Marian Cult-sites along the Venetian sea-routes to Holy Land in the Late Middle Ages

The present paper discusses materials collected and analysed in the frame of a research project coordinated by Michele Bacci at Fribourg University and supported by the Swiss National Found. It focuses on the spread of Marian cultic phenomena along the maritime routes between Venice and the Holy Land, which corresponded to the major commercial itineraries among territories mainly belonging to the Venetian Stato da Mar. Relying on evidence provided by 14th to mid-16th century pilgrims’ travelogues, this study lays emphasis on the dissemination of new holy sites and cultic attractions which took place in this intermediary space between Venice and Palestine, namely on the coasts of Istria, Dalmatia, Albania, Corfu, the Morea, Candia, Rhodes and Cyprus, during the Late Middle Ages. In this respect, a number of holy objects found in such sites were regarded as especially attractive on account of their more or less direct association with the Gospel narratives. A key-role was played, in this context, by Marian mementoes, and more specifically by the images attributed to Saint Luke and perceived as authentic portraits of the Mother of God. An almost uninterrupted sequence of the Evangelist’s autograph icons dotted the navigation routes. The famous Nicopea icon in San Marco was the first of such objects encountered by pilgrims during their trip, but more were to be found in many different places, including the Franciscan church in Korčula, the Dubrovnik Cathedral, a small chapel at Kassiopi, St. Dominic in Modone, the convents of St. Francis and St. Saviour in Candia, the shrine of Monte Filerimo in Rhodes, the orthodox cathedral in Nicosia and finally the monastery of Saint Sabas in Alexandria. All those shrines participated in shaping a holy topography of the eastern coasts connected to the maritime pilgrimage phenomena in which outstanding is the particular Marian devotion. Such places gave shape to a topographic network which was perceived by pilgrims as an anticipation of the religious experience they expected to have in the Holy Land

Anodic films on single phase Ni-Mo alloys in acid solution

The anodic oxide films of single phase Ni-Mo alloys (5-15 wt % Mo) formed in 0.15 N Na₂SO₄ (pH 2.8) have been investigated using electrochemical techniques, atomic absorption spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The anodic oxide film of Ni formed under the same condition has been used as a reference in order to study the effect of molybdenum addition on the nature of the passive film of nickel. The electrochemical studies have indicated a negative effect of molybdenum addition to stability of the passive film and a different mechanism of the film growth on the alloys with respect to that on nickel. Dissolution of nickel and molybdenum during the film formation has been found to proceed in proportions other than their ratio in the alloy and which was also time dependent. Selective dissolution of molybdenum has been found during the initial stages of anodization and its enrichment in the film at longer anodization times. Chronoamperometric measurements combined with dissolution analysis suggested an increase of the film thickness with anodization time. Auger electron spectroscopy with ion sputtering confirmed the anodization time dependence of the film thickness and an enrichment of the film-solution interface in molybdenum. The thickness of the passive film of nickel has not been found to change significantly with adonization time. Characterization of nickel and molybdenum species in the film has been based on the findings of x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, which combined with the evidence offered by structure analysis (RHEED), suggested the passive film to be a two-phase oxide film containing defective or hydrated NiO and probably amorphous MoO₃. A model which explains the growth of two-phase oxide coverage on Ni-Mo alloys has been proposed.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD

Effects of Acute Administration of D,L-Homocysteine Thiolactone on the Antioxidative Status of Rat Intestine and Liver

