Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and their (new) Mobilizations in Russia. EDAP 2/2015

Issues concerning indigenous peoples (IPs) in Russia have become a “hot topic” despite the fact that they represent only 0.2 percent of the population. Constant amendments to the laws affecting the life of IPs and lawsuits filed before local Courts denouncing the violations of IPs’ rights are signs of the struggle surrounding these indigenous peoples. Moreover, between 2012 and 2013, the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON), the umbrella organization of IPs in the country, was ordered to shut down and subsequently given the permission to reopen by the Russian Ministry of Justice within the course of less than six months. This article aims to gain a deeper understanding of the recent developments vis-à-vis indigenous peoples’ legal protection and IPs’ increasing efforts to exercise their rights

Working towards respect for individuality and differences in gender. Strategies for family education in Infant Services within the Comune of Florence

Conflict and change are fundamental elements of social reality and of the Jewish historical experience. This collection presents the work of a distinguished group of scholars exploring the themes of social, political, religious, intellectual, and institutional movements and change in Jewish history. These scholars demonstrate that social change throughout Jewish life has assumed many different manifestations, and can occur in revolutionary and dramatic ways as well as in more common gradual and evolutionary processes. In the first volume, the essays revolve around two themes: “Mobilizations and Contentious Politics,” and “Social Trends, Communal and Institutional Change.” The second volume is devoted to “Developments in Philosophy, Ideology, and Religious Practice.” Taken together, these two volumes present scholarship rich with both historical and contemporary relevance, of interest to academics and students in Jewish studies and the social sciences, communal leaders and policy makers, and anyone intrigued by the Jewish experience.https://touroscholar.touro.edu/tup/1009/thumbnail.jp

Phytophthora palmivora establishes tissue-specific intracellular infection structures in the earliest divergent land plant lineage.

The expansion of plants onto land was a formative event that brought forth profound changes to the earth's geochemistry and biota. Filamentous eukaryotic microbes developed the ability to colonize plant tissues early during the evolution of land plants, as demonstrated by intimate, symbiosis-like associations in >400 million-year-old fossils. However, the degree to which filamentous microbes establish pathogenic interactions with early divergent land plants is unclear. Here, we demonstrate that the broad host-range oomycete pathogen Phytophthora palmivora colonizes liverworts, the earliest divergent land plant lineage. We show that P. palmivora establishes a complex tissue-specific interaction with Marchantia polymorpha, where it completes a full infection cycle within air chambers of the dorsal photosynthetic layer. Remarkably, P. palmivora invaginates M. polymorpha cells with haustoria-like structures that accumulate host cellular trafficking machinery and the membrane syntaxin MpSYP13B, but not the related MpSYP13A. Our results indicate that the intracellular accommodation of filamentous microbes is an ancient plant trait that is successfully exploited by pathogens like P. palmivora

Use of chitosan for chromium removal from exhausted tanning baths.

A novel approach, based on chitosan heavy-metal sequestrating ability, is proposed for chromium(III) removal from spent tanning liquor. Experimental results, obtained at lab-scale using real wastewater, are presented and discussed. Resulting efficiencies are extremely high, and strongly dependent on chitosan dose and pH value. Comparative analyses with other polysaccharides is also carried out showing that amine groups are more efficient than carboxyl and sulphate ones. Chromium recovery from sorption complexes and chitosan regeneration is finally proposed to optimize the whole process

Evaluating impact of possible transgenic poplar cultivation on protected areas

Plant biodiversity studies have been performed in the Migliarino-San Rossore-Massaciuccoli Regional Park in Tuscany (Italy) within the framework of the European project LIFE08 NAT/IT/342.This project aims at developing a quick monitoring index (QMI) to rapidly assess the potential risk generated by transgenic plants in characterized ecosystems or biotopes. For this reason test areas have been selected inside the protected area to evaluate plant (weeds and trees), animal, and soil microoganisms biodiversity. The proximity of the selected test area to cropped surfaces where Genetically Modified Plants (GMPs) might be cultivated has been taken into account. GMPs could spread pollen and contaminate natural populations. To avoid this risk, an efficient monitoring system is required taking into account genetic diversity and breeding study. As far as tree biodiversity concern, Populus species were identified in the test areas. Two populations of Populus present into two different ecosystems (forest and wetland areas) were examined together with two cultivated varieties. The two ecosystems were characterized for the vegetation. Nuclear microsatellites were used to evaluate genetic diversity of poplar populations and level of breeding between natural and cultivated Populus. In addition the insect populations present on male and female poplars during flowering period have been studied

Multiple quantum NMR of spin-carrying molecules in nanopores: high order corrections to the two-spin/two-quantum Hamiltonian

This paper is devoted to the multiple-quantum (MQ) NMR spectroscopy in nanopores filled by a gas of spin-carrying molecules (s=1/2) in a strong external magnetic field. It turned out that the high symmetry of the spin system in nanopores yields a possibility to overcome the problem of the exponential growth of the Hilbert space dimension with an increase in the number of spins and to investigate MQ NMR dynamics in systems consisting of several hundred spins. We investigate the dependence of the MQ coherence intensities on their order (the profile of the MQ coherence intensities) for a spin system governed by the standard MQ NMR Hamiltonian (the nonsecular two-quantum/two-spin Hamiltonian) together with the second order correction of the average Hamiltonian theory. It is shown that the profile depends on the value of this correction and varies from the exponential to the logarithmic one.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure