1,123 research outputs found
Parga, and the Ionian islands; comprehending a refutation of the mis-statements of the Quarterly Review and of Lieut.- Gen. Sir Thomas Maitland, on the subject; with a report of the trial between that officer and the author.
No full textPreface: Bosset, C.P.(de)Appendix.Dedication:Content description: TitleIllustration: (Maps ,)Pagination: PP26+530PVolumes: 1Text Genre:ProseIllustration: (χάρτες ,
People, soil and manioc interactions in the upper Amazon region
No full textAbstract Clara Patricia Peña Venegas (2015). People, soil and manioc interactions in the upper Amazon region. PhD thesis, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, with summaries in English and Dutch, 210 pp. The presence of anthropogenic soils, or Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE), fuels the debate about how pristine the Amazon ecosystem actually is, and about the degree to which humans affected Amazonian diversity in the past. Most upland soils of the Amazon region are very acid, highly weathered, and have a limited nutrient holding capacity; together, these characteristics limit permanent or intensive agriculture. Várzeas or floodplains that are periodically enriched with Andean sediments carried and deposited by rivers that cross the Amazon Basin, are moderately fertile but experience periodic floods that limit agriculture to crops able to produce in a short time. ADE patches in uplands usually are more fertile than non-anthropogenic uplands, providing a better environment for agriculture. Most studies about how people manage a broad portfolio of natural and anthropogenic soils come from non-indigenous farmers of Brazil. There is limited information about how indigenous people use a broad soil portfolio, and how this affects the diversity of their staple crop, manioc. With the aim to contribute to the understanding of the role of ADE in indigenous food production, as compared with other soils, and in order to provide information about how indigenous people use and create diversity in Amazonia, research was carried out among five different ethnic groups living in two locations of the Colombian Amazon. Several social and natural science methods were used during the study. These included ethnography, participant observation, structured and un-structured interviews, sampling of soil and manioc landraces, standardized protocols for the quantification of soil physical and chemical variables, and molecular techniques to assess genetic diversity of manioc and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Results indicate that ADE patches from the Middle Caquetá region of Colombia are not contrastingly more fertile than surrounding, non-anthropogenic upland soils, except for higher levels of available phosphorus in ADE. Indigenous farmers from the Middle Caquetá region do not use ADE more frequently or more intensively than non-ADE uplands. The swidden agriculture practiced on ADE and on non-ADE uplands is similar. Although ADE patches were not specifically important for swiddens and therefore relatively unimportant for the production of manioc. They were important as sites for indigenous settlements and for maintaining agroforestry systems with native and exotic species that do not grow in soils with low available phosphorus. Várzeas were also used for agriculture, whether farmers had access to ADE or not. Differences occurred between locations in the type of floodplains selected and the way they were cultivated. Those differences were not related to differences in soil conditions but were associated with the cultural traditions of the different ethnic groups who cultivate low floodplains, as well as labor availability when organizing collective work (mingas) to harvest floodplains. Manioc diversity among indigenous communities was not predominantly related with differences in soil types. Complete manioc stocks were cultivated equally on ADE, non-ADE uplands or várzeas. One issue that could be related with this non-specificity in manioc-soil combinations was the similar arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi diversity of soils and the high number of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbionts associated to manioc roots; these were shown to be independent from the physicochemical composition of the soil or the manioc landrace. Differences in the diversity of manioc stocks among ethnic groups were predominantly related to cultural values attached to different manioc landraces. This study of indigenous agriculture in environments with natural and anthropogenic soils indicates that people have had an important role in transforming the Amazonian ecosystem through agriculture, with consequences on forest composition and forest dynamics. Pre-Columbian people contributed to this by creating an additional soil- the Amazonian Dark Earths. Although ADE are not presently considered to play a major role in indigenous food production, indigenous people believe that ADE have had an important role in the management of the first maniocs cultivated by their ancestors. The domestication of manioc and the creation and maintenance of hundreds of different landraces by indigenous people contributed, and still contributes, to the region’s plant diversity.</p
La Cassazione si pronuncia sull'esatta portata della fattispecie di "denuncia di un sinistro non accaduto" di cui all'art. 642 c.p.
