La llegenda del cor menjat al Decameró de Boccaccio : estratègies de traducció al català

Des de l'origen de les llengües, els pobles han tingut la necessitat de fer-se entendre. La traducció és una eina fonamental en la difusió i el coneixement de la diversitat, i el traductor, la peça que facilita l'apropament de les cultures. Però a l'hora de portar a terme el seu objectiu, no tots els traductors ho fan de la mateixa manera. Cal tenir en compte factors temporals, culturals, històrics, referencials, lingüístics, socials... elements que determinen el resultat final d'una traducció i les diferències entre les traduccions d'un mateix text. En aquest treball em proposo determinar les diferents estratègies que els traductors han seguit a l'hora de traduir al català el conte novè de la quarta jornada del Decameró de Giovanni Boccaccio.

Alternative ways to estimate change points in multinomial sequences. An application to an authorship attribution problem

The statistical analysis of literary style is the part of stylometry that compares measurable characteristicsin a text that are rarely controlled by the author, with those in other texts. When thegoal is to settle authorship questions, these characteristics should relate to the author’s style andnot to the genre, epoch or editor, and they should be such that their variation between authors islarger than the variation within comparable texts from the same author.For an overview of the literature on stylometry and some of the techniques involved, see for exampleMosteller and Wallace (1964, 82), Herdan (1964), Morton (1978), Holmes (1985), Oakes (1998) orLebart, Salem and Berry (1998).Tirant lo Blanc, a chivalry book, is the main work in catalan literature and it was hailed to be“the best book of its kind in the world” by Cervantes in Don Quixote. Considered by writterslike Vargas Llosa or Damaso Alonso to be the first modern novel in Europe, it has been translatedseveral times into Spanish, Italian and French, with modern English translations by Rosenthal(1996) and La Fontaine (1993). The main body of this book was written between 1460 and 1465,but it was not printed until 1490.There is an intense and long lasting debate around its authorship sprouting from its first edition,where its introduction states that the whole book is the work of Martorell (1413?-1468), while atthe end it is stated that the last one fourth of the book is by Galba (?-1490), after the death ofMartorell. Some of the authors that support the theory of single authorship are Riquer (1990),Chiner (1993) and Badia (1993), while some of those supporting the double authorship are Riquer(1947), Coromines (1956) and Ferrando (1995). For an overview of this debate, see Riquer (1990).Neither of the two candidate authors left any text comparable to the one under study, and thereforediscriminant analysis can not be used to help classify chapters by author. By using sample textsencompassing about ten percent of the book, and looking at word length and at the use of 44conjunctions, prepositions and articles, Ginebra and Cabos (1998) detect heterogeneities that mightindicate the existence of two authors. By analyzing the diversity of the vocabulary, Riba andGinebra (2000) estimates that stylistic boundary to be near chapter 383.Following the lead of the extensive literature, this paper looks into word length, the use of the mostfrequent words and into the use of vowels in each chapter of the book. Given that the featuresselected are categorical, that leads to three contingency tables of ordered rows and therefore tothree sequences of multinomial observations.Section 2 explores these sequences graphically, observing a clear shift in their distribution. Section 3describes the problem of the estimation of a suden change-point in those sequences, in the followingsections we propose various ways to estimate change-points in multinomial sequences; the methodin section 4 involves fitting models for polytomous data, the one in Section 5 fits gamma modelsonto the sequence of Chi-square distances between each row profiles and the average profile, theone in Section 6 fits models onto the sequence of values taken by the first component of thecorrespondence analysis as well as onto sequences of other summary measures like the averageword length. In Section 7 we fit models onto the marginal binomial sequences to identify thefeatures that distinguish the chapters before and after that boundary. Most methods rely heavilyon the use of generalized linear models

La recepció de la narrativa catalana contemporània traduïda a l'alemany: 1975-2009

