The optimisation of legacy water treatment works to produce a more consistent final water quality

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Adaptive responses by mouse early embryos to maternal diet protect fetal growth but predispose to adult onset disease

Poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy can alter postnatal phenotype and increase susceptibility to adult cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. However, underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. Here, we show that maternal low protein diet (LPD), fed exclusively during mouse preimplantation development, leads to offspring with increased weight from birth, sustained hypertension, and abnormal anxiety-related behavior, especially in females. These adverse outcomes were interrelated with increased perinatal weight being predictive of later adult overweight and hypertension. Embryo transfer experiments revealed that the increase in perinatal weight was induced within blastocysts responding to preimplantation LPD, independent of subsequent maternal environment during later pregnancy. We further identified the embryo-derived visceral yolk sac endoderm (VYSE) as one mediator of this response. VYSE contributes to fetal growth through endocytosis of maternal proteins, mainly via the multiligand megalin (LRP2) receptor and supply of liberated amino acids. Thus, LPD maintained throughout gestation stimulated VYSE nutrient transport capacity and megalin expression in late pregnancy, with enhanced megalin expression evident even when LPD was limited to the preimplantation period. Our results demonstrate that in a nutrient-restricted environment, the preimplantation embryo activates physiological mechanisms of developmental plasticity to stablize conceptus growth and enhance postnatal fitness. However, activation of such responses may also lead to adult excess growth and cardiovascular and behavioral diseases. © 2008 by the Society for the Study of Reproduction, Inc.

Small pelagics in a changing ocean : Biological responses of sardine early stages to warming

Small pelagic fishes are known to respond rapidly to changes in ocean climate. In this study, we evaluate the effects of future environmental warming (+2°C) during the early ontogeny of the European sardine, Sardina pilchardus. Warming reduced the survival of 30-day-old larvae by half. Length at hatching increased with temperature as expected, but no significant effect was observed on the length and growth at 30 days post-hatching. Warming did not significantly affect the thermal tolerance of sardine larvae, even though the mean lethal temperature increased by 1°C. In the warm conditions, sardine larvae showed signs of thermal stress, indicated by a pronounced increase in larval metabolism (Q 10 = 7.9) and a 45% increase in the heat shock response. Lipid peroxidation was not significantly affected by the higher temperature, even though the mean value doubled. Warming did not affect the time larvae spent swimming, but decreased by 36% the frequency of prey attacks. Given the key role of these small pelagics in the trophic dynamics off the Western Iberian upwelling ecosystem, the negative effects of warming on the early stages may have important implications for fish recruitment and ecosystem structure.

Efficacy of early skin-to-skin contact on the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in term neonates: a randomized controlled trial

Background: Despite multiple benefits of breast milk, the rates of exclusive breastfeeding in developing countries are low. Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of early skin -to -skin contact (SSC) on the rate of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) at 6 weeks of age among term neonates born by vaginal delivery. Methods: Term neonates born by vaginal delivery and did not require any resuscitation were randomized at birth to SSC (n=100) and control (n=100) group. Immediately after clamping the umbilical cord, SSC group neonates were placed on the bare bosom of mother and control group neonates were placed under a radiant warmer for a period of 45 minutes each while mothers underwent management of the third stage of labor and episiotomy repair. Pain experienced by mother during episiotomy repair was recorded using a numerical pain scale The primary outcome evaluated was the rate of exclusive breastfeeding at 6 weeks of postnatal age. Results: A significantly higher proportion of neonates were exclusively breastfeed at 6 weeks of age in the SSC group than in the control group (72% vs. 57.6%, p=0.04, relative risk: 1.3, 95% confidence interval: 1.0 -1.6). The pain score during episiotomy repair in mothers of the SSC group was significantly lower than the control group (4.74±0.85 versus 5.34±0.81; P <0.01). Conclusions: Early SSC significantly improved the rate of exclusively breastfeeding at 6 weeks of age among healthy term neonates. An important additional effect was a decrease in the amount of pain that mothers in the SSC group experienced during episiotomy repair.

