Direct Copy Research Articles

EXTRACT 2.0: interactive identification of biological entities mentioned in text to assist database curation and knowledge extraction

Data curation is a process occurring in many aspects of biodiversity research, e.g. in digitization of specimen collections and extraction of species occurrences from the legacy literature. Data curation is always characterized by being time demanding and tedious. Gathering information on species and exposing it via search interfaces could be facilitated once phrases of interest have been recognized and the mentioned entities have been linked to community resources. A curator can benefit from interactive systems that highlight biological entities in a document, indicating sections of interest, and map entities to corresponding database records/ontology terms, and offering an easy mechanism for extracting annotations in a structured form. EXTRACT (https://extract.hcmr.gr, Pafilis et al. 2016) is a system that aims to address the above challenges. Its web User Interface is a bookmarklet that identifies genes/proteins, chemical compounds, organisms, environments, tissues, diseases, phenotypes and Gene Ontology terms mentioned in a web page and maps them to their corresponding database, ontology, and taxonomy entries. Two modes of operation are supported: a. extraction of biological entities mentioned in user-selected piece of text, and b. full-page tagging. To easily collect extracted annotations, e.g. for use in an Excel spreadsheet, direct Copy to clipboard and Save to file (tab-delimited) are supported. EXTRACT was originally developed specifically to facilitate metagenomic sample record annotation (Pafilis et al. 2016). As such it participated in the BioCreative V interactive annotation task. EXTRACT achieved one of the top scores in terms of usability and was evaluated to accelerate curation by 15–25% (Wang et al. 2016). The latest version of EXTRACT (2.0, Pafilis et al. 2017) serves a much broader audience involving both biomedicine and biodiversity researchers and thus recognizes a wide range of entity types from many community resources: Organisms (NCBI Taxonomy, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/taxonomy) Environments (Environment Ontology, Buttigieg et al. 2016) Diseases and phenotypes (Disease Ontology, Kibbe et al. 2014, and Mammalian Phenotype Ontology, Smith and Eppig 2012) Tissues and cell lines (Brenda Tissue Ontology, Placzek et al. 2016) Biological processes, molecular functions, and cellular components (Gene Ontology, Gene Ontology Consortium 2014) Protein-coding and non-coding RNA (ncRNA) genes from more than 2000 organisms (STRING (Szklarczyk et al. 2017) and RAIN (Junge et al. 2017)) Small molecule compounds (STITCH (Szklarczyk et al. 2015)) In addition to curators benefitting from such a tool, knowledge-base developers can easily integrate the EXTRACT functionality into their own systems. To this end, we provide a robust and thoroughly documented Application Programming Interface (https://extract.hcmr.gr, FAQ section). EXTRACT can thus serve as a building block in large knowledge management pipelines, which also perform downstream tasks such as statistical entity association and association extraction, knowledge graph generation presenting the extracted associations, document indexing and information retrieval. Such tasks lie at the core of the workshop this abstract has been submitted to and are pertinent to the TDWG 2017 theme, which is dedicated to the integration of species occurrence, gene, phenotype, and environment associations.

Differences in executive functions applied to memory processes in people with migraine: a cross-sectional study

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to identify differences in memory processes and the role of executive functions in memory, in people with migraine and in a control group. Neuropsychological evaluation was made in one session on 63 participants distributed into interictal migraine-with-aura (n = 24), interictal migraine-without-aura (n = 16) and control (n = 23) groups. ANOVAs on the individual tasks revealed statistically significant differences between groups on Rey-Osterrieth direct and percentile copy strategy and recall (both p < 0.001). Differences were identified between control and migraine groups in performance on the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure, but not on other memory tasks, suggesting the existence of brain dysfunctions in people with migraine affecting organizational and planning abilities that are necessary for visual memory.

