Code-switching, Metalinguistics, and Translation in a Bilingual/Bicultural Novel: Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo or Puro Cuento

Raquel Merino Álvarez, José Miguel Santamaría, Eterio Pajares (eds.)

An evaluation of length-frequency sampling procedures and subsequent data analysis for purse seine-caught yellowfin tuna in the Eastern Pacific Ocean

ENGLISH: A two-stage sampling design is used to estimate the variances of the numbers of yellowfin in different age groups caught in the eastern Pacific Ocean. For purse seiners, the primary sampling unit (n) is a brine well containing fish from a month-area stratum; the number of fish lengths (m) measured from each well are the secondary units. The fish cannot be selected at random from the wells because of practical limitations. The effects of different sampling methods and other factors on the reliability and precision of statistics derived from the length-frequency data were therefore examined. Modifications are recommended where necessary. Lengths of fish measured during the unloading of six test wells revealed two forms of inherent size stratification: 1) short-term disruptions of existing pattern of sizes, and 2) transition zones between long-term trends in sizes. To some degree, all wells exhibited cyclic changes in mean size and variance during unloading. In half of the wells, it was observed that size selection by the unloaders induced a change in mean size. As a result of stratification, the sequence of sizes removed from all wells was non-random, regardless of whether a well contained fish from a single set or from more than one set. The number of modal sizes in a well was not related to the number of sets. In an additional well composed of fish from several sets, an experiment on vertical mixing indicated that a representative sample of the contents may be restricted to the bottom half of the well. The contents of the test wells were used to generate 25 simulated wells and to compare the results of three sampling methods applied to them. The methods were: (1) random sampling (also used as a standard), (2) protracted sampling, in which the selection process was extended over a large portion of a well, and (3) measuring fish consecutively during removal from the well. Repeated sampling by each method and different combinations indicated that, because the principal source of size variation occurred among primary units, increasing n was the most effective way to reduce the variance estimates of both the age-group sizes and the total number of fish in the landings. Protracted sampling largely circumvented the effects of size stratification, and its performance was essentially comparable to that of random sampling. Sampling by this method is recommended. Consecutive-fish sampling produced more biased estimates with greater variances. Analysis of the 1988 length-frequency samples indicated that, for age groups that appear most frequently in the catch, a minimum sampling frequency of one primary unit in six for each month-area stratum would reduce the coefficients of variation (CV) of their size estimates to approximately 10 percent or less. Additional stratification of samples by set type, rather than month-area alone, further reduced the CV's of scarce age groups, such as the recruits, and potentially improved their accuracy. The CV's of recruitment estimates for completely-fished cohorts during the 198184 period were in the vicinity of 3 to 8 percent. Recruitment estimates and their variances were also relatively insensitive to changes in the individual quarterly catches and variances, respectively, of which they were composed. SPANISH: Se usa un diseño de muestreo de dos etapas para estimar las varianzas de los números de aletas amari11as en distintos grupos de edad capturados en el Océano Pacifico oriental. Para barcos cerqueros, la unidad primaria de muestreo (n) es una bodega de salmuera que contenía peces de un estrato de mes-área; el numero de ta11as de peces (m) medidas de cada bodega es la unidad secundaria. Limitaciones de carácter practico impiden la selección aleatoria de peces de las bodegas. Por 10 tanto, fueron examinados los efectos de distintos métodos de muestreo y otros factores sobre la confiabilidad y precisión de las estadísticas derivadas de los datos de frecuencia de ta11a. Se recomiendan modificaciones donde sean necesarias. Las ta11as de peces medidas durante la descarga de seis bodegas de prueba revelaron dos formas de estratificación inherente por ta11a: 1) perturbaciones a corto plazo en la pauta de ta11as existente, y 2) zonas de transición entre las tendencias a largo plazo en las ta11as. En cierto grado, todas las bodegas mostraron cambios cíclicos en ta11a media y varianza durante la descarga. En la mitad de las bodegas, se observo que selección por ta11a por los descargadores indujo un cambio en la ta11a media. Como resultado de la estratificación, la secuencia de ta11as sacadas de todas las bodegas no fue aleatoria, sin considerar si una bodega contenía peces de un solo lance 0 de mas de uno. El numero de ta11as modales en una bodega no estaba relacionado al numero de lances. En una bodega adicional compuesta de peces de varios lances, un experimento de mezcla vertical indico que una muestra representativa del contenido podría estar limitada a la mitad inferior de la bodega. Se uso el contenido de las bodegas de prueba para generar 25 bodegas simuladas y comparar los resultados de tres métodos de muestreo aplicados a estas. Los métodos fueron: (1) muestreo aleatorio (usado también como norma), (2) muestreo extendido, en el cual el proceso de selección fue extendido sobre una porción grande de una bodega, y (3) medición consecutiva de peces durante la descarga de la bodega. EI muestreo repetido con cada método y distintas combinaciones de n y m indico que, puesto que la fuente principal de variación de ta11a ocurría entre las unidades primarias, aumentar n fue la manera mas eficaz de reducir las estimaciones de la varianza de las ta11as de los grupos de edad y el numero total de peces en los desembarcos. El muestreo extendido evito mayormente los efectos de la estratificación por ta11a, y su desempeño fue esencialmente comparable a aquel del muestreo aleatorio. Se recomienda muestrear con este método. El muestreo de peces consecutivos produjo estimaciones mas sesgadas con mayores varianzas. Un análisis de las muestras de frecuencia de ta11a de 1988 indico que, para los grupos de edad que aparecen con mayor frecuencia en la captura, una frecuencia de muestreo minima de una unidad primaria de cada seis para cada estrato de mes-área reduciría los coeficientes de variación (CV) de las estimaciones de ta11a correspondientes a aproximadamente 10% 0 menos. Una estratificación adicional de las muestras por tipo de lance, y no solamente mes-área, redujo aun mas los CV de los grupos de edad escasos, tales como los reclutas, y mejoró potencialmente su precisión. Los CV de las estimaciones del reclutamiento para las cohortes completamente pescadas durante 1981-1984 fueron alrededor de 3-8%. Las estimaciones del reclutamiento y sus varianzas fueron también relativamente insensibles a cambios en las capturas de trimestres individuales y las varianzas, respectivamente, de las cuales fueron derivadas. (PDF contains 70 pages)

