El fénix, el basilisco y el dragón: trascendencia de la animalia fabulosa y su simbolismo en los libros de emblemas

RESUMEN: Entre los materiales que los Libros de Emblemas utilizaron para llevar a cabo el propósito de instruir a sus receptores, están los discursos sobre animales fabulosos que los autores recopilaron y adaptaron de diversas fuentes literarias pertenecientes a la Antigüedad clásica y a la Edad Media. Por esta razón la emblemática también es el producto de la asimilación del conocimiento anterior que se tiene sobre animales reales o no. En este tenor, el objetivo de este artículo es comprobar, a través de ejemplos que provienen de la animalia fabulosa, que las representaciones emblemáticas de estos libros asimilan la información proveniente de los antiguos doctos para otorgarles renovada continuidad en cuanto a la función y simbología de las descripciones zoológicas. Para lo anterior, recurriré al análisis del ave fénix, el basilisco y el dragón en el contexto antes mencionado. ABSTRACT: Among the materials that the Emblem Books used to carry out the purpose of instructing their recipients are the discourses on fabulous animals that the authors compiled and adapted from various literary sources belonging to classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. For this reason, emblematic is also the product of the assimilation of previous knowledge about real or not real animals. In this sense, the aim of this article is to prove that the emblematic representations of these books assimilate the information coming from the ancient scholars to give them renewed continuity in terms of the function and symbolism of zoological descriptions. For the above, I will resort to the analysis of the phoenix, the basilisk and the dragon in the aforementioned context.

The history of the keyboard instrument MNP I 49 from the Museum of Musical Instruments in Poznań. the state of research

The keyboard instrument MNP I 49 from the Museum of Musical Instruments in Poznań has not been a subject of detailed academic studies yet, but there have been mentions of it in various types of publications throughout the years. The item is currently placed in the exhibition hall devoted to the art of the Baroque era in the Museum of Applied Arts in Poznań. It is a unique historical item in the Polish collection due to a very scarce number of harpsichords preserved in Poland. This situation is mainly a result of two world wars in the 20th century. Due to not enough available sources, the exact time of the creation of the instrument and the name of its builder were impossible to determine. The aim of the present article was to compile and arrange previous knowledge about the historical item MNP I 49. The work lists source materials and publications in which the instrument was mentioned, such as documents from the National Archive in Poznań, Raczyński Library in Poznań and National Museum Archive in Poznań. Based on the available source materials, the author was able to determine that the harpsichord appeared at the Skórzewski family’s palace in Czerniejewo before 1855.

Leitura: o papel da memória de longo termo (MLT) no processo de interpretação

Este artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa sobre Dificuldades de leitura entre acadêmicos de Letras, a partir da análise das paráfrases por eles produzidas, após a leitura silenciosa de uma crônica. O objetivo foi avaliar a interpretação leitora dos estudantes da amostra considerada. A análise embasou-se no Modelo Pragmático Integrado de interpretação/compreensão (DASCAL, 2006) e os resultados da investigação desenvolvida entre o 2º semestre de 2015 e o 1º de 2016 evidenciaram dificuldade de articulação entre texto e contexto, como também a necessidade de investigar mais detidamente os vínculos entre memória de longo termo (MLT) e o processo de interpretação leitora, uma vez que o maior problema detectado concerniu à falta de mobilização do conhecimento prévio (extralinguístico e metalinguístico). As demais dificuldades foram o léxico pouco desenvolvido e a falta de nexos textuais ou seu emprego inadequado. Por fim, embora a pesquisa tenha sido exploratória e seus resultados não possam ser generalizados sem investigações adicionais, constatamos haver estreita relação entre dificuldades de interpretação leitora e produção de paráfrases reprodutoras.This article presents the results of an investigation on Reading Difficulties among students of Letters based on the paraphrases produced by them after the silent reading of a chronicle. The objective was to evaluate the students’ process of reading interpretation. The analysis was based in the Pragmatic Model of Integrated interpretation/understanding (DASCAL, 2006) and the results of the research developed in 2015/2016 showed difficulty of articulation between text and context, as well as the need to investigate the links between long term memory (MLT) and the interpretation process, since the biggest problem detected was concerned to the difficulty to mobilize previous knowledge (extralinguistic and metalinguistic).Other difficulties highlighted were the lexicon little developed and the lack of nexus or its inadequate use between sentences and paragraphs. Finally, although the study was exploratory and their results cannot be generalized without further investigations, we conclude that there was a close relationship between reading interpretation difficulties and poor paraphrases.Keywords: reading, memory, interpretation, paraphrase.

Wildlife managers ignore previous knowledge at great risk: the case of Rivaldo, the iconic wild Asian Elephant Elephas maximus L. of the Sigur Region, Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, India

Management of wildlife depends mostly on scientific data; ignoring this can lead to unintended consequences. We take the case study of the wild male Asian Elephant Rivaldo of the Sigur Region, who was translocated out of his range. Rivaldo returned to his home range within a few days, which could have been expected if scientific publications had been consulted. We suggest that a simple checklist of relevant publications can help park managers to decide on a proper management procedure. We also used a simple Bayesian framework to visually show how the probability of predicting a management outcome is increased by prior knowledge. The expensive and risky effort to relocate the elephant could have been avoided altogether if prior knowledge had been taken into consideration.