Le portail Saint-Étienne de la cathédrale de Meaux et son prototype parisien : un « copier-coller »

In the history of art, the portal of the south façade of the Cathedral of Meaux represents a special case. It is a direct copy of the portal of the south façade of the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, which was constructed a few years earlier. Precise measurements made with a laser scanner and analyses made from a scaffolding installed expressly for the measuring clarified the process of conception and construction of the two portals. The article shows that drawings were used to make the copy in Meaux. This engendered misunderstandings and errors when the portal was erected. At the same time, differences in the cutting of the stones generated other modifications, leading to the conclusion that the draftsman and sculptor collaborated closely.

FluxFix: automatic isotopologue normalization for metabolic tracer analysis.

BackgroundIsotopic tracer analysis by mass spectrometry is a core technique for the study of metabolism. Isotopically labeled atoms from substrates, such as [13C]-labeled glucose, can be traced by their incorporation over time into specific metabolic products. Mass spectrometry is often used for the detection and differentiation of the isotopologues of each metabolite of interest. For meaningful interpretation, mass spectrometry data from metabolic tracer experiments must be corrected to account for the naturally occurring isotopologue distribution. The calculations required for this correction are time consuming and error prone and existing programs are often platform specific, non-intuitive, commercially licensed and/or limited in accuracy by using theoretical isotopologue distributions, which are prone to artifacts from noise or unresolved interfering signals.ResultsHere we present FluxFix (http://fluxfix.science), an application freely available on the internet that quickly and reliably transforms signal intensity values into percent mole enrichment for each isotopologue measured. ‘Unlabeled’ data, representing the measured natural isotopologue distribution for a chosen analyte, is entered by the user. This data is used to generate a correction matrix according to a well-established algorithm. The correction matrix is applied to labeled data, also entered by the user, thus generating the corrected output data. FluxFix is compatible with direct copy and paste from spreadsheet applications including Excel (Microsoft) and Google sheets and automatically adjusts to account for input data dimensions. The program is simple, easy to use, agnostic to the mass spectrometry platform, generalizable to known or unknown metabolites, and can take input data from either a theoretical natural isotopologue distribution or an experimentally measured one.ConclusionsOur freely available web-based calculator, FluxFix (http://fluxfix.science), quickly and reliably corrects metabolic tracer data for natural isotopologue abundance enabling faster, more robust and easily accessible data analysis.

FAM46C Serves as a Predictor of Hepatic Recurrence in Patients with Resectable Gastric Cancer.

Gastric cancer (GC) relapse can occur even if curative resection is achieved. Biomarkers predicting recurrence are needed to provide appropriate postoperative surveillance and perioperative therapeutic strategy. A global expression profiling was performed using tissues from GC patients with synchronous liver-confined metastasis. Family with sequence similarity 46, member C (FAM46C), was identified as a candidate biomarker. mRNA expression analysis, direct nucleotide sequencing, bisulfite sequencing and copy number assays for FAM46C were performed with eleven GC cell lines. Expression levels of FAM46C in primary GC tissues from 129 patients who underwent curative GC resection were determined and correlated with clinicopathological factors, including postoperative outcome. Levels of FAM46C mRNA differed among GC cell lines. Point mutations in FAM46C were detected in five GC cell lines accompanied with reduced FAM46C transcription. No hypermethylation was found in the promoter region of FAM46C. Copy number alterations were found in six GC cell lines with differing FAM46C transcription levels. Reduced FAM46C mRNA expression levels were detected in 117 (91%) GC specimens compared with adjacent noncancerous tissues. Low FAM46C expression levels were significantly associated with larger macroscopic GC tumor sizes. The low FAM46C expression group was likely to have shorter disease-free survival than the high group and low FAM46C level was identified as an independent risk factor for recurrence after curative resection. FAM46C expression levels were low in all cases that were later found to have hepatic recurrence. Reduced GC expression of FAM46C is a potential biomarker to predict hepatic recurrence after curative gastrectomy.

