Epistolary Mechanism and Unreliable Narrator in Novel by V. V. Nabokov “Once in Aleppo…”

The cases of V. V. Nabokov’s appeal to the epistolary mechanism are considered. It turns out that the epistolary genre, as well as V. V. Nabokov’s metanarrative reflection create a dual context around the narrator, who mixes with the character. In particular, the prospect of interpreting the epistolary text is assessed, taking into account the concept of an unreliable narrator on the example of V. V. Nabokov’s 1943 short story. It is suggested that a participant in literary correspondence can be classified as an unreliable narrator, especially if his narration fluctuates between an inadequate assessment of reality and illusion. It is noted that imaginary events, which are evidence of madness, speak of the stress that the narrator invented by V. V. Nabokov is experiencing during the Second World War and the moment of flight from France from the Nazi Wehrmacht. It is emphasized that the demonstrative narrative complexity makes the aesthetic experience richer and more diverse when reading an already structurally complex postmodern text. It is pointed out that the epistolary examples from the corpus of V. V. Nabokov’s prose are placed in the general context of the development of the literary letters genre in the first half of the 20th century

Epistolary Short Story by M.A. Kuzmina 1907: Demonological Narrative, Libertine Transgression, or Stylization of Adventures in Spirit of Henri de Regnier

The epistolary short story by M.A. Kuzmin 1907 “From the letters of the maiden Clara Valmont to Rosalia Tutel Mayer”. The “layers” of genres and traditions in the text of the novel are studied in order to establish the compatibility of the epistolary genre with narrative strategies of stylization and parody. It turns out that under the narration about the connection of a supernatural being with a person lies the usual story of manipulation and deception of a young ingenuous girl. Nevertheless, the epistolary form helps to more accurately construct the female image. It is noted that the comic effect arises as a result of doubts that appear about the version of events set forth in the letters of the heroine. It is shown that additional attention to poetic autoquotation in the epistolary short story by M.A. Kuzmin opens up the possibility of clarifying the source, which could be chosen for stylization and parody. In addition, it becomes clear that, contrary to the genre epistolary canon, which brings to the fore the inner world of the characters, the novel M.A. Kuzmin contains elements of the adventure novel genre. It is also suggested that the stylization strategy of M.A. Kuzmin can be compared with the imitative narrative of A. de Regnier, which was admired by Russian symbolists

Innovative Artistic Strategies in Epistolary Fragments of Daniil Kharms (Linguistic Semiotic Aspect)

The question of the evolution of epistolary prose is considered on the example of fragments of D.I. Kharms. Attention is paid to communication aspects using a linguo-semiotic approach. The results of the analysis of the epistolary passage of 1933 in comparison with other samples of imitative literary letters are presented. The question is raised about the similarity of the perception of the absurdity of D.I. Kharms and the absurdity in the Gogol tradition. The author, in particular, dwells on the theme of marriage and fairy tale elements in D.I. Kharms and N.V. Gogol. The emphasis is on the fact that D.I. Kharms demonstrated the failure of communication, including epistolary communication, while perceiving the surrounding world as absurd. To study an untitled epistolary fragment, among other things, a technique is used that fixes violations of the postulates of normal communication, which was proposed by O.G. Revzina and I. I. Revzin. As a result, it turns out that the artistic means of repetition used by D.I. Kharms violates both the postulate of the information content of normal communication and the postulate of the incompleteness of the description, which makes an effective epistolary dialogue impossible. The method of multiple repetition casts doubts on the effectiveness of the postulate of semantic coherence

Blinking statistics of a molecular beacon triggered by end-denaturation of DNA

We use a master equation approach based on the Poland-Scheraga free energy for DNA denaturation to investigate the (un)zipping dynamics of a denaturation wedge in a stretch of DNA, that is clamped at one end. In particular, we quantify the blinking dynamics of a fluorophore-quencher pair mounted within the denaturation wedge. We also study the behavioural changes in the presence of proteins, that selectively bind to single-stranded DNA. We show that such a setup could be well-suited as an easy-to-implement nanodevice for sensing environmental conditions in small volumes.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, LaTeX, IOP style. Accepted to J Phys Cond Mat special issue on diffusio

Fetal Bovine Serum RNA Interferes with the Cell Culture derived Extracellular RNA

Fetal bovine serum (FBS) has been used in eukaryotic cell cultures for decades. However, little attention has been paid to the biological effects associated with RNA content of FBS on cell cultures. Here, using RNA sequencing, we demonstrate that FBS contains a diverse repertoire of protein-coding and regulatory RNA species, including mRNA, miRNA, rRNA, and snoRNA. The majority of them (>70%) are retained even after extended ultracentrifugation in the preparations of vesicle-depleted FBS (vdFBS) commonly utilized in the studies of extracellular vesicles (EV) and intercellular communication. FBS-associated RNA is co-isolated with cell-culture derived extracellular RNA (exRNA) and interferes with the downstream RNA analysis. Many evolutionally conserved FBS-derived RNA species can be falsely annotated as human or mouse transcripts. Notably, specific miRNAs abundant in FBS, such as miR-122, miR-451a and miR-1246, have been previously reported as enriched in cell-culture derived EVs, possibly due to the confounding effect of the FBS. Analysis of publically available exRNA datasets supports the notion of FBS contamination. Furthermore, FBS transcripts can be taken up by cultured cells and affect the results of highly sensitive gene expression profiling technologies. Therefore, precautions for experimental design are warranted to minimize the interference and misinterpretations caused by FBS-derived RNA

All-dielectric magnetic metasurface for advanced light control in dual polarizations combined with high-Q resonances

Nanostructured magnetic materials provide an efficient tool for light manipulation on sub-nanosecond and sub-micron scales, and allow for the observation of the novel effects which are fundamentally impossible in smooth films. For many cases of practical importance, it is vital to observe the magneto-optical intensity modulation in a dual-polarization regime. However, the nanostructures reported on up to date usually utilize a transverse Kerr effect and thus provide light modulation only for p-polarized light. We present a concept of a transparent magnetic metasurface to solve this problem, and demonstrate a novel mechanism for magneto-optical modulation. A 2D array of bismuth-substituted iron-garnet nanopillars on an ultrathin iron-garnet slab forms a metasurface supporting quasi-waveguide mode excitation. In contrast to plasmonic structures, the all-dielectric magnetic metasurface is shown to exhibit much higher transparency and superior quality-factor resonances, followed by a multifold increase in light intensity modulation. The existence of a wide variety of excited mode types allows for advanced light control: transmittance of both p- and s-polarized illumination becomes sensitive to the medium magnetization, something that is fundamentally impossible in smooth magnetic films. The proposed metasurface is very promising for sensing, magnetometry and light modulation applications