1,769 research outputs found
Shakespearean allusion and the detective fiction of Georgette Heyer
This essay argues that Shakespearean allusion is a recurrent and important factor in the detective novels of Georgette Heyer. Though the master text for Heyer is Hamlet, a variety of Shakespeare plays are referred to, and mention of them functions in multiple ways. Quotations from Shakespeare reveal truths about the characters and comment on their situations and personalities. They also afford points of entry for people previously unacquainted to talk to each other, and finally they have effects in terms of genre, since their presence can, with equal facility, tend towards comic relief (in line with a tradition in Golden Age crime fiction of using Macbeth in particular to comic effect) or work to add gravitas and resonance. The use of Shakespearean allusion is thus central to Heyerâs technique. This article is published as part of a collection to commemorate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeareâs death
Georgette Heyer: what Austen left out
It has often been observed that there are certain things Jane Austen excludes from her books, most notably conversations between men at which no women are present, and the Napoleonic wars. Georgette Heyer comprehensively and systematically includes what Austen omits. Regency Buck, the first of Heyerâs regency romances, pointedly highlights a number of things that Austen keeps silent on: the Prince Regent and the Pavilion, duels, snuff, menâs clothes and pastimes, menâs conversation, Beau Brummell, curricle racing, cockfighting, boxing, and the manners of men to non-ladies. The heroineâs brother, Peregrine, takes sparring lessons at Jacksonâs Saloon, shoots at Mantonâs Galleries, fences at Angeloâs, and drinks Blue Ruin in Cribbâs Parlour, and we even overhear an all-male conversation. Above all, Heyer focuses on the Napoleonic Wars, which for her men are the preservative from foppishness and folly; essentially, they have a choice between fighting for Wellington or growing to be like Prinny or Byron. This chapter will examine her representation of the wars, with particular attention to the ways in which the language and imagery of warfare spills over into domestic situations
Magnetostrictive Neel ordering of the spin-5/2 ladder compound BaMn2O3: distortion-induced lifting of geometrical frustration
The crystal structure and the magnetism of BaMnO have been studied by
thermodynamic and by diffraction techniques using large single crystals and
powders. BaMnO is a realization of a spin ladder as the
magnetic interaction is dominant along 180 Mn-O-Mn bonds forming the
legs and the rungs of a ladder. The temperature dependence of the magnetic
susceptibility exhibits well-defined maxima for all directions proving the
low-dimensional magnetic character in BaMnO. The susceptibility and
powder neutron diffraction data, however, show that BaMnO exhibits a
transition to antiferromagnetic order at 184 K, in spite of a full frustration
of the nearest-neighbor inter-ladder coupling in the orthorhombic
high-temperature phase. This frustration is lifted by a remarkably strong
monoclinic distortion which accompanies the magnetic transition.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables; in V1 fig. 2 was included twice and
fig. 4 was missing; this has been corrected in V
Isotropically Driven versus Outflow Driven Turbulence: Observational Consequences for Molecular Clouds
Feedback from protostellar outflows can influence the nature of turbulence in
star forming regions even if they are not the primary source of velocity
dispersion for all scales of molecular clouds. For the rate and power expected
in star forming regions, we previously (Carroll et al. 2009) demonstrated that
outflows could drive supersonic turbulence at levels consistent with the
scaling relations from Matzner 2007 although with a steeper velocity power
spectrum than expected for an isotropically driven supersonic turbulent
cascade. Here we perform higher resolution simulations and combine simulations
of outflow driven turbulence with those of isotropically forced turbulence. We
find that the presence of outflows within an ambient isotropically driven
turbulent environment produces a knee in the velocity power spectrum at the
outflow scale and a steeper slope at sub-outflow scales than for a purely
isotropically forced case. We also find that the presence of outflows flattens
the density spectrum at large scales effectively reducing the formation of
large scale turbulent density structures. These effects are qualitatively
independent of resolution. We have also carried out Principal Component
Analysis (PCA) for synthetic data from our simulations. We find that PCA as a
tool for identifying the driving scale of turbulence has a misleading bias
toward low amplitude large scale velocity structures even when they are not
necessarily the dominant energy containing scales. This bias is absent for
isotropically forced turbulence but manifests strongly for collimated outflow
driven turbulence.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, Submitted to Ap
Frosttoleranz bei Pflanzen - Fliehen, vermeiden oder einfach durchhalten!