Entre l'abril de 2007 i l'abril del 2011 vaig gaudir d'un ajut FI al Departament de Traducció i Ciencies del Llenguatge de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Gràcies a aquest ajut i en el marc del programa de doctorat en Comunicació Multilingüe vaig poder dur a terme un projecte de recerca sobre la recepció de la narrativa catalana traduïda a l'alemany des de 1975 fins a l’actualitat. El primer resultat d'aquest projecte és el nou treball de recerca, llegit el novembre de 2010, en el qual intento fer un balanç de les obres de narrativa d'autors catalans publicades en alemany durant els darrers 30 anys: a partir del catàleg de totes les obres da narrativa catalana traduïdes en el període estudiat, he establert una tipologia per classificar els textos en generes i per comprovar quins autors i quines obres s'han traduït majoritàriament, per quins autors i per quins generes s'han interessat més els editors alemanys i fins a quin punt es pot considerar que aquestes traduccions representen d'una manera equilibrada narrativa catalana d'aquests anys. En el treball també he analitzat les característiques de les editorials on s'han publicat les obres traduïdes i he intentat avaluar la seva recepció, a partir de la traducció dels títols i els textos de presentació de les obres. Fet aquest primer balanç, ara estic preparant quatre articles que aprofundeixen en temes plantejats al treball de recerca i que junts han de formar la meva tesi doctoral, actualment en curs d'elaboració. A banda de la meva recerca personal, l'ajut FI també m'ha permès formar-me com a investigadora, amb la publicació d'articles, la docència al departament, la participació en congressos i, sobretot, la col•laboració amb el grup de recerca TRILCAT, d'estudis de traducció, recepció i literatura catalana.

An Inquiry into the use of illegal electoral practices and effects of political violence

This article investigates whether vote-buying and the instigation of violence in the disputed 2007 Kenyan elections were strategically motivated, and whether those affected by electoral violence changed their views towards ethno-politics and the use of violence. To answer these questions, a panel survey conducted before and after the elections is combined with external indicators of electoral violence. We find that political parties targeted vote-buying towards specific groups to weaken the support of their political rivals and to mobilize their own supporters. Furthermore, parties instigated violence strategically in areas where they were less likely to win. Although the victims of violence would prefer that parties are no longer allowed to organize in ethnic or religious lines, they are more likely to identify in ethnic terms, support the use of violence and avoid relying on the police to resolve disputes. The overall findings suggest an increased risk of electoral-violence reoccurring.

The Impact of advice on women's and men's selection into competition

We conduct a laboratory experiment to study how advice affects the gender gap in the entry into a real-effort tournament. Our experiment is motivated by the concerns raised by approaching the gender gap through affirmative action. Advice is given by subjects who have already had some experience with the participation decision. We show that advice improves the entry decision of subjects, in that forgone earnings due to wrong entry decisions go significantly down. This is mainly driven by significantly increased entry of strong performing women, who also become significantly more confident, and reduced entry of weak performing men.

Embedding objects into Matlab/Simulink for process supervision

This paper introduces how artificial intelligence technologies can be integrated into a known computer aided control system design (CACSD) framework, Matlab/Simulink, using an object oriented approach. The aim is to build a framework to aid supervisory systems analysis, design and implementation. The idea is to take advantage of an existing CACSD framework, Matlab/Simulink, so that engineers can proceed: first to design a control system, and then to design a straightforward supervisory system of the control system in the same framework. Thus, expert systems and qualitative reasoning tools are incorporated into this popular CACSD framework to develop a computer aided supervisory system design (CASSD) framework. Object-variables an introduced into Matlab/Simulink for sharing information between tools

The mapping of the local contributions of Fermi and Coulomb correlation into intracule and extracule density distributions

The contributions of the correlated and uncorrelated components of the electron-pair density to atomic and molecular intracule I(r) and extracule E(R) densities and its Laplacian functions ∇2I(r) and ∇2E(R) are analyzed at the Hartree-Fock (HF) and configuration interaction (CI) levels of theory. The topologies of the uncorrelated components of these functions can be rationalized in terms of the corresponding one-electron densities. In contrast, by analyzing the correlated components of I(r) and E(R), namely, IC(r) and EC(R), the effect of electron Fermi and Coulomb correlation can be assessed at the HF and CI levels of theory. Moreover, the contribution of Coulomb correlation can be isolated by means of difference maps between IC(r) and EC(R) distributions calculated at the two levels of theory. As application examples, the He, Ne, and Ar atomic series, the C2-2, N2, O2+2 molecular series, and the C2H4 molecule have been investigated. For these atoms and molecules, it is found that Fermi correlation accounts for the main characteristics of IC(r) and EC(R), with Coulomb correlation increasing slightly the locality of these functions at the CI level of theory. Furthermore, IC(r), EC(R), and the associated Laplacian functions, reveal the short-ranged nature and high isotropy of Fermi and Coulomb correlation in atoms and molecules

