35 research outputs found
Phylogeography and population dynamics of dengue viruses in the Americas
No full textChanges in Dengue virus (DENV) disease patterns in the Americas over recent decades have been attributed, at least in part, to repeated introduction of DENV strains from other regions, resulting in a shift from hypoendemicity to hyperendemicity. Using newly sequenced DENV-1 and DENV-3 envelope (E) gene isolates from 11 Caribbean countries, along with sequences available on GenBank, we sought to document the population genetic and spatiotemporal transmission histories of the four main invading DENV genotypes within the Americas and investigate factors that influence the rate and intensity of DENV transmission. For all genotypes, there was an initial invasion phase characterized by rapid increases in genetic diversity, which coincided with the first confirmed cases of each genotype in the region. Rapid geographic dispersal occurred upon each genotype's introduction, after which individual lineages were locally maintained, and gene flow was primarily observed among neighboring and nearby countries. There were, however, centers of viral diversity (Barbados, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Suriname, Venezuela, and Brazil) that were repeatedly involved in gene flow with more distant locations. For DENV-1 and DENV-2, we found that a "distance-informed" model, which posits that the intensity of virus movement between locations is inversely proportional to the distance between them, provided a better fit than a model assuming equal rates of movement between all pairs of countries. However, for DENV-3 and DENV-4, the more stochastic "equal rates" model was preferre
Levend in Leviathan : een onderzoek naar de theorie over 'christendom' in de politieke theologie van Oliver O'Donovan
No full textThis study surveys the theory about 'Christendom' developed by the Anglican theologian Oliver O'Donovan. The author defines 'Christendom' as a state of affairs in which the Christian faith in one way or another gives public direction to society and/or politics. The investigation is positioned within the present debate about the role of religion in Dutch society. The Anglo-Saxon Christendom debate illustrates that the discussions about the societal role of religion should not deny the theological dimension to this question. The Christendom debate of our time has been for the most part initiated by two American theologians, John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas. They take a critical view of Christendom. Besides this option there are four other positions in the Christendom debate: the Christian faith as civil religion, the liberal vision, the theocratic approach, and confessional or principled pluralism. A comparison between them and O'Donovan's theory shows out that the latter has the potential to unite what usually only exists in mutual tension and to open up a fruitful continuation of the 'Christendom' debate as well as the discussions about the role of religion in society.Stichting "Afbouw", KampenReligious Studie
Political life writing in the Pacific
No full textThis book aims to reflect on the experiential side of writing political lives in the Pacific region. The collection touches on aspects of the life writing art that are particularly pertinent to political figures: public perception and ideology; identifying important political successes and policy initiatives; grappling with issues like corruption and age-old political science questions about leadership and ‘dirty hands’. These are general themes but they take on a particular significance in the Pacific context and so the contributions explore these themes in relation to patterns of colonisation and the memory of independence; issues elliptically captured by terms like ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’; the nature of ‘self’ presented in Pacific life writing; and the tendency for many of these texts to be written by ‘outsiders’, or at least the increasingly contested nature of what that term means
A land-based controlled-source electromagnetic method for oil field exploration: An example from the Schoonebeek oil field
No full textControlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) data are sensitive to the subsurface resistivity distribution, but 3D inversion results are ambiguous, and in-depth interpretation is challenging. Resolution and sensitivity analysis as well as the influence of noise on resolution have been used to quantify 3D inversion performance. Based on these numerical studies, a land-based CSEM survey was designed and carried out at the Schoonebeek oil field, the Netherlands. The acquired data were processed and subsequently inverted for the resistivity distribution. The 1D and 3D inversion of horizontal electric-field data show the reservoir at the right depth, matching well-log data without using a priori knowledge about the actual reservoir depth. We used a 1D model with fine layering as a starting model for 3D inversion. Synthetic data inversions and sensitivity tests demonstrate that resistive or conductive bodies inside the reservoir zone may be well-detectable with our limited acquisition geometry. Spatial variations in the reservoir resistivity are visible in the measured data and after inversion by assuming good knowledge of the background resistivity distribution. The reservoir resistivity and size, however, have to be interpreted with care considering the intrinsically low resolution of electromagnetic (EM) which is further reduced by manmade EM noise.Applied Geophysics and Petrophysic
Encouraging vegetable intake in children : the role of parental strategies, cognitive development and properties of food