Nur etwa ein Drittel der FlĂ€che des Planeten Erde ist dauerhaft frostfrei: in den tropischen Regenwaldgebieten des Amazonasbeckens, in Kongo, an der afrikanischen WestkĂŒste, auf dem Indomalayischen Archipel, in einem kleinen Teil Australiens und auf den pazifischen Inseln in ĂquatornĂ€he fĂ€llt die Temperatur nie unter etwa 15 Grad. Der Temperaturunterschied zwischen Tag und Nacht ist hier gröĂer als der zwischen Sommer und Winter. Fast die HĂ€lfte aller Pflanzenarten â 115.000 von 250.000 bekannten BlĂŒtenpflanzen â kommen nur hier vor. Daraus lĂ€sst sich bereits ablesen, dass der Umgang mit niedrigen Temperaturen eine Herausforderung fĂŒr lebende Organismen ist, der sich nicht jeder stellen mag. Andererseits locken die kĂ€lteren Gegenden mit einem groĂen FlĂ€chen- und Mineralstoffangebot â einer Ressource, die fĂŒr Pflanzen Ă€uĂerst attraktiv ist
A Robust and Universal Metaproteomics Workflow for Research Studies and Routine Diagnostics Within 24 h Using Phenol Extraction, FASP Digest, and the MetaProteomeAnalyzer
The investigation of microbial proteins by mass spectrometry (metaproteomics) is a key technology for simultaneously assessing the taxonomic composition and the functionality of microbial communities in medical, environmental, and biotechnological applications. We present an improved metaproteomics workflow using an updated sample preparation and a new version of the MetaProteomeAnalyzer software for data analysis. High resolution by multidimensional separation (GeLC, MudPIT) was sacrificed to aim at fast analysis of a broad range of different samples in less than 24 h. The improved workflow generated at least two times as many protein identifications than our previous workflow, and a drastic increase of taxonomic and functional annotations. Improvements of all aspects of the workflow, particularly the speed, are first steps toward potential routine clinical diagnostics (i.e., fecal samples) and analysis of technical and environmental samples. The MetaProteomeAnalyzer is provided to the scientific community as a central remote server solution at www.mpa.ovgu.de.Peer Reviewe
Field experiments on electrically evoked feeding responses in the dogfish shark, Mustelus canis
Also published as: Biological Bulletin 159 (1980): 482From previous experiments, we learned that sharks, skates and rays have
an electric sense that enables them to detect voltage gradients as low as
0.01 ”V/cm within the frequency range from DC up to 8 Hz. The animals use
their electric sense in predation, cuing in on the bioelectric fields commonly
produced by fish and aquatic invertebrates. To quantify the response, we
analyzed the feeding behavior of the shark Mustelus canis in Vineyard Sound
off Cape Cod, Mass. An electrode panel was embedded in the ocean substrate
in a water depth of 2-3m. Two salt-bridge electrodes, simulating a small
prey fish, were placed 2 em apart at a distance of 15 cm from a centrally located
odor source. Another pair of salt-bridge electrodes, simulating a
larger fish, were placed 5 em apart at a distance of 30 cm on the other side
of the odor source. DC current of 8 ”A was applied to either one or both
pairs of electrodes. Observations were made at night from a Boston Whaler
with a glass bottomed observation well. Liquefied herring chum attracted
and motivated sharks.
In sum, the results support the conclusion that these sharks, once motivated
by odor rely heavily upon their keen electric sense in executing their
final strikes.Prepared for the Office of Naval Research under Contract
N00014-79-C-0071
Matrilineal Fertility Inheritance Detected in HunterâGatherer Populations Using the Imbalance of Gene Genealogies
Fertility inheritance, a phenomenon in which an individual's number of offspring is positively correlated with his or her number of siblings, is a cultural process that can have a strong impact on genetic diversity. Until now, fertility inheritance has been detected primarily using genealogical databases. In this study, we develop a new method to infer fertility inheritance from genetic data in human populations. The method is based on the reconstruction of the gene genealogy of a sample of sequences from a given population and on the computation of the degree of imbalance in this genealogy. We show indeed that this level of imbalance increases with the level of fertility inheritance, and that other phenomena such as hidden population structure are unlikely to generate a signal of imbalance in the genealogy that would be confounded with fertility inheritance. By applying our method to mtDNA samples from 37 human populations, we show that matrilineal fertility inheritance is more frequent in hunterâgatherer populations than in food-producer populations. One possible explanation for this result is that in hunterâgatherer populations, individuals belonging to large kin networks may benefit from stronger social support and may be more likely to have a large number of offspring
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