Notas sobre Feral y las cigüeñas, de Fernando Alonso, y la “Historia del califa cigüeña” (Wilhelm Hauff, Sara Cone Bryant)

The present article deals with the sources of the version of the “Historia del califa cigüeña” included in the narration Feral y las cigüeñas (1971), by Fernando Alonso. The analysis focuses on the original tale of the postromantic german author Wilhelm Hauff (“Die Geschichte von Kalif Storch”, 1825), and the adaption of this tale that Sara Cone Bryant wrote for her book How to tell stories to children (1905, spanish translation: El arte de contar cuentos, 1965).En el presente estudio se analizan las fuentes de la versión de la “Historia del califa cigüeña”, incluida en la narración Feral y las cigüeñas (1971), de Fernando Alonso. Para ello se tienen en cuenta el cuento original del autor postromántico alemán Wilhelm Hauff (“Die Geschichte von Kalif Storch”, 1825), y la adaptación de este cuento que Sara Cone Bryant realizó para su libro How to tell stories to children (1905, traducción española: El arte de contar cuentos, 1965)

Codon Optimization for Alpha 1-Antitrypsin Disease

Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency is a genetic disorder caused by defective production of alpha 1-antitrypsin (AAT). Gene therapy approaches have been conducted in patients with AAT deficiency with successful AAT expression, but not to the therapeutic levels required to reduce the risk of emphysema. Codon optimization, a somewhat new and evolving technique, is used by many scientists to maximize protein expression in living organisms by altering translational and transcriptional efficiency as well as protein refolding. The purpose of this study was to develop single stranded and double stranded AAT gene constructs, test their protein expression in vitro, and compare with those levels expressed by the AAT construct that is currently in clinical trials. Three constructs were to be developed, yet only one construct was successfully cloned. This clone, optimized ds-CB-AAT, illustrated increased AAT protein expression as the transfection time increased. However, protein levels were appreciably lower in the optimized construct compared to the single stranded (long intron) AAT construct that is currently being administered in clinical trials. The data did not suggest that the optimized AAT construct does in fact express more AAT protein in vitro as expected. In order to achieve data that can be reproduced, the 2 remaining constructs need to be cloned and all of the isolated plasmid DNA should be prepared on the same scale to minimize any additional confounding variables

Isolation, Identification, and Characterisation of Beer-Spoilage Lactic Acid Bacteria from Microbrewed Beer from Victoria, Australia

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Some recent developments in functional inequalities

International audienceThis paper presents different recent directions in the study of some classical functional inequalities: the Poincaré inequality, the logarithmic Sobolev inequality and Talagrand's quadratic transport-entropy inequality. The results presented in this text were the subjects of a series of talks given by the authors in the session ``Functional inequalities'' during the Journées MAS 2012 in Clermont-Ferrand

Short-Term Change Detection in Wetlands Using Sentinel-1 Time Series

Automated monitoring systems that can capture wetlands’ high spatial and temporal variability are essential for their management. SAR-based change detection approaches offer a great opportunity to enhance our understanding of complex and dynamic ecosystems. We test a recently-developed time series change detection approach (S1-omnibus) using Sentinel-1 imagery of two wetlands with different ecological characteristics; a seasonal isolated wetland in southern Spain and a coastal wetland in the south of France. We test the S1-omnibus method against a commonly-used pairwise comparison of consecutive images to demonstrate its advantages. Additionally, we compare it with a pairwise change detection method using a subset of consecutive Landsat images for the same period of time. The results show how S1-omnibus is capable of capturing in space and time changes produced by water surface dynamics, as well as by agricultural practices, whether they are sudden changes, as well as gradual. S1-omnibus is capable of detecting a wider array of short-term changes than when using consecutive pairs of Sentinel-1 images. When compared to the Landsat-based change detection method, both show an overall good agreement, although certain landscape changes are detected only by either the Landsat-based or the S1-omnibus method. The S1-omnibus method shows a great potential for an automated monitoring of short time changes and accurate delineation of areas of high variability and of slow and gradual changes

Auditory Working Memory Load Impairs Visual Ventral Stream Processing: Toward a Unified Model of Attentional Load

Attentional interference between tasks performed in parallel is known to have strong and often undesired effects. As yet, however, the mechanisms by which interference operates remain elusive. A better knowledge of these processes may facilitate our understanding of the effects of attention on human performance and the debilitating consequences that disruptions to attention can have. According to the load theory of cognitive control, processing of task-irrelevant stimuli is increased by attending in parallel to a relevant task with high cognitive demands. This is due to the relevant task engaging cognitive control resources that are, hence, unavailable to inhibit the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli. However, it has also been demonstrated that a variety of types of load (perceptual and emotional) can result in a reduction of the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, suggesting a uniform effect of increased load irrespective of the type of load. In the present study, we concurrently presented a relevant auditory matching task [n-back working memory (WM)] of low or high cognitive load (1-back or 2-back WM) and task-irrelevant images at one of three object visibility levels (0%, 50%, or 100%). fMRI activation during the processing of the task-irrelevant visual stimuli was measured in the lateral occipital cortex and found to be reduced under high, compared to low, WM load. In combination with previous findings, this result is suggestive of a more generalized load theory, whereby cognitive load, as well as other types of load (e.g., perceptual), can result in a reduction of the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, in line with a uniform effect of increased load irrespective of the type of load