No full textBackground Despite the health benefits, children’s fruit and vegetable intake is below that recommended. This thesis focuses on the role of parental strategies, children’s cognitive development and properties of food in order to develop new approaches to increase fruit and vegetable preferences and intake in 4 to 12-year-old children. Methods First, we conducted a qualitative study (N=28) with three age groups representing different cognitive developmental stages, and a parental survey study (N=242). These studies indicated that texture was more important for 4-5-year-old children’s food preferences than for 11-12-year olds and that the parental strategy of ‘Choice’ was positively related to both children’s fruit and vegetable intake. Subsequently, in three intervention studies, the focus was on vegetables only, because previous approaches have been less effective for vegetable intake than for fruit intake. We investigated three approaches for their effectiveness in increasing children’s vegetable acceptance: 1. Varying the preparation method (4-12y; N=94): Carrots and French beans were prepared in six ways: mashed, boiled, steamed, grilled, stir-fried and deep-fried. 2. Flavour-nutrient learning (7-8y; N=19): During a 14-day learning period, vegetable flavours were combined with energy (maltodextrin) or without energy in a drink. 3. Choice-offering (4-6y; N=303): Children had no choice, a choice before a meal, or a choice during a meal regarding which vegetable out of two they were going to eat. Results Varying the preparation method demonstrated that steamed and boiled were preferred over the other preparations (p liking were a uniform surface, the typical vegetable taste and crunchiness, whereas brown colouring and a granular texture negatively predicted liking. Due to insufficient consumption of the vegetable drinks (≈3 grams of 150 grams), flavour-nutrient learning could not take place. The pure vegetable taste was too intense. In the choice-offering study, the children appreciated a choice before the meal, but the three conditions did not differ for vegetable liking (p=0.43) or intake (≈52 gram; p=0.54). In the no-choice condition, high reactant children consumed less vegetables than low reactant children (Δ=28 grams; p=0.04). Conclusion To encourage children’s vegetable liking and intake, the following approaches may be most promising: 1) serve vegetables as crunchy as possible without brown colouring or a granular texture; 2) provide children with choice during vegetable eating; 3) stimulate a positive vegetable-eating context. Finally, serving vegetables in mixed dishes is a good way to facilitate flavour-flavour and flavournutrient learning, but the effectiveness of flavour-nutrient learning for increasing children’s vegetable acceptance needs to be determined in future research. <br/
The role of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) in the national liberation struggle in South Africa with reference to the rural far northern Transvaal, 1976-1990
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (leaves 250-275)
Disciplining the Spectator: Subjectivity, the Body and Contemporary Spectatorship
No full textIn this thesis the author argues that although questions of the spectator’s corporeal engagement with film are much neglected by film theory, the body is nevertheless a central term within contemporary cinema, in its mode of address, as a locus of anxiety in media effects debate, and as site of disciplinary practices. And while the thesis begins by demonstrating both the socially and historically constructed nature of spectatorship, and the specific practices that work to create contemporary cinema’s corporeal address, the latter half of the dissertation devotes itself to revealing the regulatory implications of this physical address. That is, the author shows that cinema’s perceived capacity of affect the body of the spectator is a profound source of cultural anxiety. But more importantly, through an analysis of the films Funny Games, Irréversible, Wolf Creek, and the genre of ‘torture porn’ more generally, what is revealed in these final chapters is that the regulation of cinema in the contemporary era is less a question of the institutionalised censorship of texts, and more a question of regulating the ‘self’. In this respect, the author demonstrates the specific disciplinary practices that attempt to present the problem of violent, and sexually violent, imagery not as a textual issue per se, but a question of the formation of appropriate spectatorial relations. Moreover, this study begins the process of teasing out the ways in which the contemporary spectator is induced to see the problem of media violence as one that can be resolved through what
Foucault would term, techniques of the self
Patronage and Professionalism in the writings of Hannah More, Charlotte Smith and Ann Yearsley, 1770-1806.
No full textThis thesis examines the changes which were occurring in the literary marketplace at the end of the eighteenth century. The place of the traditional aristocratic patrons was gradually being taken by publishers and book sellers, who were increasingly dealing with writers direct. This move away from patronage towards a new form of professionalism took place during two decades of intense political upheaval and questioning of national identity, and at a point where women writers were being
seen increasingly as a natural part of literary culture.
The argument is focused on three case studies of women who came to prominence in the 1780s, and explores their different experiences of life as professional
writers, patrons and protegees. Their work is placed within the context of two significant political and social events; the beginnings of the movement to abolish the
slave trade in 1788, and the French Revolution. In particular, the thesis enagages with the Revolution's descent into the Terror in the 1790s, and the response of British writers to this most brutal phase.
Also considered are the various ways in which a literary work could be brought into print at the end of the eighteenth century, and how the three central women were
able to move from one mode of publishing to another. This thesis also sets out to offer a fresh perspective on the careers of these women, and in particular to recover the
reputation of Ann Yearsley as a writer of note in the 1790s.
It is proposed that a broader view needs to be taken of the factors influencing literary production in the 1780s and 90s than is currently the case, and the argument is
concluded with a consideration of the relationship between patronage and professionalism at the end of the eighteenth century, and an assessment of the significance of patronage in an increasingly professional literary marketplace
The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases
No full textThe SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article
The Peruvian anchoveta and its upwelling ecosystem: three decades of change
No full textClupeoid fisheries, Population dynamics, Upwelling, Peru, Engraulis ringens, Livestock Production/Industries,
