A century after introduction: variability in Cepaea hortensis (Müller, 1774) in Sibiu, central Romania

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Voichița Gheoca ◽  
Ana Maria Benedek ◽  
Robert A D Cameron ◽  
Radu Camil Stroia

Abstract The polymorphic land snail Cepaea hortensis was introduced to the city of Sibiu, central Romania, in the first decade of the 20th century and has spread widely across the city. A total of 97 locations were examined in 2017 across the city to determine the habitat preferences and variation in shell size, shape, colour and banding polymorphism of C. hortensis, and to relate these to the same features in the likely source population from Mannheim, Germany, and the first established population in Sibiu. We found that C. hortensis was largely restricted to sites with some woody vegetation cover and showed a marked preference for abandoned and overgrown private gardens. Mean adult shell size in present-day populations was almost always smaller than in both the presumed population of origin from Germany and the first recorded population from Sibiu. Populations showed a wide range of variation in frequencies of shell colours and banding morphs. This variation was not related to habitat or cover, and there was no evident geographical structure in the patterns. Comparisons with a smaller-scale sampling in 2004/5 showed that some populations had gone extinct, some remained stable and in some morph frequencies had changed drastically, but in no consistent direction. These results are similar to those obtained for the related species C. nemoralis in comparable circumstances, but differ from those obtained from regions where C. hortensis is long established and where habitats have been stable. The patterns we observed most likely reflect the effect of passive dispersal by humans, genetic drift and founder effects.

1968 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rodrigues da Silva ◽  
Léa Camillo-Coura

Compound 16.842 was tried with three different groups of patients in order to evaluate its tolerancy, and efficacy as well, with a view of using the drug in mass campaigns against hookworm. Group I, used for a preliminary trial, consisted of 38 patients attending an out-patient clinic, and living either in the out-skirts or in the various urban areas of the city of Rio de Janeiro, including some inmates of an orphanage. Group II, a field trial, was carried out in two farms, where the drug was administered both to the positive cases (124) and to the rest of the population (nearly 90%). Group III, a field trial was also carried out in a small town where nearly 40% of the total population was treated with the Compound. Tolerability was considered rather satisfactory, mainly among the patients receiving two single doses (50-150mg), according to the age, 4 - 6 weeks apart). These results suggest that 2-4 courses of therapy within a shorter span of time should be the ideal for a mass treatment campaign. Efficacy varied from 26.6% to 76.2% parasitological cure in the various groups, with a wide range of variation also in the percent of mean reduction of eggs for hookworm. The drug showed also some effect against Ascaris lumbricoides giving cure rates between 10,5% and 35.7% in the various groups, with a percentage reduction in mean egg counts of 27% to 83.3% according to the various groups. It was concluded that Compound 16.842 possesses a marked effect on hookworm and a mild effect on A. lumbricoides. The findings indicate the need for more accurate studies to determine the most efficient schedules of treatment and the real value of the drug, as compared to other antihelminthics against the two parasites under study.


Author(s):  
Kathryn A. Sloan

Popular culture has long conflated Mexico with the macabre. Some persuasive intellectuals argue that Mexicans have a special relationship with death, formed in the crucible of their hybrid Aztec-European heritage. Death is their intimate friend; death is mocked and accepted with irony and fatalistic abandon. The commonplace nature of death desensitizes Mexicans to suffering. Death, simply put, defines Mexico. There must have been historical actors who looked away from human misery, but to essentialize a diverse group of people as possessing a unique death cult delights those who want to see the exotic in Mexico or distinguish that society from its peers. Examining tragic and untimely death—namely self-annihilation—reveals a counter narrative. What could be more chilling than suicide, especially the violent death of the young? What desperation or madness pushed the victim to raise the gun to the temple or slip the noose around the neck? A close examination of a wide range of twentieth-century historical documents proves that Mexicans did not accept death with a cavalier chuckle nor develop a unique death cult, for that matter. Quite the reverse, Mexicans behaved just as their contemporaries did in Austria, France, England, and the United States. They devoted scientific inquiry to the malady and mourned the loss of each life to suicide.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-198
Author(s):  
Lyudmila S. Timofeeva ◽  
Albina R. Akhmetova ◽  
Liliya R. Galimzyanova ◽  
Roman R. Nizaev ◽  
Svetlana E. Nikitina

Abstract The article studies the existence experience of historical cities as centers of tourism development as in the case of Elabuga. The city of Elabuga is among the historical cities of Russia. The major role in the development of the city as a tourist center is played by the Elabuga State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve. The object of the research in the article is Elabuga as a medium-size historical city. The subject of the research is the activity of the museum-reserve which contributes to the preservation and development of the historical look of Elabuga and increases its attractiveness to tourists. The tourism attractiveness of Elabuga is obtained primarily through the presence of the perfectly preserved historical center of the city with the blocks of integral buildings of the 19th century. The Elabuga State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, which emerged in 1989, is currently an object of historical and cultural heritage of federal importance. Museum-reserves with their significant territories and rich historical, cultural and natural heritage have unique resources for the implementation of large partnership projects. Such projects are not only aimed at attracting a wide range of tourists, but also stimulate interest in the reserve from the business elite, municipal and regional authorities. The most famous example is the Spasskaya Fair which revived in 2008 in Elabuga. It was held in the city since the second half of the 19th century, and was widely known throughout Russia. The process of the revival and successful development of the fair can be viewed as the creation of a special tourist event contributing to the formation of new and currently important tourism products.


