La elaboración de la materia palatina en la dramaturgia de Guillem de Castro y Bellvís (1569-1631)

El trabajo de tesis profundiza en el estudio de un autor, Guillem de Castro y Bellvís, cuya dramaturgia tiene aspectos originales aun para analizar en toda su complejidad. Hemos elegido como objeto de estudio uno de estos: la elaboración de la materia palatina. Se trata de un género teatral, el palatino, ya identificado por la crítica literaria, sobre todo en lo relativo a su vertiente cómica y del cual se ha evidenciado la importancia a lo largo de la formulación de los cánones de la comedia nueva. El objetivo principal de esta tesis de investigación, por tanto, consiste en determinar el grado de incidencia de la materia palatina en un autor que ha desarrollado su dramaturgia en el marco de la escuela dramática valenciana. En lo relativo a la materia palatina, el trabajo de tesis explora la amplia bibliografía a disposición del investigador, e individua algunos rasgos fundamentales del género. Otros objetivos de este trabajo de tesis se han desarrollado según las siguientes líneas de investigación: - Analizar el proceso de elaboración palatina en la dramaturgia de Guillem de Castro, sobre todo en lo relativo a los recursos técnicos empleados por el autor, a la adhesión a las características del género teatral y a los elementos originales de su estilo. - Considerar la presencia del universo palatino en las obras de Castro que no se pueden adscribir al género que nos ocupa. De esta forma, es posible subrayar el carácter híbrido de dramas como Progne y Filomena o Don Quijote de la Mancha. - Definir la posición de Castro en el conjunto de la literatura teatral áurea desde la perspectiva palatina para observar cuáles elementos mantiene y de cuáles prescinde con respecto al grupo dramático valenciano (principalmente Tárrega y Virués) o a Lope de Vega. - Determinar el peso de la materia palatina en la dramaturgia de Castro, sobre todo al considerar los recursos teatrales de dramas como La justicia en la piedad o El nieto de su padre. El corpus de las obras analizadas consiste en un grupo de dramas cuya autoría no presenta ninguna duda: El amor constante, El caballero bobo, Los enemigos hermanos, Cuánto se estima el honor, La justicia en la piedad y El nieto de su padre. El trabajo está organizado en cuatro capítulos. El primero trata sobre la recepción crítica de la obra de Guillem de Castro, y analiza el interés del mundo académico por el autor. El segundo se ocupa de la materia palatina y considera los rasgos hallados por los diferentes estudiosos, e individua las herramientas necesarias para el análisis de las obras del autor. El tercer capítulo se centra en el estudio concreto del corpus, y presenta en primer lugar los datos relativos a la composición, a la publicación y a la representación de las obras consideradas. En segundo lugar, párrafo tras párrafo, hemos estudiado los aspectos específicos de cada drama, estos son, los temas y las coordenadas espaciales y temporales. También, hemos tenido en cuenta los aspectos de una posible mise en scène, analizando la kinesis, los gestos, los elementos de attrezzo, los atuendos, el sonido y la escenografía. Finalmente, el cuarto capítulo sintetiza el análisis llevado a cabo a lo largo del trabajo y reflexiona sobre la presencia del género palatino también en el resto de las obras de Guillem de Castro, esto es, en obras que pertenecen a otro género teatral a pesar de presentar un alto grado de elaboración palatina (Progne y Filomena, Don Quijote de la Mancha, El engañarse engañando)

Application of dissipative particle dynamics to interfacial systems: Parameterization and scaling

Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) is a stochastic particle model that is able to simulate larger systems over longer time scales than atomistic modeling approaches by including the concept of coarse-graining. Whether standard DPD can cover the whole mesoscale by changing the level of coarse-graining is still an open issue. A scaling scheme originally developed by Füchslin et al. (2009) was here applied to interfacial systems as one of the most successful uses of the classical DPD method. In particular, equilibrium properties such as the interfacial tension were analyzed at different levels of coarse-graining for planar oil–water interfaces with and without surfactant. A scaling factor for the interfacial tension was found due to the combined effect of the scaling scheme and the coarse-graining parameterization. Although the level of molecular description was largely decreased, promising results showed that it is possible to conserve the interfacial tension trend at increasing surfactant concentrations, remarkably reducing modeling complexity. The same approach was also employed to simulate a droplet configuration. Both planar and droplet conformations were maintained, showing that typical domain formations of multi-component systems can be performed in DPD by means of the scaling procedure. Therefore, we explored the possibility of describing oil–water and oil–water–surfactant systems in standard DPD using a scaling scheme with the aim of highlighting its advantages and limitations

Long-term effect of neonatal calf diarrhoea on productive and reproductive performance: preliminary data

This paper analyses the long-term effects of Neonatal Calf Diarrhoea (NCD) on the first milk production. A total number of 41 dairy heifers, belonging to two commercial dairy farms were admitted to our Clinic for NCD between 2008 and 2015. Survived animals, once returned to their farm, were followed until the end of the first lactation. As a treatment for NCD, we administered fluids and sodium bicarbonate intravenously according to the dehydration score described by Boccardo et al. (2017) and blood-gas analysis results. The quantity of replacement fluid in liters was calculated as: replacement fluid (L)=dehydration (%) x bodyweight (kg). The required amount of sodium bicarbonate was calculated as: sodium bicarbonate (g) = body weight (kg) × base excess (mmol/L) × 0.6 (L/kg) × 0.084 (g/mmol). Calves with a history of anorexia received 5 mg/kg glucose added to the saline solution. Amoxicillin and clavulanic acid was administered SC at the dose of 10 + 2.5 mg/kg for 5 days to each calf. During lactation, we analyzed: milk production in a 305-day lactation, average fat percentage, average protein percentage, average somatic cell count and interval from birth to first calving.Furthermore, days of hospitalization and severity of diseasewere considered (average calves age = 8,09 days, average body weight = 41,66 kg, average hospitalization = 10,61 days, average duration of treatment = 5,24 days). As a control, we considered non-hospitalized heifers (n.=238) with the same age, from the same herd, without clinical history of NCD. Differences between the NCD group and control group were analyzed with general linear models. No statistic difference between the NCD group and control group was underlined (Table 1). These findings differ from previous literature results. In fact, Aghakeshmiriet al.(2017) found that the NCD increased the first calving age and heifer raising costs; Svensson and Hultgren (2008) showed that animals survived from NCD had a lower milk production. On the other hand, our results are similar to those reported by Warnicket al.(1994;1995), even if in these works no data regarding the type of treatment and severity of clinical sings were considered. This study, while preliminary, suggests that the timely treatment of NCD could prevent irreversible damages and ensure to reach a reproductive and productive standard during the first lactation. However the simple size needs to be increased

Prune belly-like syndrome in two calves

This paper reports two cases of abdominal muscular hypoplasia in new born calves, induced by the presence of intra-abdominal space-occupying malformations, and associated to other congenital disorders. In the first case, the calf presented slack dilated and floating abdomen associated to a small intestine with remarkably dilated sections (up to 10 cm of diameter) alternated with normal tracts, arthrogryposis of the anterior limbs, coxofemoral joints laxity and cryptorchidism. In the second case, abdomen of the calf appeared severely outstretched, with slack and floating wall, associated to 2 cystic dilations on the liver surface. These cases strongly resemble a congenital disorder of new born children known as prune belly syndrome, characterized by various degrees of abdominal muscular hypoplasia, bilateral cryptorchidism in males and urinary tract anomalies, that can be associated to other non-genital-urinary malformations affecting the gastrointestinal, skeletal and cardiopulmonary systems

Bayesian evaluation of the accuracy of a thoracic auscultation scoring system in dairy calves with bronchopneumonia using a standard lung sound nomenclature

