A Newly Discovered Large and Significant Population of Castela emoryi (Emory’s Crucifixion Thorn, Simaroubaceae) in California

Castela emoryi is an understudied species, and recent visits to populations across California have shed new light on its distribution and biology, including recruitment, natural history, and herbivory. Field exploration in Rice Valley in Riverside County revealed what is considered to be the largest population of C. emoryi in California. Possible threats and conservation needs of this species are discussed

SIRT1 in Neurodevelopment and Brain Senescence

Sirtuins are nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)-dependent deacylases that have traditionally been linked with calorie restriction and aging in mammals. These proteins also play an important role in maintaining neuronal health during aging. During neuronal development, the SIR2 ortholog SIRT1 is structurally important, promoting axonal elongation, neurite outgrowth, and dendritic branching. This sirtuin also plays a role in memory formation by modulating synaptic plasticity. Hypothalamic functions that affect feeding behavior, endocrine function, and circadian rhythmicity are all regulated by SIRT1. Finally, SIRT1 plays protective roles in several neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and motor neuron diseases, which may relate to its functions in metabolism, stress resistance, and genomic stability. Drugs that activate SIRT1 may offer a promising approach to treat these disorders

The poetic image of the Jew in the comedia.

I will argue in this thesis that in the comedia the Jew was often but covertly portrayed with sympathy. In the Introduction some complex terms of reference, such as 'Jew', will be clarified. Chapter 1 describes the development, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, of the converso perspective, characterized by a critical attitude to the ruling ideology, based on individualism, heterodoxy and double language. This chapter also describes how the ideas of Christian Humanism were incorporated into the already existing, if limited, converso perspective to form part of the more ample intellectual equipment of Golden-Age dramatists. Chapter 2 deals with' a form of subversive irony, as an expression of the converso perspective, which appears first in the double language of La Celestina; this is later enriched by incorporating Erasmian dissimulatio, theorized as 'enganar con la verdad' in the Arte nuevo de hacer comedias and put in practice in Lope's comedias. It is this technique that will facilitate the presentation, albeit covertly, of a positive image of the Jew, Chapter 3 contains the theory of transposition as a form of engano in comedias de honra and the first appearance in these comedias of the positive image of the Jew. Chapter 4 traces the transposition of the 'bad' converso into the 'good' biblical Jew. Chapter 5 presents the positive image of the Jew created by mocking his stereotypical negative image. The last chapter contains a discussion of six comedias by Lope that present positive images of the Jew in their converso protagonists; as some of these characters in many ways resemble Lope, for example in their problems with limpieza de sangre, this chapter begins with a discussion of Lope's origin. In all the foregoing I have tried to demonstrate that, contrary to general critical opinion, the Jew in the comedia was often delineated with sympathy

An interior point technique for nonlinear optimization

Projet MODULEFWe propose an approach for the minimization of a smooth function under smooth equality and inequality constraints by interior points algorithms. It consists on the iterative solution, in the primal and dual variables, of Karush-Kuhn-Tucker first order optimality conditions. Based on this approach, different order algorithms can be obtained. To introduce the method, in a first stage we consider the inequality constrained problem and present a globally convergent basic algorithm. Particular first order and quasi-Newton versions of the algorithm are also stated. In a second stage, the general problem is consider and a basic algorithm obtained. This method is simple to code, since it does not involve the solution of quadratic programs but merely that of linear systems of equations. Several applications show that it is also strong and efficient