On demand translation for querying incompletely aligned datasets

More and more users aim at taking advantage of the existing Linked Open Data environment to formulate a query over a dataset and to then try to process the same query over different datasets, one after another, in order to obtain a broader set of answers. However, the heterogeneity of vocabularies used in the datasets on the one side, and the fact that the number of alignments among those datasets is scarce on the other, makes that querying task difficult for them. Considering this scenario we present in this paper a proposal that allows on demand translations of queries formulated over an original dataset, into queries expressed using the vocabulary of a targeted dataset. Our approach relieves users from knowing the vocabulary used in the targeted datasets and even more it considers situations where alignments do not exist or they are not suitable for the formulated query. Therefore, in order to favour the possibility of getting answers, sometimes there is no guarantee of obtaining a semantically equivalent translation. The core component of our proposal is a query rewriting model that considers a set of transformation rules devised from a pragmatic point of view. The feasibility of our scheme has been validated with queries defined in well known benchmarks and SPARQL endpoint logs, as the obtained results confirm.

Nonlinear optics and wavelength translation via cavity-optomechanics

The field of cavity-optomechanics explores the interaction of light with sound in an ever increasing array of devices. This interaction allows the mechanical system to be both sensed and controlled by the optical system, opening up a wide variety of experiments including the cooling of the mechanical resonator to its quantum mechanical ground state and the squeezing of the optical field upon interaction with the mechanical resonator, to name two.

In this work we explore two very different systems with different types of optomechanical coupling. The first system consists of two microdisk optical resonators stacked on top of each other and separated by a very small slot. The interaction of the disks causes their optical resonance frequencies to be extremely sensitive to the gap between the disks. By careful control of the gap between the disks, the optomechanical coupling can be made to be quadratic to first order which is uncommon in optomechanical systems. With this quadratic coupling the light field is now sensitive to the energy of the mechanical resonator and can directly control the potential energy trapping the mechanical motion. This ability to directly control the spring constant without modifying the energy of the mechanical system, unlike in linear optomechanical coupling, is explored.

