The Angry, Abusive and Controlling Men in K.S. Maniam’s Short Story ‘Mala’

The fights against sexism have been going on for decades. However, women in the present society still experience gender and social injustice, domestic violence and sexual harassment on a daily basis. In many cases, conservative families with patriarchal values become a breeding ground for unfair treatment and discrimination against women. Maniam brings up these issues to the public through his short story ‘Mala’. This study seeks to examine the male characters’ behaviour, attitude and treatment towards Malati, the main protagonist of the story – and how she deals with the treatment she receives from them. The analysis reveals that the female protagonist is suppressed by her father when she was young, emotionally abused and exploited for free labour by her husband when she is married and harassed by her male clients at her workplace. The poor treatments she has received from men around her since young leave her with the feelings of numbness and unworthiness for the rest of her life.

Isolation and Partial Characterization of a Novel Pollen-specific cDNA with Multiple Polyadenylation Sites from Wheat

A novel pollen-specific full-length cDNA clone PSG076 was isolated using suppression subtractive hybridization and 5′/3′ RACE techniques. PSG076 was shown to exhibit multi-site polyadenylation by sequencing the 3′ ends of the cDNAs. At least six transcripts with different length were produced from the single gene based on different poly(A) tail attachment sites. However, polyadenylation consensus sequence AAUAAA was not seen at the 3′-untranslated sequence. PSG076 contained a 299 bp 5′ untranslated region and an open reading frame of 663 bp encoding a 221 amino acid peptide with pI of 4.31. A blast search revealed that this sequence did not show a significant similarity to any genes deposited in the public database. Southern blot indicated that PSG076 was a single copy gene. Northern blot and RT-PCR analysis indicated that PSG076 transcripts showed specific expression in mature pollen, and weak or undetectable signals in uninucleate microspore, immature seed, stem, young leave, root and ovary. Further analysis of the expression pattern in gametophyte showed that PSG076 transcripts were undetectable in uninucleate, binucleate microspore and pollen at early stage, and were first detectable and increased rapidly at middle and late stages of pollen development with the maximum level in mature pollen and also expressed in germinating pollen in vivo, suggesting that PSG076 might play a role in pollen germination and pollen tube growth in addition to its function in maturation. The evidences gathered in this work indicated that the six different transcripts from the single gene were differentially expressed during pollen development.

ORGANES GENITAUX, COPULATION ET FECONDATION CHEZ SYNISOMA MEDITERRANEA REZIG, 1989 (ISOPODA, VALVIFERA)

This study of the reproduction in Synisoma mediterranea shows that the species is gonochoristic and shows a sexual dimorphism. Both males and females have a dorsal genital system. The genital system consists of two symmetrical parts formed by the gonads, the genital ducts, and the endocrine formations. The copulation takes place after a pre-copulation period. The eggs are fertilized in the ovary; they develop in the marsupium. Incubation lasts 1 month, after which the young leave the brood pouch. Reproduction continues throughout the year, but the maximum of ovigerous females was observed in September, when the water temperature is around 25 C and salinity fluctuates between 36 and 371/2. L'etude de la reproduction chez Synisoma mediterranea a montre que cette espece est gonochorique, et possede un dimorphisme sexuel bien net. Chez le male et la femelle l'appareil genital est dorsal. Il est forme par deux parties symetriques qui se compose chacune d'une gonade, de conduits genitaux et de formations endocrines. La copulation s'effectue apres une phase precopulatoire. La fecondation des ovules se fait a l'interieur des ovaires. Les uufs se d eveloppent a l'interieur du marsupium. L'incubation dure 1 mois au bout duquel les jeunes quittent la poche incubatrice. La reproduction est continue tout le long de l'annee, cependant un maximum de femelles ovigeres a ete constate pendant le mois de septembre ou la temperature de l'eau est aux alentours de 25 C tandis que la salinite fluctue entre 36 et 371/2.

Aspects of Lactation in the Platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus (Monotremata), in Waters of Eastern New South Wales.

Female platypuses captured in waters of eastern New South Wales were found to be lactating between the months of October and March. Lactating females were most numerous in December, accounting for 64% of females captured. Non-lactating females were taken in all months, indicating that not all females breed successfully every year. There was no significant difference between the fatty acid complement of milk taken from a platypus lactating very late in the season and those of others sampled in December at the peak of the lactation season. Some evidence exists that females do not become reproductive until at least their second year of life. Some females were found lactating in consecutive years, and others lactated one year and not in the one following. Animals of over 9 years of age are known to breed. Most juveniles were captured in February, March and April, and it is suggested that the young leave the breeding burrows for the first time in late January through to March, and become independent from their mothers, who are ceasing lactation at that time.

Division of labour by song sparrows feeding fledged young

Parental feeding of nestlings and fledglings is described in an individually marked population of song sparrows. Thirty-five broods of nestlings were observed in 1976 and 68 broods of fledglings in 1977. On leaving the nest, individual young dispersed to separate locations in the breeding territory where, at 13 days of age, a single parent fed each young. In broods with even numbers of young, male and female parents divided the young equally in most cases. With odd numbers of young, either male or female could feed the extra young, but females did so more often. Older young were more mobile and harder to observe, but there was some evidence that family division persisted. Male parents played a larger role in feeding older young than younger ones. Feeding rates of 13-day-old young were 44% higher than those of 7- to 8-day-old nestlings, suggesting that energy demands of young and investment of parents are maximal after young leave the nest. I suggest that division of labour helps parents to locate young and regulate their parental feeding efficiently.

The Boston relief and the religion of Locri Epizephyrii

The three-sided Boston relief (Plate XIIIa), which is to be dated in the second quarter of the fifth century, has been the object of a long controversy with regard both to its subject matter and to its authenticity, which has been doubted by some scholars. The authenticity of the monument will be taken for granted here, since the work of Jucker, and especially the recent exhaustive stylistic and scientific study by Ashmole and Young leave no possible room for doubting it. Another aspect of the relief which I will take for granted in this paper is the artistic milieu which created it, since it has been convincingly shown that it is of South Italian, and more specifically Epizephyrian Locrian, origin. The object of the present paper is to discuss the iconography of the monument, especially with reference to the cult and religious environment of the city in which it was produced.The interpretation of the central scene and the two side-panels of the Boston relief is still a matter of controversy, although many hypotheses have been put forward since the monument first appeared in the antiquities market. Discussions of the iconography of this relief tend more often than not to connect the problem, in some way or other, with the subject matter of the Ludovisi throne (Plate XIIIb), another three-sided relief belonging to the artistic environment of Locri Epizephyrii, but of a much higher artistic quality. The interpretation of the scenes on the Ludovisi throne has not provoked the same amount of controversy, and it would, I think, be a fair statement that the interpretation of the central representation as the birth of Aphrodite is now generally accepted—more accurately, it is the new-born Aphrodite being assisted out of the sea, and to the shore, by the Moirai or the Horai. On each of the side-panels a female figure is shown, a naked pipe-player on one, a heavily draped young matron burning incense in a thymiaterion on the other. They have been interpreted as hetaira and young bride or wife, two contrasting figures associated with Aphrodite's Locrian cult.