The roots of "Western European societal evolution". A concept of Europe by Jenő Szűcs

Jenő Szűcs wrote his essay entitled Sketch on the three regions of Europe in the early 1980s in Hungary. During these years, a historically well-argued opinion emphasising a substantial difference between Central European and Eastern European societies was warmly received in various circles of the political opposition. In a wider European perspective Szűcs used the old “liberty topos” which claims that the history of Europe is no other than the fulfillment of liberty. In his Sketch, Szűcs does not only concentrate on questions concerning the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it is this stream of thought which brought a new perspective to explaining European history. His picture of the Middle Ages represents well that there is a way to integrate all typical Western motifs of post-war self-definition into a single theory. Mainly, the “liberty motif”, as a sign of “Europeanism” – in the interpretation of Bibó’s concept, Anglo-saxon Marxists and Weber’s social theory –, developed from medieval concepts of state and society and from an analysis of economic and social structures. Szűcs’s historical aspect was a typical intellectual product of the 1980s: this was the time when a few Central European historians started to outline non-Marxist aspects of social theory and categories of modernisation theories, but concealing them with Marxist terminology

Sous-vide húsokban előforduló humán patogén baktériumok hőrezisztenciájának vizsgálata = Heat resistance examination of human pathogenic bacteria in sous-vide meat

A sous-vide technológia a kíméletes hőkezelési technológiák közé tartozik, amely során pasztőrözött termékeket állítunk elő. A hőkezelés alacsony hőfoka (55-90 °C) miatt az így készült termékek magasabb tápértékkel és kedvezőbb érzékszervi tulajdonságokkal rendelkeznek a hagyományos technológiákhoz képest. A technológiával szemben támasztott alapvetőkövetelmény az egyensúly megteremtésea mikrobiológiai biztonság és az organoleptikus tulajdonságok között. A mikrobiológiai minőség biztosítása azonban komoly kihívás elé állítja a technológiával foglalkozó szakembereket. A szerzők célja a sous-vide technológiával készült húsok mikrobiológiai minőségének javítása volt. A hús, a legdrágább és a leggyakrabban felhasznált sous-vide nyersanyag, ezért mikroflórájának vizsgálata kiemelt jelentőségű. A húsban előforduló patogén mikrobák közül a spórás Clostridium perfringens és az enterobaktériumokhoz tartozó Salmonella Enteritidis hőrezisztenciáját vizsgáltuk mesterségesen befertőzött csirkehúsban. Kísérleteink során különböző hőfokon és hőntartási idők mellett, légköri nyomáson és vákuum-csomagolásban, a baktériumokkal befertőzött felületileg sterilezett, darált csirkemellet hőkezeltünk. Meghatároztuk a hőkezelési paramétereket, a kezelési hőfokot és a kezelési időt, valamint a hőpusztulási paramétereket: a tizedelési időt (D), a z értéket, a relatív pusztulási sebességet (RPS) és a relatív pusztulási időt (RPI). Vizsgálataink eredménye alapján t-próbával ellenőriztük, hogy a hőkezelés csírapusztító hatásának mértékére milyen hatással van a csomagolás. The sous-vide technology belongs to mild heat treatment technologies in which pasteurized products are prepared. Due to the low temperature (55-90 °C) of the heat treatment, products have higher nutritional values and better organoleptic properties compared to conventional technologies. The basic requirement for this technology is to find the right balance between microbiological safety and organoleptic properties. However, ensuring high microbiological quality poses a serious challenge for professionals dealing with sous-vide technology. The goal of the authors was to improve the microbiological quality of meats made by sous-vide technology. Meat is the most expensive and the most commonly used raw material for sous-vide processes, therefore, testing its microflora is of high priority. The heat resistance of pathogenic bacteria of meat, such as spore-forming Clostridium perfringens and enterobacteria Salmonella Enteritidis was tested in artificially inoculated chicken meat. During our experiments, bacterially inoculated and surface sterilized minced chicken breast was heat treated at various temperatures and hold times, at atmospheric pressure and in vacuum-packaging as well. Effective heat treatment parameters (temperature and hold time) and heat destruction parameters such as decimal reduction time (D), z-value, relative thermal death rate (RTDR) and relative thermal death time (RTDT) were determined. Based on our results, it was investigated, using a t-test, how the magnitude of the germ reducing effect of the heat treatment was influenced by the packaging

Disappearing scales in carps: Re-visiting Kirpichnikov's model on the genetics of scale pattern formation