A Unique Case of Fatal Coinfection Caused by Leptospira spp. and Hepatozoon canis in a Red Fox Cub (Vulpes vulpes)

Red foxes are the most abundant wild carnivore species in Europe commonly exposed to pathogenic Leptospira and Hepatozoon canis. Despite high seroprevalence, the clinical disease caused by these pathogens in red foxes has never been reported. Herein, we report the first-ever case of a fatal Leptospira spp. and H. canis coinfection in a two-month-old red fox cub with acute haemolytic anaemia, mild bronchopneumonia, intraalveolar haemorrhage, and tubulonephrosis. The presence of pathogenic Leptospira spp. DNA was detected in the kidney and lung tissues of the infected animal. In contrast to our previous knowledge, we believe that such fatal cases due to concomitant infection by Leptospira spp. and H. canis, especially in young animals, may commonly occur in nature. However, further studies are required to identify other factors that possibly contribute to the severity and the pathogenic effect of Leptospira spp. and H. canis infections in red foxes.

Determinants of Preferences of the Respondents for the Payment for Environmental Services among the Rural Farming Households in Oyo State Nigeria

This study attempted to uncover the factors that influence preferences of the poor farming households for the attributes of Payment for environmental services (PES) in the Oyo State farm settlement Nigeria. Educational attainment, age of the respondents, previous knowledge of PES, land tenure, provision of micro credit, number of dependents, marital status and main occupation of the respondents. Dependent variable is preference for PES attributes.A multi-stage sampling technique was employed for this study.This study used exclusively Primary data.Which were collected through the use of a well-structured questionnaires and interview schedule for the literate and non-literate farmers respectivelyTotal sample of 395 out of 547respondents (i.e.72%) were drawn cumulatively. The regression results showed that previous knowledge of PES and provision of microcredit are significant at 5% each, while land ownership right is significant at 10% in the educational poverty group. In the consumption poverty group, previous knowledge of PES is significant at 5%, while land ownership right is positively significant at 1%, respectively. Housing/living standard poverty group; previous knowledge of PES and land ownership rights are significant at 5% each. From the findings of this study, it implies that if micro credit facilities are provided to these poor farming households, they will be willing to conserve the environmental resources (i.e. agricultural land). It therefore suggests that a well thought institutional arrangement with PES in view could be put up to enhance natural resource conservation and by extension reduction of poverty.

Cognitive Keys in Psychophysical Estimation of Chemosensory Perception in University Students

Psychophysical methods allow us to measure the relationship between stimuli and sensory perception. Of these, Detection Threshold (DT) allows us to know the minimum concentration to produce taste identification. Given this, we wonder whether, for example, wine tasting experts are more capable of perceiving their sensory properties than other people, or whether they can distinguish them because they are better able to “describe” them. To verify this, this study analyses the influence of having prior knowledge of the name astringency and, failing that, to detect it and distinguish it between the four basic tastes. One-hundred-and-sixty-two university students with an average age of 19.43 (SD = 2.55) years were assigned to three experimental conditions: an experimental group (G.2) without previous knowledge of the name astringency and with alimentary satiety, and two control groups, both with previous knowledge of the name, these being G.1, with satiety, and G.3, with hunger. DT was collected for the four basic tastes and astringencies. Results showed significant differences in the identification of astringency, being the least identified experimental group with respect to the control groups. It is striking that G.2, without prior knowledge of the name, identified astringency as a bitter taste in most cases. This supports our hypothesis of the importance of attending to linguistic cognitive processes when psychophysically estimating taste in humans.

Music for a Boss Fight: Creating for the Context of Video Game Worlds

Creating music increases student engagement, and drawing on students’ background knowledge is a respectful way to value students’ lived experiences. By challenging students to create music for the context of a video game world, teachers can build on students’ previous knowledge and bridge that knowledge to the elements of music and creating music for specific contexts and purposes. This column outlines a project for fourth graders to create video game music for specific contexts within the game.

Model-driven development of asynchronous message-driven architectures with AsyncAPI

In the Internet-of-Things (IoT) vision, everyday objects evolve into cyber-physical systems. The massive use and deployment of these systems has given place to the Industry 4.0 or Industrial IoT (IIoT). Due to its scalability requirements, IIoT architectures are typically distributed and asynchronous. In this scenario, one of the most widely used paradigms is publish/subscribe, where messages are sent and received based on a set of categories or topics. However, these architectures face interoperability challenges. Consistency in message categories and structure is the key to avoid potential losses of information. Ensuring this consistency requires complex data processing logic both on the publisher and the subscriber sides. In this paper, we present our proposal relying on AsyncAPI to automate the design and implementation of these asynchronous architectures using model-driven techniques for the generation of (part of) message-driven infrastructures. Our proposal offers two different ways of designing the architectures: either graphically, by modeling and annotating the messages that are sent among the different IoT devices, or textually, by implementing an editor compliant with the AsyncAPI specification. We have evaluated our proposal by conducting a set of experiments with 25 subjects with different expertise and background. The experiments show that one-third of the subjects were able to design and implement a working architecture in less than an hour without previous knowledge of our proposal, and an additional one-third estimated that they would only need less than two hours in total.

Learning Japanese: observations from a lifelong experience

This paper discusses the author’s first encounter with the Japanese language at the age of 23 and documents his continuing response to it up to the present time. At first, the language learning methodology he had used before failed and proved to be inappropriate for learning Japanese. Then came the realization that learning a foreign language needs some previous knowledge to build on. The search for the most efficient way to master Japanese brought the author to receptive multilingualism, which by chance opens up new vistas for the aspiring learner to improve listening skills. The physicality of speech and the consequent importance of some form of outside stimulation for its development are discussed. Mention is made of how he came upon the idea of adapting childhood techniques in learning how to read to the acquisition of reading competence in the Japanese language. In connection with this, the author makes another digression on the relationship he perceives as existing between active and passive language skills, and from this proceeds with the mention of how this might be applicable to his progress to date in learning Japanese and why, for better or worse, this would not normally apply to classroom acquisition of Japanese either inside or outside of Japan today