L’Indonésie : Interactions et conflits idéologiques avant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale

Since the dawn of the 20th century, three ideologies have been constantly interacting in the Indonesian society, namely Islam, Marxism, and nationalism. Each has played a striking role in the evolution of the movement for independence - which led to independence in 1945. And today each of them wonders to what extent it has been responsible for the coup d'État by General Suharto in 1965. Since in the current situation, the relations which exist between these three trends of thought, in many respects, are reminiscent of those which prevailed during the interwar years, a study of that period may shed new light on an important moment of the history of political thought in Indonesia. The question of relations between Islamic, nationalist, and Marxist thought is a prevalent issue in a country where a population of Muslim creed is held in subordination, and where there exist s an important leftist intellectual movement, with or without a significant working class. Through the history of the anti-Dutch nationalist movements, through the rise of various Islamic movements (Pan-Islamism, the moderen, the "laity") and that of the Islamic parties linked to them (Sarekat Dagang Islam, Sarekat Islam), through the expansion of the social-democratic, socialist and communist parties (ISDU - Indian Social Democratic Union ; PKI - Perserikaten Kommunist de India ; Sarekat Rakjat - People's Association), and finally, through Sukarno's efforts to conciliate all these movements with a view to independence, an attempt is made to show that, in the evolution of the nationalist movement in Indonesia, there are two inherent elements, namely the socialist ideology and Islam. In the light of the case of Indonesia, it is therefore tempting to consider religion and politics as being symbiotic ideologies

Classification of soils derived from amphibolite parent material in south-western Nigeria

No abstract

Impact of gari consumption on the water resource of Nigeria

The consumption of gari (or roasted cassava granule) is connected to a chain of impacts on the water resource in the country where cassava crop is grown, processed and consumed. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of gari consumption on the water resource of Nigeria. The paper elaborates on two types of impact: evaporation of infiltrated rainwater for cassava plant growth (green water use) and the abstraction of ground and/or surface water for processing, including that of consumption athousehold level (blue water use), while water pollution impacts during processing and consumption (at households) are neglected. Using the 2007 cassava production estimates for Nigeria as baseline, the water impact related to the consumption of gari either as snack or as “eba” (gari reconstituted with hot water to form a dough-like paste) is estimated at 10.52 x 109 m3, out of which 0.38% is due to the use of blue water and 91.3% is due to the use of green water (no dilution water impacts measured in this paper). Under the traditional farming practices, the major volume of water needed to grow the cassava plant is from rainwater. For the total water needed in gari consumption starting from cultivation, thewater used in the processing and consumption (at household level) is a significant fraction (about 0.4%) of the soil moisture used to grow the cassava plant. However, the impact of this fraction is often significant: One, it is the blue water (abstracted from surface and/or sub-surface sources) that is often scarcely available and two, it is this blue water sources that are also polluted by the waste flows from the processing and consumption sites

Productivity of dinoflagellate blooms on the west coast of South Africa, as measured by natural fluorescence

The biomass and productivity of phytoplankton populations inshore on the west coast of South Africa were investigated towards the end of the upwelling season, a period when high-biomass dinoflagellate blooms arecommon. Productivity was estimated from natural fluorescence measurements (PNF), using photosynthesis (P) v. irradiance (E) relationships (PE) and by means of the in situ 14C-method (PC). A linear regression of PNF productivity against PC and PE productivities yielded a slope of 0.911 and an r2 of 0.83 (n = 41). Physical and biological variability was high inshore, reflecting alternating periods of upwelling and quiescence. Mean chlorophyll inshore (within a 12 m water column) ranged from 0.7 to 57.8 (mean = 8.9) mg.m-3, mean PNF productivity ranged from 8.4 to 51.0 (mean = 24.6) mgC.m-3.h-1 and daily integral PNF productivity from 0.8 to 4.8 (mean = 2.3) gC.m-2.day-1. Transects sampled during active and relaxation phases of upwelling had different chlorophyll distributions. High chlorophyll concentrations (sometimes >50 mg.m-3) were associated with surface blooms within the region of the upwelling front. Estimates of daily water-column PNF productivity within these frontal blooms ranged from 4.0 to 5.6 gC.m-2.day-1. With relaxation of wind stress, blooms dominated by dinoflagellates flooded shorewards and often formed red tides. Chlorophyll concentrations of>175 mg.m-3 and productivity rates > 500 mgC.m-3.h-1 and 12 gC.m-2.day-1 were measured during a particularly intense red tide. Offshore, the water column was highly stratified with a well-defined subsurface chlorophyll maximum layer within the pycnocline region. Estimates of daily water-column PNF productivity ranged from2.4 to 4.0 gC.m-2.day-1 offshore. The high productivity of shelf waters on the West Coast in late summer can be ascribed largely to dinoflagellate populations and their success in both upwelling systems and stratified conditions

Antibacterial Activities of Lactic Acid Bacteria Isolated from Selected Vegetables Grown in Nigeria: A Preliminary Report

