The principality of Adrianople and the challenge of feudalism: empire, Venice and local autonomy

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Intuitu fidelis servitii sui

In October 2012, Thérèse de Hemptinne retired after a successful academic career at the department of (medieval) History at Ghent University. Carrying on and strengthening the internationally recognized Ghent tradition of Auxiliary Sciences for the study of the Middle Ages, Thérèse de Hemptinne taught for many years the Bachelor’s and Master’s courses of Diplomatics and Palaeography. Following her research interests, which from the 1990s onward gradually expanded to focus on the position and role of women in a medieval man’s world, Thérèse de Hemptinne also integrated gender as a methodological tool of analysis into the Master’s courses ‘Historical Criticism’ and the ‘Gender Research Seminar’, and acted as a supervisor of many Master’s theses produced in the field of women and gender studies. The critical edition of the charters of the counts of Flanders Thierry and Philip of Alsace (1128-1191) can be considered one of the most important scholarly achievements of Thérèse de Hemptinne. Yet, her academic bibliography also testifies to her many other interests in medieval studies, among which political and institutional, social and cultural history of the Middle Ages, and particularly to her original gender-based approach to the discourse of medieval sources related to these areas. This volume is offered to Thérèse de Hemptinne by two of her students as a token of respect and gratitude for her services rendered and for her lifetime commitment to the department of (medieval) History as a teacher, as a senior researcher and scholar, as a mentor, as a colleague and as a friend. It contains the republication of a selection of Thérèse de Hemptinne’s most important and acclaimed articles and book chapters published during her academic career at Ghent University. The twenty one selected essays of Thérèse de Hemptinne are gathered around three themes: ‘Charters and Chanceries’, ‘Gender and Politics’, and ‘Women and Literacy’. Each chapter is introduced by an expert of international prominence

Gurutzea eta kalbarioa : atsekabetua

Dialecto : texto en euskera occidental -- vizcaínoS. XX -- Periodo : último euskera modernoEuskalkia : mendebalekoa -- bizkaieraXX. md. -- Aroa : azken euskara modernoaDigitalización. Vitoria-Gasteiz : Fundación Sancho el Sabio, 200

Latin emperors and Serbian queens : Anna and Helena : genalogical and geopolitical explorations in the post-1204 Byzantine world

Latin Constantinople in the 1240s and 1250s has often been considered a ripe fruit waiting to fall into the hands of one of the competing political entities in the region (Nicaea, Epiros, Bulgaria, etc.). This paper argues, on the contrary, that under Emperor Baldwin II (1240-1273) the Latin Empire remained a dynamic power in the post-1204 Byzantine world. The basis for this re-evaluation is a revisionist study of the genealogical relations between a number of leading families in the region (among others the Villehardouin, Da Verona, and Cayeux), creating networks both within Latin Romania and beyond. One of the main hypotheses advanced is that two Serbian queens – Stefan Nemanja’s third wife Anna (of Hainaut) and Stefan Uroš I’s wife Helena (Angelos/Courtenay) – were in fact what one might call Latin imperial princesses. This in turn leads to a reconsideration of Latin-Serbian relations in the period 1204-1261

Applicability of an innovative steroid-profiling method to determine synthetic growth promoter abuse in cattle

A robust LC–MS/MS method was developed to quantify a large number of phase I and phase II steroids in urine. The decision limit is for most compounds lower than 1 ng ml−1 with a measurement uncertainty smaller than 30%. The method is fully validated and was applied to assess the influence of administered synthetic steroids and beta-agonists on the steroidogenesis. From three animal experiments, clenbuterol, diethylstilbestrol and stanozolol, the steroid profiles in urine of bovine animals were compared before and after treatment. It was demonstrated that the steroid profiles were altered due to these treatments. A predictive multivariate model was built to identify deviations from normal population steroid profiles. The abuse of synthetic steroids can be detected in urine samples from bovine animals using this model. The samples from the animal experiments were randomly analysed using this method and predictive model. It was shown that these samples were predicted correctly in the exogenous steroids group

Depression, trauma and mentalizing : no influence of depressive symptoms on spontaneous theory of mind in a subclinical sample

