Prism of Time, 1950-2020: A Collection of Short Stories

This collection presents a variety of literary styles including pure fiction, auto fiction, historical fiction, biographical fiction, and creative non-fiction. Racism, abortion, political and societal events are addressed by way of the Viet Nam era Anti-war Movement, Feminism, Art, immigration, mid-century inter-racial attitudes, and individual responses to sexist behavior, fire, war, and death. Also serving as vehicles are adult behavior through a child’s eyes, and in some cases, humor. The stories are set in the 1950s and1960s in Cleveland and Chicago; also in pre-Soviet Belarus, 1920s Paris, Renaissance and 1970s Venice, and 2016 United States. Characters fictionalized in the stories include Sonia Terk Delaunay, Robert Delaunay, Josephine Baker, Veronica Franco, Joseph Michael Stern, myself and some members of my family. All the stories were written between 2015 and 2020; each represents a reflection on an occurrence, real or imagined, during the past seventy years of my life. These stories are the work of an aging writer who imagines facts to fill in gaps of unknown or forgotten reality to create fiction

The importance of identifying novel biomarkers of microvascular damage in type 1 diabetes

Microvascular complications of type 1 diabetes, which primarily include diabetic kidney disease, retinopathy and neuropathy, are characterized by damage to the microvasculature of the kidney, retina and neurons. The pathogenesis of these complications is multifactorial, and several pathways are implicated. These complications are often silent during their early stages, and once symptoms develop, there might be little to be done to cure them. Thus, there is a strong need for novel biomarkers to identify individuals at risk of microvascular complications at an early stage and guide the implementation of new therapeutic options for preventing their development and progression. Recent advancements in proteomics, metabolomics and other ‘omics’ have led to the identification of several potential biomarkers of microvascular complications. However, biomarker discovery has met several challenges and, up to now, there are no new biomarkers which have been implemented into clinical practice. This highlights the need of further work in this area to move towards better diagnostic and prognostic approaches

Perífrasis verbales: Una mirada desde los universales lingüísticos

The main goal of this paper is to show that the different verbal periphrasis in Spanish keep a non fortuitous order, which can be derived from the one proposed by the universal hierarchy of categories (Foley and Van Valin 1984; Bybee 1985; Hengeveld 1989 and 2004, among others). Firstly, we draw a parallelism with the adverbs studied by Cinque (1999), which helps determine the different sentence domains of the periphrasis. The passive voice periphrasis, the aspectual ones referred to the phases and the event quantification, and the ones of deontic modality are placed in the innermost layer, corresponding to the VP. The inflectional layer hosts the temporo-aspectual periphrasis whereas the complementizer layer, which connects the propositional content with the illocutionary force, contains the periphrasis of epistemic modality. Once the subtypes are identified, we analyse their cyclic application possibilities, their interaction with negation and with cleft construcctions. Finally, we comment on the semantic, syntactic and morphologycal consequences of the different levels of the grammaticalization of some auxiliaries

Uptake and accumulation of metals in Spartina alterniflora salt marshes from a South American estuary

Salt marshes are capable of reducing metal pollution in coastal waters, but this capacity is highly dependent on the metal, the physico-chemical characteristics of the sediment, the plant species, the production of biomass, the time of the year, etc. The aim of this study was to assess the uptake and accumulation of Pb, Ni, Cu and Zn in Spartina alterniflora from three salt marshes within the Bahía Blanca estuary (BBE), a human-impacted Argentinean system. Metal concentrations in sediments and plants showed the same order at all sites: Zn > Cu > Pb ≥ Ni. The site with lower organic matter and fine sediment content had lower metal concentrations in the sediments, but not a lower metal content in the plant tissues, meaning that the sediment characteristics influenced the metal concentrations in the sediment and their uptake by plants. Despite differences in sediment characteristics between sites, metals were always higher in the belowground tissues than in aboveground ones and, in general, higher in dead than in live tissues. Some metals were accumulated in plant tissues, but not others, and this is dependent on the metal and the sediment characteristics. Allocation patterns of metals in tissues of S. alterniflora were mainly dependent on metal concentrations, determining higher belowground pools, but the aboveground pools were important in some cases due to higher biomass. Partitioning of metals in above or belowground pools determines their fate within the estuarine system, since tissues can decompose in situ (belowground) or be exported (aboveground). Seasonal dynamics were important for some variables but were less noticeable than the differences between sites and tissues. Our results indicate that S. alterniflora from the BBE is efficient in accumulating some metals, despite usually low metal concentrations in sediments and plants. This accumulation capacity has implications for the whole system through the fate of the tissues.Fil: Negrin, Vanesa Lorena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmacia; ArgentinaFil: Botté, Sandra Elizabeth. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmacia; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía; ArgentinaFil: la Colla, Noelia Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía; ArgentinaFil: Marcovecchio, Jorge Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Universidad FASTA "Santo Tomas de Aquino"; Argentin

La gramática en los trastornos de la comunicación y el lenguaje

En esta comunicación, expondremos, dentro de una perspectiva gramatical, ciertos objetivos de investigación acerca de la adquisición / aprendizaje de las categorías funcionales en adolescentes sordos y en un joven con diagnóstico de Trastorno Generalizado del Desarrollo (TGD). Comenzaremos por la cuestión de la concordancia entre sujeto y predicado, y la identificación de la referencia manifestada en los pronombres. Partiremos de la hipótesis de que la jerarquía de instigadores naturales (Moure 2001) incide en la identificación exitosa de los referentes; y de la idea de que existe una relación proporcional entre la menor información codificada léxicamente y la menor proximidad sintáctica con el verbo con el que concuerda, por un lado, y el número de los fallos en la interpretación, por otro. En efecto, se observa que la dificultad en el procesamiento de la información gramatical (más abstracta que la de las clases léxicas y, además, expresada, a través de rasgos de baja sustancia fónica -como los de flexión-) resulta un indicio contundente del déficit morfosintáctico, el que sumado a otros marcadores psicolingüísticos, colabora en la detección del fracaso en el desarrollo lingüístico (Buiza Navarrete et al 2004

Optimization of Scheduling for Hydro-thermal Power Generation and Transmission Including Pumped Storage Systems

This work presents a novel approach for solving the short-term scheduling of hydro-thermal power generation, including pumped storage systems and transmission constraints. The problem addressed is known as Security Constrained Unit Commitment (SCUC). Pumped Storage Units (PSUs) are important in electric systems during the off-peak and the peak demand periods, providing economic and technical benefits. Linear aproximations are applied to nonlinear equations of this kind of mathematical problems which are: fuel cost functions, generation-discharge curves of PSUs and transmission constraints modeled with Alternating Current power flow model. Thus, MILP models are presented for the problem addessed. To prove the efficiency of the proposed models, two systems with PSUs will be tested: a modified 6-bus and the IEEE 31-bus power system. Results show that the proposed MILP models allow: modeling the SCUC problem more realistically, obtaining feasible solutions within efficient computational times, and reaching production cost savings up to almost 15% compared to power systems that lack capacities to pumping water. Several indicators obtained from results are presented through graphs, as a tool for improving operation and maintenance of power systems. The analysis of these indicators and the graphic interpretation allow to identify and classify critical parts of systems as well as to make recommendations about future system improvements.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