Evolutionary relationships of the Castle Hill buttercup (Ranunculus crithmifolius subspecies paucifolius) : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Plant Biology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The Castle Hill buttercup (Ranunculus crithmzfolius subsp. paucifolius) is a rare plant found only in a small area of limestone gravel at Castle Hill. Known as Kura Tawhiti in Maori, the region is renowned for an abundance of rare and endangered plants and has historically been an important area of Maori activity. The Castle Hill buttercup has a long conservation history, starting in 1948 and continuing to the present day. Recently the population of Ranunculus crithmifolius subsp. paucifolius has again declined to the point where further conservation effort is needed. Lockhart et al. (2001) found that the Castle Hill buttercup showed ambiguous phylogenetic results when chloroplast and nuclear DNA markers were sequenced. It was theorised that the Castle Hill buttercup was a product of one or more events of diploid hybridisation, which would account for these ambiguous phylogenetic results. The aims of this study were to investigate the Castle Hill buttercup and its closest relatives using phylogenetic methods. Data was gathered from nuclear ribosomal ITS and chloroplast h-\ DNA marker sequencing and the multi-locus fingerprinting (MLF) methods ISSR and AFLP. No evidence was found in this study to support the hypothesis that the Castle Hill buttercup is a diploid hybrid, but both MLF techniques showed a level of genetic distinctiveness between R. crithmifolius subsp. paucifolius and its sister subspecies R. crithmifolius subsp. crithmifolius. Other alpine Ranunculus taxa studied showed genetic groupings related to geography. Most notably, the species R. enysii was divided into two separate genetic groups, one in the Waimakariri basin area, and one located in the southern South Island. This southern group was itself divided into two genetically distinct groups, located in the east and west of the southern South Island. Comparison of the different data gathering methods used in this study showed that MLF has a higher phylogenetic resolution than DNA marker sequencing was able to determine genetic differences between individual accessions. AFLP was found to be superior to ISSR for use in New Zealand alpine Ranunculus due to greater consistency between duplicate reactions

Living in times of war: waste of c. 1600 from two garderobe chutes from the Castle of Middelburg-in-Flanders (Belgium)

The material remains and environmental data recovered during a rescue excavation in 2002-03 in the castle of the new town of Middelburg-in-Flanders throw light on the site, region and landscape in wartime. The paper discusses the historical context at the turn of the 16th century, the excavation of the castle, the taphonomy of the chutes, the analysis of the artefacts and ecological data recovered from two garderobe chutes in the upper court, and concludes with a synthesis focussing on the interpretation of the excavated record in the historically attested natural and socio-economic disruption caused by the Spanish-Dutch War

BOOK REVIEW OF LEAP OF FAITH BY DANIELLE STEEL

Leap of Faith is a novel by a famous novelist Danielle Steel. Leap of Faith debuted at the New York Times and is listed as the best-selling novel to fifty-two of Danielle Steel. This novel is about a girl from France, she is Marie-Ange Hawkins who lives in a magnificent castle name, Chateau de Marmouton. At the castle, she has childhood like everyone's dream. She has the freedom, security and abundant affection of both parents and her brother. But when Marie-Ange Hawkins is eleven years old, a tragic accident that befell his parents take her happiness. She becomes an orphan and is sent to America to live with a cruel aunt of her father. Alone in a foreign land, Marie-Ange Hawkins becomes slave of agricultural land by her aunt, only her friendship with Billy and her dream to return to the castle of her childhood memories that make Marie-Ange endures. But the magic happens when Marie-Ange is 21 years old. She makes it back to the castle Chateau de Marmouton again and even get a chance to be the hostess which is the new owner of the castle, Comte Bernard de Beauchamp proposed her. But behind his proposal, Comte Bernard de Beauchamp keeps his hidden bad intentions to Marie-Ange Hawkins. In desperation and uncertainty areas around her, Marie-Ange has to find the faith and courage to take her last step to save her love ones and herself. Danielle Steel packed this book with very interesting by a simple writing style and storyline in the 1800s which is different from the usual. This book is quite interesting and deserves to be read as entertainment by teenagers and adults