Copycats: Anschütz Chronophotographs as Direct Source Material for Early Edison Kinetoscope Films

This article presents new research describing the direct influence of the entertainment disks made by Ottomar Anschutz for public use in his Schnellseher moving-picture device on the kinetoscope films made at Thomas Edison’s West Orange laboratory. These include Edison’s creation of a direct copy of an 1890 Anschutz production in The Barber Shop (1893) and an imitation of another Anschutz production in Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1891). In making these connections between the first two moving-picture systems, the article also provides a brief glimpse of the exhibition of the Schnellseher in America from 1889 to 1893 and suggests new lines of inquiry about the international character of the invention of moving pictures, about the sources of early filmed subjects, and about the contributions of previously overlooked figures at the forefront of moving-picture commercialization.

Criticism and Reconstruction of the Origin of Judicial Authority in China

The precondition of establishing judicial authority is to study its origin. Currently, some misunderstandings exist in the analysis of origin of judicial authority in China’s academic circles. The studies are proved to be either the direct copy of western authoritative theory, or the enumeration of practical factors that influence judicial authority. Chinese Scholars don’t analyze the origin of judicial authority. After the critical analysis of various theories of domestic scholars, this paper puts forward three major authoritative origins in line with China's actual situations: power, public opinion and procedure.

Fast and quality-efficient scheme for asymmetric multi-view video plus depth coding under the bitrate constraint

Recently, multi-view video plus depth based 3D video (3D-MVD) coding has been studied extensively. This paper presents a fast and efficient asymmetric 3D-MVD coding scheme under specified bitrate constraints. To efficiently encode depth images, a texture image-assisted inter prediction strategy is proposed to determine whether to use a direct copy of the co-located block as the inter prediction so as to skip the normal encoding process. In addition, an adaptive weighted mode in-loop filter strategy is proposed to refine the reconstructed depth image quality. Both strategies help to significantly reduce the encoding time and improve the reconstructed depth image quality under the bitrate constraint. Experiment results showed that the proposed asymmetric 3D-MVD coding scheme does achieve better quality of the reconstructed depth videos and the rendered virtual views at a less encoding-time requirement when compared with the state-of-the-art scheme by Shao et al. and the traditional 5:1 bitrate allocation scheme.

Spelling impairments in Spanish dyslexic adults.

Spelling deficits have repeatedly been observed in children with dyslexia. However, the few studies addressing this issue in dyslexic adults have reported contradictory results. We investigated whether Spanish dyslexics show spelling deficits in adulthood and which components of the writing production process might be impaired in developmental dyslexia. In order to evaluate the involvement of the lexical and the sublexical routes of spelling as well as the graphemic buffer, lexical frequency, phonology-to-orthography consistency and word length were manipulated in two writing tasks: a direct copy transcoding task and a spelling-to-dictation task. Results revealed that adults with dyslexia produced longer written latencies, inter-letter intervals, writing durations and more errors than their peers without dyslexia. Moreover, the dyslexics were more affected by lexical frequency and word length than the controls, but both groups showed a similar effect of P-O consistency. Written latencies also revealed that while the dyslexics initiated the response later in the direct copy transcoding task than in the spelling-to-dictation task, the controls showed the opposite pattern. However, the dyslexics were slower than the controls in both tasks. Results were consistent with the hypothesis that spelling difficulties are present in adults with dyslexia, at least in a language with a transparent orthography such as Spanish. These difficulties seem to be associated with a deficit affecting both lexical processing and the ability to maintain information about the serial order of the letters in a word. However, the dyslexic group did not differ from the control group in the application of the P-O conversion procedures. The spelling impairment would be in addition to the reading deficit, leading to poorer performance in direct copy transcoding compared to spelling-to-dictation.

Genomic structure and evolution of beta-defensin genes in the golden pheasant and hwamei

