Does the abundance of hoverfly mimics (Syrphidae) depend on the numbers of their hymenopteran models ?

We tested the prediction that, if hoverflies are Batesian mimics, this may extend to behavioral mimicry such that their numerical abundance at each hour of the day (the daily activity pattern) is related to the numbers of their hymenopteran models. After accounting for site, season, microclimatic responses and for general hoverfly abundance at three sites in north-west England, the residual numbers of mimics were significantly correlated positively with their models 9 times out of 17, while 16 out of 17 relationships were positive, itself a highly significant non-random pattern. Several eristaline flies showed significant relationships with honeybees even though some of them mimic wasps or bumblebees, perhaps reflecting an ancestral resemblance to honeybees. There was no evidence that good and poor mimics differed in their daily activity pattern relationships with models. However, the common mimics showed significant activity pattern relationships with their models, but the rarer mimics did not. We conclude that many hoverflies show behavioral mimicry of their hymenopteran models.

Machtverhältnisse und die Problematik des postkolonialen Blicks in Uwe Timms Morenga (1978) und Gerhard Seyfrieds Herero (2003)

Using a postcolonial methodology within a German Cultural Studies framework, this thesis applies a close reading to Uwe Timm’s 1978 novel Morenga and Gerhard Seyfried’s 2003 novel Herero. Both novels narrate the colonial experience in German Southwest Africa during the 1904-1907 Herero and Nama uprising through the eyes of a German male protagonist. I investigate how notions of the ‘other’ become ingrained in the collective cultural imaginary of a nation and manifest themselves as inherent truths used to justify methods of subjugation. I also examine the conflicts that arise due to the clash between these drastically different cultures in the “contact zone”, a term I borrow from Mary Louise Pratt. Emphasis is placed on analyzing the ways in which the natives’ use of mimicry allows for the creation of a cultural hybridity in which power relations are constantly negotiated and re-evaluated. I also problematize the difficulty both protagonists demonstrate in their quest to abandon the colonial gaze in favor of adopting a postcolonial perspective, an attempt that often appears ambivalent at best.

Rostros y rastros del Nobel: Gabriel García Márquez veinticinco años después

Gabriel García Márquez asume la oralidad del homo caribbeans como síntoma de diversidad , por oposición a la universalizante estandarización trascendental de la escritura, en palabras del antillano Edouard Glissant, y representa una reacción a la cultura letrada establecida por el sistema imperial occidental, custodiada por los organismos reguladores del orden establecido en el centro. De este modo, la literatura oficia como archivo cultural. A la luz de la concepción de literatura como escritura, es preferible hablar de diseminación, de intertextualidad, de palimpsesto, en vez de recurrir al trajinado concepto de influencias literarias. En tal sentido, Cien años de Soledad se constituye en un canon emergente, un código maestro, un nuevo mapa cultural que permite múltiples lecturas y re-escrituras. El realismo mágico pone en crisis el concepto aristotélico de mimesis del arte verbal y exige una nueva perspectiva de analisis.Según un importante sector de la critica, la obra garciamarquiana en sus diferentes rostros, desde las tempranas producciones del ciclo Macondiano hasta la Summa Amorosa que concluye con Del amor y otros demonios, señala el tránsito de la narrativa colombiana de la modernidad a la posmodernidad . Por cierto, veinte años después del Nobel, su rastro se puede seguir desde el campo novelístico nacional contemporáneo hasta recónditas geografias literarias del globo. El realismo mágico, así como en general la literatura del boom, constituye desde la década del setenta una nueva fórmula de respuesta a la situación posmoderna, dado que reemplaza el antiguo canon colonial hegemónico y sus ecos esencialistas, realistas y nacionalistas posteriores a la independencia, y proporciona una ficción de autorrepresentación de la realidad híbrida del discurso otro latinoamericano, en la que la categoría de lo maravilloso reemplazará a la de lo sublime. Sin duda, Macondo existe, es una región de la memoria. Pero sus límites no son occidentales. Dentro del mapa literario mundial, es vecino de remotos espacios geolingüísticos y geoculturales.AbstractGabriel García Márquez assumes the oral tradition of the homo caribbeans as a symptom of diversity, by an opposition to the universalizing standardization of writing, to use the words of Antillean writer Edouard Glissant, and represents a reaction against the educated culture established by the Western imperial system and kept by the regulating organisms of the established order in the center. Thus, literature represents a cultural file.Following the notion of literature as writing, it is preferable to talk about dissemination, intertextuality, or palimpsest instead of resorting to the overused concept of literary influences. In this sense, One Hundred Years of Solitude becomes an emerging cannon, a master code, a new cultural map that allows multiple readings and re-writings. Magic realism puts into crisis the Aristotelian concept of mimicry of the verbal art and demands a new perspective of analysis. According to an important sector of critique, the Garciamarquian work– in its different phases, from the early productions of the Macondian cycle to the Summa Amorosa that finishes with Love and Other Demons, represents the path of the colombian narrative from the modernism to postmodernism. By the way, twenty years after the Nobel, its path can be followed from the novel national contemporary field to distant literary geographies of the world. Magic realism, as well as in general terms the literature of the boom, makes from the sixties decade a new form of answering to the postmodern situation, because it substitutes the old colonial hegemonic cannon and its essential , realistic and national voices after the independence. It gives a fiction of sel-frepresentation of the hybrid reality of the other Latin American discourse, in which the marvelous category will replaced that of the sublime. With no doubt, Macondo exists, it is a region of the memory. But its borders are not Western, inside the literary world map, it is a neighbor of remote geolinguistics and geocultural spaces.

