1,004 research outputs found
Picturing voices, writing thickness: a multimodal approach to translating the Afro-Cuban tales of Lydia Cabrera
Lydia Cabrera's career spans much of the twentieth century and her many books provide a unique insight into Afro-Cuban religions, customs, and folktales. Her work crosses the boundaries between ethnography, linguistics and fiction and her texts are inscribed with the dual strands of the African and Iberian cultures that fuse together to form the Cuban. Nonetheless, Cabrera's oeuvre remains relatively unknown outside Spanish-speaking academic circles and to date very little of it has been translated. This research project aims to address Cabrera's unwarranted obscurity by presenting English translations of twelve of her Afro-Cuban tales alongside hitherto unpublished archival material. Polyvocality is identified as a key feature of her work and ways in which 'voice' operates in her four collections of short stories are analysed. It is considered important that all the participants in the story-telling chain be 'heard' in any new presentation of Cabrera's work. This means paying attention to Cabrera as author of the published texts, but also to the informants who were her oral sources, to the translator, and to the reader of the new English versions. The fact that Cabrera's tales often encompass both the scientific (ethnographic) and the artistic (literary), makes the process of translating them a rich and complex endeavour. In formulating a creative response to this complexity, insights are drawn from visual art, concrete poetry, and ethnography. The notion of 'thick translation' (Appiah 1993/2000) provides the theoretical underpinning for the multimodal artefact which is developed. This PhD therefore also crosses disciplines - translation studies and interactive media - and comprises two parts; a written thesis and a DVD-Rom. Ultimately, it is suggested that one future direction for
translation is to take a 'visual turn' towards a practice which does more than offer one written text in the place of another
Super-Keplerian Frequencies in Accretion Disks. Implications for Mass and Spin Measurements of Compact Objects from X-ray Variability Studies
The detection of fast quasi-periodic variability from accreting black holes
and neutron stars has been used to constrain their masses, radii, and spins. If
the observed oscillations are linear modes in the accretion disks, then bounds
can be placed on the properties of the central objects by assuming that these
modes are locally sub-Keplerian. If, on the other hand, the observed
oscillations correspond to non-linear resonances between disk modes, then the
properties of the central objects can be measured by assuming that the resonant
modes are excited at the same radial annulus in the disk. In this paper, we use
numerical simulations of vertically integrated, axisymmetric hydrodynamic
accretion disks to provide examples of situations in which the assumptions
implicit in both methods are not satisfied. We then discuss our results for the
robustness of the mass and spin measurements of compact objects from
variability studies.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Ap
Modeling the Formation of Clouds in Brown Dwarf Atmospheres
Because the opacity of clouds in substellar mass object (SMO) atmospheres
depends on the composition and distribution of particle sizes within the cloud,
a credible cloud model is essential for accurately modeling SMO spectra and
colors. We present a one--dimensional model of cloud particle formation and
subsequent growth based on a consideration of basic cloud microphysics. We
apply this microphysical cloud model to a set of synthetic brown dwarf
atmospheres spanning a broad range of surface gravities and effective
temperatures (g_surf = 1.78 * 10^3 -- 3 * 10^5 cm/s^2 and T_eff = 600 -- 1600
K) to obtain plausible particle sizes for several abundant species (Fe,
Mg2SiO4, and Ca2Al2SiO7). At the base of the clouds, where the particles are
largest, the particle sizes thus computed range from ~5 microns to over 300
microns in radius over the full range of atmospheric conditions considered. We
show that average particle sizes decrease significantly with increasing brown
dwarf surface gravity. We also find that brown dwarfs with higher effective
temperatures have characteristically larger cloud particles than those with
lower effective temperatures. We therefore conclude that it is unrealistic when
modeling SMO spectra to apply a single particle size distribution to the entire
class of objects.Comment: 25 pages; 8 figures. We have added considerable detail describing the
physics of the cloud model. We have also added discussions of the issues of
rainout and the self-consistent coupling of clouds with brown dwarf
atmospheric models. We have updated figures 1, 3, and 4 with new vertical
axis labels and new particle sizes for forsterite and gehlenite. Accepted to
the Astrophysical Journal, Dec. 2, 200
Benefits and Risks of Weight-Loss Treatment for Older, Obese Women
Background: A key issue in the treatment of obesity in older adults is whether the health benefits of weight loss outweigh the potential risks with respect to musculoskeletal injury. Objective: To compare change in weight, improvements in metabolic risk factors, and reported musculoskeletal adverse events in middle-aged (50-59 years) and older (65-74 years), obese women. Materials and methods: Participants completed an initial 6-month lifestyle intervention for weight loss, comprised of weekly group sessions, followed by 12 months of extended care with biweekly contacts. Weight and fasting blood samples were assessed at baseline, month 6, and month 18; data regarding adverse events were collected throughout the duration of the study. Results: Both middle-aged (n = 162) and older (n = 56) women achieved significant weight reductions from baseline to month 6 (10.1 +/- 0.68 kg and 9.3 +/- 0.76 kg, respectively) and maintained a large proportion of their losses at month 18 (7.6 +/- 0.87 kg and 7.6 +/- 1.3 kg, respectively); there were no significant differences between the two groups with respect to weight