Density functional energy decomposition into one- and two-atom contributions

The present work provides a generalization of Mayer's energy decomposition for the density-functional theory (DFT) case. It is shown that one- and two-atom Hartree-Fock energy components in Mayer's approach can be represented as an action of a one-atom potential VA on a one-atom density ρ A or ρ B. To treat the exchange-correlation term in the DFT energy expression in a similar way, the exchange-correlation energy density per electron is expanded into a linear combination of basis functions. Calculations carried out for a number of density functionals demonstrate that the DFT and Hartree-Fock two-atom energies agree to a reasonable extent with each other. The two-atom energies for strong covalent bonds are within the range of typical bond dissociation energies and are therefore a convenient computational tool for assessment of individual bond strength in polyatomic molecules. For nonspecific nonbonding interactions, the two-atom energies are low. They can be either repulsive or slightly attractive, but the DFT results more frequently yield small attractive values compared to the Hartree-Fock case. The hydrogen bond in the water dimer is calculated to be between the strong covalent and nonbonding interactions on the energy scale

Les traduccions de Carles Riba i Marià Manent al Corpus Literari Digital

Els objectius del projecte “Les traduccions de Carles Riba i Marià Manent al Corpus Literari Digital” són diversos: d’una banda, digitalitzar totes les edicions originals de les traduccions publicades per Carles Riba i Marià Manent; d’altra banda, fer un inventari de tots els textos continguts en aquestes traduccions (de poesia, de narrativa i de teatre); i finalment, introduir els registres dins la plataforma del Corpus Literari Digital de la Càtedra Màrius Torres. La digitalització ha permès de preservar digitalment el patrimoni literari constituït per aquestes traduccions de dos dels autors i traductors més importants de la literatura catalana del segle XX. L’inventari dels textos de cadascun dels seus volums de traduccions (poemes, narracions i obres de teatre) ha permès de constituir una base de dades en la qual es registren totes les versions diferents de cadascun dels textos traduïts que Riba i Manent van anar revisant al llarg de la seva vida. Finalment, la inclusió d’aquests registres bibliogràfics dins la plataforma del Corpus Literari Digital de la Càtedra Màrius Torres permet la seva consulta en línia i la possibilitat de trobar, per a cada text, totes les seves versions i de visualitzar la imatge del document original, la qual cosa facilitarà als investigadors l’estudi de la història textual de les traduccions, la de l’evolució de la llengua literària dels autors, entre altres possibilitats.

CAV2 vector gene transfer into central nervious System

Estudi realitzat a partir d’una estada al Institut de Génétique Moléculaire de Montpellier, França, entre 2010 i 2012. En aquest projecte s’ha avaluat les avantatges dels vectors adenovirals canins tipus 2 (CAV2) com a vectors de transferència gènica al sistema nerviós central (SNC) en un model primat no-humà i en un model caní del síndrome de Sly (mucopolisacaridosis tipus 7, MPS VII), malaltia monogènica que cursa amb neurodegeneració. En una primera part del projecte s’ha avaluat la biodistribució, l’eficàcia i la durada de l’expressió del transgen en un model primat no humà, (Microcebus murinus). Com ha vector s’ha utilitzat un CAV2 de primera generació que expressa la proteïna verda fluorescent (CAVGFP). Els resultats aportats en aquesta memòria demostren que en primats no humans, com en d’altres espècies testades anteriorment per l’equip de l’EJ Kremer, la injecció intracerebral de CAV2 resulta en una extensa transducció del SNC, siguent les neurones i els precursors neuronals les cèl•lules preferencialment transduïdes. Els vectors canins, servint-se de vesícules intracel•lulars són transportats, majoritàriament, des de les sinapsis cap al soma neuronal, aquest transport intracel•lular permet una extensa transducció del SNC a partir d’una única injecció intracerebral dels vectors virals. En una segona part d’aquest projecte s’ha avaluat l’ús terapèutic dels CAV2. S’ha injectat un vector helper-dependent que expressa el gen la b-glucuronidasa i el gen de la proteïna verda fluorescent (HD-RIGIE), en el SNC del model caní del síndrome de Sly (MPS VII). La biodistribució i la eficàcia terapèutica han estat avaluades. Els nivells d’activitat enzimàtica en animals malalts injectats amb el vector terapèutic va arribar a valors similars als dels animals no afectes. A més a més s’ha observat una reducció en la quantitat dels GAGs acumulats en les cèl•lules dels animals malalts tractats amb el vector terapèutic, demostrant la potencialitat terapèutica dels CAV2 per a malalties que afecten al SNC. Els resultats aportats en aquest treball ens permeten dir que els CAV2 són unes bones eines terapèutiques per al tractament de malalties que afecten al SNC.

