bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Of Noon Scholars and Old Schools*
Authors: Olson Paul A.
Published: November 2006

In the Parliament of Fowls, the elder Scipio, who is a Roman officer and conqueror of Carthage, takes the younger Scipio, civil servant and little more than a common soldier, on a trip to the heavens to view the great cycles and our little world beneath the cycles, and to place our cities within the cycles and world. The point of the examination is that the younger Scipio should learn from the contemplation of natural law what we men are and how he can serve “our common profit” and so take his place among those founders and makers of the laws of commonwealths who are the most blessed of men. In Chaucer's succeeding spring dream, the same elder Scipio takes Chaucer, who is a civil servant and little more than a common squire, to a vision of the speaking together of people-birds who are working out the order of their common weal in parliament and exercising the faculty which is the natural footing of Aristotelian and medieval civil society: “Men are civil beings by nature made for speaking together (parlement) since nature makes nothing in vain and men by nature have the capacity for speech.” The point of Chaucer-the-dreamer's contemplation of the natural bird-human congregation, as it searches and finds its common weal in speaking together in the presence of Nature's order, is, I think, both that the civil servant must know what is what to serve the commonwealth and that the scholar-contemplative must, in some sense, serve the civil if he wishes to know with more than private vision. For vision based on the search for private advantage does not anywhere in Chaucer's world come to the court of Nature. I would like to suggest that Chaucer may be right, that the gates of his vision are not ivory. Their accuracy may be turned toward our present school situation and there suggest what is a reasonable relationship between the civil and the scholarly.
The Possibility of Producing Useful Proficiency Tests in English*
Authors: Dyer Henry S.
Published: November 2006

To begin at the beginning, proficiency tests, like paper, printing, and gunpowder, were invented by the Chinese. As early as 2200 B.C. the emperor of China was using tests to decide which of his officials should be promoted and which should be fired. A thousand years later the Chan dynasty had developed a series of examinations in which every candidate for public office demonstrated his competence in the five basic arts: music, archery, horsemanship, writing, and arithmetic. Tests for teachers arrived in the Western world with the establishment of the medieval universities. The probationary discourse was the essential step by which a student proved himself fit for membership in the tightly held guild of university professors. Today tests are a normal requirement for admission to the practice of law and medicine, not to mention barbering, the selling of real estate, and the calculation of insurance risks. Both the pervasiveness and the ancient lineage of proficiency tests argue for the possibility that they are producible and for the probability that they are useful.
The Legacy of Sisyphus
Authors: Stone George Winchester
Published: November 2006

This 1967 MLA presidential address summarizes the development of the Association and American scholarship during the eight years of the Executive Secretaryship of George Winchester Stone, Jr.: the production of floods of scholarship, the entrance of the MLA into national politics through the Foreign Language Program and NDEA, the development of the International Bibliography, production of endless professional pamphlets and policy statements. These scholarly and professional tasks resemble the unending labors of Sisyphus. The humanistic achievements of the scholar are still the most important. Each generation of humanistic scholars must redefine for itself and try to explain to a wider audience the values of literary and linguistic study. Despite the loss of purpose, floundering, sense of apathy and protest evident in post-war creative literature, American scholarship in all languages and of all periods is now at a peak. Americans have given back to Europe its greatest literary products of the past enriched by modern principles of editing, annotation, criticism, and analysis. American scholars move into the next century hand in hand with mechanical aids of tremendous value to liberate rather than enslave them. The one stone that Sisyphus had to roll has exploded and fragmented. The task devolving upon us is now tenfold. In our pursuit of minutiae in scholarship we will demolish all humanistic values unless we keep in the forefront of our consciousness the ten huge stones which challenge us: the new ignorance, muddleheadedness, bigness, crassness, rapidity of change, salvation of the good results of years of permissiveness, repossession of broad scholarship, realignment of new knowledge, pursuit of excellence, and above all assurance of relevance.
Convention and Design in Drayton's Heroicall Epistles
Authors: Hardin Richard F.
Published: November 2006

Drayton's Epistles are imitations of Ovid's Heroides only in a limited sense, for they were strongly influenced by the vogue of complaint poems (like Daniel's Rosamond), popular during the 1590's. The Epistles resemble both the Heroides and the complaint poems in their rhetorical embellishment and their moral sententiousness. In a few cases, Drayton clearly intended some parallels between Ovid's characters and his own (Hero and Leander-Queen Mary and Charles Brandon; Paris and Helen-Edward IV and Jane Shore). However, unlike Ovid, he informed his poems with a unifying purpose: to show how Providence had guided England through its turbulent past into the glorious age of Queen Elizabeth. Although Elizabeth does not appear in the Epistles, it is clear that Drayton selected his historical events so as to anticipate the greatness of her reign. The patriotic tone of these poems is typical of much historical literature of the 1590's; their concern with Providence evolves from the concept of Fortune in the Mirror for Magistrates. The Epistles, then, are far more Elizabethan than Ovidian, and contemporary praise of Drayton as “the English Ovid” can be misleading.
Laughter and Oliver Twist
Authors: Kincaid James R.
Published: November 2006