Defensins play a vital role in the early stage of infection before adaptive immune responses are generated. Thus far, only limited detailed genomic data for avian defensin genes have been described. Here, using bacterial artificial chromosome libraries, we found that a 95kb and 177kb sequences in the golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus, Galliformes) and hwamei (Garrulax canorus, Passeriformes) corresponds to 16 and 30 defensin genes, respectively. Fluorescence in situ hybridization assigned defensin gene clusters in the golden pheasant and hwamei to chromosomes 2q and 3q, respectively. In combination with the previous chicken (Gallus gallus, Galliformes) and zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata, Passeriformes) defensin clusters, the comparative genomic analysis revealed that lineage-specific duplications and deletions have given rise to clearly different genomic structures. On the basis of genomic characteristics, we further found that transposable elements act as agents of evolution, causing direct and indirect copy number variations in defensin genes via duplications. Tissue expression analysis showed that the Passeriformes-specific duplicated AvBD1 and AvBD3 genes are mainly expressed in the upper and lower respiratory tract, tongue, and spleen. Our analyses indicate that the duplication-and-deletion of defensin genes conformed to the birth-and-death evolutionary process and that transposable elements induced the duplication of defensin genes. Moreover, the respiratory system-specific expression pattern of Passeriformes-specific expanded AvBD1 and AvBD3 genes suggests their important role in maintaining the singing trait of songbirds. The understanding of the genomic structure, expression, and evolution of defensin genes can provide a crucial immunological foundation to study and prevent avian diseases.

SGCE and myoclonus dystonia: motor characteristics, diagnostic criteria and clinical predictors of genotype.

Myoclonus dystonia syndrome (MDS) is a young-onset movement disorder. A proportion of cases are due to mutations in the maternally imprinted SGCE gene. We assembled the largest cohort of MDS patients to date, and determined the frequency and type of SGCE mutations. The aim was to establish the motor phenotype in mutation carriers and utility of current diagnostic criteria. Eighty-nine probands with clinical features compatible with MDS were recruited from the UK and Ireland. Patients were phenotypically classified as "definite", "probable" or "possible" MDS according to previous guidelines. SGCE was analyzed using direct sequencing and copy number variant analysis. In those where no mutation was found, DYT1 (GAG deletion), GCH1, THAP1 and NKX2.1 genes were also sequenced. Nineteen (21.3%) probands had an SGCE mutation. Three patterns of motor symptoms emerged: (1) early childhood onset upper body myoclonus and dystonia, (2) early childhood onset lower limb dystonia, progressing later to more pronounced myoclonus and upper body involvement, and (3) later childhood onset upper body myoclonus and dystonia with evident cervical involvement. Five probands had large contiguous gene deletions ranging from 0.7 to 2.3 Mb in size with distinctive clinical features, including short stature, joint laxity and microcephaly. Our data confirms that SGCE mutations are most commonly identified in MDS patients with (1) age at onset ≤10 years and (2) predominant upper body involvement of a pure myoclonus-dystonia. Cases with whole SGCE gene deletions had additional clinical characteristics, which are not always predicted by deletion size or gene involvement.

Evidence for increased SOX3 dosage as a risk factor for X‐linked hypopituitarism and neural tube defects

Genomic duplications of varying lengths at Xq26-q27 involving SOX3 have been described in families with X-linked hypopituitarism. Using array-CGH we detected a 1.1 Mb microduplication at Xq27 in a large family with three males suffering from X-linked hypopituitarism. The duplication was mapped from 138.7 to 139.8 Mb, harboring only two annotated genes, SOX3 and ATP11C, and was shown to be a direct tandem copy number gain. Unexpectedly, the microduplication did not fully segregate with the disease in this family suggesting that SOX3 duplications have variable penetrance for X-linked hypopituitarism. In the same family, a female fetus presenting with a neural tube defect was also shown to carry the SOX3 copy number gain. Since we also demonstrated increased SOX3 mRNA levels in amnion cells derived from an unrelated t(X;22)(q27;q11) female fetus with spina bifida, we propose that increased levels of SOX3 could be a risk factor for neural tube defects.

