Eugene Onegin As A Bridge Between Worlds: Aleksandr Pushkin As Translator Of The 19Th-Century Russian Experience

In my thesis, I use literary criticism, knowledge of Russian, and elements of translation theory to study the seminal poet of the Russian literary tradition ¿ Aleksandr Pushkin. In his most famous work, Eugene Onegin, Pushkin explores the cultural and linguistic divide in place at the turn of the 19th century in Russia. Pushkin stands on the peripheries of several colliding worlds; never fully committing to any of them, he acts as a translator between various realms of the 19th-century Russian experience. Through his narrator, he adeptly occupies the voices, styles, and modes of expression of various characters, displaying competency in all realms of Russian life. In examining Tatiana, his heroine, the reader witnesses her development as analogous to the author¿s. At the center of the text stands the act of translation itself: as the narrator ¿translates¿ Tatiana¿s love letter from French to Russian, the author-narrator declares his function as a mediator, not only between languages, but also between cultures, literary canons, social classes, and identities. Tatiana, as both main character and the narrator¿s muse, emerges as the most complex figure in the novel, and her language manifests itself as the most direct and capable of sincerity in the novel. The elements of Russian folklore that are incorporated into her language speak to Pushkin¿s appreciation for the rich Russian folklore tradition. In his exaltation of language considered to be ¿common¿, ¿low¿ speech is juxtaposed with its lofty counterpart; along the way, he incorporates myriad foreign borrowings. An active creator of Russia¿s new literary language, Pushkin traverses linguistic boundaries to synthesize a fragmented Russia. In the process, he creates a work so thoroughly tied to language and entrenched in complex cultural traditions that many scholars have argued for its untranslatability.

An fMRI-study of locally oriented perception in autism: altered early visual processing of the block design test

Autism has been associated with enhanced local processing on visual tasks. Originally, this was based on findings that individuals with autism exhibited peak performance on the block design test (BDT) from the Wechsler Intelligence Scales. In autism, the neurofunctional correlates of local bias on this test have not yet been established, although there is evidence of alterations in the early visual cortex. Functional MRI was used to analyze hemodynamic responses in the striate and extrastriate visual cortex during BDT performance and a color counting control task in subjects with autism compared to healthy controls. In autism, BDT processing was accompanied by low blood oxygenation level-dependent signal changes in the right ventral quadrant of V2. Findings indicate that, in autism, locally oriented processing of the BDT is associated with altered responses of angle and grating-selective neurons, that contribute to shape representation, figure-ground, and gestalt organization. The findings favor a low-level explanation of BDT performance in autism.

Finnish Americans and the Farm Revolt of the 1930s

Farm protest in the United States attracted widespread attention in the 1930s as militant farmers interfered with foreclosure sales, demonstrated at county court houses and state capitals, and blocked highways and stopped trains to prevent crops and livestock from going to market in an effort to raise farm prices. The best known of the protest groups was the Farmers Holiday Association, which was formed in 1932. Prior to the Holiday, however, a left-wing group organized by Communists in 1930 known as the United Farmers League (UFL) gained an initial following in the cutover country of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, northern Wisconsin, northern Minnesota, and parts of the Dakotas and northeast Montana. Finnish Americans dominated the UFL in the Upper Midwest and in a few locales in the Dakotas. Evidence for this high level of influence comes from the fact that the head of the Communist Party’s Agrarian Department was Henry Puro, a key figure in Finnish American Communist circles and a member of the Party’s Politburo. This paper will focus on Finnish American involvement in the UFL and, to a lesser extent, the broader-based Farmers Holiday movement.

A novel mutation of the epsilon-sarcoglycan gene in a Chinese family with myoclonus-dystonia syndrome

In a Chinese myoclonus-dystonia syndrome (MDS) family presented with a phenotype including a typical MDS, cervical dystonia, and writer's cramp, genetic analyses revealed a novel 662 + 1insG heterozygous mutation in exon 5 in the epsilon-sarcoglycan (SGCE) gene, leading to a frameshift with a down stream stop codon. Low SGCE mRNA levels were detected in the mutation carriers by real-time PCR, suggesting that the nonsense mutation might interfere with the stability of SGCE mRNA. This is the first report on Chinese with a SGCE mutation leading to MDS. Our data support the fact that same mutation of SGCE gene can lead to a varied phenotype, even in the same family.