Laughter in Oliver Twist is used as a weapon against the reader's conventional social identifications, forcing him to recognize in himself the social brutality which threatens Oliver. Repeatedly, Dickens evokes laughter at one of the novel's social outcasts and then shows that laughter to be cold and inadequate by echoing it in a demonstrably evil character. By means of this process of subversion, the reader is forced away from the bright social world of the Maylie-Brownlow group into an intense association with the orphans and the victims: Oliver, Fagin and his associates, and Mr. Bumble.
La Ambigüedad Moral Del Lazarillo De Tormes
Authors: Jaén Dldier T.
Published: November 2006

Lazarillo de Tormes cannot be considered simply as a story of the moral degeneration of a potentially good boy who, under the influence of his pitiless masters, becomes a selfish and cynical cuckold, utterly blind to his moral degradation. The episode with the Squire reveals that the mature Lazaro (as he declares it himself) still has deep feelings of pity and charity for the Squire and those like him, just as he did when he was still a boy. Thus, this most important of Christian virtues has not been lost in the adult picaro. The capacity for human compassion and sympathy which is clearly revealed in the style of the autobiography must also be assigned to Lazaro and not merely to the anonymous author. And it is Lazaro, in his own moral judgments, who tends to condemn those who are selfish and without charity but is sympathetic to those who are generous and weak, regardless of their social sins; e.g., Zaide steals for love, the priest and friar for lust and for themselves (“para sus devotas y para ayuda de otro tanto”). Lazaro's final situation contributes to the ironic twist: From an external or social point of view, he is at the bottom of the moral scale, but his capacity for charity elevates him when compared with his selfish and lecherous masters. It is this subtle irony, of which the author was probably conscious, both as an artist and as a satirist, that lends moral ambiguity, as well as artistic complexity, to the main character and to the total conception of the work.
Momenti E Problemi Di Critica Pirandelliana: L'umorismo, Pirandello E Croce, Pirandello E Tilgher
Authors: Illiano Di Antonio
Published: November 2006

L'umorismo, not merely a theoretical treatise on humor, is also Pirandello's introspective clarification and confession of the genesis and motives of his art. As such, it provides the best approach to his creative writings. Shortly after the publication of this essay in 1908 began the long dispute with Croce, whose negative attitude toward Pirandello was to influence many followers of aesthetic criticism. Although Croce's opposition cannot be attributed to preconceived hostility, he issued a sharply dialectical dissection of the essay and failed to recognize that Pirandello's theory cannot be dealt with in terms of logic and philosophical exegesis alone. The style, too, is significant, and for the very reasons that motivated Croce's disapproval, namely because Pirandello makes use of imagery as well as of philosophical definitions—a dichotomy that reflects the author's complex temperament. Tilgher, on the other hand, understood the anti-intellectualistic nature of Pirandello's art and published a stimulating interpretation of his theatre, one that was at first recognized as valid by the playwright himself. Often regarded as a “revelation” of Pirandello to the world and to himself, this interpretation should be more properly viewed in the light of Tilgher's own theory of the critic's preeminence and farsighted leadership in literature. In fact, after a period of “complicity,” Pirandello firmly reasserted his autonomy and rejected all implications of the critic's insistent patronage.
Research Scholars and Curriculum Development
Authors: Zacharias Jerrold R.
Published: November 2006

Your Executive Secretary has asked me to discuss a particular aspect of our recent efforts involving the schools. The question, specifically, is why are scientists willing to spend large parts of their short lives outside their lovely ivory towers, trying to help the schools to help themselves. Surely it might be, but is not, only an excess of missionary zeal. Nor is it that science itself is getting too difficult or too precious, though sometimes we have our moments of depression, when we believe that science is moving away from the concerns of people. Of course, it is not. No, in our ivory towers it is still true that a molecule may not talk but it never talks back; moreover, its feelings are never hurt, and it never does one thing because you ask it to do another. Ask a molecule a sensible question, and you will get a sensible answer.
Priorities in Language Education
Authors: Diekhoff John S.
Published: November 2006

When the Foreign Language Program of the Modern Language Association was five years old, in 1957, its Advisory and Liaison Committee drew up a plan for its second five years and prepared a request for a foundation grant to implement the plan. The proposal outlined five areas of major effort. There were activities designed to increase the quantity of language study, but these activities were to be more than an extension of prior promotional activities of the MLA Foreign Language Program. The intention was still to persuade educators, parents, and the general public of the value of language education and of the necessity for sequences of language study that could result in proficiency in the spoken and written language. But in addition to an “information and advisory campaign,” the MLA also proposed “effective demonstration programs.”
Tennyson and Teilhard : The Faith of in Memoriam
Authors: August Eugene R.
Published: November 2006

