La gestualidad de la barba y el mentón en la Antigüedad romana

Beards and chins are two parts of the body that are associated with a large number of gestures. This paper examines a number of texts in which these gestures appear and the meaning they convey. The analysis was conducted by distinguishing between self-adaptor gestures (those that do not involve a second party), alter-directed adaptors (those that, to the contrary, involve the intervention of another person) and object-adaptors (a category that encompasses gestures involving an object)

El proceso de composición de la obra ciceroniana según las Cartas a Ático

En este artículo se analiza la actividad literaria de Cicerón a partir de la información contenida en sus Cartas a Ático. Concretamente, se describen las primeras etapas del proceso creativo: génesis, fuentes y composición de las obras. Se detalla, en primer lugar, la etapa en que el autor concibe la idea de escribir una obra literaria, que puede responder a razones de índole diversa; en segundo lugar, se estudian las fuentes utilizadas por Cicerón según son reveladas por las cartas que escribe a Ático; finalmente, se expone el proceso de composición del texto, ilustrado con el caso particular de redacción de los Academica

Chapter 2. The Baix Llobregat (BALL) Demographic Database, between Historical Demography and Computer Vision (nineteenth–twentieth centuries)

The main aims with this book are to compare source materials, databases and research results, as well as creating new opportunities for collaboration in the field of social and population history in the East and the West. All the contributions are based on nominative source material, mainly censuses and vital records, which have been preserved, scanned, transcribed into databases in order to be used for cross-sectional and longitudinal research. The chapters in the first part of this book mostly focus on the construction of nominative databases in Germany, Spain and Romania. The chapters in the second and third part are case studies on the relationship between marriage and fertility; mortality and fertility; marriage behavior and religion; urban mortality; migration, etc. made on the Russian, Austrian, Estonian, Hungarian and Norwegian databases

Dielectric characterization of healthy and malignant colon tissues in the 0.5 18 GHz frequency band

Several reports over the last few decades have shown that the dielectric properties of healthy and malignant tissues of the same body organ usually show different values. However, no intensive dielectric studies of human colon tissue have been performed, despite colon cancer's being one of the most common types of cancer in the world. In order to provide information regarding this matter, a dielectric characterization of healthy and malignant colon tissues is presented. Measurements are performed on ex vivo surgery samples obtained from 20 patients, using an open-ended coaxial probe in the 0.5 18 GHz frequency band. Results show that the dielectric constant of colon cancerous tissue is 8.8% higher than that of healthy tissues (p = 0.002). Besides, conductivity is about 10.6% higher, but in this case measurements do not have statistical significance (p = 0.038). Performing an analysis per patient, the differences in dielectric constant between healthy and malignant tissues appear systematically. Particularized results for specific frequencies (500 MHz, 900 MHz, 2.45 GHz, 5 GHz, 8.5 GHz and 15 GHz) are also reported. The findings have potential application in early-stage cancer detection and diagnosis, and can be useful in developing new tools for hyperthermia treatments as well as creating electromagnetic models of healthy and cancerous tissues.The authors would like to thank the medical staff of the endoscopy unit of Hospital Universitari i Politecnic La Fe for their assistance in the gathering of tissue samples. This work was supported by Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Spain (ref. TEC2014-60258-C2-1-R, TEC2014-56469-REDT), by FEDER funds, and by a UPV-IISLaFe action (CEI-2G, 2014).Fornés Leal, A.; García Pardo, C.; Frasson, M.; Pons Beltrán, V.; Cardona Marcet, N. (2016). Dielectric characterization of healthy and malignant colon tissues in the 0.5 18 GHz frequency band. Physics in Medicine and Biology. 61(20):7334-7346. https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/61/20/7334S73347346612

Insultar con gestos en la Roma antigua y hoy

This paper deals with the use of some emblemes (i. e., gestures which, in a certain culture, have an inequivocal verbal equivalent) in classical Rome and their survival in the present time. We specifically study emblems which express ridicule and insult. Six gestures are analized; four of them were already used in Rome as mocking or insulting gestures (imitating the stork, the ears of an ass, sticking out the tongue and extending the middle finger); furthemore, two gestures have been included that were used in the Roman Antiquity but did not have the mocking meaning that they convey nowadays (the horn-sign and the fig-sign).Este artículo trata sobre el uso de algunos emblemas (esto es, gestos que, en una cultura determinada, tienen un equivalente verbal inequívoco) en la Roma clásica y su pervivencia en la época actual. Son estudiados, en concreto, los emblemas que expresan burla e insulto. Se analizan seis gestos; cuatro de ellos eran ya utilizados en Roma como gestos de mofa o insulto (imitar a la cigüeña, hacer orejas de asno, sacar la lengua y mostrar el dedo corazón); se incluyen además dos gestos que eran usados en la Antigüedad romana, pero no tenían el significado de mofa que poseen en la actualidad (hacer cuernos y el gesto de la higa)