Thematic patterning in English and Spanish: contrastive annotation of a bilingual newspaper corpus for liguistic and computational applications

Thematization is recognized as a fundamental phenomenon in the construction of messages and texts by di erent linguistic schools. This location within a text privileges the elements that guide the reader in the orientation and interpretation of discourse at di erent levels. Thematizing a linguistic unit by locating it in the rst-initial position of a clause, paragraph, or text, confers upon it a special status: a signal of the organizational strategy which characterizes di erent text types playing a role as a variable in the distinction of registers, text types and genres. However, in spite of the importance of the study of thematization for message and textual structuring, to date there are no linguistic studies that have undertook the task of validating its aspects in a comparative manner, either for linguistic or computational purposes. This study, therefore, lls a research gap by implementing a methodology based on contrastive corpus annotation, which allows to empirically validate aspects of the phenomenon of Thematization in English and Spanish, it also seeks to develop a bilingual English-Spanish comparable corpus of newspaper texts automatically annotated with thematic features at clausal and discourse levels. The empirically validated categories (Thematic Field and its elements: Textual Theme, Interpersonal Theme, PreHead and Head) are used to annotate a larger corpus of three newspaper genres news reports, editorials and letters to the editor in terms of thematic choices. This characterization, reveals interesting results, such as the use of genre-speci c strategies in thematic position. In addition, the thesis investigates the possibility to automate the annotation of thematic features in the bilingual corpus through the development of a set of JAVA rules implemented in GATE. It also shows the e cacy of this method in comparison with the manual annotation results...

In vitro and in vivo delivery of the secretagogue diadenosine tetraphosphate from conventional and silicone hydrogel soft contact lenses

Purpose To evaluate the possible use of soft contact lenses (CL) to improve the secretagogue role of diadenosine tetraphosphate (Ap4A) promoting tear secretion. Methods Two conventional hydrogel CL (Omafilcon A and Ocufilcon D) and two silicone hydrogel (SiH) CL (Comfilcon A and Balafilcon A) were used. Ap4A was loaded into the lenses by soaking in a 1 mM Ap4A solution during 12 h. In vitro experiments were performed by placing the lenses in multi-wells during 2 h containing 1 ml of ultrapure water. 100 μl aliquots were taken at time zero and every minute for the first 10 min, and then every 15 min. In vivo experiments were performed in New Zealand rabbits and both the dinucleotide release from SiH and tear secretion were measured by means of Schirmer strips and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis. Results Ap4A in vitro release experiments in hydrogel CL presented a release time 50 (RT50) of 3.9 ± 0.2 min and 3.1 ± 0.1 min for the non-ionic and the ionic CL, respectively. SiH CL released also Ap4A with RT50 values of 5.1 ± 0.1 min for the non-ionic and 2.7 ± 0.1 min for the ionic CL. In vivo experiments with SiH CL showed RT50 values of 9.3 ± 0.2 min and 8.5 ± 0.2 min for the non-ionic and the ionic respectively. The non-ionic lens Ap4A release was able to induce tear secretion above baseline tear levels for almost 360 min. Conclusion The delivery of Ap4A is slower and the effect lasts longer with non-ionic lenses than ionic lenses.

El surrealismo en la obra poética de Federico García Lorca

The main objective of this investigation is the retrieval of the study of possible Surrealism in Federico García Lorcás poetic work, a poet who enjoyed in his time prestige and international fame for decades, and still does. Numerous articles in magazines and newspapers of his time speak of his writings, literary activities and stand as a testimony of how well-regarded he was during his lifetime and even after his tragic murder death at the hands of fascists right after the outbreak of the Spanish civil war back in July 1936. Nevertheless, and for diverse reasons, literary ,social, as well as the extent of the studies, researches and abundant biographies about him, the study of Surrealism in all his works, such as in his playwrights for instance, has not been sufficiently expanded, and has been overlooked by the extensive bibliographies written about him. We have limited the investigation to his poetic works only. The extensive bibliographies written about him, is a fact that hindered and held back our efforts, as we had to resort to resources from different libraries, such as the Faculty of Philology of the UCM General Library, the Faculty of Information Science, the Student Residence, as well as the National Library. In addition to the analysis and commentary of his works, not to mention that current publications on him, various literary magazines and articles from the poet’s time have been consulted as well...

Avel·lí Artís i Balaguer (1881-1954), comediógrafo e impresor-editor. Entre la plenitud del cambio de siglos y el exilio

This thesis has its origin in a previous work: “The Catalan theatrical life in the magazine ‘El Teatre Català’ (1912-1917)” (DEA, UCM, 2004-2005), focused on the history, description and the indexes of that magazine. Among the historical and literary references ordered there, we chose a figure that would make a monographic work resulting in the present Doctoral Thesis. The choice fell on Avel·lí Artís i Balaguer (1881-1954), whose personality and literary corpus, allow additional possibilities for research. The cultural and literary reach of his life and his work covers a whole historical cycle in Catalan culture and literature, which moves from its contemporary consolidation towards the drama of its temporal dislocation, between the Spanish Civil War and the exile experience. This e historical itinerary is represented by Avel·lí Artís i Balaguer, being a playwright and a publisher. He’s been considered a comedy playwright since his editions bear titles such as “comedy”, “pas comedy”, “sainet” “quadro”, “farce” or “dialogue”, at most we find the word “Drama” once and “tragicomedy” twice, and we can find all this, in a series of texts for the representation ranging from 1909 to 1938. Secondly, as a professional fully involved in printing and publishing, thereby covering since its first steps as a compositor in the late nineties of the 19th century until his activity as a crucial character for magazines and other publishing projects, from the first decade of the 20th century until the last year of his Mexican exile...