Although often dismissed as a Victorian curiosity, the faith of Tennyson's In Memoriam anticipates the radically modern religious vision of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Both In Memoriam and Teilhard's The Phenomenon of Man stress the need for modern man to see the human phenomenon in the light of recent scientific knowledge. Both works portray the anxiety and doubt that such a vision entails; both works portray the shape that faith must take if man is to survive. Tennyson and Teilhard see modern doubt as stemming from the space-time malady: overwhelmed by the enormity of the universe, modern man fears his existence is both frail and futile. To counter this malady, both men develop a cosmic faith stressing love as the spiritual energy that drives evolution onward; the need for greater knowledge, communication, and spiritual growth; and an awareness of human survival after death. Translating this faith into Christian terms, both men see man's salvation in his efforts to evolve toward a cosmic Christ-that-is-to-be. Although Tennyson speaks as poet in mostly personal terms and Teilhard speaks as scientist-sage in more general terms, both men use art to lead the reader to Real Assent.
Thomas Hardy and William Barnes: Two Dorset Poets
Authors: Zietlow Paul
Published: November 2006

Hardy seems to have reacted negatively to the poetry of William Barnes, his friend and mentor, when it idealized the countryside as the location of a stable, harmonious, divinely sanctioned social order. Such poetry lacked “dramatic form”—contrast within the poem between the limited sphere of the speaker and the larger awareness of the poet. There are nevertheless affinities between the two men: Both venerated the countryside as a relic of the past—as a location sanctified by the meaningful human experience associated with it. If Barnes influenced Hardy positively, it must have been mainly through the loving awareness of the meaning of time and place expressed in his verse. Yet Barnes laments merely the pastness of the past; Hardy explores the radical discontinuity between the idealized past and the real present. Wessex for Hardy represents both an idealized Barnesian world and a real world in which the eternal disparities causing inevitable human suffering can be most clearly observed.
Person As Figure of Ambiguity and Resolution in Pascal
Authors: Weber Joseph
Published: November 2006

Certain similarities of style and concept can be found in the majority of Pascalian texts. A tracing of the structure and use of these patterns in the three major phases of Pascal's writings (nonreligious, the Provinciales, the Apologie) shows that the configuration shared by the different modes gravitates constantly toward one type of rhetorical and conceptual figure, the figure of person. It is a dialogic movement with a consistent pattern of an animate image containing human characteristics in which there are correspondences and structures of meaning and expression. This underlying configuration clearly places Pascalian thought and style in the tradition of Renaissance cosmology where the animate image of man, nature, and the universe had not yet been replaced by Cartesian mechanistic scientific philosophy.
The Literary Periodization of Eighteenth-Century France
Authors: Cherpack Clifton
Published: November 2006

Critical and historical investigations of eighteenth-century French literature have been hampered by inadequate and often irrelevant schemes of periodization. If, as has been claimed, the secular division itself is arbitrary and does not respect the realities of literary production, other principles of division, such as literary generations, have not seemed more realistic. As for the contested attempt to equate the eighteenth century with the Enlightenment, its effect on literary studies has been to stress unduly the literature of ideas, especially as produced by the outstanding philosophes. Attempts to elaborate a rationale for a rococo-style periodization have raised more problems than they have solved, and may lead to unproductive theoretical bickering. Logically, it is only a systematic survey of the literature itself in the light of literary tradition that will yield truly literary periodizations, and it is only when these have been achieved that we can meaningfully investigate literature's relationships with other aspects of what might as well be called, with due reservations, the eighteenth century.
Narrative Forms in Winesburg, Ohio
Authors: Mellard James M.
Published: November 2006

Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, has not one, but four different narrative forms. The symbolic stories, “The Book of the Grotesque,” “Hands,” “Paper Pills,” “Tandy,” and “Drink,” emphasize the symbols suggested by their titles, lead readers toward crucial thematic epiphanies, and develop several of Anderson's affirmative values. In contrast, the stories of incident, “Nobody Knows,” “Adventure,” “An Awakening,” “The Untold Lie,” and “Departure,” are virtually without symbolism, but have nearly mythically simple narratives in which characters come to some momentary understanding of self, society, or life in general. The thematic stories, “Godliness,” “Respectability,” “The Strength of God,” “Loneliness,” “Death,” and “Sophistication,” subordinate character, event, and symbol to the exposition of the “truth,” quality, or state of being signaled in the titles. The emblematic stories, “Mother,” “The Philosopher,” “A Man of Ideas,” “The Thinker,” “The Teacher,” and “ 'Queer',” focus narrowly on character types, as events, actions, and attitudes, past and present, explain them and emphasize their typical behavior patterns; they usually end with these characters seeking release from their frustrations through violence or flight. The uniformity of each narrative form, focusing as it does on one dominant element, probably lies in the lyrical impressionism of Anderson's method of composition.
Explicación Literal de la Doctrina de la discriçión
Authors: Del Piero Raúl A.
Published: November 2006

