The most combinatorially interesting maximal subgroups of M24 are the stabilizers of an octad, a duum, a sextet and a trio. In this chapter we investigate the way in which the stabilizer of one of these objects acts on the others. This involves some basic but fascinating character theory; the approach given here is intended to be self-contained. For each of the four types of object we draw a graph in which each member is joined to members of the shortest orbit of its stabilizer. Thus in the octad graph we join two octads if they are disjoint; we join two dua if they cut one another 8.4/4.8; we join two sextets if the tetrads of one cut the tetrads of the other (22.04)6; and we join two trios if they have an octad in common. A diagram of each of these four graphs is included as is the way in which these graphs decompose under the action of one of the other stabilizers. Each of these graphs is, of course, preserved by M24.

Chapter 11 traces the development of Goethe’s Faust, from the first scenes drafted in the 1770s, when Goethe was in his twenties, to the end of Part Two, completed shortly before his death in 1832. The chapter highlights the at times uneasy combination of antiquated material and modern intention within the work, and the contradictions that resulted from its protracted genesis. At the same time, attention is drawn to the sheer power of Goethe’s language, to its rhythms and the characters that it creates. Goethe’s Faust, the chapter argues, is a masterpiece with flaws.

This chapter focuses on the technical aspects of emoji, including how emoji are encoded and rendered for use in digital communication. The chapter explains how emoji are developed by the Unicode Consortium as well as considering the social implications of this process. Unicode characters, and emoji codepoints, modifiers, and sequences are explained. The chapter also deals with emoji design and aesthetics, and explains how emoji are visually rendered as glyphs by different ‘vendors’ such as social media platforms. The chapter then examines the role of semiotic technologies in both enabling and constraining the ways they are used. It concludes by discussing the implications of emoji encoding and rendering on corpus construction, annotation, and concordancing.

reviews what has been learned about how Chinese characters and words are identified. The chapter begins with a brief review of what has been learned about word identification from studies of alphabetic languages like English, using this review to identify “benchmark” findings that are then used to organize a discussion of what has been learned about Chinese character and word identification. The chapter also reviews those computer models that have been developed to simulate and explain Chinese character and word identification.

provides an overview of the Chinese language and its many dialects and how they differ from other Asiatic languages (e.g., Japanese). The chapter then reviews the origins and evolution of the Chinese writing system. The chapter closes with an overview of the modern Chinese writing system and its conventions, including points of difference with other writing systems (e.g., alphabetic scripts like English) and examples of how words can be decomposed into characters, radicals, and strokes.

For most people, the most obvious thought or image that sexual reproduction brings to mind is that of sexual intercourse, a mating between two individuals of opposite sexes, which will result in the birth of their common offspring. While biparental reproduction is certainly the most common mode of sexual reproduction among all eukaryotes, it is not the only one, and the way it is carried out can depart substantially, in many different ways, from the ‘canonical’ description above. What is common to all these modes is that two distinct sexually compatible individuals (parents) undertake a sexual exchange that leads to the generation of new individuals with a genetic constitution obtained from the association and/or the reassortment of those parents’ genomes. The key event in this mode of reproduction, technically called amphigony, is the fusion of two gametes or two nuclei functioning as gametes (syngamy), each produced by one parent, to form a zygote. While in species with anisogamy (i.e. with distinct male and female gametes; Chapter 4), only gametes of opposite sex are compatible, the two individuals that produce them are not necessarily a male and a female.

We are all familiar with the changes in an organism during development, followed by its reproduction, which are repeated generation after generation. Biologists describe this development–reproduction sequence as the life cycle: the series of transformations and reproductive events that, from a given stage of life of an organism, leads to the corresponding stage in a subsequent generation. We can describe a biological cycle as going from zygote to zygote, but also from adult to adult, or from embryo to embryo: in a cyclical process, the choice of the ‘initial phase’ is arbitrary or conventional, as the notorious ‘the chicken or the egg’ dilemma beautifully illustrates.

In the course of their lives, organisms spend time and energy on a number of activities and functions, of which reproduction is only one – think of growth, defence against predators and pests, and others. How many resources are used for reproduction, how much time is devoted to it and how this time is distributed over the course of life are all elements that characterize the different reproductive strategies. From an even wider perspective, in those organisms that at certain times in their lives can opt for one or another reproductive mode (e.g. sexual or asexual reproduction, as in many plants and many marine invertebrates), a reproductive strategy includes also this reproductive policy.

On February 1997 the birth was announced of a sheep named Dolly, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell of a mother individual. The event attracted enormous media attention. Dolly, born on 5 July 1996, actually had three ‘mothers’: one provided the egg (whose nucleus was removed), another the nucleus with the DNA picked out from a somatic cell (i.e. a cell of the body not specialized for reproduction), while the third mother carried the cloned embryo in her womb until parturition.