Family History: Inside and Out

The twenty-first century has seen the dawn of a new era of the family, an era that has its roots in the twentieth. Many of the social and scientific phenomena of our time - same-sex couples, in vitro fertilization, single-parent families, international adoption - have inspired changes in the law. Legal change has encompassed both constitutional doctrine and statutory innovations, from landmark Supreme Court decisions articulating a right to procreate (or not), a liberty interest in the care, custody, and control of one\u27s children, and even a right to marry, to state no-fault divorce statutes that have fundamentally changed the way married couples dissolve their legal relationships. But thus far, no legal scholar has attempted to write a comprehensive history of twentieth-century family law. To be sure, many excellent books have been written on particular aspects of the twentieth-century story. Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America, by Joanna Grossman and Lawrence Friedman, however, is the first book to my knowledge that attempts to provide a comprehensive social history of twentieth-century family law in the United States. The goal that Inside the Castle articulates is to look inside the home, inside the castle; to map a century\u27s worth of dynamic change (p. 22). The central claim of the book is that the rapid social change that occurred during the twentieth century forced the law to adapt in correspondingly sweeping ways

Capturing the castle: Tenant governance in social housing companies

In the contemporary landscape of social housing in Britain, the role of tenants on the governing boards of housing companies continues to be seen as deeply problematic. While tenant directors are recruited to bring a market-like influence to social housing governance, they appear to be approaching their positions as directors in a way that is contrary to the drive towards management efficiency. This paper adopts a social constructionist approach in order to recast the institutions of housing governance as contested articulations of ideology and the ‘problem’ of tenant board members as a hegemonic clash between discourses of governance. It concludes that tenant directors act as a significant dynamic in the political construction of social housing today

Lea Castle: looking outwards

Lea Castle, Co. Laois, is located on the River Barrow where it occupied an important position at the borders of three medieval territories. The castle and landscape are currently neglected and in a poor state of repair. Although the castle is understudied, some recent funded research has been carried out at the castle. The premise of this paper is to introduce the castle and discusses some interesting aspects of the medieval landscape including a series of fish ponds and a possible medieval vill

Fluids and barriers of the CNS establish immune privilege by confining immune surveillance to a two-walled castle moat surrounding the CNS castle

Neuronal activity within the central nervous system (CNS) strictly depends on homeostasis and therefore does not tolerate uncontrolled entry of blood components. It has been generally believed that under normal conditions, the endothelial blood-brain barrier (BBB) and the epithelial blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCSFB) prevent immune cell entry into the CNS. This view has recently changed when it was realized that activated T cells are able to breach the BBB and the BCSFB to perform immune surveillance of the CNS. Here we propose that the immune privilege of the CNS is established by the specific morphological architecture of its borders resembling that of a medieval castle. The BBB and the BCSFB serve as the outer walls of the castle, which can be breached by activated immune cells serving as messengers for outside dangers. Having crossed the BBB or the BCSFB they reach the castle moat, namely the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-drained leptomeningeal and perivascular spaces of the CNS. Next to the CNS parenchyma, the castle moat is bordered by a second wall, the glia limitans, composed of astrocytic foot processes and a parenchymal basement membrane. Inside the castle, that is the CNS parenchyma proper, the royal family of sensitive neurons resides with their servants, the glial cells. Within the CSF-drained castle moat, macrophages serve as guards collecting all the information from within the castle, which they can present to the immune-surveying T cells. If in their communication with the castle moat macrophages, T cells recognize their specific antigen and see that the royal family is in danger, they will become activated and by opening doors in the outer wall of the castle allow the entry of additional immune cells into the castle moat. From there, immune cells may breach the inner castle wall with the aim to defend the castle inhabitants by eliminating the invading enemy. If the immune response by unknown mechanisms turns against self, that is the castle inhabitants, this may allow for continuous entry of immune cells into the castle and lead to the death of the castle inhabitants, and finally members of the royal family, the neurons. This review will summarize the molecular traffic signals known to allow immune cells to breach the outer and inner walls of the CNS castle moat and will highlight the importance of the CSF-drained castle moat in maintaining immune surveillance and in mounting immune responses in the CNS

An enamel-painted glass bottle from a “Turkish pit” in Buda

The fragments of a high quality, enamel painted, blue glass bottle with the date 1671 on its shoulder were found in the Castle District of Buda, in a huge pit dated to the period of the Ottoman occupation. The shape of the object shows eastern influences, while its decoration is clearly western. The origin of the bottle is probably Transylvanian, based on its characteristics and a small group of parallels

Tales of Wonder. Containing The Castle of Enchantment or The Mysterious Deception. The Robbers Daughter or The Phantom of the Grotto. The Magic-Legacy & c.

Tales of Wonder contains four short gothic stories. Their titles are: The Castle of Enchantment or The Mysterious Deception, The Robber\u27s Daughter or The Phantom of the Grotto, The Magic Legacy, and The Enchanted Knight; or Phebe. For a more detailed summary of each, please see the Gothic Archive\u27s supplemental materials.https://epublications.marquette.edu/english_gothic/1022/thumbnail.jp