No full textNella prima parte della nota, l’Autore analizza la fattispecie di «denuncia di un sinistro non accaduto» di cui all’art. 642, comma 2, c.p., introdotta nel 2002 nell’ambito della riforma delle assicurazioni R.C. Auto, per, poi, affrontare la questione su cui si è pronunciata la Corte di cassazione, relativa al significato da attribuire al concetto di “sinistro”. Infine, l’Autore offre le proprie riflessioni sui rapporti intercorrenti tra la fattispecie esaminata e le altre ipotesi delittuose previste dall’art. 642 c.p. e sulla compatibilità di tali reati con il principio di offensività.In the first part of the note, the Author analyzes the crime of “denunciation of a false accident” that was introduced into the art. 642 c.p. in 2002, and, then, the question about the meaning of “sinistro” (accident) on which the Supreme Court stated. Finally, the Author offers his own reflections on the connection between the examinated crime and other felonies provided under art. 642 c.p., and, also, on compatibility of those crimes with the principle of seriousness of the offense
Book Review: Jesus in an age of enlightenment: Radical gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. By Jonathan C.P Birch
No full textThis is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in [Literature and Theology] following peer review. The version of record [Greenaway, J. (2021). Jesus in an Age of Enlightenment: Radical gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. By Jonathan C.P Birch. Literature and Theology, 35(1), 100–102] is available online at: [https://academic.oup.com/litthe/article/35/1/100/6130117?guestAccessKey=0523008b-46e6-4ed2-ab5d-001d93207bed].A review of Jesus in an Age of Enlightenment: Radical Gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson by Jonathan C.P Birc
On morphology, molecular composition and breakdown behaviour in semi-crystalline polymers
No full textTransmembrane glycoprotein gp41 of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type I : gene synthesis, recombinant expression and immunological characterization
No full textDissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2012.HIV, the causative agent of AIDS, is one of the first retroviruses to infect humans.
Controlling this epidemic is extremely challenging. Studies that focus on
understanding the biology, biochemistry and structural biology of HIV as well as the
interactions between viral components and new drug candidates are required to
determine an effective strategy to combat HIV/AIDS. Gp41 might be of interest for
vaccine development because of its antigenic neutralizing epitope sites previously
discovered. Here, the ecto- and endo-domains of HIV-1 gp41 were studied. The
endo-domain was truncated into three gene fragments namely gp41T3 (405 bp),
gp41T2 (591 bp) and gp41T1(696 bp), all containing the Kennedy domain located
on the C-terminal of gp41. The 80 amino acid fragment gp41(80) of the ectodomain,
located on the N-terminal of gp41 was also constructed. The pMALgp41T3,
pMAL-gp41(80) and gp41T1 constructs were expressed in either E. coli or
P. pastoris and purified. Both the pMAL-gp41T3 and the pMAL-gp41(80) peptides
proved to be antigenic towards HIV positive patient sera determined by ELISA, but
in the case of gp41T1 no antigenicity was found. Gp41(80) showed increasing
antibody-antigen binding activity as the CD4 T cell count decreased, i.e. as HIV
infection progressed towards AIDS, while gp41T3 showed no correlation between
the CD4 count and the antibody-antigen binding activity. Therefore, irrespective of
the decline in the CD4 counts of the patients there is a constant antibody-antigen
binding activity. It was also indicated that the hydrophobicity of pMAL-gp41T3 was
higher than for pMAL-gp41(80). The high levels of hydrophobicity of this peptide
may lead to its presentation by antigen presenting cells on CD1 as a “lipid like” peptide to CD4/CD8 double negative T-cell or NKT cells. Auto-immunity may be of
some concern, because antibodies and other forms of immunity induced by the
CD4/CD8 double negative T-cell population are often involved in auto-immunity.
Many viruses have, as part of their invasion strategy, the ability to modulate the
apoptotic pathways of the host. Preliminary evidence shows that the pMAL-gp41T3
construct has apoptotic properties. Considerable homology was illustrated by the
sequence alignment of gp41T3 with apoptotic TNFα, FasL, TRAIL, APRIL,
TRANCE and VEGI. Gp41 may be considered as a vaccine target due to its
antigenicity shown in this study, but its apoptotic and auto-immune potential argue
for care. The ecto-domain seems to elicit antibodies that do not prevent the
progression to AIDS. Even if no vaccine can be made from this, the antibody
response to the endo-domain of gp41 was found not to be perturbed by the
progression towards AIDS. It may therefore, find use as a surrogate marker for HIV
infection that may be useful in diagnosis. The immune properties of pMALgp41(
80) and pMAL-gp41T3 may be exploited to steer immunity away from AIDS,
e.g. by selective suppression of pathological auto-immune antibody activity by
idiotypic vaccines or suppression of peptide induced apoptosis of CD4 T-cells by
pharmaceutical or biological means.BiochemistryMScUnrestricte
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