Characterisation of minimalist co-assembled fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl self-assembling peptide systems for presentation of multiple bioactive peptides

The nanofibrillar structures that underpin self-assembling peptide (SAP) hydrogels offer great potential for the development of finely tuned cellular microenvironments suitable for tissue engineering. However, biofunctionalisation without disruption of the assembly remains a key issue. SAPS present the peptide sequence within their structure, and studies to date have typically focused on including a single biological motif, resulting in chemically and biologically homogenous scaffolds. This limits the utility of these systems, as they cannot effectively mimic the complexity of the multicomponent extracellular matrix (ECM). In this work, we demonstrate the first successful co-assembly of two biologically active SAPs to form a coassembled scaffold of distinct two-component nanofibrils, and demonstrate that this approach is more bioactive than either of the individual systems alone. Here, we use two bioinspired SAPs from two key ECM proteins: Fmoc-FRGDF containing the RGD sequence from fibronectin and Fmoc-DIKVAV containing the IKVAV sequence from laminin. Our results demonstrate that these SAPs are able to co-assemble to form stable hybrid nanofibres containing dual epitopes. Comparison of the co-assembled SAP system to the individual SAP hydrogels and to a mixed system (composed of the two hydrogels mixed together post-assembly) demonstrates its superior stable, transparent, shear-thinning hydrogels at biological pH, ideal characteristics for tissue engineering applications. Importantly, we show that only the coassembled hydrogel is able to induce in vitro multinucleate myotube formation with C2C12 cells. This work illustrates the importance of tissue engineering scaffold functionalisation and the need to develop increasingly advanced multicomponent systems for effective ECM mimicry.

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Successful control of stem cell fate in tissue engineering applications requires the use of sophisticated scaffolds that deliver biological signals to guide growth and differentiation. The complexity of such processes necessitates the presentation of multiple signals in order to effectively mimic the native extracellular matrix (ECM). Here, we establish the use of two biofunctional, minimalist self-assembling peptides (SAPs) to construct the first co-assembled SAP scaffold. Our work characterises this construct, demonstrating that the physical, chemical, and biological properties of the peptides are maintained during the co-assembly process. Importantly, the coassembled system demonstrates superior biological performance relative to the individual SAPs, highlighting the importance of complex ECM mimicry. This work has important implications for future tissue engineering studies.