Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai
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Sensi dell’organizzazione testuale interna in Ap 21,12-14
No full textThe purpose of this study is to explore the sense of unity and internal organization in Ap 21,12-14 as basis for a right interpretation. After establishing the authentic text through textual criticism, the analysis focuses to the internal organization of Ap 21,12-14, which can be the synthesis of the main aspects visible on the external side of the New Jerusalem: the wall, the 12 gates and the 12 foundations. The construction method of the biblical passage Ap 21,12-14 could reflect a rhetorical intention. The 12 gates, the 12 foundations and the surrounding wall with the following descriptions are indications of a secure, universal and open city that fascinates the faithful. At the same time, the internal organization of the text indicates aspects of the writing style, symbols and imagery used by the author.
Article history: Received 10.11.2024; Revised 01.11.2024; Accepted 11.11.2024.
Available online: 11.01.2025; Available print: 30.01.2025
THE EFFECT OF GOLD NANOPARTICLES SYNTHESIZED BY SODIUM CITRATE AND FUNCTIONALIZED WITH ANTICANCER AND NATURAL COMPOUNDS ON CANCER CELL LINES: DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF Associated Professor MARIUS IULIU SALAJAN (1952-2004)
No full textNatural compounds, such as trans-resveratrol, R, piperine, P, and icariin, Ic, have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and potential anticancer activity. Gold nanoparticles, GNPs, are biocompatible and can be used as carriers for biomolecule delivery, improving their performance at a small dose. The aim of the present study was to synthesize GNPs with sodium citrate, noted GNP_C (or GNP-C), and enhancing their stability and anticancer activity by functionalization with R, P, Ic, asparagine, A, and doxorubicin, D, as a standard drug. The obtained GNPs as cores, loading selected biomolecules, adsorbed on their surface as shells, were characterized by various methods, UV-Vis spectroscopy, XRD, AFM, TEM, and particle size analysis. The anticancer activity of functionalized GNP_C was evaluated using MTT assay in four human cell lines: breast cancer, MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 cell lines, tumor stem cells (isolated from glioblastoma), a GM1 cell line, and a normal (healthy) stem cell line derived from a dental follicle, DF. GNP_C functionalized with R, P or Ic exhibited an anticancer activity comparable to GNP_C functionalized with doxorubicin for low concentrations in gold and in natural compounds, thus reducing side effects of anticancer drug. These promising results need further examination using various cell lines and animal models, to clinical applications
ASSESSMENT OF GREENHOUSE GAS (GHG) EMISSIONS ASSOCIATED WITH RAPESEED FARMING IN ROMANIA
Get PDFAgriculture plays a role in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, especially by cultivating biofuel crops like rapeseed (Brassica napus). This study assesses the GHG emissions associated with rapeseed farming in Romania, focusing on 2022–2024. Data were collected from rapeseed cultivation at Mihai Viteazu, Cluj, under various fertilization and irrigation conditions. The study reveals that GHG emissions range from 89 to 231 kg CO2 eq/l biodiesel, with irrigation reducing emissions by approximately 1.3 times compared to non-irrigated conditions. Notably, nitrogen fertilization significantly increases nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions, which account for 80% of total GHG emissions, particularly under higher nitrogen application rates. The results highlight the need for optimized nitrogen management to balance yield increases with environmental impacts, as excessive nitrogen use intensifies NOx emissions due to enhanced nitrification and denitrification processes. The study also finds that irrigation mitigates GHG and NOx emissions, emphasizing its role in sustainable rapeseed farming. This research underscores the importance of precision nitrogen management and irrigation in reducing the carbon footprint of rapeseed biodiesel production while enhancing crop productivity in Romania
INVESTIGATION OF OPTICAL PROPERTIES AND SOLID-STATE STRUCTURE OF THIOPHENE-CONTAINING TRIARYLAMINE DERIVATIVES
Get PDFThe optoelectronic properties of some thiophene-containing triarylamines derived formally from triphenyl amine by enlarging one, two, or all phenyl groups with phenyl, thiophene-phenyl, bithiophene, or terthiophene units, along with the molecular structure and the supramolecular arrangement of the molecules in the lattices, were revealed by spectroscopic and, in the case of two of the compounds, single crystal X-ray diffractometry investigations. This study confirms that solid-state interactions and conformations significantly influence the absorption and emission characteristics of these compounds, essential factors in designing efficient photovoltaic materials
BEHAVIOR OF NEWTONIAN AND NON-NEWTONIAN FLUIDS IN PUMPING AND TRANSPORT PROCESSES
Get PDFThe present study investigates the behavior of Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids in pumping and transport processes, using a laboratory facility. The rheological behavior of the selected fluids were determined by a rotational viscometer with concentric cylinders. The effect of pressure difference on pumping of selected fluids in the laboratory circuit showed a linear decrease of effective/delivered volumetric flow rate for the Newtonian fluid, glycerin/water 80%, and a non-linear decrease for non-Newtonian fluid, Separan AP 30E, 2g/l
L’INSTRUMENTALISATION DE L’IDENTITÉ SOCIALE COMME FACTEUR DES CONFLITS ARMES ET INTERETHNIQUES EN RÉPUBLIQUE DEMOCRATIQUE DU CONGO
Get PDFThe Instrumentalization of Social Identity as a Factor in Armed and Interethnic Conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo? For several decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been engulfed in recurrent cycles of armed conflict and intercommunal violence driven by a complex interplay of endogenous and exogenous factors. While existing scholarship predominantly attributes these conflicts to the illegal exploitation of natural resources, this article broadens the analytical lens by examining additional structural and sociopolitical determinants. Central to this inquiry is the role of social identity in shaping, intensifying, and sustaining interethnic and intercommunal tensions. The study addresses two key questions: How has social identity contributed to the escalation of violent conflict in the DRC? And what mechanisms can mitigate this fragmentation in order to promote national unity and cohesion? By engaging these questions, this article contributes to ongoing scholarly debates on social identity theory, demonstrating its relevance as a critical explanatory framework for understanding the roots of armed conflict and interethnic violence in the DRC