Ever since living beings arose from non-living organic compounds on a primordial planet, more than 3.5 billion years ago, a multitude of organisms has unceasingly flourished by means of the reproduction of pre-existing organisms. Through reproduction, living beings generate other material systems that to some extent are of the same kind as themselves. The succession of generations through reproduction is an essential element of the continuity of life. Not surprisingly, the ability to reproduce is acknowledged as one of the most important properties to characterize living systems. But let’s step back and put reproduction in a wider context, the endurance of material systems.

Acquiring the traits specific to a given sex, during early development or at another point during the life of an organism, is usually a complex process. Although the sex condition of an individual is conventionally defined based on the type of gametes it is able to produce (Chapter 4), the sex-specific phenotype is generally not limited to the organs of reproduction. Each of these characters can maintain a certain degree of independence from other sexual traits in the same organism, be subject to different developmental control, and show different degrees of sensitivity to the environment. Therefore, sexual differentiation extends to the development of the secondary sexual characters, which can be morphological, physiological, behavioural, or combinations of these. An exploration of this fascinating subject requires some preliminary clarification about systems and mechanisms of sex determination and sex differentiation.

In Chapter 1 we defined sexual reproduction as a form of reproduction that generates new individuals carrying a genome obtained by the association and/or the reassortment of genetic material from more than one source. In the most familiar form of sexual reproduction, the new genome is formed by the union of (partial) copies of the genomes of two parents through the fusion of two special cells produced for that purpose, the gametes, into a single cell, the zygote. This is the way most multicellular eukaryotes, ourselves included, reproduce sexually.

A zygote does not necessarily derive from the fusion of gametes or gametic nuclei produced by different individuals. Both egg and sperm may instead be produced by the same individual, a sufficient simultaneous hermaphrodite (Chapter 4). In this case, the offspring has only one parent. However, the gametes that merge are the products of independent processes of meiosis undergone by different germ cells, although in the same individual: this distinguishes self-fertilization (or selfing) from some forms of parthenogenesis where there is the fusion of two of the four nuclei deriving from the same meiosis, as we will see in the next sections (Figure 6.1).

We discuss the action of a generic group on a complex vector space, representing the elements of the group as matrices.

Molière’s life and works offer numerous parallels with the commedia dell’artie, which goes some way towards explaining the profound singularity of his plays and scenic practices in the context of seventeenth-century French theatre. For roughly fifteen years, Molière rubbed shoulders with the Italians and undertook various adaptations of original works derived from the commedia dell’arte, as is demonstrated by several of his plays that are based on famous soggetti. Molière also borrowed a number of his characters from the commédia dell’arte, reproducing both their names and their behaviour. The similarities are not only textual but also in his acting style: physical and verbal virtuosity, and above all the use of facial expressions to demonstrate his characters’ emotions. Molière’s plays were constructed around such lazzi, which gave him a certain flexibility in the elaboration of his shows. Finally, it is in his qualities as an author, actor and company leader, and also in his way of practising theatrical activity as a true entrepreneur that Molière can be seen to have been influenced by the commedia dell’arte more generally.

This chapter offers a guide to reading Plato’s dialogues, including an overview of his corpus. We recommend first considering each dialogue as its own unified work, before considering how it relates to the others. In general, the dialogues explore ideas and arguments, rather than presenting parts of a comprehensive philosophical system that settles on final answers. The arc of a dialogue frequently depends on who the individual interlocutors are. We argue that the traditional division of the corpus (into Socratic, middle, late stages) is useful, regardless of whether it is a chronological division. Our overview of the corpus gives special attention to the Republic, since it interweaves so many of his key ideas, even if nearly all of them receive longer treatments in other dialogues. Although Plato recognized the limits inherent in written (as opposed to spoken) philosophy, he devoted his life to producing these works, which are clearly meant to help us seek the deepest truths. Little can be learned from reports of Plato’s oral teaching or the letters attributed to him. Understanding the dialogues on their own terms is what offers the greatest reward.

The objective of Chapter 3 is to elucidate how Kamigata rakugo differs from Tokyo rakugo. Some differences are plain to see, but an in-depth analysis of their subtleties is key to understanding how they differ on multiple levels. Numerous stories told in both traditions are therefore presented to draw attention to the ways that they contrast in aspects of performance style and aspects of content. I selected merchant stories to analyze to help highlight the fact that Kamigata rakugo is ‘merchant-centered’. Chapter 3 also includes descriptions of ten recurring characters and character types in Kamigata rakugo, as well as some discussion of the two-man standup comedy art of manzai.

The collective nature of character is a defining aspect of magical realism in the Americas and arguably the mode’s most notable departure from the conventions of literary realism. Magical realist authors aim to express communal realities, whether political, historical and/or cultural. To this end, they create 'insubstantial' characters who are not individualized or given complex interior lives. Rather, their identity is relational and based in collective structures, whether family, class, culture and/or ideology. Given magical realism’s greater investment in political and cultural selfhood, characters tend toward archetype and their lives toward allegory. The magical realist strategy of minimizing individuality in favor of collective experience allows authors to foreground politics over personality. As readers, we are asked to focus not on single selves, but on the political arc of entire continents and cultures. The authors discussed are García Márquez, Carpentier, Allende, Borges, Donoso and Erdrich.