An Investigation of the Ores of the Big Seven Mine, Neihart, Montana

During the course of this investigation of the ores of the Big Seven mine, Neihart, Montana, the writer has attempted, through a mi­croscopic study of polished sections, to ascertain the hypogene or supergene character of the ore minerals present in the ore suite.

Anthropogenic perturbation of the carbon fluxes from land to ocean

A substantial amount of the atmospheric carbon taken up on land through photosynthesis and chemical weathering is transported laterally along the aquatic continuum from upland terrestrial ecosystems to the ocean. So far, global carbon budget estimates have implicitly assumed that the transformation and lateral transport of carbon along this aquatic continuum has remained unchanged since pre-industrial times. A synthesis of published work reveals the magnitude of present-day lateral carbon fluxes from land to ocean, and the extent to which human activities have altered these fluxes. We show that anthropogenic perturbation may have increased the flux of carbon to inland waters by as much as 1.0 Pg C yr(-1) since pre-industrial times, mainly owing to enhanced carbon export from soils. Most of this additional carbon input to upstream rivers is either emitted back to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (similar to 0.4 Pg C yr(-1)) or sequestered in sediments (similar to 0.5 Pg C yr(-1)) along the continuum of freshwater bodies, estuaries and coastal waters, leaving only a perturbation carbon input of similar to 0.1 Pg C yr(-1) to the open ocean. According to our analysis, terrestrial ecosystems store similar to 0.9 Pg C yr(-1) at present, which is in agreement with results from forest inventories but significantly differs from the figure of 1.5 Pg C yr(-1) previously estimated when ignoring changes in lateral carbon fluxes. We suggest that carbon fluxes along the land-ocean aquatic continuum need to be included in global carbon dioxide budgets.

Redox control of thermopower and figure of merit in phase-coherent molecular wires

We demonstrate how redox control of intra-molecular quantum interference in phase-coherent molecular wires can be used to enhance the thermopower (Seebeck coefficient) S and thermoelectric figure of merit ZT of single molecules attached to nanogap electrodes. Using first principles theory, we study the thermoelectric properties of a family of nine molecules, which consist of dithiol-terminated oligo (phenylene-ethynylenes) (OPEs) containing various central units. Uniquely, one molecule of this family possesses a conjugated acene-based central backbone attached via triple bonds to terminal sulfur atoms bound to gold electrodes and incorporates a fully conjugated hydroquinonecentral unit. We demonstrate that both S and the electronic contribution Z el T to the figure of merit ZT can be dramatically enhanced by oxidizing the hydroquinone to yield a second molecule, which possesses a cross-conjugated anthraquinone central unit. This enhancement originates from the conversion of the pi-conjugation in the former to cross-conjugation in the latter, which promotes the appearance of a sharp anti-resonance at the Fermi energy. Comparison with thermoelectric properties of the remaining seven conjugated molecules demonstrates that such large values of S and Z el T are unprecedented. We also evaluate the phonon contribution to the thermal conductance, which allows us to compute the full figure of merit ZT = Z el T/(1 + κ p/κ el), where κ p is the phonon contribution to the thermal conductance and κ el is the electronic contribution. For unstructured gold electrodes, κ p/κ el Gt⃒ 1 and therefore strategies to reduce κ p are needed to realize the highest possible figure of merit.