Pedro de Veragüe's Doctrina de la discricon has been rightly regarded as “a most important monument of XIVth century Spanish poetry.” It has heretofore been known through a single manuscript (E) from which it has been edited twice. This study utilizes four new textual sources: a manuscript from the Colegio Mayor de San Bartoiomé: S (the best, despite the influence of the Leonese dialect); a second manuscript from the Gayangos Collection (M); a third from a private collection (R); and the only extant copy of a sixteenth-century printing preserved in the British Museum (L). As appears from the watermarks and script, R (1438-55) and S antedate the known manuscript E. M is a late copy (ca. 1535) of considerable textual value. L was preceded by editions now lost and was probably printed by Varela in Seville ca. 1525. The stemma shows that S, R, M, and L share an ancestor of which E is not a descendant. These four new texts contain new stanzas and clarify the meaning of numerous corrupt passages. The present study gives the new stanzas and some of the most important lectiones varice from S, R, M, and L. Basically a textual comment, it endeavors to explain the difficult passages of the poem and includes notes on its language, versification, and historic background. (In Spanish)
What is the Junior College All About?
Authors: Dunham E. Alden
Published: November 2006

You have heard about the fellow standing on the gallows about to be hanged who said, “I don't know why I am here but this will teach me a lesson.” I am that fellow, and the lesson is to watch out for John Fisher's flattering invitations to address this distinguished audience. The flattery didn't wear off until I sat down a week ago to put something on paper and suddenly realized that my knowledge of junior colleges was clearly insufficient to say anything important in only twenty minutes. But here I am. My consolation is the suspicion that many of you don't know much about junior colleges either. So let's begin, as Alice said, at the beginning.
VIII.—The Riming System of Alexander Pope
Authors: McLean L. Mary
Published: November 2006

An exhaustive study of the riming system of Alexander Pope was suggested by the results of a partial investigation given in the introduction to Professsor Edwin Abbott's ‘Concordance’ to the works of that poet. I first based my study of the rimes upon this ‘Concordance,’ but, finding it to be neither reliable nor exhaustive, I was obliged to dispense with this aid and examine the rimes themselves at first hand. This investigation includes all of the poems, with the exception of a short unfinished piece, called “1740,” and a stanza of five lines written on “Beaufort House Gate at Chiswick,” omitted because of incomplete rimes. The examination of the rimes follows the lines of the study of Rose's ‘Orlando Furioso’ made by Professor Albert S. Cook in Modern Language Notes for November, 1883.
De Ortu Waluuanii: An Arthurian Romance now First Edited from the Cottonian Ms. Faustina B. VI., of the British Museum
Authors: Bruce J. Douglas
Published: November 2006

The following edition of the De Ortu Waluuanii is based on an exact transcript of the Cottonian ms. (only with resolution of the usual contractions) which was made for me by Mr. D. T. B. Wood, of the Department of Manuscripts of the British Museum, during the months of August and September, 1897. I have endeavored to print the Latin text as it appears in this transcript with as little change as possible. It has occasionally been necessary, however, to supply words omitted in the ms., yet obviously required by the sense, and wherever this has been done the inserted words will be found enclosed in brackets. In the case of corrupt or simply misspelt forms I have placed the ms. readings at the bottom of the page and incorporated the emended forms (italicized) into the text. Only in the case of the words sublimis and pugna and their derivatives I have retained the consistent spellings of the ms.— sullimis, pungna, and the like.
IV.—The Phonology of the Spanish Dialect of Mexico City
Authors: Marden Charles Carroll
Published: November 2006

The material for the present study was collected during a residence of several months in Mexico City, and the facts stated are the result of personal observation of the idiom spoken by the lower classes. In some cases use is made of words and expressions found in printed material, but all such forms have been subjected to a careful comparison with the spoken language, before being accepted as trustworthy.
Versions of the Walther Saga
Authors: Learned Marion Dexter
Published: November 2006

The Saga of Walther of Aquitaine, or of Walther and Hildegunde, is preserved in a variety of versions: Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Middle High German, Old Norse, Polish, all but one of which (Waltharius) are brief or fragmentary in their present form. The original texts of these various versons are reproduced in the following pages in chronological order, so as to present the Saga in its transmitted form which may serve as a basis for historical treatment.
XIII.—The Origin of the Rule Forbidding Hiatus in French Verse
Authors: Marcou P. B.
Published: November 2006

The rule forbidding hiatus in French verse which has been followed in all literary poetry since Malherbe's day may be thus formulated:—

A word ending in a vowel other than an e muet cannot be followed within the same line by a word beginning with a vowel or h muette.

Where a word ends in an e muet and the following word begins with a vowel or an h muette, the e muet is elided and the hiatus thus avoided.

For the purposes of this rule the t of et is supposed not to exist.

Oui is sometimes treated as though it began with a consonant.

Hiatus is allowed before or after a few interjections; also in certain set expressions such as peu à peu, cà et là, and the like.
IX.—Historie von Einem Ritter, wie er Buesset
Authors: Schmidt F. G. G.
Published: November 2006

In the summer of 1895 I had occasion to examine a number of German mss. in the library at Maihingen, belonging to Prince Karl of Oettingen-Wallerstein.
I.—The Name Cædmon
Authors: Cook Albert S.
Published: November 2006

Two such authorities as the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica ‘and the’ Dictionary of National Biography’ are arrayed against each other with respect to the derivation of our ancient poet's name. In the ‘Encyclopaedia’ we read:

