Un collage de fuentes en la Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1639) de Castillo Solórzano

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordLa Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1639) de Castillo Solórzano es el depósito literario más nutrido de materiales acerca de Cleopatra a lo largo del Siglo de Oro. Se trata de un relato popular que entretiene mientras promueve una clara visión ejemplar: Castillo reconoce el poder y el atractivo de atributos como la lujuria y la avidez, al tiempo que las condena por medio de Cleopatra, Marco Antonio, Julio César, Pompeyo y Octaviano. Lo que confiere singularidad a esta historia en prosa es la inclusión de casi treinta poemas, del mismo Castillo y de un rosario de poetas de Valencia, Madrid y Zaragoza; un detalle que confirma al vallisoletano como uno de los exponentes más señeros de la escritura mixta durante el Barroco. Este estudio analiza el carácter de los materiales en prosa y en verso, considerando la obra como un collage de fuentes. El examen de la aleación de estos modelos –visibles u ocultos– y de sus grados de integración pone de manifiesto los objetivos artísticos y morales del autor.Alonso de Castillo Solórzano’s Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1639) is the most important literary repository for materials on Cleopatra in the whole of the Spanish Golden Age, and it is a popular history which entertains while also promoting a clear moral vision. Castillo acknowledges the power and attraction of characteristics such as lust and greed, but at the same time he condemns them through the characters of Cleopatra, Antony, Julius Caesar, Pompey and Octavian. What bestows special particularity upon this prose history is the inclusion of almost thirty poems, by Castillo himself and by poets from Valencia, Madrid and Zaragoza, and this confirms Castillo as one of the foremost exponents of mixed writing in the Baroque. This study analyses the character of the two types of material, prose and verses, and considers the work as a collage of sources. The examination of the way in which these sources –visible or hidden­– combine, and of their degrees of integration makes clear Castillo’s moral and artistic aims

History and Poetry in Alonso de Castillo Solórzano’s Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1639)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.Alonso de Castillo Solórzano’s Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1639) is the most sustained treatment of the figure of Cleopatra in the Spanish Golden Age and the volume also has the particularity of being a prose history interspersed with a significant number of poems by the author and by other writers. This article contextualises the work and examines the moral and political lessons which emerge from the presentation of Cleopatra and of the major Roman figures (Julius Caesar, Antony, Octavian) with whom her life became entwined. The essay identifies the exact sources of much of Castillo Solórzano’s prose history and demonstrates how these are woven together and to what ends. The character and effects of the interpolated poetry are then examined, with a special emphasis on the most prolific external contributor to the volume, the Aragonese Francisco Diego de Sayas. The final part of the study offers some conclusions about the interaction or otherwise of prose and poetry in the composition and meanings of Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra.This study was undertaken under the auspices of the research project I+D+i La novela corta del siglo XVII (y II) (FFI2013-41264-P), funded by the Spanish government’s Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad and headed by Prof. Rafael Bonilla Cerezo of the Universidad de Córdoba

The Unstated Sources of Cristóbal Suárez de Figueroa’s Varias noticias importantes a la humana comunicación (1621)

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Spatial distribution and male mating success of Anopheles gambiae swarms

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Anopheles gambiae </it>mates in flight at particular mating sites over specific landmarks known as swarm markers. The swarms are composed of males; females typically approach a swarm, and leave <it>in copula</it>. This mating aggregation looks like a lek, but appears to lack the component of female choice. To investigate the possible mechanisms promoting the evolution of swarming in this mosquito species, we looked at the variation in mating success between swarms and discussed the factors that structure it in light of the three major lekking models, known as the female preference model, the hotspot model, and the hotshot model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found substantial variation in swarm size and in mating success between swarms. A strong correlation between swarm size and mating success was observed, and consistent with the hotspot model of lek formation, the <it>per capita </it>mating success of individual males did not increase with swarm size. For the spatial distribution of swarms, our results revealed that some display sites were more attractive to both males and females and that females were more attracted to large swarms. While the swarm markers we recognize help us in localizing swarms, they did not account for the variation in swarm size or in the swarm mating success, suggesting that mosquitoes probably are attracted to these markers, but also perceive and respond to other aspects of the swarming site.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Characterizing the mating system of a species helps understand how this species has evolved and how selective pressures operate on male and female traits. The current study looked at male mating success of <it>An. gambiae </it>and discussed possible factors that account for its variation. We found that swarms of <it>An. gambiae </it>conform to the hotspot model of lek formation. But because swarms may lack the female choice component, we propose that the <it>An. gambiae </it>mating system is a lek-like system that incorporates characteristics pertaining to other mating systems such as scramble mating competition.</p

Recombinant renewable polyclonal antibodies

Only a small fraction of the antibodies in a traditional polyclonal antibody mixture recognize the target of interest, frequently resulting in undesirable polyreactivity. Here, we show that high-quality recombinant polyclonals, in which hundreds of different antibodies are all directed toward a target of interest, can be easily generated in vitro by combining phage and yeast display. We show that, unlike traditional polyclonals, which are limited resources, recombinant polyclonal antibodies can be amplified over one hundred million-fold without losing representation or functionality. Our protocol was tested on 9 different targets to demonstrate how the strategy allows the selective amplification of antibodies directed toward desirable target specific epitopes, such as those found in one protein but not a closely related one, and the elimination of antibodies recognizing common epitopes, without significant loss of diversity. These recombinant renewable polyclonal antibodies are usable in different assays, and can be generated in high throughput. This approach could potentially be used to develop highly specific recombinant renewable antibodies against all human gene products