Members of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are known probiotics and have been reported to have antimicrobial properties. Although various researchers have documented the isolation of these bacteria from fruits and vegetables, studies on LAB associated with lettuce, cucumber and cabbage are limited and non-existing in Nigeria. This study was designed to assess lettuce, cucumber and cabbage as potential sources of LAB and investigate the actions of their bacterial cell supernatants (BCS) on some pathogenic bacteria. Using standard microbiological methods, isolated LAB were identified to species level with API 50 CH kits (Biomerieux, France). Cell free supernatants (CFS) from de Man Rogosa Sharpe (MRS) broth cultures of the LAB strains were used to challenge Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC 29212, Escherichia coli ATCC 12900 and Proteus penneri ATCC 13315 by agar well diffusion method. The control consisted of the sterile MRS broth subjected to the same growth conditions as LAB broth cultures. A total of four lactic acid bacteria were isolated as follows: Pediococcus pentosaceus 2 from cucumber, Lactobacillus cellobiosus from cabbage, Lactobacillus salivarius and Lactobacillus plantarum 1 from lettuce. Pediococcus pentosaceus 2 and L. salivarius showed inhibitory effects on all the standard strains tested while L. plantarum 1 showed no inhibitory activity against E. faecalis and E. coli. Lactobacillus cellobiosus showed inhibition against all except P. penneri. Although, the molecular characterisation and probiotic potentials of these LAB strains are being investigated in an on-going study, we presumed these vegetables are prospective sources of the bacteria in Nigeria and therefore the need to extensively investigate the vegetables and other related vegetables becomes imperative

Tashkent

L'Ouzbékistan a hérité des maux du système soviétique, notamment une économie sinistrée. Ses richesses naturelles et humaines sont telles quelles pourraient garantir le bien-être collectif, à condition de faire des choix qui transcendent les simplismes de la rhétorique

The genome of Spraguea lophii and the basis of host-microsporidian interactions

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Microsporidia are obligate intracellular parasites with the smallest known eukaryotic genomes. Although they are increasingly recognized as economically and medically important parasites, the molecular basis of microsporidian pathogenicity is almost completely unknown and no genetic manipulation system is currently available. The fish-infecting microsporidian Spraguea lophii shows one of the most striking host cell manipulations known for these parasites, converting host nervous tissue into swollen spore factories known as xenomas. In order to investigate the basis of these interactions between microsporidian and host, we sequenced and analyzed the S. lophii genome. Although, like other microsporidia, S. lophii has lost many of the protein families typical of model eukaryotes, we identified a number of gene family expansions including a family of leucine-rich repeat proteins that may represent pathogenicity factors. Building on our comparative genomic analyses, we exploited the large numbers of spores that can be obtained from xenomas to identify potential effector proteins experimentally. We used complex-mix proteomics to identify proteins released by the parasite upon germination, resulting in the first experimental isolation of putative secreted effector proteins in a microsporidian. Many of these proteins are not related to characterized pathogenicity factors or indeed any other sequences from outside the Microsporidia. However, two of the secreted proteins are members of a family of RICIN B-lectin-like proteins broadly conserved across the phylum. These proteins form syntenic clusters arising from tandem duplications in several microsporidian genomes and may represent a novel family of conserved effector proteins. These computational and experimental analyses establish S. lophii as an attractive model system for understanding the evolution of host-parasite interactions in microsporidia and suggest an important role for lineage-specific innovations and fast evolving proteins in the evolution of the parasitic microsporidian lifecycle.This work was supported by a BBSRC studentship to SEC (http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk), a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship to TAW (http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html) and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship to BAPW (http://royalsociety.org)

Teratogenic effect of isotretinoin on the morphology and palate development in rat fetuses

The effect of isotretinoin currently used in dermatological treatments was investigated on the morphology and palate development during organogenesis in rat fetuses. This was in an attempt to evaluate the morphological implications associated with isotretinoin consumption. The animals were randomly divided into groups: A, B and C. Group A was further divided into subgroups: A1 and A2 and administered orally with 35 and 70 mg of isotretinoin (dissolved in vegetable oil) per kg of average body weight on day 11 of gestation. The same subdivision and administration goes for groups B and C, but on days 12 and 13, respectively. The control group received an equivalent volume of vegetable oil for each group on gestational days: 11, 12 and 13. After delivery, the fetuses were weighed and studied morphometrically and microscopically. The results revealed that group A had most of the primary palate affected (78.61and 88.89% for subgroups 1 and 2, respectively); group B had most of the secondary palate affected (50.00 and 71.43% for subgroups 1 and 2, respectively) while majority of the fetuses in group C only showed mild malformation both in the primary and secondary palate (28.57 and 35.72% for sub groups 1 and 2, respectively). The data from morphometric parameters showed that the effect of isotretinoin on the fetuses is dose dependent. Isotretinoin should therefore be taking with caution especially by pregnant women during the first and second trimester of pregnancy