change. Older women further experienced significant reductions in systolic blood pressure, HbA(1c), and C-reactive protein from baseline to month 6 and maintained these improvements at month 18. Despite potential safety concerns, we found that older women were no more likely to experience musculoskeletal adverse events during the intervention as compared with their middle-aged counterparts. Conclusion: These results suggest that older, obese women can experience significant health benefits from lifestyle treatment for obesity, including weight loss and improvements in disease risk factors. Further investigation of the impact of weight loss on additional health-related parameters and risks (eg, body composition, muscular strength, physical functioning, and injuries) in older adults is needed.National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute R18HL73326University of FloridaDivision of Statistics and Scientific Computatio
The Unusual Linear Plasmid Generating Systems of Prokaryotes
Linear DNA is vulnerable to exonuclease degradation and suffers from genetic loss due to the end replication problem. Eukaryotes overcome these problems by locating repetitive telomere sequences at the end of each chromosome. In humans and other vertebrates this noncoding terminal sequence is repeated between hundreds and thousands of times, ensuring important genetic information is protected. In most prokaryotes, the end-replication problem is solved by utilizing circular DNA molecules as chromosomes. However, some phage and bacteria do store genetic information in linear constructs, and the ends of these structures form either invertrons or hairpin telomeres. Hairpin telomere formation is catalyzed by a protelomerase, a unique protein that modifies DNA by a two-step transesterification reaction, proceeding via a covalent protein bound intermediate. The specifics of this mechanism are largely unknown and conflicting data suggests variations occur between different systems. These proteins, and the DNA constructs they produce, have valuable applications in the biotechnology industry. They are also an essential component of some human pathogens, an increased understanding of how they operate is therefore of fundamental importance. Although this review will focus on phage encoded protelomerase, protelomerases found from Agrobacterium and Borellia will be discussed in terms of mechanism of action
Spectroscopic Constants, Abundances, and Opacities of the TiH Molecule
Using previous measurements and quantum chemical calculations to derive the
molecular properties of the TiH molecule, we obtain new values for its
ro-vibrational constants, thermochemical data, spectral line lists, line
strengths, and absorption opacities. Furthermore, we calculate the abundance of
TiH in M and L dwarf atmospheres and conclude that it is much higher than
previously thought. We find that the TiH/TiO ratio increases strongly with
decreasing metallicity, and at high temperatures can exceed unity. We suggest
that, particularly for subdwarf L and M dwarfs, spectral features of TiH near
0.52 \mic, 0.94 \mic, and in the band may be more easily measureable
than heretofore thought. The recent possible identification in the L subdwarf
2MASS J0532 of the 0.94 \mic feature of TiH is in keeping with this
expectation. We speculate that looking for TiH in other dwarfs and subdwarfs
will shed light on the distinctive titanium chemistry of the atmospheres of
substellar-mass objects and the dimmest stars.Comment: 37 pages, including 4 figures and 13 tables, accepted to the
Astrophysical Journa
Discovery of a Second High Frequency QPO from the Microquasar GRS 1915+105
We report the discovery in archival Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) data
of a 40 Hz quasiperiodic oscillation (QPO) in the hard X-ray flux from the
galactic microquasar GRS 1915+105. The QPO is detected only in the hard X-ray
band above 13 keV and was discovered in observations in which the previously
known 67 Hz QPO is present. The 40 Hz QPO has a typical rms amplitude of 2 % in
the 13 - 27 keV band, and a width of about 8.5 Hz (FWHM). We show that the 67
and 40 Hz QPOs are detected in the same observations in July and November,
1997. However, the QPO is not detected in observations from April, May and
June, 1996 in which the 67 Hz QPO was first discovered. The frequency of the 67
Hz QPO is significantly higher in the 1997 observations by about 5 % compared
with the 1996 data. The identification of the 40 Hz QPO makes GRS 1915+105 the
second black hole binary to show a pair of simultaneous high frequency QPO (the
other being GRO J1655-40). The similarities between the properties of the 67 Hz
QPO in GRS 1915+105 and the recently discovered 450 Hz QPO in GRO J1655-40
suggest that the pairs of frequencies in these systems may be produced by the
same physical mechanism, with the frequency differences between the two being
likely due to different black hole masses in the two systems. We discuss the
implications of our result for the mass and spin of GRS 1915+105 as well as for
models of X-ray variability in black holes and neutron stars.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, AASTeX. Accepted for Publication in the
Astrophysical Journal Letter
Is there a link between overactive bladder and the metabolic syndrome in women? : A systematic review of observational studies
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.To conduct a systematic review to determine whether there is an association between metabolic syndrome (MetS) and lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) or overactive bladder (OAB) in women. We systematically reviewed English language observational studies on the effect of MetS (or component factors) on the presence of OAB or LUTS in women. We searched PubMed, Web of Science and The Cochrane Library with no date restrictions, checked reference lists and undertook citation searches in PubMed and Google Scholar. Studies were assessed for risk of bias. Because of heterogeneity, results were not pooled, but are reported narrativelyPeer reviewe
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