de subdomínios em domínios, que por sua vez representa a forma geométrica da proteína, e por fim a estrutura quaternária que é o resultado da agregação de duas ou mais estruturas terciárias. Este último nível estrutural é frequentemente conhecido por um complexo proteico. Esta tese enquadra-se no âmbito da conceção de fármacos baseados em estrutura e no acoplamento de proteínas. Mais especificamente, aborda-se o problema fundamental da deteção e identificação de cavidades que são frequentemente vistos como possíveis locais de ligação (putative binding sites, do inglês) para os seus ligantes (ligands, do inglês). De forma geral, os algoritmos de identificação de cavidades dividem-se em três categorias principais: baseados em energia, geometria ou evolução. Os métodos evolutivos baseiam-se em estimativas de conservação das sequências evolucionárias. Isto é, estes métodos permitem detectar locais funcionais através do cálculo da conservação evolutiva das posições dos aminoácidos das proteínas. Em relação aos métodos baseados em energia estes baseiam-se no cálculo das energias de interação entre átomos da proteína e do ligante. Por fim, os algoritmos geométricos baseiam-se na análise da forma geométrica da proteína para identificar cavidades. Esta tese foca-se nos métodos geométricos. Apresentamos nesta tese três novos algoritmos geométricos para detecção de cavidades em proteínas. A principal contribuição desta tese está no uso de técnicas de computação gráfica na análise e reconhecimento de cavidades em proteínas, muito no espírito da modelação e visualização molecular. Como pode ser visto mais à frente, estas técnicas incluem o field-of-view (FoV), voxel ray casting, back-face culling, funções de diâmetro de forma, a teoria de Morse, e os pontos críticos. A ideia principal é segmentar a proteína, à semelhança do que acontece na segmentação de malhas em computação gráfica. Na prática, os algoritmos de detecção de cavidades não são nada mais que algoritmos de segmentação de proteínas