“Sir Francis Palgravé, despairing of finding a native derivation, suggested (Archæologia, vol. xxiv.) that the poet might have been so called from the Chaldaic name for the book of Genesis, which is ‘b’ Cadmin,‘in the beginning, or’ Cadmon,‘beginning, from the opening words of the first chapter of Genesis. He thought that he might even have been an’ Eastern visitor,’ who had arrived in Britain from the East, mastered the language, and come out as a vernacular poet. A hypothesis so fanciful as this last may be at once rejected…. On the whole, Sir Francis Palgrave's first suggestion seems to involve the least difficulty. ‘Cadmon’ means ‘beginning’ in the Targum of Onkelos, the Chaldee version of the Scriptures, which was in popular use among the Jews from the 1st century B. C. downwards, and some learned ecclesiastic at Whitby who had visited the Holy Land may have given to the poet the name Cadmon (which in Anglo-Saxon mouths became Cædmon), because he was to sing of the ‘beginning’ of things.”
II.—A Plea for the Study of Literature from the æsthetic Standpoint
Authors: Fruit John P.
Published: November 2006

That teacher of literature who has not comprehended the significance of a work of Art, has never been endued with the spirit and power of his high calling. He stands unwittingly in the place of an apostle of “that external quality of bodies which may be shown to be in some sort typical of the Divine attributes.”

“Those qualities, or types,” according to Ruskin, “on whose combination is dependent the power of mere material loveliness” are:

“Infinity, or the type of Divine Incomprehensibility; Unity, or the type of the Divine Comprehensibility; Repose, or the type of the Divine Permanence; Symmetry, or the type of the Divine Justice; Purity, or the type of the Divine Energy; Moderation, or the type of Government by Law.”
III.—Some Phases of Tennyson's in Memoriam
Authors: Shepherd Henry E.
Published: November 2006

The trend of the Modern Language Association has been, thus far, almost exclusively in the direction of grammatical criticism and philological exegesis. The literary side of language has been subordinated or retired until it is almost faded out of memory, in the confusion of tongues and the strife of phonetics. Nearly all of the illustrating power, the æsthetic brilliance of literary culture, is lost upon the philological devotee. As an attempt to counteract this tendency, I purpose a special investigation of some points suggested by the study of one of the noblest works through which the spiritual genius and the artistic sense of our age has expressed itself—I mean Tennyson's “In Memoriam.” As is well known to students of our literature, “In Memoriam “appeared in 1850, the year of Wordsworth's death and of Tennyson's succession to the office of Laureate. It is one of the five or six supreme elegiac poems of our language, “Lycidas “standing first in point of time (1637), then Dryden's “Ode on Mrs. Killigrew” (1686), then Shelley's “Adonais “(1822), suggested by the death of Keats and “In Memoriam “which was occasioned by the death of Arthur Hallam at Vienna in September, 1833—in 1850. Matthew Arnold's “Thyrsis,” evoked by the death of his friend Arthur Hugh Clough, in point of grace and tenderness is entitled to most honorable recognition, but as it is subsequent by several years to the appearance of “In Memoriam,”
The Phonology of the Pistojese Dialect
Authors: Bruner James Dowden
Published: November 2006

The Dialect of Pistoja and of the Pistojese mountains forms one of the group of Tuscan dialects. The writer spent six months in 1892 at Pistoja and in the villages of the Pistojese mountains, in order to collect material for the following monograph, which is based chiefly on the patois spoken by the natives of this district.
On the Pronunciation of the French Nasal Vowels In, AIN, EIN in the XVI and XVII Centuries
Authors: Matzke John E.
Published: November 2006

In a recent doctor's dissertation of the University of Lausanne, P. Marchot examines the question of the pronunciation of the French nasal vowels ain, ein, and in during the xvi and xvii centuries, and cornes to some rather startling conclusions, principally with regard to the developmcnt of ain (and ein). He denies the possibility of the direct development of ãin > en. ‘Passe-t-on directement de ãin à en ? Absolument pas: phonétiquement l'évolution est impossible. C'est au xvie siècle que ãin, dénatalité en ayn, passe à eyn et ensuite à,’ (p. 49). It is this thesis which he attempts to prove on pp. 47–62 of his monograph. The whole argumentation is based on the material presented by Thurot, De la prononciation française, of whom he says (p. 47), ‘malheureusement, Thurot n'était pas un romaniste, et il est incontestable que plus d'une fois, il n'a pas su tirer des matériaux qu'il avait réunis tout le parti qu'il était possible d'en tirer.’ I think it is safe to say, that Marchot has not succeeded much better. To be sure, the history of these nasals is not an easy problem, the grammarians of the xvi and xvii centuries are in the highest degree obscure in their statements, and it is not an easy matter to arrive at a clear understanding of their meaning. The weak point in Marchot's method is, that he interprets the statements of these grammarians literally and that he seems to lose sight of the continuity of phonetic tendency, whereas the only safe method can be, to collate and compare all the statements to the point, to eliminate every thing that appears individual with each grammarian, and to interpret what remains, along lines that are demanded by our knowledge of the history of French nasalization in general, making due allowance, at the same time, for the ignorance of phonetic problems at that period, and the crude terminology then in vogue.
Adenosine 5'-Monophosphate Aerosol Challenge Does Not Provoke Airflow Limitation in Healthy Cats
Authors: Vondráková K. , Hoven R. Van Den , Hirt R. A.
Published: November 2006

