Architectures and design patterns for functional design of logic control and diagnostics in industrial automation

Recently in most of the industrial automation process an ever increasing degree of automation has been observed. This increasing is motivated by the higher requirement of systems with great performance in terms of quality of products/services generated, productivity, efficiency and low costs in the design, realization and maintenance. This trend in the growth of complex automation systems is rapidly spreading over automated manufacturing systems (AMS), where the integration of the mechanical and electronic technology, typical of the Mechatronics, is merging with other technologies such as Informatics and the communication networks. An AMS is a very complex system that can be thought constituted by a set of flexible working stations, one or more transportation systems. To understand how this machine are important in our society let considerate that every day most of us use bottles of water or soda, buy product in box like food or cigarets and so on. Another important consideration from its complexity derive from the fact that the the consortium of machine producers has estimated around 350 types of manufacturing machine. A large number of manufacturing machine industry are presented in Italy and notably packaging machine industry,in particular a great concentration of this kind of industry is located in Bologna area; for this reason the Bologna area is called “packaging valley”. Usually, the various parts of the AMS interact among them in a concurrent and asynchronous way, and coordinate the parts of the machine to obtain a desiderated overall behaviour is an hard task. Often, this is the case in large scale systems, organized in a modular and distributed manner. Even if the success of a modern AMS from a functional and behavioural point of view is still to attribute to the design choices operated in the definition of the mechanical structure and electrical electronic architecture, the system that governs the control of the plant is becoming crucial, because of the large number of duties associated to it. Apart from the activity inherent to the automation of themachine cycles, the supervisory system is called to perform other main functions such as: emulating the behaviour of traditional mechanical members thus allowing a drastic constructive simplification of the machine and a crucial functional flexibility; dynamically adapting the control strategies according to the different productive needs and to the different operational scenarios; obtaining a high quality of the final product through the verification of the correctness of the processing; addressing the operator devoted to themachine to promptly and carefully take the actions devoted to establish or restore the optimal operating conditions; managing in real time information on diagnostics, as a support of the maintenance operations of the machine. The kind of facilities that designers can directly find on themarket, in terms of software component libraries provides in fact an adequate support as regard the implementation of either top-level or bottom-level functionalities, typically pertaining to the domains of user-friendly HMIs, closed-loop regulation and motion control, fieldbus-based interconnection of remote smart devices. What is still lacking is a reference framework comprising a comprehensive set of highly reusable logic control components that, focussing on the cross-cutting functionalities characterizing the automation domain, may help the designers in the process of modelling and structuring their applications according to the specific needs. Historically, the design and verification process for complex automated industrial systems is performed in empirical way, without a clear distinction between functional and technological-implementation concepts and without a systematic method to organically deal with the complete system. Traditionally, in the field of analog and digital control design and verification through formal and simulation tools have been adopted since a long time ago, at least for multivariable and/or nonlinear controllers for complex time-driven dynamics as in the fields of vehicles, aircrafts, robots, electric drives and complex power electronics equipments. Moving to the field of logic control, typical for industrial manufacturing automation, the design and verification process is approached in a completely different way, usually very “unstructured”. No clear distinction between functions and implementations, between functional architectures and technological