Les Très Riches Heures et les Heures Bedford

The article presents new stylistic material in support of the discovery (in 2005) that the Bedford Hours were designed in the years 1414-1415, at the same time as the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry. The Bedford Hours would appear to have been made for the dauphin, Louis de Guyenne, in light of the occurrence of several of his emblems under the principle miniatures, as well as the calendar programme, which is inspired by Ovid’s Fasti. The identification of the heraldry in the miniature of the history of the fl eur de lis (f. 288v) by Michel Pastoureau demonstrates that the miniature also represents the coronation of Henry V in 1429 in the presence of Philippe le Bon, Anne de Bourgogne and John de Mowbray, duke of Norfolk and earl marshall.

Fishing the key biological components of the bacterium Geobacter metallireducens for optimal biotechnological applications

Os resultados apresentados no capítulo 2 foram incluídos no artigo Dantas JM, Campelo LM, Duke NEC, Salgueiro CA, Pokkuluri PR (2015) "The structure of PccH from Geobacter sulfurreducens – a novel low reduction potential monoheme cytochrome essential for accepting electrons from an electrode", FEBS Journal, 282, 2215-2231.

Characterization of earth-based mortars for rammed earth repair

All over the world, many earth buildings are deteriorating due to lack of maintenance and repair. Repairs on rammed earth walls are mainly done with mortars, by rendering application; however, often the repair is inadequate, resorting to the use of incompatible materials, including cement-based mortars. It has been observed that such interventions, in walls that until that day only had presented natural ageing issues, created new problems, much more dangerous for the building than the previous ones, causing serious deficiencies in this type of construction. One of the problems is that the detachment of the new cement-based mortar rendering only occurs after some time but, until that occurrence, degradations develop in the wall itself. When the render detaches, instead of needing only a new render, the surface has to be repaired in depth, with a repair mortar. Consequently, it has been stablished that the renders, and particularly repair mortars, should have physical, mechanical and chemical properties similar to those of the rammed earth walls. This article intends to contribute to a better knowledge of earth-based mortars used to repair the surface of rammed earth walls. The studied mortars are based on four types of earth: three of them were collected from non-deteriorated parts of walls of unstabilized rammed earth buildings located in Alentejo region, south of Portugal; the fourth is a commercial earth, consisting mainly of clay. Other components were also used, particularly: sand to control shrinkage; binders stabilizers such as dry hydrated air-lime, natural hydraulic lime, Portland cement and natural cement; as well as natural vegetal fibers (hemp fibers). The experimental analysis of the mortars in the fresh state consisted in determining the consistency by flow table and the bulk density. In the hardened state, the tests made it possible to evaluate the following properties: linear and volumetric shrinkage; capillary water absorption; drying capacity; dynamic modulus of elasticity; flexural and compressive strength.