The purpose of our study was to investigate the effects of nebulized adenosine 5'- monophosphate on airflow limitation in healthy cats determined by barometric whole body plethysmography (BWBP), in comparison to the effects of carbachol. Ten healthy 4- to 6-year-old domestic shorthair cats were included in the study. Each cat was placed in a BWBP plexiglass chamber (volume 38 l). Changes in box pressure were measured at baseline and after nebulization of vehicle and increasing concentrations of carbachol and adenosine 5'- monophosphate. Airway responsiveness was monitored as increases in enhanced pause (PENH), a unitless variable derived from dose-response curves estimating airflow limitation. The chosen endpoint was the agonist concentration which increased PENH to 300% of the value obtained after saline nebulization (PCPENH 300). Inter-day repeatability of measurements was assessed by repeated bronchoprovocations with both agonists 2-3 days apart. For carbachol, PCPENH300 was reached in all cats and correlated significantly between days (mean ± SD; 0.54 ± 0.42 mg/ml and 0.64 ± 0.45 mg/ml respectively; r = 0.58, p < 0.05) In contrast, we found no reaction to adenosine 5'- monophosphate even with the highest concentration nebulized during both measurements. At baseline, mean ± SD PENH was 0.47 ± 0.18 and 0.58 ± 0.24 (measurements 1 and 2), whereas PENH after 500 mg/ml adenosine 5'- monophosphate was 0.46 ± 0.20 and 0.71 ± 0.37. All bronchoprovocation tests were well tolerated by the cats. We conclude that healthy airways in cats do not demonstrate airway responsiveness to inhaled adenosine 5'- monophosphate. This is in agreement with observations in humans as well as our previous findings in dogs, where adenosine 5'- monophosphate had no effect on healthy canine airways, but caused significant airflow limitation after induction of acute bronchitis. To define the value of bronchoprovocation testing with adenosine 5'- monophosphate in the feline respiratory tract, further investigation of this agonist in cats with spontaneous lower airway disease will be required.
Zinc Supplementation and Somatic Cell Count in Milk of Dairy Cows
Authors: Pechová A. , Pavlata L. , Lokajová E.
Published: November 2006

The goal of the study was to test the possibility of raising milk zinc (Zn) concentration by increasing the supplementation of Zn, and to assess the effect on the somatic cell count. The experiment was performed at a farm with Czech Pied cattle, with 500 dairy cows and average milk yield 6,390 l. The experiment included 40 dairy cows, assigned to either an experimental (E, n = 20) or a control group (C, n = 20) based on the principle of balanced pairs (efficiency, lactation stage). The experimental group was supplemented Zn in the chelate form (Bioplex Zn, Alltech Inc., Nicholasville, KY), at the dose of 440 mg Zn per animal per day. Blood and milk samples were taken at the start of the experiment and at the end of months 1, 2 and 3. The average milk Zn concentration during the experiment was 57.36 ± 10.54 μmol l-1, ranging from 38.02 to 86.13 μmol l-1. A trend towards a positive effect of Zn supplementation on the health of the mammary gland was identified in association with the somatic cell count, which was significantly lower in the experimental group (114.90 ± 68.7 103 ml-1 vs. 208.60 ± 148.1 103 ml-1; p < 0.05) by the end of month 3. A negative correlation was found between the somatic cell count and Zn concentration in milk (y = -0.0327 x + 61.557; r = -0.441; p < 0.01). Our results indicate that milk Zn concentration is not directly affected by the level of zinc supplementation in the feed ration, but zinc supplementation has a positive effect on the somatic cell count.
Evaluation of Marginal Microgaps of Two Glass-ionomer Cements (GIC) in Dogs and Sheep in vivo
Authors: Figurová M. , Ledecký V. , Štvrtina S.
Published: November 2006

The aim of the experiment was to evaluate the marginal microgaps of two ionomer cements: Kavitan Plus (Spofa Dental) and Vitremer (3M ESPE) in dog and sheep dentition in vivo. Dentitions of sheep and dogs were restored in vivo with a conventional, glass polyalkenoic, chemically activated cement Kavitan Plus with hydrophilic properties capable and with a resinmodified glass-ionomer cement Vitremer with light-induced polymerization and autopolymerization reaction of methyl metacrylate group. The parameters of glass-ionomers were evaluated in 6 groups of animals, 2 animals in each, at various time intervals (after 1, 4 and 6 months in dogs and 3, 6 and 9 months in sheep, starting from the beginning of the experiment). The restorative materials were placed to buccal surfaces of permanent teeth. At the intervals specified, under general injection anaesthesia, throughout the experiment we extracted 24 teeth from sheep and 30 from dogs. When processing the samples of dog's teeth two samples were damaged. One month after the placement, Kavitan plus restorations became loose only in one case in dogs (80% successfulness). In sheep two Kavitan Plus restorations became loose after 9 months (50% successfulness). During the experiment we observed neither cracks nor marginal discoloration in both Kavitan Plus and Vitremer restorations. Statistically significant (P = 0.04) differences were observed in the dentin of dogs receiving glass-ionomer Vitremer restorations which exhibited lower marginal microgaps. The remaining results were non- significant (ANOVA test). Fluoride ions released from GIC support the treatment of dental hard tissues. These materials could be used as definitive restorations of class A - D cavities in dogs and dental cervical caries in sheep as well as underlying layers ofcomposite and amalgam materials.
The Effect of Sterilization on Size and Shape of Fat Globules in Model Processed Cheese Samples
Authors: Tremlová B. , Štarha P. , Buňka F. , Gistingrová Z. , Hrabě J.
Published: November 2006

