Landscape and history: a multidisciplinary approach. Project Group Environmental History (P.G.E.H.)

Human societies have inhabited parts of the Central European country of Austria for thousands of years. The development process shopping the landscape by this long period of human impact remains poorly understood. The present study is an attempt to research landscape history on a local scale and compares an alpine, pre-alpine and midland-village area in Austria. We have developed an appropriate concept to describe the landscape ecology features of the study areas in several stages of the past from 1733 on. The landscape analysis is based on the interpretation of different kinds of historical data (e.g., documents, maps) going back to the pre-industrial epoch, which has--at least in terms of landscape ecology--hardly been accessible until now. An important aim of the study is to localize the historical information in the landscape. Individual plots can be traced back even to the early 14th century. Based on the quality of the available historical data, the historical landscape is analysed with regard to categories such as form and intensity of land use, distribution of nutrients and water as well as the pattern of landscape elements and their ecological functions. The comparison of present stages with former ones yields detailed knowledge on the dynamics and stability of landscape structure. This approach allows present-day land units to be identified as a result of long-term development going back to Medieval times. The primary aim of the study is to analyze factors that bring about change or resist it by creating stability. We therefore examine factors coupling landscape structure, agricultural production and population development. For this reason, we have studied the people and the evidence for their labor over a period of 400 years (1400-1800). Besides demographic data of the 18th and 19th century, historical registrar material has been collected; it enabled the land tenures to be reconstructed from the 15th to the 19th century. This type of data is a valuable source of information for investigating the socio-economic status of a local population or its farmsteads. The collected data reveal similarities in trends between time series of demography, land holding stability and landscape ecology features. A theoretical model shows how population, production and natural resources are connected in the investigated pre-modern communities.     

Of Mice and Men: Evolution and the Socialist Utopia. William Morris,H.G. Wells,and George Bernard Shaw

During the British socialist revival of the 1880s competing theories of evolution were central to disagreements about strategy for social change. In News from Nowhere (1891), William Morris had portrayed socialism as the result of Lamarckian processes, and imagined a non-Malthusian future. H.G. Wells, an enthusiastic admirer of Morris in the early days of the movement, became disillusioned as a result of the Malthusianism he learnt from Huxley and his subsequent rejection of Lamarckism in light of Weismann’s experiments on mice. This brought him into conflict with his fellow Fabian, George Bernard Shaw, who rejected neo-Darwinism in favour of a Lamarckian conception of change he called “creative evolution.”     

Dedication to Drs. E. G. Krebs and E.H. Fischer

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry -     

Living history: G. Edgar Folk, Jr

In 2005, the American Physiological Society (APS) initiated the Living History Project to recognize senior members who have made significant contributions during their career to the advancement of the discipline and profession of physiology. During 2007, the APS Section of Environmental and Exercise Physiology selected Prof. G. Edgar Folk, Jr., of the University of Iowa to be profiled in Advances in Physiology Education.     

Wickens, G.E. Economic botany: principles and practices

This book is a compendium of information on plants (and somemicro-organisms) that are, or could be, useful to humans. Someidea of its vast scope can be gained from the list of chapterheadings: Plant collecting, taxonomy and nomenclature; Environmentalconsiderations; Plant conservation; Ecophysiology and allieddisciplines; Plant breeding and propagation;     

Diffuse optical imaging and spectroscopy of the breast: a brief outline of history and perspectives

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in industrialized countries. At present, X-ray mammography is the gold standard for breast imaging, but has limitations, especially when dense breasts are imaged, as typically occurs in young women. Optical imaging can non-invasively provide information on tissue composition, structure and physiology that can be beneficially exploited for breast lesion detection and identification. In the last few decades optical breast imaging has been investigated, using different geometries (projection imaging and tomography) and measurement techniques (continuous wave, frequency resolved and time resolved approaches). Also, data analysis and display varies significantly, ranging from intensity images to maps of the optical properties (absorption and scattering), tissue composition, and physiological parameters (typically blood volume and oxygenation). This paper outlines the historical evolution of optical imaging and spectroscopy of the breast, highlighting potentialities and limitations, and presents an overview of the main applications and perspectives of the field.     

Bacteriorhodopsin vesicles. An outline of the requirements for light-dependent H+ pumping.

A systematic study was performed to determine under which conditions bacteriorhodopsin can be applied as an energy generator in reconstituted systems. It is concluded that reconstitution of an active light-driven proton pump is possible over a wide range of conditions. High extents (per bacteriorhodopsin molecule) of proton uptake by reconstituted vesicles are found at a high lipid to protein ratio, after long sonication and at high pH. No active proton pump is obtained if reconstitution is attempted at high pH with neutral phospholipids or at low ionic strength with negatively charged lipids. Attention was also paid to the requirement of a crystalline array for active pumping; most likely, monomeric bacteriorhodopsin molecules can effectively pump protons.