Oxidative stress appears to play a role in the pathogenesis of several inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases. Increased homocysteine levels may play a role in the pathogenesis of Chrons disease and ulcerative colitis. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of homocysteine on the antioxidant status of rat intestine and liver. The levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), activity of catalase (CAT) and total antioxidant status (TAS) were investigated in the isolated gut and liver of young male rats in the control group (8 rats) and after 3-hour incubation in high doses of D, L-homocysteine thionolactone (Hcy) (10 mu mol/L) (8 rats). Samples of duodenum, ileum, colon and liver were homogenized in sodium phosphate buffer (1: 10). Homogenates were centrifuged at 10000 for 10 min at 4 degrees C and the supernatant was taken for biochemical assays. Our results showed that high D, L-homocysteine thionolactone concentration reduced enzymatic catalase activity in homogenates of the isolated segments of duodenum (27.04%) p LT 0.01; ileum (37.27%), colon (34.17%) and liver (67.46%) p LT 0.001. Exposition to high D, L-homocysteine thiolactone concentration significantly increased TBARS levels in the duodenum (106.05%), ileum (47.24%), colon (112.75%) and liver (32.07%) (p LT 0.01). Homocysteine also modified the total antioxidant status of homogenates from the duodenum, ileum, colon and liver, increasing by 20.68% (duodenum), 24.74% (ileum), 14.88% (colon) and 19.35% (liver) (p LT 0.001). Homocysteine induced a consistent oxidative stress in rats intestine and liver (reduced activity of catalase and increased level of TBARS), but the elevated activity of TAS in our experiments could be explained as an adaptive response to the generated free radicals which indicates the failure of the total antioxidant defense mechanism to protect the tissues from damage caused by homocysteine

Sentiment and Geopolitics in the formulation and realization of the Balfour Declaration

The 1917 Balfour Declaration remains perhaps one of the furthest reaching British policy statements. It laid foundation for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, and was ever since perceived by some as the source of the subsequent Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. The Declaration was also interpreted in certain circles as a desperate wartime measure of the British government which hoped to turn the tide of the costly war against Germany by making promises to supposedly influential worldwide Jewish community. However, the Balfour Declaration was more than that. It was a continuation of parallel British geostrategic and humanitarian sensibilities dating back to the Foreign Secretary Viscount Palmerston, and which influenced the attitudes and policies of later British leaders like the Foreign Secretary Arthur J. Balfour and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Much of the geopolitical drive behind the Declaration could be traced back to long established British interest in the security of the Suez Canal and communication with India. Humanitarianism, on the other hand, involved a genuine concern for the future of European Jewry, sometimes leavened by messianic Protestantism. Palmerston, Balfour and Lloyd George believed they could successfully merge humanitarian philo-semitism with pragmatic geopolitics securing a better future for an oppressed people and their own empire simultaneously

Sequential ion irradiations on Fe-Cr and ODS Fe-Cr alloys

Oxide dispersion strengthened steels are candidate materials for nuclear reactor applications due to a powerful combination of properties, such as reduced activation, high-temperature strength and increased creep resistance. The dispersion of nanometric oxide particles in the steel matrix may also enhance radiation resistance by acting as trapping sites for irradiation induced defects. In this work, an Fe???14Cr???2 W???0.3-Ti???0.3Y2O3 (wt%) steel and a model Fe-14Cr (wt%) alloy were sequentially irradiated with He+ and Fe+ ions up to 15 dpa and 8000 appm to simulate fusion radiation damage. Their microstructural stability was investigated by positron annihilation spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Transmission electron microscopy studies show that under these irradiation conditions there are no significant changes in the mean size, qualitative chemical composition and number density of nanoparticles, although the irradiation appears to induce a slight coarsening of the smaller nanoparticles. Both materials exhibit very small (< 2 nm) irradiation-induced bubbles, with similar sizes but lower number density in the ODS steel. Positron annihilation spectroscopy results show the presence of irradiation induced open volume defects, much more noticeable in the model alloy. In both alloys, helium appears to associate with the newly formed vacancy-type defects introduced by the subsequent Fe+ irradiation

Characterisation of open volume defects in FeeCr and ODS FeeCr alloys after He?? and Fe?? ion irradiations