1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Puzicha

Effluents from point sources (industries, communities) and diffuse inputs introduce pollutants into the water of the river Rhine and cause a basic contaminant load. The aim is to establish a biological warning system to detect increased toxicity in addition to the already existing chemical-physical monitoring system. To cover a wide range of biocides, continuous working biotests at different trophic levels (bacteria, algae, mussels, water fleas, fishes) have been developed and proved. These are checked out for sensitivity against toxicants, reaction time, validity of data and practical handling under field conditions at the river. Test-specific appropriate methods are found to differentiate between the normal range of variation and true alarm signals.


Author(s):  
Francisco Arcas-Tunez ◽  
Fernando Terroso-Saenz

The development of Road Information Acquisition Systems (RIASs) based on the Mobile Crowdsensing (MCS) paradigm has been widely studied for the last years. In that sense, most of the existing MCS-based RIASs focus on urban road networks and assume a car-based scenario. However, there exist a scarcity of approaches that pay attention to rural and country road networks. In that sense, forest paths are used for a wide range of recreational and sport activities by many different people and they can be also affected by different problems or obstacles blocking them. As a result, this work introduces SAMARITAN, a framework for rural-road network monitoring based on MCS. SAMARITAN analyzes the spatio-temporal trajectories from cyclists extracted from the fitness application Strava so as to uncover potential obstacles in a target road network. The framework has been evaluated in a real-world network of forest paths in the city of Cieza (Spain) showing quite promising results.


Transport ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 418-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Basarić ◽  
Jadranka Jović

The research presented in this paper is aimed at defining a model that enables the management of the relationship between private vehicles and public transport applying the available instruments of city transport policy such as parking policy and public transport policy measures. Statistical data used for modelling is sourced from the database in a wide range of EU cities. The target model was developed in the form of stepwise regression analysis. Very favourable statistical results were obtained, and the subsequent tests on the city of Novi Sad (250000 inhabitants) led to the conclusion that the obtained results were suitable for implementation in practice. The results of the implemented procedure are of great importance for the enhancement of the existing transport policies in cities, as they enable the development of strategies for finding combinations of instruments that would bring the transport system and urban environment into a desired-viable rather than consequential condition.


1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Clare Wenger

AbstractThis paper compares findings on the distribution of support networks in the City of Liverpool and in rural communities in North Wales. It demonstrates that while support network type is highly correlated with a wide range of demographic and social variables in both urban and rural samples, the nature of the relationships are not always comparable. The paper shows how cultural, migration and socio-economic factors interact to affect the formation of different types of support networks. As a result of a more stable elderly population, more old people in Liverpool have network types able to provide a high level of informal care and support.


Parasitology ◽  
1915 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. E. Robinson

Variability in the size and, in a lesser degree, the taxonomic features of male ticks, has arrested the attention of all who have had occasion to examine moderately large numbers of examples of the same species. In the case of the female tick, this variability, though doubtless coextensive with that of the male, is more or less obscured by the wide range of variation in size, depending upon the degree of engorgement; and, also, by the fact that in the female tick the taxonomic characters are, as a rule, less pronounced. The present note is only concerned with variability in the size of the male.


2018 ◽  

This edited volume provides a multifaceted investigation of the dynamic interrelations between visual arts and urbanization in contemporary Mainland China with a focus on unseen representations and urban interventions brought about by the transformations of the urban space and the various problems associated with it. Through a wide range of illuminating case studies, the authors demonstrate how innovative artistic and creative practices initiated by various stakeholders not only raise critical awareness on socio-political issues of Chinese urbanization but also actively reshape the urban living spaces. The formation of new collaborations, agencies, aesthetics and cultural production sites facilitate diverse forms of cultural activism as they challenge the dominant ways of interpreting social changes and encourage civic participation in the production of alternative meanings in and of the city. Their significance lies in their potential to question current values and power structures as well as to foster new subjectivities for disparate individuals and social groups.


2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Borchers-Tempel ◽  
Birgitta Kolte

Long-term cannabis consumers in Amsterdam, Bremen and San Francisco were asked in a detailed questionnaire about their experiences with cannabis products. The research focus was the question of how the consumption of cannabis is realized under the conditions established through different drug policies. The research utilized a sample of 522 cannabis consumers exhibiting a wide range of experiences and different consumption patterns. The authors were able to elaborate five 1different consumer types. The prevalence of these specific user types was closely associated with the city where the consumers reside. There were also some direct consequences of the different drug politics in place in the different cities, such as the level of fear associated with the potential criminal consequences of use, and the sources for the purchase of cannabis products.


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