Fusion of fundus images and MRI data of the human eye

Purpose Ophthalmologists are confronted with a set of different image modalities to diagnose eye tumors e.g., fundus photography, CT and MRI. However, these images are often complementary and represent pathologies differently. Some aspects of tumors can only be seen in a particular modality. A fusion of modalities would improve the contextual information for diagnosis. The presented work attempts to register color fundus photography with MRI volumes. This would complement the low resolution 3D information in the MRI with high resolution 2D fundus images. Methods MRI volumes were acquired from 12 infants under the age of 5 with unilateral retinoblastoma. The contrast-enhanced T1-FLAIR sequence was performed with an isotropic resolution of less than 0.5mm. Fundus images were acquired with a RetCam camera. For healthy eyes, two landmarks were used: the optic disk and the fovea. The eyes were detected and extracted from the MRI volume using a 3D adaption of the Fast Radial Symmetry Transform (FRST). The cropped volume was automatically segmented using the Split Bregman algorithm. The optic nerve was enhanced by a Frangi vessel filter. By intersection the nerve with the retina the optic disk was found. The fovea position was estimated by constraining the position with the angle between the optic and the visual axis as well as the distance from the optic disk. The optical axis was detected automatically by fitting a parable on to the lens surface. On the fundus, the optic disk and the fovea were detected by using the method of Budai et al. Finally, the image was projected on to the segmented surface using the lens position as the camera center. In tumor affected eyes, the manually segmented tumors were used instead of the optic disk and macula for the registration. Results In all of the 12 MRI volumes that were tested the 24 eyes were found correctly, including healthy and pathological cases. In healthy eyes the optic nerve head was found in all of the tested eyes with an error of 1.08 +/- 0.37mm. A successful registration can be seen in figure 1. Conclusions The presented method is a step toward automatic fusion of modalities in ophthalmology. The combination enhances the MRI volume with higher resolution from the color fundus on the retina. Tumor treatment planning is improved by avoiding critical structures and disease progression monitoring is made easier.

Validation of a standardized mapping system of the hip joint for radial MRA sequencing

OBJECTIVE Intraarticular gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance arthrography (MRA) is commonly applied to characterize morphological disorders of the hip. However, the reproducibility of retrieving anatomic landmarks on MRA scans and their correlation with intraarticular pathologies is unknown. A precise mapping system for the exact localization of hip pathomorphologies with radial MRA sequences is lacking. Therefore, the purpose of the study was the establishment and validation of a reproducible mapping system for radial sequences of hip MRA. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty-nine consecutive intraarticular gadolinium-enhanced hip MRAs were evaluated. Radial sequencing consisted of 14 cuts orientated along the axis of the femoral neck. Three orthopedic surgeons read the radial sequences independently. Each MRI was read twice with a minimum interval of 7 days from the first reading. The intra- and inter-observer reliability of the mapping procedure was determined. RESULTS A clockwise system for hip MRA was established. The teardrop figure served to determine the 6 o'clock position of the acetabulum; the center of the greater trochanter served to determine the 12 o'clock position of the femoral head-neck junction. The intra- and inter-observer ICCs to retrieve the correct 6/12 o'clock positions were 0.906-0.996 and 0.978-0.988, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The established mapping system for radial sequences of hip joint MRA is reproducible and easy to perform.

Zircons, isotope ratios and element analyses from tonalite and oxide gabbro of the mid-ocean ridge from ODP Hole 176-735B

A limiting factor in the accuracy and precision of U/Pb zircon dates is accurate correction for initial disequilibrium in the 238U and 235U decay chains. The longest-lived-and therefore most abundant-intermediate daughter product in the 235U isotopic decay chain is 231Pa (T1/2 = 32.71 ka), and the partitioning behavior of Pa in zircon is not well constrained. Here we report high-precision thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) U-Pb zircon data from two samples from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Hole 735B, which show evidence for incorporation of excess 231Pa during zircon crystallization. The most precise analyses from the two samples have consistent Th-corrected 206Pb/238U dates with weighted means of 11.9325 ± 0.0039 Ma (n = 9) and 11.920 ± 0.011 Ma (n = 4), but distinctly older 207Pb/235U dates that vary from 12.330 ± 0.048 Ma to 12.140 ± 0.044 Ma and 12.03 ± 0.24 to 12.40 ± 0.27 Ma, respectively. If the excess 207Pb is due to variable initial excess 231Pa, calculated initial (231Pa)/(235U) activity ratios for the two samples range from 5.6 ± 1.0 to 9.6 ± 1.1 and 3.5 ± 5.2 to 11.4 ± 5.8. The data from the more precisely dated sample yields estimated DPazircon/DUzircon from 2.2-3.8 and 5.6-9.6, assuming (231Pa)/(235U) of the melt equal to the global average of recently erupted mid-ocean ridge basaltic glasses or secular equilibrium, respectively. High precision ID-TIMS analyses from nine additional samples from Hole 735B and nearby Hole 1105A suggest similar partitioning. The lower range of DPazircon/DUzircon is consistent with ion microprobe measurements of 231Pa in zircons from Holocene and Pleistocene rhyolitic eruptions (Schmitt (2007; doi:10.2138/am.2007.2449) and Schmitt (2011; doi:10.1146/annurev-earth-040610-133330)). The data suggest that 231Pa is preferentially incorporated during zircon crystallization over a range of magmatic compositions, and excess initial 231Pa may be more common in zircons than acknowledged. The degree of initial disequilibrium in the 235U decay chain suggested by the data from this study, and other recent high precision datasets, leads to resolvable discordance in high precision dates of Cenozoic to Mesozoic zircons. Minor discordance in zircons of this age may therefore reflect initial excess 231Pa and does not require either inheritance or Pb loss.