STRATEGIC ASYMMETRY IN THE TAIWAN STRAIT IN THE CONTEXT OF A TRANSACTIONAL APPROACH TO US FOREIGN POLICY
Get PDFThis article examines how a transactional approach to United States foreign policy reshapes strategic asymmetry and deterrence dynamics in the Taiwan Strait. While existing scholarship focuses primarily on military balances and operational feasibility, this study argues that the most consequential asymmetry is political rather than material. It provides a comprehensive examination of contemporary cross-strait security dynamics, focusing on the accelerated military modernization of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the evolving asymmetric defense strategy of the Republic of China (ROC), in the context of declining confidence in U.S. strategic ambiguity. By doing so, the study highlights the deepening strategic asymmetry that characterizes the current security environment. It further argues that this asymmetry has far-reaching consequences for regional stability and the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific. The erosion of confidence in long-standing U.S. strategic ambiguity raises concerns that Taiwan could be used as leverage in U.S.–China negotiations. Economically and politically, the United States’ increasingly trade-focused policy agenda significantly affects Taiwan. The weakening of Taiwan’s so-called “silicon shield” demonstrates that transactionalism fundamentally reshapes the meaning of asymmetry in the Taiwan Strait by shifting deterrence from a credibility-based model toward a conditional and negotiable one
Photoperiodic influence of light-emitting diode (LED) on vegetative parameters of Spinacia oleracea L. (Spinach)
Get PDFThis research aims to determine sustainable strategies to optimize crop growth and yield, by testing the possibilities of using light-emitting diode (LED) technique to influence the vegetative parameters of spinach. A speed-breeding chamber was constructed using LEDs as a light source under varying photoperiods (19, 17, 15, and 13 hours). The control was established to be the normal light duration of 11 hours during the study period. Spinach vegetative parameters involving morphological parameters such as stem length, root length, and leaf area as well as physiological parameters such as plant weight and percentage necrosis and chlorosis were investigated for 30 days after transplanting. The results showed a significant (p < 0.05) increase in morphological parameters of spinach with increasing photoperiod. The spinach plant under the long photoperiod was observed to show the highest morphological and physiological properties. About a 30% increase in root length was observed in the speed-breeding chamber with the longest photoperiod duration compared to the control conditions. Significantly improved spinach plant weight was observed for 19-hour photoperiod compared to the shorter exposure (p < 0.05). A lower percentage of necrosis and chlorosis was observed in spinach with longer LED exposure. This research indicated that LED-induced speed breeding is very effective in improving the vegetative properties of spinach. It can be argued that a 19-hour LED-induced photoperiod is the optimum photo duration required by spinach to improve vegetative growth. Future research should be conducted to investigate the influence of similar LED-induced photoperiods on other species of vegetables.
Article history: Received 05 October 2025; Revised 09 December 2025; Accepted 11 December 2025; Available online 20 December 202
Ágnes Zsófia Kovács, The Memory of Architecture in Edith Wharton’s Travel Writings, New York: Routledge, 2025, 226 p.
Get PDFDrawing on a post-theory definition of travel writing as social discourse, Ágnes Zsófia Kovács’s book argues that a close analysis of architectural and natural spaces in Edith Wharton’s travel writing repositions these texts within a larger cultural field shaped by aesthetic, social, and historical conventions and by the institutionalization of early twentieth-century publishing. Most readers today associate Wharton with major novels of manners such as The Age of Innocence (1920) and The House of Mirth (1905), even though, as Kovács notes, Wharton was actually better known during her lifetime for her travel writing. Recent criticism has done much to change this view by broadening the Wharton canon through archival discoveries and the publication of little-known documents. It has also brought an interdisciplinary lens to Wharton’s engagements with ethnography, visual culture, and cultural history—discursive practices that together form the nebulous generic category of her “travel writing.” Kovács’s book is part of this growing body of criticism, as it seeks to complement existing research, including the major book-length study on the topic, Sarah Bird Wright’s Edith Wharton’s Travel Writing (1992) as well as articles by Annette Benert, Nancy Bentley, Emily Orlando, and Gary Totten. It aims to show that an analytical framework combining art-historical and ethnographic perspectives can reveal a more nuanced understanding of Wharton as a reflective thinker concerned with metaphysical questions such as the historical and cultural continuity encoded in her representation of architectural monuments, cultivated spaces, and natural landscapes
Corina Croitoru, Fronturi interioare. Poezia românească a celor două războaie mondiale, Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2024, 273 p.
Get PDFCorina Croitoru’s Fronturi interioare is a most welcome addition to Romanian literary history and criticism, as evidenced by its receipt of the 2024-2025 Bac-Fest Award for Poetry Criticism. Just like the author’s first book, Politica ironiei în poezia românească sub comunism (The Politics of Irony in Romanian Poetry under Communism), this volume examines the complex interplay between literary expression and historical reality. Fronturi interioare looks into an area of Romanian literature that has benefited from little scholarly attention, namely the poetry of the two World Wars. The volume, as clearly set forth in the introduction, revisits the poetry inspired by the war experience with a view to offering a critical perspective on how poetic expression, conceived as a lieu de memoire (via Pierre Nora), grapples with historical events while teasing the boundaries of its own aesthetic potential (21)