Model cheese samples from 4 independent productions were heat sterilized (117 °C, 20 minutes) after the melting process and packing with an aim to prolong their durability. The objective of the study was to assess changes in the size and shape of fat globules due to heat sterilization by using image analysis methods. The study included a selection of suitable methods of preparation mounts, taking microphotographs and making overlays for automatic processing of photographs by image analyser, ascertaining parameters to determine the size and shape of fat globules and statistical analysis of results obtained. The results of the experiment suggest that changes in shape of fat globules due to heat sterilization are not unequivocal. We found that the size of fat globules was significantly increased (p < 0.01) due to heat sterilization (117 °C, 20 min), and the shares of small fat globules (up to 500 μm2, or 100 μm2) in the samples of heat sterilized processed cheese were decreased. The results imply that the image analysis method is very useful when assessing the effect of technological process on the quality of processed cheese quality.
The Effect of Lipolytic Enzymes of Bacillus spp. on Quality of Ultra-High-Temperature-Treated Milk
Authors: Janštová B. , Vorlová L. , Dračková M.
Published: November 2006

Lipolysis was monitored based on determining the concentration of free fatty acids in milk, on the model case of UHT milk contamination with spores of 15 B. licheniformis, B. subtilis and B. cereus strains isolated from farm environment and raw milk. Lipolysis was not recorded at storage temperature of 4 °C, whereas significant changes in levels of free fatty acids were shown at storage temperature of 24 °C. After 3 weeks of storage the initial content of 41.97 mmol·kg-1 of fat rose to as much as 1,617.22 mmol·kg-1 of fat. The extent of the change depended mainly on the Bacillus spp. species and the storage period and, to a certain degree, also on the initial number of microorganisms. Significant lipolytic activity was detected in association with B. licheniformis and B. cereus species. It was found that spores of resistant B. licheniformis strains may survive 100 °C/10 min and 135 °C/5 s heating and show lipolytic activity.
Generalization and numerical investigation of QMOM
Authors: Grosch R. , Briesen H. , Marquardt W. , Wulkow M.
Published: November 2006

A generalized framework is developed for the quadrature method of moments (QMOM), which is a solution method for population balance models. It further evaluates the applicability of this method to industrial suspension crystallization processes. The framework is based on the concepts of generalized moments and coordinate transformations, which have been used already in earlier solution approaches. It is shown how existing approaches to QMOM are derived from the suggested unified framework. Thus, similarities and differences between the various QMOM methods are uncovered. Further, potential error sources involved in the different approaches to QMOM are discussed and assessed by means of a series of test cases. The test cases are selected to be challenging. The error in the QMOM solution is evaluated by comparison to an adaptive, error controlled solution of the population balance. The behavior of a range of different QMOM formulations is analyzed by means of numerical quadrature, dynamic simulation, as well as numerical continuation and bifurcation analysis. As a result of this detailed analysis, some general limitations of the method are detected and guidelines for its application are developed. This article is limited to lumped population balance models with one internal coordinate. © 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2007
Assessment of dose proportionality of muraglitazar after repeated oral dosing in rats via a sparse sampling methodology
Authors: Yao Ming , Swaminathan Arun , Srinivas Nuggehally
Published: November 2006

Muraglitazar is an α/γ‐dual peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor (PPAR) agonist. This study evaluated the single‐ and multiple‐dose oral toxicokinetics of muraglitazar in rats at doses of 3, 30 and 300 mg/kg/day. In total, 15 rats/gender/dose group received muraglitazar every day for 1 month. On both day 1 and day 28, blood samples were obtained at 0.5, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 24 h post‐dose, followed by LC/MS analysis. In order to minimize blood loss in the rats, a sparse sampling approach was used to delineate the toxicokinetics.