Description and chemical composition of the fossil manganese nodules of the Cambrian manganese deposits of Conception and Trinity bays, Newfoundland

This paper is based upon data collected during the summers of 1912 and 1913. Mr. A. O. Hayes and Prof. van Ingen of Princeton University, while making a study of the general geology, stratigraphy, and palaeontology of the shores of Conception Bay, Newfoundland, came upon the manganiferous rocks of the Lower Cambrian exposed at Manuels, Topsail, Brigus, and other places. The following summer, of 1913, the writer as a member of the Princeton Newfoundland Expedition undertook a more detailed study of these deposits. In this paper therefore there has been an attempt to present as comprehensive a study of the manganese of southeastern Newfoundland. It is primarily chemical in its nature and the analyses herewith presented are from samples taken from the principal manganese-bearing beds.

A dispute in the world of the dead : René Descartes and Andreas Rüdiger

En 1731 un autor alemán anónimo publicó un diálogo del muerto continuando la tradición comenzada en la Grecia antigua por Luciano de Samosata. Hoy sobrevive una única copia del texto, publicada sin referencia del lugar de publicación o impresor y se encuentra ahora en el Evangelisches Predigerseminar Bibliothek en Wittenberg. Los protagonistas son el filósofo y físico Andreas Rüdiger (1673-1731) y René Descartes, quien representa en el diálogo a un tipo muy diverso de filósofo de la figura “histórica" que trascendió hasta nosotros en sus obras. Este artículo se propone reconstruir la composición de este texto raro y enigmático y contextualizar la perspectiva ideológica del autor en las controversias que animaban el trasfondo filosófico de las universidades alemanas de los comienzos del siglo XVIII.

Foraging behaviour of the epaulette shark Hemiscyllium ocellatum is not affected by elevated CO2

Increased oceanic uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is a threat to marine organisms and ecosystems. Among the most dramatic consequences predicted to date are behavioural impairments in marine fish which appear to be caused by the interference of elevated CO2 with a key neurotransmitter receptor in the brain. In this study, we tested the effects of elevated CO2 on the foraging and shelter-seeking behaviours of the reef-dwelling epaulette shark, Hemiscyllium ocellatum. Juvenile sharks were exposed for 30 d to control CO2 (400 µatm) and two elevated CO2 treatments (615 and 910 µatm), consistent with medium- and high-end projections for ocean pCO2 by 2100. Contrary to the effects observed in teleosts and in some other sharks, behaviour of the epaulette shark was unaffected by elevated CO2. A potential explanation is the remarkable adaptation of H. ocellatum to low environmental oxygen conditions (hypoxia) and diel fluctuations in CO2 encountered in their shallow reef habitat. This ability translates into behavioural tolerance of near-future ocean acidification, suggesting that behavioural tolerance and subsequent adaptation to projected future CO2 levels might be possible in some other fish, if adaptation can keep pace with the rate of rising CO2 levels.

Morphological plasticity of the coral skeleton under CO2-driven seawater acidification

Ocean acidification causes corals to calcify at reduced rates, but current understanding of the underlying processes is limited. Here, we conduct a mechanistic study into how seawater acidification alters skeletal growth of the coral Stylophora pistillata. Reductions in colony calcification rates are manifested as increases in skeletal porosity at lower pH, while linear extension of skeletons remains unchanged. Inspection of the microstructure of skeletons and measurements of pH at the site of calcification indicate that dissolution is not responsible for changes in skeletal porosity. Instead, changes occur by enlargement of corallite-calyxes and thinning of associated skeletal elements, constituting a modification in skeleton architecture. We also detect increases in the organic matrix protein content of skeletons formed under lower pH. Overall, our study reveals that seawater acidification not only causes decreases in calcification, but can also cause morphological change of the coral skeleton to a more porous and potentially fragile phenotype.