George Eliot\u27s Brazilian Critical Fortune and the Case of Romola

I would like to begin this paper with a comment by Professor Felicia Bonaparte about George Eliot\u27s novels. In an introductory reflection, she once observed that We have found nothing yet that Eliot did not deliberately put in her novels; [ ... ]. Indeed, the fact is we have not yet read in these novels all that Eliot wrote. We have not yet, for example, looked carefully at what Eliot had to say about women in society. Eliot was a great feminist, and her novels, although they never stoop to mere propaganda, urge a relentless war against the conditions by which women\u27s lives have been restrained and wasted. We do not have an adequate understanding of the poetic element in Eliot\u27s imagination, nor of the rich symbolic structure which informs her works. We have not yet probed the mythic imagery that echoes throughout her novels. There can be no doubts that we will have to revise many of our conclusions and judgments, especially of her achievement in Romola, when we have further examined these aspects of her works. Similarly, we have [ ... ] not yet explored the most thoroughly contemporary aspect of Eliot\u27s novels, namely the existential, absurd universe Eliot perceived, a tragic universe in which man is born and dies for no purpose.\u27 She wrote this in 1975, but it is striking that much of it is still true. Of all these unexplored aspects of George Eliot\u27s works, it seems to me that only the topic of women in society has since been systematically explored and has promoted deeper understanding of her novels. It is rather paradoxical that, although we have acclaimed Eliot as one of the greatest nineteenth century novelists, we have also overlooked many aspects of this greatness. Romola is definite evidence of this: described by Eliot herself as the book she wrote with her best blood, it remains to this very day the least popular of her novels. This paper has two main goals. First I present a set of numbers regarding George Eliot studies in and out of Brazil and my interpretation of these numbers. Then I proceed to comment on the particular case of Romola. In the end, I hope to be able to relate the two topics and to interest the reader in my perspective on George Eliot and on Romola. We are now celebrating Romola\u27s 150th anniversary. This is a significant amount of time: not as much as would make it too distant from our own world; not as little as would make it too close to us and too blurred to see well. I believe we are now at a moment in which we are ready to look back at Eliot\u27s and Romola\u27s history so as to understand it and to develop on it

Furthering internal border area studies: an analysis of dysfunctions and cooperation mechanisms in the water and river management of Catalonia, Aragon and the Valencian Community (Spain)

Cooperation between countries or regions that share a political border is one of the primary concerns of border studies. However, while cooperation between states is a well-established field based on international agreements, the cooperation between internal-state regions is not as well understood and requires more exhaustive study. Cooperation agreements between regions are frequently based on the shared and collaborative management of environmental resources such as river basins. This paper aimed to identify mechanisms of river basin cooperation in the internal border area between Catalonia, Aragon and the Valencian Community (Spain), with the objective of analyzing dysfunctions in their water management and identifying the territorial needs for the efficient management of these resources. Focus group sessions were conducted with 84 public administration stakeholders and a total of 53 border municipalities were involved in the project. In our study area, we identified a considerable number of dysfunctions that affected different levels of water management (e.g., supply, navigation and reservoirs) and which impeded effective cooperation between different administrations (above all, between town councils and the public water agencies). However, we also identified several interesting initiatives to promote water management in both the medium and long term, including river contracts, river commonwealths and river tourism projects managed by border municipalities

Binary fraction estimation in open clusters with Gaia

Treballs Finals de Grau de Física, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2021, Tutors: Friedrich Anders, Carme JordiIn this study, we estimate the binary fraction of unresolved binaries with high mass ratios for 191 open clusters between 8.9 Myr and 3 Gyr old. Our first approach is based on assuming the colour-magnitude diagram of the cluster main-sequence members to be a mixture of two Gaussians, associated with single stars and unresolved binaries. We find that the binary fraction follows the reported general trend of increasing for higher masses, and it also behaves as expected with open cluster’s distance; while we find no statistically significant correlation between the binary fraction and the open cluster’s ag

The multiplicity fraction in 324 open clusters from Gaia

Màster Oficial d'Astrofísica, Física de Partícules i Cosmologia, Facultat de Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2021-2022, Tutors: Friedrich Anders, Carme Jordi NebotThis Master’s thesis is devoted to the estimation of the multiplicity fraction of high-mass ratio main-sequence multiple systems in Galactic open clusters. The main study consists in estimating in an automated fashion the unresolved multiplicity fraction through the location of the unresolved multiple systems in colour-magnitude diagrams, using Gaia DR2 and EDR3 data. Regarding this study, this thesis is a continuation of the previous preliminary work of my bachelor thesis (Donada, 2021), which explored the possibility of applying a Gaussian mixture model algorithm. Now we revise and improve this method, and also develop an alternative implementation using a Markov chain Monte Carlo method. The unresolved multiplicity fractions obtained through both methods are compared and characterized using custom realistic Gaia-like open cluster simulations performed with the Gaia Object Generator (Luri et al., 2014). Using these simulations we estimate the effective limiting mass ratio above which the Markov chain Monte Carlo method is able to detect the presence of a secondary companion (i.e., the high mass ratio range which our estimated unresolved multiplicity fraction comprises). The simulations further enable us to correct for the presence of resolved multiple systems. So, as a second part of the study, we estimate the total high mass ratio multiplicity fraction of the open clusters’ main sequences. Finally, we compare our results to the ones estimated through ASteCA (Automated Stellar Cluster Analysis package). The main result of this work is the largest homogeneous catalogue of multiplicity fractions in open clusters to date, including the unresolved and total multiplicity fractions of main-sequence systems with mass ratio larger than 0.6+0.05 −0.15 for 324 open clusters, estimated through the Markov chain Monte Carlo method. All studied open clusters are closer than 1.5 kpc, and have ages between 3.9 Myr and 4.3 Gyr. Their total multiplicity fractions, between 0.05 and 0.71, are found to increase with the mass of the primary star, display an overall decreasing trend with the open cluster age up until ages about 100-320 Myr, above which the trend increases; and do not depend on the open cluster position in the Galaxy

‘Microtoponymy’ as a key for geographical description. A case study in Catalonia, Spain

The study of toponyms at the micro-scale – that is, microtoponymy – is of great interest for the geographer. Place names, generally speaking, provide us with a rich and diverse source of information about the geographical space (and, moreover, about the landscape: a key concept in the study and interpretation of this space). Within this framework, we argue that microtoponyms, considered in terms of their “spatial meaning”, can be, methodologically speaking, an excellent tool for geographers, historians and linguists (as well as other professionals) as they seek to provide a global understanding of the geographical space that we inhabit. Our paper is based on a recently conducted study in the comarca or district of Baix Camp, in the province of Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain). In this district, extending over an area of 695 km² and with a population of 192,000 inhabitants (2011), we have undertaken a geographical analysis of a total of 16,400 place names (in the main, microtoponyms). This study has enabled us to interpret the broad relationship between the comarca’s names, places and landscapes.Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00