Next, the bulk of this thesis deals with a high mechanical frequency optomechanical crystal which is used to coherently convert photons between different frequencies. This is accomplished via the engineered linear optomechanical coupling in these devices. Both classical and quantum systems utilize the interaction of light and matter across a wide range of energies. These systems are often not naturally compatible with one another and require a means of converting photons of dissimilar wavelengths to combine and exploit their different strengths. Here we theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate coherent wavelength conversion of optical photons using photon-phonon translation in a cavity-optomechanical system. For an engineered silicon optomechanical crystal nanocavity supporting a 4 GHz localized phonon mode, optical signals in a 1.5 MHz bandwidth are coherently converted over a 11.2 THz frequency span between one cavity mode at wavelength 1460 nm and a second cavity mode at 1545 nm with a 93% internal (2% external) peak efficiency. The thermal and quantum limiting noise involved in the conversion process is also analyzed and, in terms of an equivalent photon number signal level, are found to correspond to an internal noise level of only 6 and 4 times 10x^-3 quanta, respectively.

We begin by developing the requisite theoretical background to describe the system. A significant amount of time is then spent describing the fabrication of these silicon nanobeams, with an emphasis on understanding the specifics and motivation. The experimental demonstration of wavelength conversion is then described and analyzed. It is determined that the method of getting photons into the cavity and collected from the cavity is a fundamental limiting factor in the overall efficiency. Finally, a new coupling scheme is designed, fabricated, and tested that provides a means of coupling greater than 90% of photons into and out of the cavity, addressing one of the largest obstacles with the initial wavelength conversion experiment.

Financial equilibrium, voting procedures, and coalition structures in allocational mechanisms

This thesis is comprised of three chapters, each of which is concerned with properties of allocational mechanisms which include voting procedures as part of their operation. The theme of interaction between economic and political forces recurs in the three chapters, as described below.

Chapter One demonstrates existence of a non-controlling interest shareholders' equilibrium for a stylized one-period stock market economy with fewer securities than states of the world. The economy has two decision mechanisms: Owners vote to change firms' production plans across states, fixing shareholdings; and individuals trade shares and the current production / consumption good, fixing production plans. A shareholders' equilibrium is a production plan profile, and a shares / current good allocation stable for both mechanisms. In equilibrium, no (Kramer direction-restricted) plan revision is supported by a share-weighted majority, and there exists no Pareto superior reallocation.

Chapter Two addresses efficient management of stationary-site, fixed-budget, partisan voter registration drives. Sufficient conditions obtain for unique optimal registrar deployment within contested districts. Each census tract is assigned an expected net plurality return to registration investment index, computed from estimates of registration, partisanship, and turnout. Optimum registration intensity is a logarithmic transformation of a tract's index. These conditions are tested using a merged data set including both census variables and Los Angeles County Registrar data from several 1984 Assembly registration drives. Marginal registration spending benefits, registrar compensation, and the general campaign problem are also discussed.

The last chapter considers social decision procedures at a higher level of abstraction. Chapter Three analyzes the structure of decisive coalition families, given a quasitransitive-valued social decision procedure satisfying the universal domain and ITA axioms. By identifying those alternatives X* ⊆ X on which the Pareto principle fails, imposition in the social ranking is characterized. Every coaliton is weakly decisive for X* over X~X*, and weakly antidecisive for X~X* over X*; therefore, alternatives in X~X* are never socially ranked above X*. Repeated filtering of alternatives causing Pareto failure shows states in X^n*~X^((n+1))* are never socially ranked above X^((n+1))*. Limiting results of iterated application of the *-operator are also discussed.

Procedures to prevent the occurrence of potentially dangerous situations during the operation of the Mackereth 1-metre mini or short sediment corer

During the 1950s and 1960s, F.J.H. Mackereth developed and published plans for a series of pneumatic samplers for lake sediments. Unfortunately, as the equipment was continually evolving during ensuing research, no user manuals, beyond the original publication, had been produced. Over the last few years there have been a few potentially very serious accidents with the 1-metre corer, which has prompted the authors to carry out a risk assessment. This highlighted two weaknesses in the design and its later developments. They can be corrected simply by checking for screw threads that may have been added to the exhaust port on the mini-corer, and by changing the operating procedure. An A4 nine-page user manual is now available from the authors. A small charge ( pound sterling 10 in 1998) will be made to cover handling costs and postage.