Slika Bogorodice s Djetetom u The Courtauld Institute of Art u Londonu - prijedlog za Petra Jordanića

Slika Bogorodice s Djetetom u The Courtauld Institute of Art u Londonu - prijedlog za Petra Jordanića

Nekoliko bilješki o Nikoli Firentincu i nadgrobnoj ploči kanonika Sturariusa

Značajna dopuna opusa Nikole Firentinca (djelovanje dokumentirano između 1464. i 1505.) je nadgrobna ploča kanonika Mateja Sturariusa u Zadarskoj crkvi Gospe Maslinske, koju je umjetniku atribuirao Ivo Petricioli. Iz natpisa na ploči razabiremo da je spomenuti kanonik, bliski suradnik nadbiskupa Maffea Vallaressa, dao izraditi spomenik još za života, ali pošto nije poznata godina njegove smrti, to nažalost ne daje oslonac za njezinu dataciju. Detaljnija analiza ploče daje međutim nove argumente u prilog tezi da se je Nikola Firentinac umjetnički formirao u Donatellovoj kasnoj radionici: na to upučuje prije svega usporedba zadarske ploče s Donatellovim nadgrobnim pločama poput ploča Giovannija Crivellija (Rim, S. Maria in Aracoeli), pape Martina V. (Rim, S. Giovanni in Laterano), a najbliža je ploča biskupa Giovannija Peccija (Siena, katedrala), koju novija literatura datira u kasne četrdesete godine 15. stoljeća. Za spomenutu ploču su karakteristična brojna inovativna likovna rješenja u smislu prilagođivanja figure i arhitektonskog okvira za pogled odozdo, a ona je bila i značajan izvor inspiracije za brojne sienske kipare (npr. Urbano da Cortona, Giovanni di Stefano), koji pri izradi nadgrobnih ploča druge polovice 15. stoljeća preuzimaju Donatellovu kompoziciju ili pojedine njezine djelove. Kod Nikoline zadarske ploče možemo također primjetiti oslonac na Donatella ali ne u smislu doslovnog kopiranja nekih djelova, već primjenom srodnih principa komponiranja. U to najviše uvjerava motiv dvaju grbova na gornjem djelu ploče, koji su na donatellovski način prikazani u perspektivi, ali ih na djelima Donatella i njegovih sljedbenika ne nalazimo u istoj ulozi. Oslonac na siensku ploču također otvara pitanje o mogućnosti Nikolinog boravka s Donatellom u Sieni (1457–1461), što s obzirom na poznatu kronologiju njegovog rada nije isključeno. Zbog relativno loše sačuvane površine ploče ostaje također otvoreno pitanje, da li ju je izradio Nikola vlastoručno ili uz pomoć radionice, ali budući da je kompozicija bez sumnje njegova, ovo pitanje ostaje sekundarno.

The Return of Chinese Imperialism in Shanzhai Architecture in Contemporary China

In China, there is a visual cultural phenomenon pertaining to many provincial and municipal government offices and courthouses built stylistically identical to the Capitol or the White House in Washington, D.C. This article is based on research that studies the architectural style of major government buildings and the sociocultural context in contemporary China. The research suggests how the architectural scene in China involves complicated power politics. The provincial government, representing a political center of the province, can influence the urban landscape and the leading image of a city. This archi-text provides us with some insights into the study of the government's self-identity and self-imagination. Its direct copy of the US Capitol is not simply about bad aesthetic taste or lack of innovation among the Chinese officials in designing their own offices, but a collective behavior reflecting the Chinese imperialist imagination and how the government perceives the American power. The architectural sites are intended to represent a bold artistic statement marking the return of Chinese imperialist ambition in twenty-first century.

New-type stability theorem for stochastic functional differential equations with application to SFDSs with distributed delays

In this paper, a new-type stability theorem for stochastic functional differential equations (SFDEs) is established, which is not a direct copy of the basic stability theorem for deterministic functional differential equations (DFDEs). By the new-type stability theorem, one can use the most simple Lyapunov functions and employ the equations repeatedly to deal with the delayed terms encountered conveniently and to carry out stability criteria for the equations. Based on the theorem, a practical stability theorem in accordance with the Lyapunov function method is also established, and then the asymptotic stability of SFDEs with distributed delays in the diffusive terms is investigated and a stability criterion for SFDSs is obtained, which is described by algebraic matrix equations. Finally, an example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of our method and results.

