Views of status differentiation in two villages of northeastern Hungary

This thesis addresses the question of how the inhabitants of two villages of northeastern Hungary conceptualise rank in the light of changes in politico-economic differentiation over the past one-and-a-half centuries. Following an initial description of the ecological-institutional context, the patterns of political and economic differentiation in the two villages, Botpalád and Kispalád, are discussed, and variations between the two villages are then related to the local patterns of family organisation, inheritance and marriage. In the light of these findings, the author analyses two central concepts, rangos and módos, which the inhabitants of the two villages use when establishing a pecking order between the local families. For analytic purposes the author constructs some "ranking models" on the basis of these concepts, in order to highlight the overall trends in local conceptualisations of status differentiation. These "ranking models" are then related to other, more general attitudinal and behavioural attributes adopted by the local inhabitants. When these trends are analysed at a village rather than an individual level, an overall situation of divisiveness and distancing characterises Botpalád, as opposed to Kispalád's greater communal solidarity. In order to shed light on the reasons behind these variations, the author looks initially into the historical backgrounds of the individual villagers who view status differentiation along the lines of the various ranking models. At this level a connection is found between being of formerly noble, and often landed descent, and envisaging rank on the basis of intangible descent-based criteria. The former presence of impoverished nobles who lived the life of peasants, so-called "peasant-nobles", emerges as a crucial factor in local developments. The author reconstructs historically the process of status group formation in both villages in the light of whether, as in the case of Botpalád, the local population included peasant-nobles before 1848, or whether, as in the case of Kispalád, this was not the case, and then discusses further developments in the light of 1andownership patterns at the turn of the century. After considering various theoretical approaches, the author proposes a framework for envisaging the course of future developments, and describes some parallel occurrences of peasant-nobility in Eastern Europe

DNA waves and water

Some bacterial and viral DNA sequences have been found to induce low frequency electromagnetic waves in high aqueous dilutions. This phenomenon appears to be triggered by the ambient electromagnetic background of very low frequency. We discuss this phenomenon in the framework of quantum field theory. A scheme able to account for the observations is proposed. The reported phenomenon could allow to develop highly sensitive detection systems for chronic bacterial and viral infections.Comment: Invited talk at the DICE2010 Conference, Castiglioncello, Italy September 201

The life and times of Ferruccio Ritossa

Ferruccio Ritossa wrote these lines only a few months before he died, as a preface to a book he wanted to write and that, unfortunately, we will never be able to read. It was to be the story of his life, an amazing story indeed. With this article, we want to take a picture of Ferruccio's life, a mosaic of events, facts, ideas, hopes, and memories linked in a way that they will not go away, even after "a stroll in our brain." © 2014 Cell Stress Society International

Substrate Cooperativity in Marine Luciferases

Marine luciferases are increasingly used as reporters to study gene regulation. These luciferases have utility in bioluminescent assay development, although little has been reported on their catalytic properties in response to substrate concentration. Here, we report that the two marine luciferases from the copepods, Gaussia princeps (GLuc) and Metridia longa (MLuc) were found, surprisingly, to produce light in a cooperative manner with respect to their luciferin substrate concentration; as the substrate concentration was decreased 10 fold the rate of light production decreased 1000 fold. This positive cooperative effect is likely a result of allostery between the two proposed catalytic domains found in Gaussia and Metridia. In contrast, the marine luciferases from Renilla reniformis (RLuc) and Cypridina noctiluca (CLuc) demonstrate a linear relationship between the concentration of their respective luciferin and the rate of light produced. The consequences of these enzyme responses are discussed

Removing orientation-induced localization biases in single-molecule microscopy using a broadband metasurface mask

Nanoscale localization of single molecules is a crucial function in several advanced microscopy techniques, including single-molecule tracking and wide-field super-resolution imaging. Until now, a central consideration of such techniques is how to optimize the precision of molecular localization. However, as these methods continue to push towards the nanometre size scale, an increasingly important concern is the localization accuracy. In particular, single fluorescent molecules emit with an anisotropic radiation pattern of an oscillating electric dipole, which can cause significant localization biases using common estimators. Here we present the theory and experimental demonstration of a solution to this problem based on azimuthal filtering in the Fourier plane of the microscope. We do so using a high-efficiency dielectric metasurface polarization/phase device composed of nanoposts with subwavelength spacing. The method is demonstrated both on fluorophores embedded in a polymer matrix and in dL5 protein complexes that bind malachite green

Bridging fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy

Development of new fluorescent probes and fluorescence microscopes has led to new ways to study cell biology. With the emergence of specialized microscopy units at most universities and research centers, the use of these techniques is well within reach for a broad research community. A major breakthrough in fluorescence microscopy in biology is the ability to follow specific targets on or in living cells, revealing dynamic localization and/or function of target molecules. One of the inherent limitations of fluorescence microscopy is the resolution. Several efforts are undertaken to overcome this limit. The traditional and most well-known way to achieve higher resolution imaging is by electron microscopy. Moreover, electron microscopy reveals organelles, membranes, macromolecules, and thus aids in the understanding of cellular complexity and localization of molecules of interest in relation to other structures. With the new probe development, a solid bridge between fluorescence microscopy and electron microscopy is being built, even leading to correlative imaging. This connection provides several benefits, both scientifically as well as practically. Here, I summarize recent developments in bridging microscopy