scholarly journals Molluscan communities in Late Holocene fluvial deposits as an indicator of human activity: A study in Podhale basin in South Poland

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Witold Paweł Alexandrowicz
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Fluvial Sediments ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
Anthropogenic Pressures ◽  
Fluvial Deposits ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Scale

AbstractThe localities of Late Holocene fluvial sediments in the Podhale basin were subjected to malacological analysis. Two types of mollusc communities were found in these formations. The first type is characterized by a high proportion of species typical of open environments such as the zones of wide valleys. The predomination of shade-loving taxa is typical of the second type which is mainly associated with narrow, V-shaped type valleys. Malacological analysis allowed characterization of these communities and reconstruction of environmental changes over the last few hundred years. Particular attention was paid to the reconstruction of the history of human settlement in the Podhale region and its impact on the transformation of the environment. This impact resulted in massive deforestation and the introduction of wide-scale farming and pastoral practices. Application of this malacological analysis enabled the determination of the anthropogenic pressures, and changes in their intensity, over the last few hundred years.

scholarly journals Philosophical Practice as Self-modification: An Essay on Michel Foucault’s Critical Engagement with Philosophy

2018 ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Sverre Raffnsøe ◽  
Morten Thaning ◽  
Marius Gudmand-Høyer
Keyword(s):  
Truth Telling ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Cartesian Meditation ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

This essay argues that what makes Michel Foucault’s oeuvre not only stand apart but also cohere is an assiduous philosophical practice taking the form of an ongoing yet concrete self-modification in the medium of thought. Part I gives an account of three essential aspects of Foucault’s conception of philosophical activity. Beginning with his famous characterization of philosophy in terms of ascēsis, it moves on to articulate his characterization of philosophical practice as a distinct form of meditation, differing from both Cartesian meditation and Hegelian meditation, as it aims to stand vigil for the day to come and operates as a preface to transgression. Part II begins the articulation of crucial traits left implicit in this understanding of philosophy by turning to Foucault’s in-depth investigation of philosophy in Antiquity during his lectures at the Collège de France in the 1980s. First, it develops how philosophy here begins to constitute and distinguish itself by establishing itself as an activity that has a privileged relationship to truth and truth-telling as an unremitting, existentially determining challenge for the philosopher. Further, it instantiates how Platonism elaborates the need for a sustained ‘auto-ascetic’ ethical non-compliant differentiation as the condition of possibility for accessing and stating truth, and then describes how the assertion of an ethical differentiation and attitude in Cynicism takes the form of an insistent combat for another world in this world. Finally, it underlines how the ethical-practical philosophical work upon oneself in Antiquity is developed in an ongoing critical and political exchange with others. Part III indicates how ethical differentiation according to Foucault remains an essential precondition for the practice of philosophy and is further developed in the modern age. This is particularly perspicuous in Kant’s determination of the Enlightenment, in the attitude of modernity exemplified by Baudelaire, and in the history of revolt since the beginning of early Modernity. On this background, Part IV develops how philosophy as an ongoing meditative practice of self-modification leads to an affirmative critique, confirming the virtuality of this world in order to investigate the potentiality in the examined. In this manner, the essay presents Foucault’s philosophical practice as well as an outline of the history of ideas of a seemingly alternate, yet still agenda-setting conception of philosophical practice today.

scholarly journals Histamine Intolerance: Clinical Characterization and Determination of Serum Diamine Oxidase (Dao) in a Series of Cases and Controls

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peralta Teresa ◽  
Bastías Carla ◽  
Camila Beltran-Ortiz ◽  
Durán Magdalena ◽  
Ramos Verónica ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Diamine Oxidase ◽  
Clinical Manifestations ◽  
Histamine Intolerance ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ige Mediated ◽  
Average Serum ◽  
Excessive Accumulation

Abstract Introduction. Histamine intolerance (HIT) is a pathology with an estimated prevalence of 1% in which there is an imbalance between the intake of histamine via the digestive tract and the body's ability to degrade it. This results in an excessive accumulation of histamine that determines the appearance of gastrointestinal, skin, respiratory and neurological symptoms. The enzyme responsible for degrading histamine in the extracellular space is diamine oxidase (DAO); therefore, HIT is caused due to a deficit in the concentration and/or in the activity of this enzyme. Because histamine is the main mediator of the classic symptoms of IgE-mediated allergic reactions, it is difficult to differentiate a true allergy from HIT since it has basically the same clinical manifestations. Objectives. The objective of this study was to perform a clinical characterization of patients with HIT and to determine the usefulness of quantifying serum DAO concentration in the diagnosis of HIT. Method: Twenty-two patients over the age of 18 with a history of histamine intolerance were recruited, in whom IgE-mediated food allergy was ruled out, and 22 healthy patients. Both groups were surveyed and serum DAO concentration was determined. Results: Middle-aged women predominated in the population with HIT. They described a wide variety of symptoms, with a dominance of abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, flushing, urticaria, itching, headache and dysmenorrhea. When comparing the average serum DAO concentration in the population with HIT (10.686 U/ml) with the average obtained in the control population (20.664 U/ml), there was a significant difference (p < 0.003). Conclusion. The determination of serum DAO concentration is a useful tool for the diagnosis of HIT.