Arnas Magnæus Philologus (1663-1730) by Már Jónsson (review)

Reviewed by: Arnas Magnæus Philologus (1663-1730) by Már Jónsson Hannah Burrows Jónsson, Már , Arnas Magnæus Philologus (1663-1730) (Viking Collection, 20), Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark, 2012; hardback; pp. 274; 15 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. DKK300.00; ISBN 9788776746469. 'I would rather spend my time reading an old book' (p. 119). Parergon readers will undoubtedly relate to this comment by Árni Magnússon, the Icelandic scholar and great collector of Old Icelandic manuscripts who is the subject of Már Jónsson's beautifully written book. We surely owe the survival of the better part of the extant collection of medieval Icelandic manuscripts to Árni; his collection forms the basis for those of the twin manuscript institutes in Reykjavík and Copenhagen that now bear his name. This book is part biography (Már's Icelandic-language biography of Árni was published in 1998), part meticulously researched history of how that collection came about. 'Detailed knowledge of the preservation of medieval texts is necessary for their understanding and interpretation', argues Már in his statement of aims (p. 10). This book offers that contextual information in a convenient and very readable format. The book is arranged chronologically with each chapter, following the introductory one, covering a different period of Árni's life. Each chapter is nicely presented, headed by a quotation from Árni or one of his fellow scholars, and prefaced by a concise and convenient abstract. Chapter 1 also contains a very useful table showing numbers of extant Icelandic manuscripts and charters, divided into categories of vellum and paper, by century between 1101 and 1600 (p. 11), and another concerning Icelandic vellums according to the number of extant leaves for the same period (p. 13). As Már notes, 'it is indeed striking that among preserved manuscripts there are very few cases where we have a vellum and its direct copy' (p. 11). There are fifteen black and white figures arranged throughout the book, many illustrating Árni's 'impressive notes' (p. 118) in his clear, neat handwriting. Már describes his subject as an 'enchanting man' (p. 21), and Árni is brought to captivating life through spirited quotations from his correspondence (Már also draws on Árni's notes, working papers, and transcriptions; the recorded observations of contemporary scholars; and, with reservations, two eighteenth-century biographies). 'I have so much to do, and almost all of it worthless, that I am sick of myself ' (p. 105), is another of Árni's [End Page 204] pronouncements we may perhaps feel some scholarly sympathy for! We learn of his friend, fellow scholar, and fellow Icelander Þormóður Torfason, who asks Árni to check whether his deerskin underpants have been found in the guest-house in which he stayed while visiting Árni in Copenhagen, and of Árni's later years, during which colleagues mischievously suspected he 'sat at home gnawing on his old vellums' (p. 188). Details like this, liberally sprinkled throughout, enliven this meticulously researched account of Árni's life and scholarly activities. In charting Árni's career, the book also provides an account of the beginnings of the scholarly study of Old Norse philology and the foundations of the discipline today. Árni lamented the common practice of destroying or recycling (often as binding for other books) old manuscripts which were no longer seen as useful, given that more modern copies or printed versions of the text in question had been produced. He also advocated the practice of making diplomatic or 'semi-normalised' (with expanded abbreviations) copies of older texts, rather than modernising them to the orthography and language of the scribe (p. 80). During his scholarly career, he developed a 'moderately sceptical' (p. 94) attitude and a critical approach to sources and argument that was cutting-edge, and controversial, in contemporary scholarship but is fundamental today: weighing all the evidence and considering the nature of each source rather than accepting it uncritically. The aforementioned Þormóður compared Árni favourably to the celebrated medieval scholars Sæmundr fróði (the wise) and Snorri Sturluson (p. 81). Yet Árni is not uncritically sanctified by his biographer: we see both sides of the...