The body of most fishes is fully covered by scales that typically form tight, partially overlapping rows. While some of the genes controlling the formation and growth of fish scales have been studied, very little is known about the genetic mechanisms regulating scale pattern formation. Although the existence of two genes with two pairs of alleles (S&s and N&n) regulating scale coverage in cyprinids has been predicted by Kirpichnikov and colleagues nearly eighty years ago, their identity was unknown until recently. In 2009, the ‘S’ gene was found to be a paralog of fibroblast growth factor receptor 1, fgfr1a1, while the second gene called ‘N’ has not yet been identified. We re-visited the original model of Kirpichnikov that proposed four major scale pattern types and observed a high degree of variation within the so-called scattered phenotype due to which this group was divided into two sub-types: classical mirror and irregular. We also analyzed the survival rates of offspring groups and found a distinct difference between Asian and European crosses. Whereas nude × nude crosses involving at least one parent of Asian origin or hybrid with Asian parent(s) showed the 25% early lethality predicted by Kirpichnikov (due to the lethality of the NN genotype), those with two Hungarian nude parents did not. We further extended Kirpichnikov's work by correlating changes in phenotype (scale-pattern) to the deformations of fins and losses of pharyngeal teeth. We observed phenotypic changes which were not restricted to nudes, as described by Kirpichnikov, but were also present in mirrors (and presumably in linears as well; not analyzed in detail here). We propose that the gradation of phenotypes observed within the scattered group is caused by a gradually decreasing level of signaling (a dose-dependent effect) probably due to a concerted action of multiple pathways involved in scale formation

A technical study to economize the amount of zinc used in the production of radiogallium

Abstract For the production of radiogallium, the targets were prepared in two forms, namely, electroplated metal and pressed oxide. The target holder was selected from Cu-metal as a circular disk. The experimental yields of 66,67,68Ga produced from both irradiated natZnO and zinc metal targets are given and compared with the estimated yields as well as with the previously reported values. The ZnO target developed in this work appears to be more convenient and economical for local production of short-lived radiogallium, e.g. 66Ga and 68Ga.</jats:p

Effect of operational parameters of microwave vacuum drying combined with hot-air pre-drying to physical, sensory, and nutritional properties of dried apple snack

Microwave vacuum drying is a novel and mild food preserving technology. Beside its basic preserving function, it can be combined with other technologies, like hot-air drying. As a result of this combination, special snack can be produced from apple. The product is characterized by its unique consistency, high nutritional value, and consumer preference. In this work physical (dry mass content, hardness, bulk density, and colour), sensory (appearance, colour, odour, taste, texture) and nutritional (antioxidant activity and total phenolics) properties of dried apple snack were investigated as a function of pre-drying, microwave energy input, and batch weight. For evaluation of data, central composite experimental design was applied. According to the results, the physical properties of products produced by microwave vacuum drying combined with hot-air pre-drying (CMVD) mainly depend on the specific energy input. Higher specific energy input results higher dry mass content, which is associated with harder consistency, lower bulk density, and positive consumer perception as well. Bulk density had an optimum point of batch weight at 336 g. Higher value of pre-dried dry mass content resulted lighter colour but less antioxidant activity and less total phenolics, therefore shorter hot-air drying and prolonged microwave vacuum drying is recommended

ALMA observations of the young substellar binary system 2M1207

Funding: J.M.C. acknowledges support from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. 15XRP15_20140 issued through the Exoplanets Research Program. Support for this work was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF2-51369.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555.We present ALMA observations of the 2M1207 system, a young binary made of a brown dwarf with a planetary-mass companion at a projected separation of about 40 au. We detect emission from dust continuum at 0.89 mm and from the J=3-2 rotational transition of CO from a very compact disk around the young brown dwarf. The small radius found for this brown dwarf disk may be due to truncation from the tidal interaction with the planetary-mass companion. Under the assumption of optically thin dust emission, we estimate a dust mass of 0.1 M ⊕ for the 2M1207A disk and a 3σ upper limit of ∼1 MMoon for dust surrounding 2M1207b, which is the tightest upper limit obtained so far for the mass of dust particles surrounding a young planetary-mass companion. We discuss the impact of this and other non-detections of young planetary-mass companions for models of planet formation that predict circumplanetary material to surround these objects.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Band structure and optical properties of germanium sheet polymers

The band structure of H-terminated Ge sheet polymers is calculated using density-functional theory in the local density approximation and compared to the optical properties of epitaxial polygermyne layers as determined from reflection, photoluminescence, and photoluminescence excitation measurements. A direct band gap of 1.7 eV is predicted and a near resonant excitation of the photoluminescence is observed experimentally close to this energy

Identification of genes preferentially expressed in wheat egg cells and zygotes

Wheat genes differentially expressed in the egg cell before and after fertilization were identified. The data support zygotic gene activation before the first cell division in wheat. To have an insight into fertilization-induced gene expression, cDNA libraries have been prepared from isolated wheat egg cells and one-celled zygotes. Two-hundred and twenty-six egg cell and 253 zygote-expressed EST sequences were determined. Most of the represented transcripts were detected in the wheat egg cell or zygote transcriptome at the first time. Expression analysis of fourteen of the identified genes and three controls was carried out by real-time quantitative PCR. The preferential expression of all investigated genes in the female gametophyte-derived samples (egg cells, zygotes, two-celled proembryos, and basal ovule parts with synergids) in comparison to the anthers, and the leaves were verified. Three genes with putative signaling/regulatory functions were expressed at a low level in the egg cell but exhibited increased (2-to-33-fold) relative expression in the zygote and the proembryo. Genes with high EST abundance in cDNA libraries exhibited strong expression in the egg cell and the zygote, while the ones coding for unknown or hypothetical proteins exhibited differential expression patterns with preferential transcript accumulation in egg cells and/or zygotes. The obtained data support the activation of the zygotic genome before the first cell division in wheat