Different ODS RAF steels with nominal composition Fee14Cre2We0.3-Tie0.3Y2O3 (wt%) and a model Fe e14Cr (wt%) alloy have been subjected to single Fe?? or He?? ion irradiations to simulate the effect of a fusion environment at different doses and temperatures. The irradiation induced open volume defects have been characterised by positron annihilation spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. For low temperature Fe?? irradiations, positron annihilation spectroscopy results show a high concentration of irradiation induced vacancy clusters, much more evident in the model alloy as compared to the ODS steels. The extent of damage due to He?? irradiations at RT and high temperatures is considerably lower than for the Fe?? irradiations. Regardless of the temperature He?? irradiations introduced changes in the chemical environment of open-volume positron traps possibly due to the creation of He-vacancy complexes. Positron annihilation spectroscopy results also suggest that irradiation induced vacancy-type defects in ODS steels are not associated with nanoparticles but are mainly in the ferritic matrix. The presence of irradiation induced bubbles was studied after He?? irradiation at high temperatures. Small bubbles were observed, being smaller in the ODS steels as compared to the model allo

Capitalist varieties under one roof: coping with diversity in the European Union

History and International Studies 1900-presen

Jane Jacobs in the Sky: Predicting Urban Vitality with Open Satellite Data

The presence of people in an urban area throughout the day-often called 'urban vitality'-is one of the qualities world-class cities aspire to the most, yet it is one of the hardest to achieve. Back in the 1970s, Jane Jacobs theorized urban vitality and found that there are four conditions required for the promotion of life in cities: diversity of land use, small block sizes, the mix of economic activities, and concentration of people. To build proxies for those four conditions and ultimately test Jane Jacobs's theory at scale, researchers have had to collect both private and public data from a variety of sources, and that took decades. Here we propose the use of one single source of data, which happens to be publicly available: Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. In particular, since the first two conditions (diversity of land use and small block sizes) are visible to the naked eye from satellite imagery, we tested whether we could automatically extract them with a state-of-the-art deep-learning framework and whether, in the end, the extracted features could predict vitality. In six Italian cities for which we had call data records, we found that our framework is able to explain on average 55% of the variance in urban vitality extracted from those records

Epidemic dreams: dreaming about health during the COVID-19 pandemic

The continuity hypothesis of dreams suggests that the content of dreams is continuous with the dreamer's waking experiences. Given the unprecedented nature of the experiences during COVID-19, we studied the continuity hypothesis in the context of the pandemic. We implemented a deep-learning algorithm that can extract mentions of medical conditions from text and applied it to two datasets collected during the pandemic: 2888 dream reports (dreaming life experiences), and 57 milion tweets (waking life experiences) mentioning the pandemic. The health expressions common to both sets were typical COVID-19 symptoms (e.g. cough, fever and anxiety), suggesting that dreams reflected people's real-world experiences. The health expressions that distinguished the two sets reflected differences in thought processes: expressions in waking life reflected a linear and logical thought process and, as such, described realistic symptoms or related disorders (e.g. nasal pain, SARS, H1N1); those in dreaming life reflected a thought process closer to the visual and emotional spheres and, as such, described either conditions unrelated to the virus (e.g. maggots, deformities, snake bites), or conditions of surreal nature (e.g. teeth falling out, body crumbling into sand). Our results confirm that dream reports represent an understudied yet valuable source of people's health experiences in the real world.<br/

THE INFLUENCE OF VARIETY AND VINTAGE ON THE CHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND SENSORY PROPERTIES OF RED WINES IN PODGORICA SUBREGION (MONTENEGRO)

This paper presents the results of investigation of the influence of variety and vintage on the chemical composition and sensory properties of Vranac, Kratosija and Cabernet Sauvignon wines in Podgorica subregion (Montenegro) in vintages 2012 and 2013. The varietal wines were produced from the grapes grown at four different localities, according to a uniform manner (traditional method) in the winery of the Biotechnical Faculty, located at the experimental farm in Podgorica, at the vineyard location of Ljeskopolje. The analysis of basic chemical parameters of wines and sensorial testing of wines were carried out. The research findings show that variety and vintage (climatic conditions) significantly affected the chemical composition of wine. The higher content of alcohol and extract was measured in 2012 vintage, while the total acid content in wine was higher in2013, as a result of frequent rainfall during the growing season, especially in August and September. The highest content of alcohol, extracts and total acids was found in Kratosija wine, then in Cabernet Sauvignon, while the lowest content was found in Vranac wine in both vintages. According to sensory properties and average testing score for the two years of research, all wines fall into the category of superior wines