Fast-tracking development of homozygous transgenic cereal lines using a simple and highly flexible real-time PCR assay

BackgroundA crucial step in the evaluation of newly produced transgenic plants is the selection of homozygous plants. Here we describe an efficient and highly flexible real-time PCR-based method for the development of homozygous lines in plant models with complex (multiple) genomes and/or relatively long generation times (>3 months) using direct copy number determinations.ResultsAn existing DNA extraction method was converted into a high-throughput plant leaf DNA extraction procedure yielding DNA suitable for real-time PCR analyses. Highly specific and efficient primer pairs were developed for a bread wheat reference gene (Epsilon Cyclase) and for standard sequence elements in the gene cassette routinely used for cereal transformations (an intron bridge and the Nopaline Synthase terminator). The real-time PCR assay reliably distinguished wheat plants with a single copy of the transgene from individuals with multiple copies or those lacking the transgene. To obtain homozygous lines carrying a unique insertion event as efficiently as possible, T0 plants (plants raised from transformed callus) with a single copy of the transgene were selected and their progeny screened for homozygous plants. Finally, the assay was adapted to work on rice.ConclusionsThe ability to quickly, easily and accurately quantify the construct copy numbers, as provided by the real-time PCR assay, greatly improved the efficiency and reliability of the selection of homozygous transgenic plants in our case study. We were able to select homozygous plants in early generations, avoiding time-consuming methods such as large scale analysis of segregation patterns of descendants and/or Southern blotting. Additionally, the ability to specifically develop homozygous lines carrying a unique insertion event could be important in avoiding gene silencing due to co-suppression, and if needed assist in the selection of lines suitable for future deregulation. The same primer pairs can be used to quantify many different wheat transgenic events because the construct-specific primer pairs are targeted to standard sequence elements of the cereal gene cassettes, making the method widely applicable in wheat GM research. Moreover, because all procedures described here are standardized, the method may easily be adapted to vectors lacking the target regions used here and/or to other plant models.

A poem on the refortification of Dorylaion in 1175

<!--StartFragment--><p style="line-height: 150%" class="MsoNormal"><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:85; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:129 0 0 0 8 0;} @font-face {font-family:Gentium; panose-1:2 0 5 3 6 0 0 2 0 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:131 0 0 0 9 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Gentium; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Gentium; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:62.35pt 89.85pt 62.35pt 89.85pt; mso-header-margin:25.5pt; mso-footer-margin:25.5pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --></p><p> In the summer/autumn of 1175, Manuel Komnenos (1143-1180) undertook the rebuilding of Dorylaion, one of the major <em>aplekta</em> in Asia Minor. For this occasion a poem was written. The strong acquaintance of the poet with the conventions of court literature, the occasional content of the poem and its panegyric character, suggest that the text was written for a small ceremony which took place at Dorylaion. The author is probably an anonymous professional court poet who accompanied Manuel in his expedition. The authorship is further discussed since the manuscript tradition might suggest that John Tzetzes was the author. After a close look at the language, style and metre of the poem, this identification is excluded. In 1908, Spyridon Lambros published the poem on the basis of manuscript <em>Barocci 194</em> (fifteenth century) of the Bodleian Library. This study re-edits the poem on the basis of two more manuscripts: manuscript <em>Parisinus Graecus 2644</em> (late thirteenth century) of the Bibliothèque Nationale and <em>Auctarium T.1.10</em> of the Bodleian Library (sixteenth century). The history of each manuscript is analysed and the relation between them examined. It is established that the <em>Auctarium</em> is a direct copy from the Parisian manuscript. The metrical analysis of the poem follows and special textual problems are discussed. Finally, the translation of the original text is provided. </p><p> </p><p> </p>

L’ordine delle tavole del Liber Figurarum: alcune ipotesi sui codici di Reggio Emilia e Oxford

The present contribution takes into consideration the problem of the sequence of the different bookplates of the «Liber Figurarum», the collection of the diagrams by Joachim da Fiore especially witnessed to by four manuscripts. Because each witness offers a different disposition of the figures which build it up, the question arises about the original order of the bookplates in their hypothetical archetype, and even of its nature. The present contribution first of all verifies the four different dispositions, and that one - on its turn also different - offered in its first edition, edited by Leone Tondelli, Marjorie Reeves and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich. On the basis of some more recent acquisition, in favor of the witness kept in Reggio Emilia which has to be considered a direct copy of that more ancient and important one kept at Oxford, an in-depth cross examination is operated between the two, and so one may come to hypothesize their original disposition.