Background: Depressive symptoms are associated with impaired social functioning, arguably because of reduced mentalizing abilities. However, findings in persons with depressive symptoms and/or major depressive disorder (MDD) are presently mixed, finding evidence both for and against the hypothesis of reduced mentalizing abilities. Aims: This study investigated spontaneous cognitive mentalizing in 36 age-, sex- and education-matched students with depressive symptoms and 45 comparisons with minimal depressive symptoms. Method: To assess spontaneous mentalizing, we used the implicit theory of mind (ToM) task, which looks specifically at spontaneous computation of false belief. Results: Bayesian analysis did not support the hypothesis of impaired mentalizing; in fact, it suggested that the results were 3.90 times more likely to have occurred under the null hypothesis. Results remained stable when comparing depressed and non-depressed individuals without maltreatment exposure but were inconclusive in the maltreatment-exposed groups. Conclusion: The findings suggest no effect of spontaneous mentalizing in a high-functioning depressed sample. Moreover, the findings also emphasize the need to control for childhood maltreatment experiences in future ToM and social functioning research, as these may constitute subgroups within depressed samples. Tailored therapy for maltreated depression individuals may be beneficial

Association of cognitive performance with clinical staging in schizophrenia spectrum disorders:a prospective 6-year follow-up study

BACKGROUND: Clinical staging has been developed to capture the large heterogeneity in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Including cognitive performance in the staging model may improve its clinical validity. Moreover, cognitive functioning could predict transition across stages. However, current evidence of the association between cognition and clinical staging is inconsistent. Therefore, we aim to assess whether cognitive parameters are associated with clinical stages in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and to identify cognitive markers at baseline that are associated with stage-transition at three and six-year follow-up. METHODS: We applied the staging model of Fusar-Poli et al. (2017) in 927 patients with non-affective psychotic disorders, assessed at baseline, and after three and six-year follow-up. Cognitive performance was assessed with a standard test battery. Generalized linear mixed models were used to analyze associations of cognitive performance with staging and stage-transition at follow-up. RESULTS: Findings showed that higher stages of illness were significantly associated with lower processing speed (F = 3.688, p = 0.025) and deficits in working memory (F = 6.365, p = 0.002) across assessments. No associations between cognitive parameters at baseline and stage-transition at three- and six-year follow-up were found. CONCLUSION: We conclude that processing speed and working memory were modestly associated with higher stages of illness in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, thereby slightly improving its clinical validity. However, associations were small and we found no evidence for predictive validity

An improved algorithm for polar cloud-base detection by ceilometer over the ice sheets

Optically thin ice and mixed-phase clouds play an important role in polar regions due to their effect on cloud radiative impact and precipitation. Cloud-base heights can be detected by ceilometers, low-power backscatter lidars that run continuously and therefore have the potential to provide basic cloud statistics including cloud frequency, base height and vertical structure. The standard cloud-base detection algorithms of ceilometers are designed to detect optically thick liquid-containing clouds, while the detection of thin ice clouds requires an alternative approach. This paper presents the polar threshold (PT) algorithm that was developed to be sensitive to optically thin hydrometeor layers (minimum optical depth τ ≥ 0.01). The PT algorithm detects the first hydrometeor layer in a vertical attenuated backscatter profile exceeding a predefined threshold in combination with noise reduction and averaging procedures. The optimal backscatter threshold of 3 × 10^−4 km⁻¹ sr⁻¹ for cloud-base detection near the surface was derived based on a sensitivity analysis using data from Princess Elisabeth, Antarctica and Summit, Greenland. At higher altitudes where the average noise level is higher than the backscatter threshold, the PT algorithm becomes signal-to-noise ratio driven. The algorithm defines cloudy conditions as any atmospheric profile containing a hydrometeor layer at least 90 m thick. A comparison with relative humidity measurements from radiosondes at Summit illustrates the algorithm's ability to significantly discriminate between clear-sky and cloudy conditions. Analysis of the cloud statistics derived from the PT algorithm indicates a year-round monthly mean cloud cover fraction of 72% (±10%) at Summit without a seasonal cycle. The occurrence of optically thick layers, indicating the presence of supercooled liquid water droplets, shows a seasonal cycle at Summit with a monthly mean summer peak of 40 % (±4%). The monthly mean cloud occurrence frequency in summer at Princess Elisabeth is 46% (±5%), which reduces to 12% (±2.5%) for supercooled liquid cloud layers. Our analyses furthermore illustrate the importance of optically thin hydrometeor layers located near the surface for both sites, with 87% of all detections below 500 m for Summit and 80% below 2 km for Princess Elisabeth. These results have implications for using satellite-based remotely sensed cloud observations, like CloudSat that may be insensitive for hydrometeors near the surface. The decrease of sensitivity with height, which is an inherent limitation of the ceilometer, does not have a significant impact on our results. This study highlights the potential of the PT algorithm to extract information in polar regions from various hydrometeor layers using measurements by the robust and relatively low-cost ceilometer instrument