BackgroundAlthough thoracic auscultation (AUSC) in calves is quick and easy to perform, the definition of lung sounds is highly variable and leads to poor to moderate accuracy in diagnosing bronchopneumonia (BP). Hypothesis/ObjectivesEvaluate the diagnostic accuracy of an AUSC scoring system based on a standard lung sound nomenclature at different cut-off values, accounting for the absence of a gold standard test for BP diagnosis. AnimalsThree hundred thirty-one calves. MethodsWe considered the following pathological lung sounds: increased breath sounds (score 1), wheezes and crackles (score 2), increased bronchial sounds (score 3), and pleural friction rubs (score 4). Thoracic auscultation was categorized as AUSC1 (positive calves for scores & GE;1), AUSC2 (positive calves for scores & GE;2), and AUSC3 (positive calves for scores & GE;3). The accuracy of AUSC categorizations was determined using 3 imperfect diagnostic tests with a Bayesian latent class model and sensitivity analysis (informative vs weakly informative vs noninformative priors and with vs without covariance between ultrasound and clinical scoring). ResultsBased on the priors used, the sensitivity (95% Bayesian confidence interval [BCI]) of AUSC1 ranged from 0.89 (0.80-0.97) to 0.95 (0.86-0.99), with a specificity (95% BCI) of 0.54 (0.45-0.71) to 0.60 (0.47-0.94). Removing increased breath sounds from the categorizations resulted in increased specificity (ranging between 0.97 [0.93-0.99] and 0.98 [0.94-0.99] for AUSC3) at the cost of decreased sensitivity (0.66 [0.54-0.78] to 0.81 [0.65-0.97]). Conclusions and Clinical ImportanceA standardized definition of lung sounds improved AUSC accuracy for BP diagnosis in calves

Molecular modeling of the interface of an egg yolk protein-based emulsion

Many food emulsions are stabilized by functional egg yolk biomolecules, which act as surfactants at the oil/water interface. Detailed experimental studies on egg yolk emulsifying properties have been largely hindered due to the difficulty in isolating individual chemical species. Therefore, this work presents a molecular model of an oil/water interfacial system where the emulsifier is one of the most surface-active proteins from the egg yolk low-density lipoproteins (LDL), the so-called Apovitellenin I. Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) was here adopted in order to simulate large systems over long time scales, when compared with full-atom molecular dynamics (MD). Instead of a manual assignment of the DPD simulation parameters, a fully automated coarse-graining procedure was employed. The molecular interactions used in the DPD system were determined by means of a parameter calibration based on matching structural data from atomistic MD simulations. Despite the little availability of experimental data, the model was designed to test the most relevant physical properties of the protein investigated. Protein structural and dynamics properties obtained via MD and DPD were compared highlighting advantages and limits of each molecular technique. Promising results were achieved from DPD simulations of the oil/water interface. The proposed model was able to properly describe the protein surfactant behavior in terms of interfacial tension decrease at increasing protein surface concentration. Moreover, the adsorption time of a free protein molecule was estimated and, finally, an LDL-like particle adsorption mechanism was qualitatively reproduced