architectures and platforms is considered. Probably this difference is due to the different “dynamical framework”of logic control with respect to analog/digital control. As a matter of facts, in logic control discrete-events dynamics replace time-driven dynamics; hence most of the formal and mathematical tools of analog/digital control cannot be directly migrated to logic control to enlighten the distinction between functions and implementations. In addition, in the common view of application technicians, logic control design is strictly connected to the adopted implementation technology (relays in the past, software nowadays), leading again to a deep confusion among functional view and technological view. In Industrial automation software engineering, concepts as modularity, encapsulation, composability and reusability are strongly emphasized and profitably realized in the so-calledobject-oriented methodologies. Industrial automation is receiving lately this approach, as testified by some IEC standards IEC 611313, IEC 61499 which have been considered in commercial products only recently. On the other hand, in the scientific and technical literature many contributions have been already proposed to establish a suitable modelling framework for industrial automation. During last years it was possible to note a considerable growth in the exploitation of innovative concepts and technologies from ICT world in industrial automation systems. For what concerns the logic control design, Model Based Design (MBD) is being imported in industrial automation from software engineering field. Another key-point in industrial automated systems is the growth of requirements in terms of availability, reliability and safety for technological systems. In other words, the control system should not only deal with the nominal behaviour, but should also deal with other important duties, such as diagnosis and faults isolations, recovery and safety management. Indeed, together with high performance, in complex systems fault occurrences increase. This is a consequence of the fact that, as it typically occurs in reliable mechatronic systems, in complex systems such as AMS, together with reliable mechanical elements, an increasing number of electronic devices are also present, that are more vulnerable by their own nature. The diagnosis problem and the faults isolation in a generic dynamical system consists in the design of an elaboration unit that, appropriately processing the inputs and outputs of the dynamical system, is also capable of detecting incipient faults on the plant devices, reconfiguring the control system so as to guarantee satisfactory performance. The designer should be able to formally verify the product, certifying that, in its final implementation, it will perform itsrequired function guarantying the desired level of reliability and safety; the next step is that of preventing faults and eventually reconfiguring the control system so that faults are tolerated. On this topic an important improvement to formal verification of logic control, fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control results derive from Discrete Event Systems theory. The aimof this work is to define a design pattern and a control architecture to help the designer of control logic in industrial automated systems. The work starts with a brief discussion on main characteristics and description of industrial automated systems on Chapter 1. In Chapter 2 a survey on the state of the software engineering paradigm applied to industrial automation is discussed. Chapter 3 presentes a architecture for industrial automated systems based on the new concept of Generalized Actuator showing its benefits, while in Chapter 4 this architecture is refined using a novel entity, the Generalized Device in order to have a better reusability and modularity of the control logic. In Chapter 5 a new approach will be present based on Discrete Event Systems for the problemof software formal verification and an active fault tolerant control architecture using online diagnostic. Finally conclusive remarks and some ideas on new directions to explore are given. In Appendix A are briefly reported some concepts and results about Discrete Event Systems which should help the reader in understanding some crucial points in chapter 5; while in Appendix B an overview on the experimental testbed of the Laboratory of Automation of University of Bologna, is reported to validated the approach presented in chapter 3, chapter 4 and chapter 5. In Appendix C some components model used in chapter 5 for formal verification are reported.