Environmental variables, habitat discontinuity and life history shaping the genetic structure of Pomatoschistus marmoratus

Coastal lagoons are semi-isolated ecosystems exposed to wide fluctuations of environmental conditions and showing habitat fragmentation. These features may play an important role in separating species into different populations, even at small spatial scales. In this study, we evaluate the concordance between mitochondrial (previous published data) and nuclear data analyzing the genetic variability of Pomatoschistus marmoratus in five localities, inside and outside the Mar Menor coastal lagoon (SE Spain) using eight microsatellites. High genetic diversity and similar levels of allele richness were observed across all loci and localities, although significant genic and genotypic differentiation was found between populations inside and outside the lagoon. In contrast to the FST values obtained from previous mitochondrial DNA analyses (control region), the microsatellite data exhibited significant differentiation among samples inside the Mar Menor and between lagoonal and marine samples. This pattern was corroborated using Cavalli-Sforza genetic distances. The habitat fragmentation inside the coastal lagoon and among lagoon and marine localities could be acting as a barrier to gene flow and contributing to the observed genetic structure. Our results from generalized additive models point a significant link between extreme lagoonal environmental conditions (mainly maximum salinity) and P. marmoratus genetic composition. Thereby, these environmental features could be also acting on genetic structure of coastal lagoon populations of P. marmoratus favoring their genetic divergence. The mating strategy of P. marmoratus could be also influencing our results obtained from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Therefore, a special consideration must be done in the selection of the DNA markers depending on the reproductive strategy of the species

Выявление понятий и их взаимосвязей в рамках технологии контент-мониторинга

Приведены подходы к решению проблемы выявления фактографической информации из неструктурированных текстовых потоков. Описаны технологические решения, позволяющие извлекать из полнотекстовых документов такие понятия как фирмы, фамилии, географические названия и т.п., а также выявлять силу их взаимосвязей на основе применения двух алгоритмов. Первый из этих алгоритмов основывается на учете совместного вхождения понятий в одни и те же документы, а второй на учете общего для рассматриваемых понятий контекста.Наведено підходи до вирішення проблеми виявлення фактографічної інформації з неструктурованих текстових потоків. Описано технологічні рішення, що дозволяють добути з повнотекстових документів такі поняття як фірми, прізвища, географічні назви тощо, а також виявляти силу їхніх взаємозв’язків на базі застосування двох алгоритмів. Перший з цих алгоритмів базується на врахуванні спільного входження понять до одних і тих самих документів, а другий — на врахуванні загального для понять, що розглядаються, контексту.Approaches to the solution of a problem of revealing factual information from unstructured text flows are given. The technological solutions, allowing to take from text-through documents such concepts as a firm, a surname, place names, etc., and also to reveal force of their interrelations on the basis of application of two algorithms are described. The first of these algorithms is based on the account of joint concepts occurrence in the same documents, and the second one on the account of the context common for considered concepts

Anthropogenically-mediated density dependence in a declining farmland bird

Land management intrinsically influences the distribution of animals and can consequently alter the potential for density-dependent processes to act within populations. For declining species, high densities of breeding territories are typically considered to represent productive populations. However, as density-dependent effects of food limitation or predator pressure may occur (especially when species are dependent upon separate nesting and foraging habitats), high territory density may limit per-capita productivity. Here, we use a declining but widespread European farmland bird, the yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella L., as a model system to test whether higher territory densities result in lower fledging success, parental provisioning rates or nestling growth rates compared to lower densities. Organic landscapes held higher territory densities, but nests on organic farms fledged fewer nestlings, translating to a 5 times higher rate of population shrinkage on organic farms compared to conventional. In addition, when parental provisioning behaviour was not restricted by predation risk (i.e. at times of low corvid activity), nestling provisioning rates were higher at lower territory densities, resulting in a much greater increase in nestling mass in low density areas, suggesting that food limitation occurred at high densities. These findings in turn suggest an ecological trap, whereby preferred nesting habitat does not provide sufficient food for rearing nestlings at high population density, creating a population sink. Habitat management for farmland birds should focus not simply on creating a high nesting density, but also on ensuring heterogeneous habitats to provide food resources in close proximity to nesting birds, even if this occurs through potentially restricting overall nest density but increasing population-level breeding success

Electrochemical activation and inhibition of neuromuscular systems through modulation of ion concentrations with ion-selective membranes

Conventional functional electrical stimulation aims to restore functional motor activity of patients with disabilities resulting from spinal cord injury or neurological disorders. However, intervention with functional electrical stimulation in neurological diseases lacks an effective implantable method that suppresses unwanted nerve signals. We have developed an electrochemical method to activate and inhibit a nerve by electrically modulating ion concentrations in situ along the nerve. Using ion-selective membranes to achieve different excitability states of the nerve, we observe either a reduction of the electrical threshold for stimulation by up to approximately 40%, or voluntary, reversible inhibition of nerve signal propagation. This low-threshold electrochemical stimulation method is applicable in current implantable neuroprosthetic devices, whereas the on-demand nerve-blocking mechanism could offer effective clinical intervention in disease states caused by uncontrolled nerve activation, such as epilepsy and chronic pain syndromes.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Faculty Discretionary Research FundNational Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Award UL1 RR 025758)Harvard Catalyst (Grant