Multiscale simulation of a high-shear mixer for food emulsion production

Food emulsions, such as mayonnaise, are made of a continuous water phase, a dispersed phase with a high content of oil, and a surfactant (i.e. the egg yolk for mayonnaise) that stabilizes the oil drops. The droplet size distribution (DSD) is the most important property of the emulsion since the structure, stability, taste, and color of the final product depend on the DSD. The DSD in turn depends on the emulsion composition, the type of process, and the operating conditions in which the production process operates. The production of emulsions is based on mixing the ingredients and applying enough mechanical energy to the emulsion, to reach the desired DSD. In particular, for the food emulsion investigated in this work, i.e. the mayonnaise, a typical mixing process is composed of two steps (Figure 1). First, the ingredients (mainly egg yolk, vinegar, oil, water, salt) are mixed together in large stirred vessels at a moderate rotational speed. Then, this premixed emulsion is finally fluxed into a high-shear device, commonly a cone mill mixer, where the oil droplets undergo breakage until the final size distribution is reached. This last step is crucial to fine-tune the DSD, in order to determine the properties of the final product. A typical cone mill is constituted of a solid conical frustum rotor inside a slightly larger stator of the same shape, forming a small gap in which the emulsion flows and experiences high shear stresses, due to the high rotational speed of the rotor. Within the multiscale framework, different time- and space- scales are investigated to describe the modeling approach for the macro-scale (cone mill) and the molecular scale (oil-water interface). Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations are employed to properly describe the non-Newtonian dynamics of the emulsion, investigate the role of the pre- and post-mixing zones and clarify the importance of the type of flow, namely pure-shear versus elongational. In order to describe the evolution of the droplet size distribution, the Population Balance Modelling (PBM) is employed, in which coalescence and breakage of oil droplets are taken into account by appropriate kernels, which depend on local flow conditions. During the emulsification process, the interfacial properties between dispersed and continuous phases have an essential role in the formation and stabilization of the oil droplets. Once the chemical composition of mayonnaise is determined, especially the biomolecules acting as surfactants, the interfacial tension between the two phases is directly computed with the help of atomistic techniques, such as Molecular Dynamics (MD) and Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD). This mesoscale approach also provides the surfactant adsorption kinetics and its molecular conformation at the interface, paving the way for a better understanding of the breakage and coalescence events of the oil droplets occurring in the production process. This information can be eventually transferred to the CFD-PBM simulations thus achieving a complete, general, and multi-scale model of the food emulsion production process. This effort is carried out in the context of the VIMMP project (www.vimmp.eu), where the entire workflow will serve to devise a marketplace for generic multiscale and multiphysics simulations. The VIMMP project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement n. 760907

Using beef-breed semen in seropositive dams for the control of bovine neosporosis

A program for controlling bovine neosporosis based only on the use of beef semen, without culling seropositive animals, was evaluated in a closed dairy cattle herd over a 5 -year period (2013-2017). The program was based on individual and periodic serological screenings to identify seropositive breeders. Seropositive cows were inseminated with beef-breed semen, thus excluding their descendants from the remount in order to prevent the vertical transmission of the disease. Seronegative animals, as well as heifers at first insemination, were tested before each insemination.Sera of 1097 cattle were examined by a commercial indirect ELISA for the detection of antibodies anti-Neospora caninum. To verify the difference in seropositivity values among years of sampling, statistical analysis through generalized estimation equations (GEEs) was performed, also considering the effects of age, lineages, and occurrence of abortion. A seroprevalence of 33.8% was found in the first screening. The prevalence and incidence of the infection within the herd decreased significantly in 2017 (P = 28.9%, I = 1.4%) (p-value = 0.0001). The family line investigation detected a higher risk of being seropositive for a cow born to a seropositive dam (p-value = 0.0001) than to a seronegative dam, decreasing both the apparently vertical and horizontal transmissions. The number of spontaneous abortions decreased after the first year of the study (23 in 2013 to 6 in 2017). Seropositive animals were associated with abortion events (p-value = 0.0001).Although an eradication of N. caninum was not achieved at the end of the study period, a significant reduction in prevalence and incidence of neosporosis in the herd and a reduction of the abortion rate was achieved with the application of this control plan in five years, without culling a high number of seropositive potential milk-producing animals

Urban geo big data

The paper deals with the general presentation of the Urban GEO BIG DATA, a collaborative acentric and distributed Free and Open Source (FOS) platform consisting of several components: local data nodes for data and related service Web deploy; a visualization node for data fruition; a catalog node for data discovery; a CityGML modeler; data-rich viewers based on virtual globes; an INSPIRE metadata management system enriched with quality indicators for each dataset.Three use cases in five Italian cities (Turin, Milan, Padua, Rome, and Naples) are examined: 1) urban mobility; 2) land cover and soil consumption at different resolutions; 3) displacement time series. Besides the case studies, the architecture of the system and its components will be presented