Studies of OPA1 pathogenic mechanisms in Dominant Optic Atrophy and novel protein function in mitochondrial DNA stability

The mitochondrion is an essential cytoplasmic organelle that provides most of the energy necessary for eukaryotic cell physiology. Mitochondrial structure and functions are maintained by proteins of both mitochondrial and nuclear origin. These organelles are organized in an extended network that dynamically fuses and divides. Mitochondrial morphology results from the equilibrium between fusion and fission processes, controlled by a family of “mitochondria-shaping” proteins. It is becoming clear that defects in mitochondrial dynamics can impair mitochondrial respiration, morphology and motility, leading to apoptotic cell death in vitro and more or less severe neurodegenerative disorders in vivo in humans. Mutations in OPA1, a nuclear encoded mitochondrial protein, cause autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy (DOA), a heterogeneous blinding disease characterized by retinal ganglion cell degeneration leading to optic neuropathy (Delettre et al., 2000; Alexander et al., 2000). OPA1 is a mitochondrial dynamin-related guanosine triphosphatase (GTPase) protein involved in mitochondrial network dynamics, cytochrome c storage and apoptosis. This protein is anchored or associated on the inner mitochondrial membrane facing the intermembrane space. Eight OPA1 isoforms resulting from alternative splicing combinations of exon 4, 4b and 5b have been described (Delettre et al., 2001). These variants greatly vary among diverse organs and the presence of specific isoforms has been associated with various mitochondrial functions. The different spliced exons encode domains included in the amino-terminal region and contribute to determine OPA1 functions (Olichon et al., 2006). It has been shown that exon 4, that is conserved throughout evolution, confers functions to OPA1 involved in maintenance of the mitochondrial membrane potential and in the fusion of the network. Conversely, exon 4b and exon 5b, which are vertebrate specific, are involved in regulation of cytochrome c release from mitochondria, and activation of apoptosis, a process restricted to vertebrates (Olichon et al., 2007). While Mgm1p has been identified thanks to its role in mtDNA maintenance, it is only recently that OPA1 has been linked to mtDNA stability. Missense mutations in OPA1 cause accumulation of multiple deletions in skeletal muscle. The syndrome associated to these mutations (DOA-1 plus) is complex, consisting of a combination of dominant optic atrophy, progressive external ophtalmoplegia, peripheral neuropathy, ataxia and deafness (Amati- Bonneau et al., 2008; Hudson et al., 2008). OPA1 is the fifth gene associated with mtDNA “breakage syndrome” together with ANT1, PolG1-2 and TYMP (Spinazzola et al., 2009). In this thesis we show for the first time that specific OPA1 isoforms associated to exon 4b are important for mtDNA stability, by anchoring the nucleoids to the inner mitochondrial membrane. Our results clearly demonstrate that OPA1 isoforms including exon 4b are intimately associated to the maintenance of the mitochondrial genome, as their silencing leads to mtDNA depletion. The mechanism leading to mtDNA loss is associated with replication inhibition in cells where exon 4b containing isoforms were down-regulated. Furthermore silencing of exon 4b associated isoforms is responsible for alteration in mtDNA-nucleoids distribution in the mitochondrial network. In this study it was evidenced that OPA1 exon 4b isoform is cleaved to provide a 10kd peptide embedded in the inner membrane by a second transmembrane domain, that seems to be crucial for mitochondrial genome maintenance and does correspond to the second transmembrane domain of the yeasts orthologue encoded by MGM1 or Msp1, which is also mandatory for this process (Diot et al., 2009; Herlan et al., 2003). Furthermore in this thesis we show that the NT-OPA1-exon 4b peptide co-immuno-precipitates with mtDNA and