On the feeding of freshwater ostracods. [Translation of: Zoologicheskij zhurnal, 27(2), 1948, 125-136]

The present work appertains to a series of investigations in the field of trophodynamics of water bodies conducted by the department of hydrobiology ”Mosrybvtuza” under the leadership of Prof. Director N.S. Gaevska. Usually with quantitative collections of benthos ostracoda are hardly taken account of. But with the employment of special methods it is possible to be convinced that they are encountered in massive numbers. The role of ostracods in the nutrition of fish is recognised as important by many authors. On the question of the feeding of ostracods, in the literature there are only the fragmentary indications about the occurrence in the gut of ostracods of algae (diatoms, desmids) and detritus. The study of the feeding of ostracods was conducted both by the method of dissecting the guts of ostracods taken from natural waters, and by the method of feeding ostracods under laboratory conditions with a variety of food objects. Moreover, with a view to revision of obtained quantitative data, for determination of food requirements of ostracods the respiration method was applied.

Occurrence of the Macrocyclops distinctus (Richard) (Copepoda, cyclopoidida) in Rybinsk reservoir. [Translation of: Materialy po biologii i gidrologii Volzhskikh Vodokhranilishch. Moscow, Leningrad 1963, pp. 13-16]

This brief chapter describes the occurrence Macrocyclops distinctus in the littoral zone of the Rybinsk Reservoir. Sampling was undertaken in summer and autumn 1961. In order to facilitate distinction of M. distinctus and Macrocyclops fuscus the author presents drawings of the whole species and certain characteristic parts of the body, and also gives a description of M. distinctus, comparing it with M. fuscus.

Observations on the behaviour of Polyphemus pediculus and functions of its extremities in the process of feeding. [Translation of: Materialy po biologii i gidrologii Volzhskikh vodokhranilishch, pp. 13-16. Moscow, 1965]

The author summarises observations on the behaviour of Polyphemus pediculus and functions of its extremities in the process of feeding. The crustacean Polyphemus pediculus seizes its prey, kills it and pulverises its food with the help of its extremities. Therefore for a study of its feeding method was necessary not only to have been acquainted in detail with the structure of its extremities, but also to have observed their interaction for the accomplishment of the stated functions.

On the sensillae of the limbs of Cladocera. [Translation of: Zoologicheskie Zhurnal 46, 286-288, 1967]

Sensillae of the limbs of Cladocera are described with emphasis on Eurycercus lamellatus.

Structure of the limbs and its significance for the ecology and systematics of the family Chydoridae. [Translation of: Voprosy Gidrobiologii, p385, 1965]

For an explanation of the dynamics of numbers of chydorids, appearing a massive group in the littoral of fresh water bodies, the structure of the limbs of 29 species was studied.

On the nutrition of the predatory cladocerans Leptodora and Bythotrephes. [Translation of: Byulleten' Institute Biologii Vodokhranilishch 6, pp. 21-22, 1960]

Results of the investigation on certain problems of the nutrition of Leptodora and Bythotrephes in Rybinsk Reservoir (Russia) are reviewed. To clarify the composition of the food of Leptodora and Bythotrephes in this period, experiments were provided on their nutrition by cyclopids and rotifers.

Contribution to the biology and geographical distribution of Aegagropila sauteri (Nees) Kutz. [Translation of: Gidrobiologicheskie Zhurnal, Kiev 4(3), 68-69, 1967]

Aegagropila sauteri is a peculiar green algae, the branched thalli of which, according to the amount of growth, forms velvety spheres of a diameter of 3-4, sometimes to 5-6 cm. and bigger. Investigators attribute it to a special genus of green algae. The authors examine Aegagropila sauteri in Lake Markakol (Kazakhstan).

The state of the benthos in the Rybinsk reservoir, 1953-55. [Translation of the abstract from: Trudy biol. Sta. Borok 3, 195-213, 1958]

This abstract summarises the 1953-1955 surveys of the distribution of benthos in the Rybinsk Reservoirs. It includes the mean biomass of benthos.