Evaluation of the enzymatic activity and diversity of soil microorganism in Andean temperate forests degradation gradient

<p>Soil microorganism are an essential component of forest ecosystem. Microbes and plant release enzymes that catalyse reactions needed to decomposed soil organic matter and crucial to release nutrient in available forms. Therefore, soil enzymes are relevant indicators of microbial activity and nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems. Anthropic disturbances in natural forest, such as logging and exotic livestock, modify the structure and composition of forest thereby altering the structure and activities of soil microbial communities.</p><p>Here we determine the effect of these disturbances on the enzymatic activity (Dehydrogenase-DHA; Phosphatase Acid-AP; Ureasa-UA) and the microbial diversity using a forest degradation gradient of native temperate forest dominated by Nothofagus dombeyi, Nothofagus obliqua and Nothofagus alpina. In addition we quantify C:N:P nutrient reservoirs, stoichiometry and available pools. Preliminary results suggest a higher activity of the DHA enzyme in degraded forest dominated by N. obliqua. AP and UA showed no relationship with the phosphorus and total nitrogen reservoirs. Forest degradation modify microbial communities, C:N:P stoichiometry, total and available nutrient pools, where the biggest pool of total C and N was registered on low degraded condition and decrease as degradation condition increase from medium to high degraded forest (74.44%; 65.35%; 48.05% for total C and 3.71; 3.41; 3.24 for total N respectively). Inverse relation was registered for total P pool were the highest pool was registered on high degraded condition (14963ppm; 13092ppm and 11299ppm from high to low degraded condition). Degraded sites were dominated mainly by members of Gammaproteobacteria, Alfaproteobacteria, Acidobacteria and Bacteroidia. Chitinophagaceae and Burkholderiacea were not detected in degraded plots, which suggest that some of the specialised functions carried by this groups could be lost. With respect to fungi Ascomycota and Basidomicota Phylum dominated the soil profiles. A species of the genus Clonostachys (Bionectriaceae) was identified, an endophyte fungus that acts as a saprophyte, also known to be a parasite of other fungi and some nematodes.</p><p>This research contributes to a better understanding of the direct effects of anthropic disturbances on the biogeochemical functioning of temperate forests and their relationship to the activity and composition of microbial communities.</p><p>Acknowledgment: Proyecto Reforestación Enel – UdeC</p>

Female Colonial Travel Writing as a Critique of Victorian Gender Stereotypes and Roles: A Case Study of F.D. Bridges’s Journal of a Lady’s Travels Round the World (1883)

Making recourse to Virginia Woolf’s “Professions for Women” (1931), I have studied the manner in which F.D. Bridges criticizes the patriarchal representations of Victorian women in her Journal of a Lady’s Travels Round the World (1883). In her text, she not only accounts for her experiences of travel in foreign countries but also inserts a discourse that lies counter to male definitions of women’s roles as “household angels,” confined in the domestic space and deprived of power. With the strength she demonstrates through her experiences of travel, she criticizes the fact that women are considered to be ‘the weaker sex.’ She also cultivates a quest for knowledge so as to carve her place in the ‘public sphere’ of knowledge and power and to criticize the practice of representing women as uneducated and ignorant. Last but not least, she highlights the degraded condition of the foreign women in an attempt to call for a universal enfranchisement of women abroad and in her country. All the three elements allow Bridges to fight against the “phantom” of the “angel in the house,” which, according to Woolf, needed to be “killed” in order for a woman to impose her authorship.

Discussion on Application of Accident Sequence Precursor Analysis in China

An accident sequence precursor (ASP) is an initiating event or degraded condition that, when coupled with one or more postulated events, could result in inadequate core cooling or even severe reactor core damage. Through the systematical investigation and evaluation of nuclear power plant (NPP) operating experience, the ASP analysis could provide a comprehensive, risk-informed view of NPP operating experience, a measure for trending core damage risk, a partial validation of the current state of practice in risk assessment, and also a feedback to regulatory activities. This paper firstly gives a brief review on the ASP evaluation process of U.S. and German, and then introduces the current progresses on the establishment of ASP regulatory framework and the development of ASP management platform, which are carrying out by the related nuclear regulation agency in China. Also, this paper gives some insightful discussions on issues such as the ASP application and problems maybe faced.

The Saoura Foggaras: Degradation of Hydraulic System Millennium Case of Beni Abbes, Ouakda, Beni Ounif and Lahmar (Algeria)

In this article, we studied, for the first time, the foggaras of Saoura. Five missions were carried out in the oases of Kerzaz, Lahmar, Boukais, Beni Ounif, Ouakda, and Beni Abbes during the years 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. The first results showed that there was a difference between the foggaras of Touat and those of Saoura. The galleries of Saoura are much shorter than those of Touat and Gourara. On the contrary, the distribution of water from the Touat and Gourara foggaras is carried out per unit volume, whereas from the Saoura foggaras per unit time. The foggaras we visited are practically in a degraded condition. The contribution of modern technology (pumps and wells) in the oases of Saoura is the principal cause of the decline of the hydraulic system millennium.

Ellen M. Rogers as a Feminist and Orientalist Travel Writer: A Study of her A Winter in Algeria: 1863-4 (1865)

This article studies the Orientalist and Feminist discourses that underlay Ellen M. Rogers’s A Winter in Algeria: 1863-4 (1865). Her conception of Algeria reproduces the Victorian imperialist attitude toward the Algerian as inferior to the European in order to celebrate British imperial power. Underneath this colonial discourse, the writer proclaims her feminist point of view about empire and juxtaposes feminist attitudes in Victorian Britain with the degraded condition of the Oriental woman. To contribute to Victorian feminist struggle for gender equality, she identifies with the suffering of Muslim Algerian women under male domination and compares their confinement to the harem and their veiling to Victorian “separate spheres” ideology. From this perspective, Rogers presents the profiles of the Orientalist as defined by Edward Said (1978) and the feminist as defined by Antoinette Burton (1994). Said limits his discussion of Orientalism to male writers and travelers who construct imperialist views about the colonial world and its people. However, Burton argues that many Victorian travel writers were women who not only circulated Orientalist ideas but also constructed a feminist discourse. Women writers found in the colonial world ways to cross the boundaries of gender and power in order to criticize male writers who insisted on women’s inferior status. In sum, the major claim made in this article is that Ellen M. Rogers projects a feminist-Orientalist view in her travel account about French Algeria.

Eudontomyzon danfordi (Regan, 1911) Species Populations Ecological Status in Maramureş Mountains Nature Park (Romania)

The Eudontomyzon danfordi characteristic habitats state of Maramureş Mountains Nature Park varies greatly, 19.05% are in excellent conservation status, 47.62% are in good/average status and 33.33% are in a partially degraded condition. The identified human impact categories which induced the decreasing of Eudontomyzon danfordi species habitat state in the studied area are: poaching, minor riverbeds morphodynamic changings, liquid and solid natural flow disruption, destruction of riparian trees and bush vegetation, habitat fragmentation-fish populations isolation, and organic/mining pollution activities.