specifically interacts with two major components of the mitochondrial nucleoids: the polymerase gamma and Tfam. Thus, from these experiments the conclusion is that NT-OPA1- exon 4b peptide contributes to the nucleoid anchoring in the inner mitochondrial membrane, a process that is required for the initiation of mtDNA replication and for the distribution of nucleoids along the network. These data provide new crucial insights in understanding the mechanism involved in maintenance of mtDNA integrity, because they clearly demonstrate that, besides genes implicated in mtDNA replications (i.e. polymerase gamma, Tfam, twinkle and genes involved in the nucleotide pool metabolism), OPA1 and mitochondrial membrane dynamics play also an important role. Noticeably, the effect on mtDNA is different depending on the specific OPA1 isoforms down-regulated, suggesting the involvement of two different combined mechanisms. Over two hundred OPA1 mutations, spread throughout the coding region of the gene, have been described to date, including substitutions, deletions or insertions. Some mutations are predicted to generate a truncated protein inducing haploinsufficiency, whereas the missense nucleotide substitutions result in aminoacidic changes which affect conserved positions of the OPA1 protein. So far, the functional consequences of OPA1 mutations in cells from DOA patients are poorly understood. Phosphorus MR spectroscopy in patients with the c.2708delTTAG deletion revealed a defect in oxidative phosphorylation in muscles (Lodi et al., 2004). An energetic impairment has been also show in fibroblasts with the severe OPA1 R445H mutation (Amati-Bonneau et al., 2005). It has been previously reported by our group that OPA1 mutations leading to haploinsufficiency are associated in fibroblasts to an oxidative phosphorylation dysfunction, mainly involving the respiratory complex I (Zanna et al., 2008). In this study we have evaluated the energetic efficiency of a panel of skin fibroblasts derived from DOA patients, five fibroblast cell lines with OPA1 mutations causing haploinsufficiency (DOA-H) and two cell lines bearing mis-sense aminoacidic substitutions (DOA-AA), and compared with control fibroblasts. Although both types of DOA fibroblasts maintained a similar ATP content when incubated in a glucose-free medium, i.e. when forced to utilize the oxidative phosphorylation only to produce ATP, the mitochondrial ATP synthesis through complex I, measured in digitonin-permeabilized cells, was significantly reduced in cells with OPA1 haploinsufficiency only, whereas it was similar to controls in cells with the missense substitutions. Furthermore, evaluation of the mitochondrial membrane potential (DYm) in the two fibroblast lines DOA-AA and in two DOA-H fibroblasts, namely those bearing the c.2819-2A>C mutation and the c.2708delTTAG microdeletion, revealed an anomalous depolarizing response to oligomycin in DOA-H cell lines only. This finding clearly supports the hypothesis that these mutations cause a significant alteration in the respiratory chain function, which can be unmasked only when the operation of the ATP synthase is prevented. Noticeably, oligomycin-induced depolarization in these cells was almost completely prevented by preincubation with cyclosporin A, a well known inhibitor of the permeability transition pore (PTP). This results is very important because it suggests for the first time that the voltage threshold for PTP opening is altered in DOA-H fibroblasts. Although this issue has not yet been addressed in the present study, several are the mechanisms that have been proposed to lead to PTP deregulation, including in particular increased reactive oxygen species production and alteration of Ca2+ homeostasis, whose role in DOA fibroblasts PTP opening is currently under investigation. Identification of the mechanisms leading to altered threshold for PTP regulation will help our understanding of the pathophysiology of DOA, but also provide a strategy for therapeutic intervention.

