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Ants and other social Hymenoptera (social bees and wasps) have a remarkable mating strategy. Social Hymenoptera live in societies where reproduction is monopolized by a fertile caste consisting of males and queens. On the other hand, the logistical tasks of the colony are carried out by a sterile female caste known as workers. Reproductive individuals mate during a single bout early in their life and will never engage in additional reproductive events later on. Males die soon after mating while queens store millions of sperm cells in a specialized organ, the spermatheca. Queens will use this sperm stock to fertilize eggs during the rest of their life that can last up to several decades. With a record of 28.5 years in the black garden ant, ant queens have the longest lifespan recorded to date among the social Hymenoptera. In my thesis, I addressed three aspects of ant queen reproduction. First, I tested the effect of mating on the expression of several genes involved namely in fecundity, longevity and immunity. I found that mating induces an up-regulation of the yolk precursor vitellogenin and of the antimicrobial peptide defensin. Second, I measured the intensity of different immune responses in male and queen genital organs in order to determine which immune pathways are activated to protect sperm. Antimicrobial peptide genes are expressed in the genital tract of both sexes and the queen spermatheca is capable of strongly inhibiting bacterial growth. The immune melanization response is, however, overall inactive in the organs tested probably because its unspecific mode of action and cytotoxic by-products are likely to damage sperm cells. Immunity thus seems to be closely regulated in organs that are in contact with sperm. Third, I determined if activation of the queen immune system had an impact on the survival of sperm stored in the spermatheca. There is no detectable effect in young newly mated queens whereas, in one year old queens, immune activation induces a significant reduction in sperm viability. Life stage thus seems to influence queen ability to preserve sperm viability in the event of an immune challenge. In addition, one year old queens have higher sperm viability than newly mated queens suggesting queens are able to displace dead sperm cells from their spermatheca. Finally, I relied on the well-established sequence of behaviors inherent to the early life of ant queens to try to uncover the largely unknown roles of inotocin, the insect ortholog of the vertebrate hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, in regulating insect behavior. I measured gene expression of the inotocin receptor and found that it is highly expressed during social and reproductive behaviors, which is consistent with previous results in vertebrates. Inotocin might thus also be involved in modulating these behaviors in insects, but further studies are needed to be able to fully understand this complex signaling system. Overall, I show that reproduction and immunity are closely linked in ant queens and that the latter provide promising models for investigating the roles of hormones in insects. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

I study painting and composition for its own sake, and in this program I am pursuing it from a narrative or pictorial stance, much as did earlier artists, and doing so in contemporary terms. Distinguished examples of illustrators could include such artists as Raphael, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Rubens, and modern practitioners such as Wyeth and Baskin. The illustrator needs not only control of his means, but also other qualities in addition to those of a studio painter. He needs an imagination that will allow portrayal of scenes and viewpoints that can't be arranged in a studio. The artist's memory and invention are primary requisites for illustrations involving distant times and places.

El estudio exploratorio sostiene que el dragqueenismo surge de procesos de representación por parte de las drag queens, mediante sus prácticas discursivas y la manera en que se exhiben frente a un público. Estas representaciones les permiten, en su dimensión productiva, establecer una base identitaria que, en una dimensión reactiva, las diferencia de otras identidades transgénero. El análisis de los datos obtenidos mediante entrevistas semiestructuradas a drag queens de Lima (Perú) permitirá identificar la manera en que articulan las representaciones en torno a la tradición, la poética y el arte del dragqueenismo. / Revisión por pares

本研究主要目的在於探討國內企業女性主管人員是否存有「女王蜂症候群（Queen Bee Syndrome）」(任職於原屬男性職業(如管理職位)的女性易顯出排斥同排競爭者的情結)的現象,以及這個現象對甄選決定的影響。研究者採用混合設計之實驗法，即以主管性別（男、女）、應徵者性別（男、女）及應徵者晉升潛能（高、低）等三個獨變項，並以主管對應徵者在有關甄選決定的評量項目為依變項（評量項目有：錄取可能性、資格符合程度、未來的工作績效現、晉升為經理的可能性、共事的愉快程度、以及建議應給予的起始薪資），，請參與受試之主管對所呈現之目標之物作甄選決定評量。最後再將研究結果進行統計分析，以瞭解這個變項對甄選決定的影響，以及驗證女性主管的「女王蜂症候群」現象。 參與本研究之有效受試樣本共152名（男性75名，女性77名）。研究程序以郵寄的方式將兩份研究問卷寄給企業人事單位或用人單位之主管，請主管收到問卷後填寫一份，另一份則請主管轉交給公司內另一名異性主管填寫，隨函附上回郵信封以便填答後寄回；另外，有些問卷則是透過研究者親友所認識的企業工作者，由他們攜問卷至公司後請該公司之男女主管各一名填寫，填寫完異後再郵寄或轉交給研究者。 研究結果發現，（一）.女性應徵者相較於男性應徵者而言，在被建議錄取的可能性、資格符合應徵職位的程度、被預期未來的工作績效表現、以及未來晉升為經理的可能性方面，女性應徵者所得的評價皆與男性應徵者相類似，但是女性應徵者被預期與其共事的愉快程度則是較男性應徵者佳。（二）.高晉升潛能應徵者被錄取的可能性較低晉升潛能應徵者大、高晉升潛能應徵者的資料被認為較符合應徵之職位、高晉升潛能應徵者的工作績效被預期將較優秀、而且未來晉升為經理的可能性也屬高晉升潛能應徵者較大。（三）.男女主管錄取應徵者的可能性、評量應徵者的資格符合應徵職位之程度、預期應徵者未來的工績效表現、未來晉升為經理的可能性、以及主管預期與應徵者共事的愉快程度並不會因為應徵者性別之不同而在評量分數間有差異。女性主管對女性應徵者的評量分數並未有低估情形。（四）.男女主管錄取男女應徵者的可能性、男女主管評量男女應徵者的資格符合應徵職業的程度、未來的工績效表現、晉升為經理的可能性、以及男女主管預期與男女應徵者共事的愉快程度之差異並不會受到應徵者晉升潛能高低之不同而不同。（五）.男女應徵者所得之起始薪資可說是相同而沒有顯著之異。 本研究最後乃針對不符合假設之結果提出討論，並提出本研究之建議，以供未來研究及企業應用之參考。