Exploring the conditions for a mortality crisis: bringing context back into the debate

This study engages with the debate over the mortality crises in the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe by 1) considering at length and as complementary to each other the two most prominent explanations for the post-communist mortality crisis, stress and alcohol consumption; 2) emphasizing the importance of context by exploiting systematic similarities and differences across the region. Differential mortality trajectories reveal three country groups that cluster both spatially and in terms of economic transition experiences. The first group are the countries furthest west in which mortality rates increased minimally after the transition began. The second group experienced a severe increase in mortality rates in the early 1990s, but recovered previous levels within a few years. These countries are located peripherally to Russia and its nearest neighbours. The final group consists of countries that experienced two mortality increases or in which mortality levels had not recovered to pre-transition levels well into the 21st century. Cross-sectional time-series data analyses of men’s and women’s age and cause-specific death rates reveal that the clustering of these countries and their mortality trajectories can be partially explained by the economic context, which is argued to be linked to stress and alcohol consumption. Above and beyond many basic differences in the country groups that are held constant—including geographically and historically shared cultural, lifestyle and social characteristics—poor economic conditions account for a remarkably consistent share of excess age-specific and cause-specific deaths.

Splitting statistical potentials into meaningful scoring functions: testing the prediction of near-native structures from decoy conformations

Background: Recent advances on high-throughput technologies have produced a vast amount of protein sequences, while the number of high-resolution structures has seen a limited increase. This has impelled the production of many strategies to built protein structures from its sequence, generating a considerable amount of alternative models. The selection of the closest model to the native conformation has thus become crucial for structure prediction. Several methods have been developed to score protein models by energies, knowledge-based potentials and combination of both.Results: Here, we present and demonstrate a theory to split the knowledge-based potentials in scoring terms biologically meaningful and to combine them in new scores to predict near-native structures. Our strategy allows circumventing the problem of defining the reference state. In this approach we give the proof for a simple and linear application that can be further improved by optimizing the combination of Zscores. Using the simplest composite score () we obtained predictions similar to state-of-the-art methods. Besides, our approach has the advantage of identifying the most relevant terms involved in the stability of the protein structure. Finally, we also use the composite Zscores to assess the conformation of models and to detect local errors.Conclusion: We have introduced a method to split knowledge-based potentials and to solve the problem of defining a reference state. The new scores have detected near-native structures as accurately as state-of-art methods and have been successful to identify wrongly modeled regions of many near-native conformations.

Culture marked: racist epithets in translations of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Aquest projecte analitza com s’ha plasmat el terme cultural nigger a dues traduccions al castellà de la novel•la Adventures of Huckleberry Finn de Mark Twain, amb l’objectiu d’estudiar de quina manera poden adaptar-se els elements culturals en una traducció. En primer lloc, s’ofereix la contextualització del terme original al text i a la cultura d’origen, seguida de la descripció del terme traduït en el context de la cultura d’arribada. A continuació, mitjançant l’anàlisi comparativa del mecanisme retòric de la repetició i d’elements com ara determinants, adjectius i complements, emprats tant a l’obra original com a les dues traduccions estudiades, aquest projecte pretén demostrar que la conservació dels esmentats recursos estilístics a la traducció pot facilitar la comprensió de les connotacions del marcador cultural nigger i de la seva funció temàtica al text d’arribada.

Generic entry into a regulated pharmaceutical market

The aim of this paper is to analyse empirically entry decisions by generic firms intomarkets with tough regulation. Generic drugs might be a key driver of competitionand cost containment in pharmaceutical markets. The dynamics of reforms ofpatents and pricing across drug markets in Spain are useful to identify the impact ofregulations on generic entry. Estimates from a count data model using a panel of 86active ingredients during the 1999 2005 period show that the drivers of genericentry in markets with price regulations are similar to less regulated markets: genericfirms entries are positively affected by the market size and time trend, and negativelyaffected by the number of incumbent laboratories and the number of substitutesactive ingredients. We also find that contrary to what policy makers expected, thesystem of reference pricing restrains considerably the generic entry. Short run brandname drug price reductions are obtained by governments at the cost of long runbenefits from fostering generic entry and post-patent competition into the markets.

With a bang, not a whimper: Pricking Germany's "stock market bubble" in 1927 and the slide into depression

In May 1927, the German central bank intervenedindirectly to reduce lending to equity investors.The crash that followed ended the only stockmarket boom during Germany s relative stabilization 1924-28. This paper examines thefactors that lead to the intervention as well asits consequences. We argue that genuine concernabout the exuberant level of the stock market,in addition to worries about an inflow offoreign funds, tipped the scales in favour ofintervention. The evidence strongly suggeststhat the German central bank under HjalmarSchacht was wrong to be concerned aboutstockprices-there was no bubble. Also, theReichsbank was mistaken in its belief thata fall in the market would reduce theimportance of short-term foreign borrowing,and help to ease conditions in the money market.The misguided intervention had important realeffects. Investment suffered, helping to tipGermany into depression.