Analysis of mortality during the winter seasons in Mexico from 2000 to 2012

To analyze mortality from all causes in Mexico during the winter months. Methods: Data was extracted and tabulated on monthly all-cause mortality in the general population from 2000 to 2012 from the INEGI database. Coeficients of seasonal variation in mortality were calculated. Results: In Mexico there was an increase of 14 % in mortality in the general population during winter. The more susceptible age groups were older people and children, with increases of 18% and 13% respectively. The months with low levels of mortality were April, October and September for children, adolescents and older people respectively. Conclusions: Important increases in winter mortality occur in Mexico.

Om naturens förvandlingar : Vetenskap, kunskap och frihet i Rudolf Steiners tidiga tänkande. Idéhistoriska perspektiv på Waldorfpedagogiken

TRANSFORMATIONS OF NATURE Science, Knowledge and Freedom in the Early Thinking of Rudolf Steiner. Perspectives on Waldorf Education in the light of the History of Ideas Waldorf Education is based on the worldview that Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) developed to a wide-ranging anthroposophical movement in the first decades of the 20th century. This thesis takes as its departure the early thinking of Rudolf Steiner that precedes anthroposophy, and its main purpose is to uncover the tradition of ideas represented in Steiner´s early life and which, in different ways, have emerged in the practice of Waldorf Education. Through systematic analysis I attempt to bring to light different aspects of Steiner’s early thinking: his concept of science, his epistemological startingpoints and his philosophy of freedom. By departing from J. W. Goethe’s qualitative concept of science, Steiner strove in his early works to formulate a monistic worldview which appears to be closely related to the Romantic Movement and its philosophy of nature. Characteristic traits of his thinking are, on the one hand, a critique of a one-sided enlightenment and, on the other hand, an aspiration to see the world as a living organic unity. Human beings can, by developing our intuitive faculties, get a deeper understanding of the indissoluble relationship between man and nature. Against this background Steiner´s early thinking can be read as a special kind of romantic development narrative. Steiner’s early thinking also opens the way for romantic perspectives on Waldorf Education. It appears that many central aims and conceptions in Waldorf Education can be illuminated by the epistemological perspective upon which Steiner elaborated early in his life. An organic curriculum, phenomenological didactics and high ideal of freedom can be considered seen as educational applications of conceptions that played an important role in Goethe and his age. Thus, Waldorf Education provides in our contemporary society an exceptional set of educational values: a holistic education with romantic undertones.

The Sunday-school : its origin, mission, methods, and auxiliaries / by H. Clay Trumbull.

http://www.archive.org/details/thesundayschooli00trumuoft

Bax and the 'Celtic North'

A feature of scholarship on Arnold Bax is his indebtedness, in his early works, to the Irish literary revival (particularly in the mythology-suffused works of 'AE' and early Yeats) and, in his later works, to the music of Jean Sibelius, and the relationship between these periods. I argue that this relationship, which I summarize by using Bax's portmanteau term of 'Celtic North', is underpinned by the stimulus of landscape, which, as well as being a means by which to return to the Romantic idea of the sublime, also provides a means by which Bax critiques the more modernist relationship with landscape that underpins the English pastoral school of the 1920s. Thus the 'Celtic North' is the antithesis to the English 'south land' of Vaughan Williams and others.

Kitāb al-Sukkardān wa-ʻajāʼib al-buldān / taʼlīf al-Shaykh al-Imām al-ʻĀlim al-ʻAllāmah al-ʻUmda Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-ʻAbbās Aḥmad al-shahīr bi-Ibn Abī Ḥajalah al-Tilimsānī : manuscript, 1567

Title from fol. 1r.

Kitāb Tarjamat thaghr Dimyāṭ al-maḥrūs wa-mā waqaʻa bihā min ʻahd Nūḥ ʻalayhi al-salām ilá ākhir dawlat al-Turk min Kitāb al-ʻAnāṣir li-majālis al-Malik al-Nāṣir : manuscript, [1567]

A history of Damietta, Egypt.