Welfare provision in Sweden and the dominant position of the Sap

There have been almost fifty years since Harry Eckstein' s classic monograph, A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton, 1961), where he sketched out the basic tenets of the “congruence theory”, which was to become one of the most important and innovative contributions to understanding democratic rule. His next work, Division and Cohesion in Democracy, (Princeton University Press: 1966) is designed to serve as a plausibility probe for this 'theory' (ftn.) and is a case study of a Northern democratic system, Norway. What is more, this line of his work best exemplifies the contribution Eckstein brought to the methodology of comparative politics through his seminal article, “ “Case Study and Theory in Political Science” ” (in Greenstein and Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, 1975), on the importance of the case study as an approach to empirical theory. This article demonstrates the special utility of “crucial case studies” in testing theory, thereby undermining the accepted wisdom in comparative research that the larger the number of cases the better. Although not along the same lines, but shifting the case study unit of research, I intend to take up here the challenge and build upon an equally unique political system, the Swedish one. Bearing in mind the peculiarities of the Swedish political system, my unit of analysis is going to be further restricted to the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Svenska Arbetare Partiet. However, my research stays within the methodological framework of the case study theory inasmuch as it focuses on a single political system and party. The Swedish SAP endurance in government office and its electoral success throughout half a century (ftn. As of the 1991 election, there were about 56 years - more than half century - of interrupted social democratic "reign" in Sweden.) are undeniably a performance no other Social Democrat party has yet achieved in democratic conditions. Therefore, it is legitimate to inquire about the exceptionality of this unique political power combination. Which were the different components of this dominance power position, which made possible for SAP's governmental office stamina? I will argue here that it was the end-product of a combination of multifarious factors such as a key position in the party system, strong party leadership and organization, a carefully designed strategy regarding class politics and welfare policy. My research is divided into three main parts, the historical incursion, the 'welfare' part and the 'environment' part. The first part is a historical account of the main political events and issues, which are relevant for my case study. Chapter 2 is devoted to the historical events unfolding in the 1920-1960 period: the Saltsjoebaden Agreement, the series of workers' strikes in the 1920s and SAP's inception. It exposes SAP's ascent to power in the mid 1930s and the party's ensuing strategies for winning and keeping political office, that is its economic program and key economic goals. The following chapter - chapter 3 - explores the next period, i.e. the period from 1960s to 1990s and covers the party's troubled political times, its peak and the beginnings of the decline. The 1960s are relevant for SAP's planning of a long term economic strategy - the Rehn Meidner model, a new way of macroeconomic steering, based on the Keynesian model, but adapted to the new economic realities of welfare capitalist societies. The second and third parts of this study develop several hypotheses related to SAP's 'dominant position' (endurance in politics and in office) and test them afterwards. Mainly, the twin issues of economics and environment are raised and their political relevance for the party analyzed. On one hand, globalization and its spillover effects over the Swedish welfare system are important causal factors in explaining the transformative social-economic challenges the party had to put up with. On the other hand, Europeanization and environmental change influenced to a great deal SAP's foreign policy choices and its domestic electoral strategies. The implications of globalization on the Swedish welfare system will make the subject of two chapters - chapters four and five, respectively, whereupon the Europeanization consequences will be treated at length in the third part of this work - chapters six and seven, respectively. Apparently, at first sight, the link between foreign policy and electoral strategy is difficult to prove and uncanny, in the least. However, in the SAP's case there is a bulk of literature and public opinion statistical data able to show that governmental domestic policy and party politics are in a tight dependence to foreign policy decisions and sovereignty issues. Again, these country characteristics and peculiar causal relationships are outlined in the first chapters and explained in the second and third parts. The sixth chapter explores the presupposed relationship between Europeanization and environmental policy, on one hand, and SAP's environmental policy formulation and simultaneous agenda-setting at the international level, on the other hand. This chapter describes Swedish leadership in environmental policy formulation on two simultaneous fronts and across two different time spans. The last chapter, chapter eight - while trying to develop a conclusion, explores the alternative theories plausible in explaining the outlined hypotheses and points out the reasons why these theories do not fit as valid alternative explanation to my systemic corporatism thesis as the main causal factor determining SAP's 'dominant position'. Among the alternative theories, I would consider Traedgaardh L. and Bo Rothstein's historical exceptionalism thesis and the public opinion thesis, which alone are not able to explain the half century social democratic endurance in government in the Swedish case.

Super shell logic - [sush-ic] - progetto di un edificio per il tempo libero a Tokyo. Implicazioni tettoniche ed estetiche delle logiche monoscocca integrate e stress lines analysis in architettura.

Implicazioni tettoniche ed estetiche delle logiche monoscocca integrate e stress lines analysis in architettura.

Les conflits et les rapports de force dans la langue. Le dominant et le domine dans le domaine scolaire

La standardisation de la langue française a inévitablement eu des conséquences soit dans l’attitude de défense du français, soit dans l’inquiétude de ceux qui parlent une autre langue. Cette étude veut établir une comparaison entre le rapport langue du pouvoir/langues non officielles et le rapport professeur/élève en milieu scolaire. La distinction entre langue officielle et dites « langues minoritaires » sera mis en relation avec la langue des jeunes, qui, à l’école, se confrontent et entrent en collision avec la langue de leur professeur. En effet, les classes hétérogènes et l’influence de la langue maternelle auprès des élèves, fils d’immigrés, exposent les enseignants à toute une série de difficultés liées aux différences culturelles. Les dénonciations et les cas de violence dans les écoles mettront l’accent également sur l’opinion publique et sur le type de mesures mises en relief par les Institutions publiques. L’aire géographique prise en considération inclut Paris et ses environs même si quelques exemples d’enquêtes menées dans d’autres parties de la France et à l’étranger seront cités.

