Opera Buffa in Mozart\u27s Don Giovanni

My research is about Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni”. I am looking at this piece from a cultural, historical, and analytical perspective. My data for the historical and cultural perspectives is derived from careful investigation of article and book sources. More specifically, my research answers a question and fills a gap, namely, what makes Don Giovanni the quintessential Dramma Giocoso during the time period of Mozart following any and all rules in regards to aspects of Opera Seria and Opera Buffa which categorize it to be a Dramma Giocoso which current research has not yet addressed. In this paper however, I will be focusing only on the Opera Buffa perspective. My data for the analytical perspective is derived from musical analysis on several levels. I will be analyzing the comedic aria “Madamina, il catalogo e questo” and how from a music theory standpoint it represents a comedic aria, and from the standpoint of the plot it is both comedic yet tragic. My finding’s show that Mozart’s “Don Giovanni\u27\u27 helps us to better understand how Mozart utilizes both aspects of Opera Buffa and Opera Seria to please his audience and gives them two types of highly desired genres by creating a new genre, Dramma Giocoso. It therefore deserves to be better known and understood by modern scholars and researchers and will serve future research on the music of Mozart

The average transmitted wave in random particulate materials

Microwave remote sensing is significantly altered when passing through clouds or dense ice. This phenomenon isn't unique to microwaves; for instance, ultrasound is also disrupted when traversing through heterogeneous tissues. Understanding the average transmission in particle-filled environments is central to improve data extraction or even to create materials that can selectively block or absorb certain wave frequencies. Most methods that calculate the average transmitted field assume that it satisfies a wave equation with a complex effective wavenumber. However, recent theoretical work has predicted more than one effective wave propagating even in a material which is statistical isotropic and for scalar waves. In this work we provide the first clear evidence of these predicted multiple effective waves by using high fidelity Monte-Carlo simulations that do not make any statistical assumptions. To achieve this, we also had to fill in a missing link in the theory for particulate materials: we prove that the incident wave does not propagate within the material, which is usually taken as an assumption called the Ewald-Oseen extinction theorem. By proving this we conclude that the extinction length - the distance it takes for the incident wave to be extinct - is equal to the correlation length between the particles

Waves in disordered particulate materials: transmission and inter-particle correlations

At its core, this dissertation not only contributes to a deeper understanding of wave propagation in particulate materials but also opens new avenues for innovative engineering solutions in fields such as acoustic and electromagnetic material sensing and design. For instance, it contributes to the development of materials for specific wave-manipulation applications such as selectively blocking or absorbing specific wave frequencies. It challenges the standard approach that on average, a wave propagates through random particulate materials with a single effective wavenumber, demonstrating instead the presence of multiple effective wavenumbers due to strong multiple scattering phenomena. This finding is surprising, considering the homogeneous and isotropic nature of the medium and our focus on scalar waves. To confirm these predictions, we conduct high-fidelity Monte-Carlo simulations, avoiding any statistical assumptions and providing the first clear evidence that there is indeed more than one effective wavenumber. However, when performing simulations we came across another unresolved gap in the theory concerning the incident wave that encounters a material with random microstructure. It is well known that any incident wave will eventually be completely replaced by some sort of effective transmitted wave. This is often referred to as the extinction of the incident wave. What was not clear is how far does the incident wave travel before being replaced by an effective wave? In disordered particulate materials we prove that the incident wave does not propagate within the material more than the correlation length between particles. In more detail, the extinction length is exactly equal to the maximum distance at which two particles are still correlated. This result not only helps perform numerical simulations, but is important to know in any experimental measurement, or even when designing materials to control wave propagation. A further challenge we encountered when comparing Monte-Carlo simulations, of thousands of particles, with theoretical predictions, is that the typically used pair-correlations g(r) - where r is the distance between the particles - did not match exactly the pair-correlations from our Monte-Carlo simulations. This naturally led us to investigate the discrepancy between theoretical pair-correlation functions and those derived from our Monte-Carlo simulations. This motivated our research on the realizability problem – whether a specific particle configuration can be calculated to match a given pair-correlation. Recognising the significant role of pair-correlations in fields like chemistry and materials science, we demonstrate a way to formulate the realizability problem as a smooth optimisation problem, where the gradients can be easily calculated. This approach, relying on gradient-based methods, promises more efficient solutions compared to traditional brute-force, non-gradient-based techniques