The peak plasma concentration (Cmax) and area under the plasma concentration‐time curve (TAUC0–t) values for muraglitazar increased in a proportion less than the increment in dose. As the dose increased in the ratio 1:10:100, the Cmax for muraglitazar in male and female rats increased in the ratio of 1:10.3:58.6 and 1:15.3:75.3 on day 1, and 1:5.9:28.1 and 1:13.3:37.3 on day 28, respectively. The corresponding TAUC0−t values for males and females were in the ratio of 1:10.2:131 and 1:12.4:131 on day 1, and 1:9.5:93.4 and 1:11.8:94.3 on day 28, respectively. The results indicate that muraglitazar exhibits a dose dependent toxicokinetics in rats and the systemic exposure of muraglitazar was decreased on day 28 compared with day 1. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
β‐amino acid analogs of an insect neuropeptide feature potent bioactivity and resistance to peptidase hydrolysis
Authors: Zubrzak Pawel , Williams Howard , Coast Geoffrey M. , Isaac R. Elwyn , Reyes‐Rangel Gloria , Juaristi Eusebio , Zabrocki Janusz , Nachman Ronald J.
Published: November 2006

Insect neuropeptides of the insect kinin class share a common C‐terminal pentapeptide sequence F1X12X23W4G5‐NH2 (X23 = P, S, A) and regulate such critical physiological processes as water balance and digestive enzyme release. Analogs of the insect kinin class, in which the critical residues of F1, P3, and W4 were replaced with β3‐amino acid or their β2‐homo‐amino acid variants, have been synthesized by the solid phase peptide strategy. The resulting single‐ and double‐replacement analogs were evaluated in an insect diuretic assay and enzyme digestion trials. Analogs modified in the core P3 position produce a potent and efficacious diuretic response that is not significantly different from that obtained with the endogenous achetakinin peptides. The analogs also demonstrate enhanced resistance to hydrolysis by ACE and NEP, endopeptidases that inactivate the natural insect neuropeptides. This paper describes the first instance of β‐amino acids analogs of an arthropod peptide that demonstrate significant bioactivity and resistance to peptidase degradation. © 2006 Wiley Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers (Pept Sci) 88:76–82, 2007.

This article was originally published online as an accepted preprint. The “Published Online”date corresponds to the preprint version. You can request a copy of the preprint by emailing the Biopolymers editorial office at biopolymers@wiley.com.
Randomized clinical trial comparing feeding jejunostomy with nasoduodenal tube placement in patients undergoing oesophagectomy
Authors: Han-Geurts I J M , Hop W C , Verhoef C , Tran K T C , Tilanus H W
Published: November 2006

Background

Feeding jejunostomy is frequently performed in patients undergoing oesophageal surgery, but can lead to serious complications. This prospective randomized trial compared the efficacy and complications of feeding jejunostomy with those of nasoduodenal tube feeding in oesophageal surgery.

Methods

Over an 18-month period, 150 consecutive patients undergoing oesophageal resection were randomized to participate in the trial. Enteral access was by jejunostomy in 79 patients and by nasoduodenal tube in 71. Enteral feeding was started on the first day after surgery.

Results

Full enteral feeding took 3 days to be established in both groups. Minor catheter-related complications occurred in 28 patients (35 per cent) in the jejunostomy group, and in 21 (30 per cent) in the nasoduodenal group (P = 0·488). One patient had jejunostomy leakage that required reoperation. Enteral nutrition was given for a median of 11 days in the jejunostomy group and for 10 days in the nasoduodenal group. Nine patients who had a jejunostomy and five with a nasoduodenal tube did not tolerate full enteral feeding (P = 0·411).

Conclusion

Nasoduodenal tube feeding is safe and efficient after oesophageal resection.
The oxymoron of ‘sustainable oil production’: the case of the Norwegian oil industry
Authors: Ihlen Øyvind
Published: November 2006

Many oil companies have adopted the concept of sustainable development and claim that their production is sustainable. This might seem odd given that the oil industry depletes a non‐renewable resource and that oil production also contributes to climate change. This paper analyses how the industry attempts to resolve this paradox, using the Norwegian oil industry as a case study. It is demonstrated how four rhetorical operations are used. By employing the topic of definition, the industry argues that it is sustainable because it (1) strives to cut its emissions and (2) manages oil resources with a long‐term perspective until such time as technology will provide solutions. The industry then uses the topic of comparison to (3) discredit other energy sources as ‘unrealistic’ options and (4) compare the production in Norway with more polluting oil production elsewhere. Understanding this type of rhetoric is crucial for validating or criticizing the sustainability claims of the industry. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Myriad: scalable VR via peer‐to‐peer connectivity, PC clustering, and transient inconsistency
Authors: Schaeffer Benjamin , Brinkmann Peter , Francis George , Goudeseune Camille , Crowell Jim , Kaczmarski Hank
Published: November 2006

Distributed scene graphs are important in virtual reality, both in collaborative virtual environments and in cluster rendering. Modern scalable visualization systems have high local throughput, but collaborative virtual environments (VEs) over a wide‐area network (WAN) share data at much lower rates. This complicates the use of one scene graph across the whole application. Myriad is an extension of the Syzygy VR toolkit in which individual scene graphs form a peer‐to‐peer network. Myriad connections filter scene graph updates and create flexible relationships between nodes of the scene graph. Myriad's sharing is fine‐grained: the properties of individual scene graph nodes to share are dynamically specified (in C++ or Python). Myriad permits transient inconsistency, relaxing resource requirements in collaborative VEs. A test application, WorldWideCrowd, demonstrates collaborative prototyping of a 300‐avatar crowd animation viewed on two PC‐cluster displays and edited on low‐powered laptops, desktops, and over a WAN. We have further used our framework to facilitate collaborative educational experiences and as a vehicle for undergraduates to experiment with shared virtual worlds. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.