La Città Inclusiva. Educazione, democrazia e giustizia sociale: la ricerca di una prospettiva e di strategie che promuovano umanizzazione e inclusione

L'interrogativo da cui nasce la ricerca riguarda la possibilità di individuare, in controtendenza con la logica neoliberista, strategie per l'affermarsi di una cultura dello sviluppo che sia sostenibile per l'ambiente e rispettosa della dignità delle persone, in grado di valorizzarne le differenze e di farsi carico delle difficoltà che ognuno può incontrare nel corso della propria esistenza. Centrale è il tema del lavoro, aspetto decisivo delle condizioni di appartenenza sociale e di valorizzazione delle risorse umane. Vengono richiamati studi sulla realtà in cui siamo immersi, caratterizzata dal pensiero liberista diventato negli ultimi decenni dominante su scala globale e che ha comportato una concezione delle relazioni sociali basata su di una competitività esasperata e sull’esclusione di chi non sta al passo con le leggi di mercato: le conseguenze drammatiche dell'imbroglio liberista; la riduzione delle persone a consumatori; la fuga dalla comunità ed il rifugio in identità separate; il tempo del rischio, della paura e della separazione fra etica e affari. E gli studi che, in controtendenza, introducono a prospettive di ricerca di uno sviluppo inclusivo e umanizzante: le prospettive della decrescita, del business sociale, di una via cristiana verso un'economia giusta, della valorizzazione delle capacità delle risorse umane. Vengono poi indagati i collegamenti con le esperienze attive nel territorio della città di Bologna che promuovono, attraverso la collaborazione fra istituzioni, organizzazioni intermedie e cittadini, occasioni di un welfare comunitario che sviluppa competenze e diritti insieme a responsabilità: l'introduzione delle clausole sociali negli appalti pubblici per la realizzazione professionale delle persone svantaggiate; la promozione della responsabilità sociale d'impresa per l'inclusione socio-lavorativa; la valorizzazione delle risorse delle persone che vivono un’esperienza carceraria. Si tratta di esperienze ancora limitate, ma possono costituire un riferimento culturale e operativo di un modello di sviluppo possibile, che convenga a tutti, compatibile con i limiti ambientali e umanizzante.

Growth hormone (GH)-releasing hormone increases the expression of the dominant-negative GH isoform in cases of isolated GH deficiency due to GH splice-site mutations

An autosomal dominant form of isolated GH deficiency (IGHD II) can result from heterozygous splice site mutations that weaken recognition of exon 3 leading to aberrant splicing of GH-1 transcripts and production of a dominant-negative 17.5-kDa GH isoform. Previous studies suggested that the extent of missplicing varies with different mutations and the level of GH expression and/or secretion. To study this, wt-hGH and/or different hGH-splice site mutants (GH-IVS+2, GH-IVS+6, GH-ISE+28) were transfected in rat pituitary cells expressing human GHRH receptor (GC-GHRHR). Upon GHRH stimulation, GC-GHRHR cells coexpressing wt-hGH and each of the mutants displayed reduced hGH secretion and intracellular GH content when compared with cells expressing only wt-hGH, confirming the dominant-negative effect of 17.5-kDa isoform on the secretion of 22-kDa GH. Furthermore, increased amount of 17.5-kDa isoform produced after GHRH stimulation in cells expressing GH-splice site mutants reduced production of endogenous rat GH, which was not observed after GHRH-induced increase in wt-hGH. In conclusion, our results support the hypothesis that after GHRH stimulation, the severity of IGHD II depends on the position of splice site mutation leading to the production of increasing amounts of 17.5-kDa protein, which reduces the storage and secretion of wt-GH in the most severely affected cases. Due to the absence of GH and IGF-I-negative feedback in IGHD II, a chronic up-regulation of GHRH would lead to an increased stimulatory drive to somatotrophs to produce more 17.5-kDa GH from the severest mutant alleles, thereby accelerating autodestruction of somatotrophs in a vicious cycle.