The ancient concept "The world is a theatre" has been used by poets and philosophers at all times when talking about human conflicts or when describing human society. By focusing on the historical function of this use, the present dissertation examines four plays by Pedro Calderón de la Barca in relation to the schism of the Swedish Wasa dynasty: El sitio de Bredá, La protestación de la fe, La vida es sueño, Afectos de odio y amor. A parallel between Calderon's "auto sacramental" El gran teatro del mundo, Descartes' so called "mask" and the Neoplatonic "Art of Memory" (Giulio Camillo, Giordano Bruno, Robert Fludd) is established in order to explore the ontological and social background of the linguistic term "discourse". The heretic picture created by the European Counter Reformation is studied as the mimetic configuration of a collective fetish. Stephen Greenblatt's notion of "social energy" and Julia Kristeva's account of the fetish in poetical language, are, in this context, discussed with the intention to investigate how Calderón, to the Spanish audience, describes Wladislav Sigismund Vasa visit to Breda's siege and Queen Christina's convertion to the Catholic faith. The political and ideological debate of laws ruling the succession in Catholic and Protestant kingdoms are considered when discussing Diego de Saavedra y Fajardo's (from Catholic Spain) and Schering Rosenhane's (from Lutheran Sweden) political reflections on the issue; this is also compared to the ideological foundations of Calderon's play El gran teatro del mundo. Both King Sigismund Vasa's personal struggle to retain the Swedish crown and Queen Christina's abdication, are considered in the light of Calderon's La protestación de la fe and Rosenhane's political vision in his Hortus Regius. A special investigation is dedicated to the striking contrasts between the original emblems of Hortus Regius and those found today in Rosenhane's palace, having been painted there on the initiative of Rosenhane himself. The Catholic agitation against Machiavelli's definition of "virtue" and the Machiavellian and Catholic interpretation of "reason of state", are related to Calderon's theatre with the intention of evaluating the geopolitical aspects of Calderon's most famous play, La vida es sueño, and also with the purpose to initiate a discussion about the theatrical nature of political behaviour. The dissertation concludes by studying and comparing Calderon's, Bernardino de Rebolledo's (Spanish ambassador to Denmark at the time) and Francisco Bances Candamo's views on Queen Christina's personal aversion to marriage, with special attention paid to the symbolic dimensions of Queen Christina's Amaranta Order.

The late Permian Queen Formation (115 m thick) is a succession of mixed clastics, carbonates and evaporites deposited in the northeastern margin of Central Basin Platform of the Permian Basin, west Texas, USA. Depositional facies, stacking patterns of cyclic facies associations and statistical correlation of rock property variations define geologic controls on reservoir rock properties. Textural, compositional, petrophysical and diagenetic variations within lithofacies exhibit systematic changes with stratigraphic position, which can be related to base level changes that were controlled by high-frequency, low-amplitude, sea level fluctuations during a greenhouse period. Ten lithofacies record variations in clastic input, shallow marine carbonate production, and evaporate precipitation in sabhkas and salinas. Four different types of lithofacies associations define: (1) transgressive deltaic deposits; (2) upward-shallowing evaporite and carbonate tidal-flat deposits; (3) transgressive beach ridge and sand flat deposits; and (4) upward-shallowing evaporite salina-sabhka deposits. Stacking patterns of lithofacies associations define sixteen depositional cycles that can be grouped into eight cycle sets. Cycle sets in turn are grouped to define two high-frequency sequences. Sequence 1 progresses from fluvial to carbonate tidal flat cycles. Sequence 2 consists of salina-dominated upward-shoaling cycles. Lateral continuity of cycles indicates restricted sedimentation on low-accommodation inner platform areas updip of prograding highstand platform-margin carbonate buildups, and a long-term trend of accommodation decrease. The Queen Formation contains two reservoir types; (1) siliciclastic reservoirs capped by evaporites and (2) layer-cake carbonate reservoirs. Of the four reservoir zones identified, R11 in lowstand fluvial-deltaic deposits has relatively little cement and the best reservoir characters.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2001. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-241). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1982.

This Master's thesis belongs to the field of sixteenth century studies. The text I have chosen to study is the Memoires of Marguerite de Valois, begun in 1594 and published in 1628, thirteen years following the death of this queen. My analysis encompasses both the conventions of genre and rhetoric evidenced in the text. The first chapter explores the peculiarities inherent in the memoirs genre, especially where these explicitly distinguish it from the autobiography. The second chapter examines the rhetorical aspects of Marguerite de Valois' Memoires. In doing so, I have highlighted and analyzed the rhetorical strategies employed in the text, whose ultimate intent was to convince the initial reader, Brantome, and subsequently posterity, of the political astuteness of an author who was also worthy of her correspondent's trust as a loyal ally.