Targeting lymphatic vessel functions through tyrosine kinases

The lymphatic vascular system is actively involved in tissue fluid homeostasis, immune surveillance and fatty acid transport. Pathological conditions can arise from injury to the lymphatics, or they can be recruited in the context of cancer to facilitate metastasis. Protein tyrosine kinases are central players in signal transduction networks and regulation of cell behavior. In the lymphatic endothelium, tyrosine kinases are involved in processes such as the maintenance of existing lymphatic vessels, growth and maturation of new vessels and modulation of their identity and function. As such, they are attractive targets for both existing inhibitors and the development of new inhibitors which affect lymphangiogenesis in pathological states such as cancer. RNAi screening provides an opportunity to identify the functional role of tyrosine kinases in the lymphatics. This review will discuss the role of tyrosine kinases in lymphatic biology and the potential use of inhibitors for anti-lymphangiogenic therapy

Eagle syndrome presenting with external carotid artery pseudoaneurysm

Eagle syndrome refers to a clinical syndrome caused by the abnormal elongation of the styloid process with calcification/ossification of the stylohyoid ligament. We present the first reported case of Eagle syndrome resulting in an external carotid artery (ECA) pseudoaneurysm. A patient presented to emergency room with an expanding, painful right-neck mass. CT angiography with three-dimensional volume rendering showed a bilobed 4.0-cm right ECA pseudoaneurysm and bilateral ossification of the stylohyoid ligaments with a sharpened edge of the right styloid process at the level of the carotid artery. Aneurysmectomy was performed, and a common carotid to internal carotid bypass with reversed saphenous vein restored arterial continuity. Local resection of the styloid process with a rotational sternocleidomastoid flap was performed. The pathology report was consistent with a diagnosis of a pseudoaneurysm. A six-month clinical follow-up confirmed the complete resolution of symptoms with no neurological deficits

Antimicrobial Resistance among Isolates Causing Invasive Pneumococcal Disease before and after Licensure of Heptavalent Conjugate Pneumococcal Vaccine

BACKGROUND: The impact of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) on antibiotic resistance among pneumococcal strains causing invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) has varied in different locales in the United States. We assessed trends in IPD including trends for IPD caused by penicillin non-susceptible strains before and after licensure of PCV-7 and the impact of the 2008 susceptibility breakpoints for penicillin on the epidemiology of resistance. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We performed a retrospective review of IPD cases at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, Columbia University Medical Center. Subjects were < or = 18 years of age with Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from sterile body sites from January 1995-December 2006. The rate of IPD from 1995-1999 versus 2002-2006 significantly decreased from 4.1 (CI(95) 3.4, 4.8) to 1.7 (CI(95) 1.3, 2.2) per 1,000 admissions. Using the breakpoints in place during the study period, the proportion of penicillin non-susceptible strains increased from 27% to 49% in the pre- vs. post-PCV-7 era, respectively (p = 0.001), although the rate of IPD caused by non-susceptible strains did not change from 1995-1999 (1.1 per 1,000 admissions, CI(95) 0.8, 1.5) when compared with 2002-2006 (0.8 per 1,000 admissions, CI(95) 0.6, 1.2). In the multivariate logistic regression model controlling for the effects of age, strains causing IPD in the post-PCV-7 era were significantly more likely to be penicillin non-susceptible compared with strains in the pre-PCV-7 era (OR 2.46, CI(95) 1.37, 4.40). However, using the 2008 breakpoints for penicillin, only 8% of strains were non-susceptible in the post-PCV-7 era. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: To date, there are few reports that document an increase in the relative proportion of penicillin non-susceptible strains of pneumococci causing IPD following the introduction of PCV-7. Active surveillance of pneumococcal serotypes and antibiotic resistance using the new penicillin breakpoints is imperative to assess potential changes in the epidemiology of IPD

A structural and biochemical model of processive chitin synthesis

Chitin synthases (CHS) produce chitin, an essential component of the fungal cell wall. The molecular mechanism of processive chitin synthesis is not understood, limiting the discovery of new inhibitors of this enzyme class. We identified the bacterial glycosyltransferase NodC as an appropriate model system to study the general structure and reaction mechanism of CHS. A high throughput screening-compatible novel assay demonstrates that a known inhibitor of fungal CHS also inhibit NodC. A structural model of NodC, on the basis of the recently published BcsA cellulose synthase structure, enabled probing of the catalytic mechanism by mutagenesis, demonstrating the essential roles of the DD and QXXRW catalytic motifs. The NodC membrane topology was mapped, validating the structural model. Together, these approaches give insight into the CHS structure and mechanism and provide a platform for the discovery of inhibitors for this antifungal target