Recruitment dynamics of the grove-dominant tree Microberlinia bisulcata in African rain forest: extending the light response versus adult longevity trade-off concept

In groves of ectomycorrhizal caesalpiniaceous species in the Atlantic coastal forest of Central Africa the dominant tree Microberlinia bisulcata, which is shade-intolerant as a seedling but highly light-responding as a sapling, shows very limited regeneration. M. bisulcata saplings were mapped in an 82.5-ha plot at Korup and found to be located significantly far (>40 m) away from adults, a result confirmed by direct testing in a second 56-ha plot. Sapling growth over 6 years, the distribution of newly emerging seedlings around adults, recruitment of saplings in a large opening and the outward extent of seedlings at the grove edge were also investigated. Two processes appear to have been operating: (1) a very strong and consistent restriction of the very numerous seedlings establishing after masting close to adults, and (2) a strong but highly spatially variable promotion of distant survivors by increased light from the deaths of large trees of species other than M. bisulcata (which itself has very low mortality rate). This leads to an apparent escape-from-adults effect. To maintain saplings in the shade between multiple short periods of release ectomycorrhizal connections to other co-occurring caesalp species may enable a rachet-type mechanism. The recorded sapling dynamics currently contribute an essential part of the long-term cycling of the groves. M. bisulcata is an interesting example of an important group of tropical trees, particularly in Africa, which are both highly light-demanding when young yet capable also of forming very large forest emergents. To more comprehensively explain tropical tree responses, the case is made for adding a new dimension to the trade-off concept of early tree light-response versus adult longevity.

Do fungal pathogens drive density-dependent mortality in established seedlings of two dominant African rain forest trees?

Where one or a few tree species reach local high abundance, different ecological factors may variously facilitate or hinder their regeneration. Plant pathogens are thought to be one of those possible agents which drive intraspecific density-dependent mortality of tree seedlings in tropical forests. Experimental evidence for this is scarce, however. In an African rain forest at Korup, we manipulated the density of recently established seedlings (~5–8 wk old; low vs. high-density) of two dominant species of contrasting recruitment potential, and altered their exposure to pathogens using a broad-spectrum fungicide. Seedling mortality of the abundantly recruiting subcanopy tree Oubanguia alata was strongly density-dependent after 7 mo, yet fungicide-treated seedlings had slightly higher mortality than controls. By contrast, seedling mortality of the poorly recruiting large canopy-emergent tree Microberlinia bisulcata was unaffected by density or fungicide. Ectomycorrhizal colonization of M. bisulcata was not affected by density or fungicide either. For O. alata, adverse effects of fungicide on its vesicular arbuscular mycorrhizas may have offset any possible benefit of pathogen removal. We tentatively conclude that fungal pathogens are not a likely major cause of density dependence in O. alata, or of early post-establishment mortality in M. bisulcata. They do not explain the latter's currently very low recruitment rate at Korup.

Muslimische Theologen und Philosophen im Wett- und Widerstreit um die Ratio - Ein Thesenpapier zum Diktum der 'Vernunftreligion' Islam im 11.-14. Jahrhundert

In this paper I investigate the vivid discussions among Muslim theologians and philosophers about the relationship of reason and religion from the 11th to the 14th centuries – which continue to be used as points of reference today. I argue that the idea of Islam as a religion which is in harmony with reason was one of the key postulates of the dominant thinkers of that period, regardless of their school of thought or their attitude towards literal or allegorical ways of understanding the Coran. In consequence, religion has been rationalized or even intellectualized to a high degree while philosophy in turn has been deeply coloured by religious images and concepts. Yet the understanding of religion as well as of reason and its instruments has been so heterogeneous that rationalization could bear very different, even conflicting meanings, thereby undermining the postulated harmony. In seven theses I foreground several striking similarities and differences between theologians and philosophers who diverge in their usage and understanding of reason as well as of the nature of religion.