scholarly journals Worthwhile Relevance of Infrared Spectroscopy in Characterization of Samples and Concept of Infrared Spectroscopy-Based Synchrotron Radiation

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ayodele Temidayo Odularu
Keyword(s):  
Infrared Spectroscopy ◽  
Synchrotron Radiation ◽  
Coordination Compounds ◽  
Electromagnetic Spectrum ◽  
Purity Determination ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pharmaceutical Industries ◽  
Chemical Products

The study explores the nitty-gritty of infrared spectroscopy. Firstly, the review gives a concise history of infrared discovery and its location in the electromagnetic spectrum. Secondly, the infrared spectroscopy is reported for its mechanism, principles, sample preparation, and application for absence and presence of functional groups determination in both ligands and coordination compounds. Thirdly, it helps in purity determination of unknown samples. Additional studies regarding this study entail infrared spectroscopy-based synchrotron radiation. It serves as a giant microscope to give detailed information of samples under investigation compared to the conventional infrared instrument. Infrared will continue to be useful to both chemical and pharmaceutical industries, in order to make chemical products and manufactured drugs put on wholesome integrity.

scholarly journals Facing Change through Diversity: Resilience and Diversification of Plant Management Strategies during the Mid to Late Holocene Transition at the Monte Castelo Shellmound, SW Amazonia

Quaternary ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Laura P. Furquim ◽  
Jennifer Watling ◽  
Lautaro M. Hilbert ◽  
Myrtle P. Shock ◽  
Gabriela Prestes-Carneiro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Production ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Amazon Basin ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Landscape Management ◽  
Plant Management ◽  
History Of

Recent advances in the archaeology of lowland South America are furthering our understanding of the Holocene development of plant cultivation and domestication, cultural niche construction, and relationships between environmental changes and cultural strategies of food production. This article offers new data on plant and landscape management and mobility in Southwestern Amazonia during a period of environmental change at the Middle to Late Holocene transition, based on archaeobotanical analysis of the Monte Castelo shellmound, occupied between 6000 and 650 yr BP and located in a modern, seasonally flooded savanna–forest mosaic. Through diachronic comparisons of carbonized plant remains, phytoliths, and starch grains, we construct an ecology of resource use and explore its implications for the long-term history of landscape formation, resource management practices, and mobility. We show how, despite important changes visible in the archaeological record of the shellmound during this period, there persisted an ancient, local, and resilient pattern of plant management which implies a degree of stability in both subsistence and settlement patterns over the last 6000 years. This pattern is characterized by management practices that relied on increasingly diversified, rather than intensive, food production systems. Our findings have important implications in debates regarding the history of settlement permanence, population growth, and carrying capacity in the Amazon basin.

scholarly journals Shell mounds as the basis for understanding human-environment interactions in far north Queensland, Australia

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 65 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Shiner ◽  
P. C. Fanning ◽  
S. J. Holdaway ◽  
F. Petchey ◽  
C. Beresford ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Far North ◽  
Shell Mounds ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anadara Granosa ◽  
Level Of Analysis

<p>The Weipa shell mounds have a long history of archaeological research that has made a significant contribution to our understanding of the emergence of late Holocene coastal economies in northern Australia. However, much of this work has focused on broad comparisons of mounds between multiple locations rather than detailed studies of multiple mounds from single locations. This level of analysis is required to understand the record of both human occupation and environmental change and how these have given rise to the form of archaeological record visible in the present. In this paper we describe the results of a recent pilot study of four <em>Anadara granosa</em>-dominated shell mounds at Wathayn Outstation near Weipa in far north Queensland. We adopt a formational approach that investigates variability in shape, size, orientation, stratigraphy, shell fragmentation and diversity and mound chronology, as well as dating of the surfaces upon which the mounds have been constructed. Results indicate multiple periods of shell accumulation in each mound, separated by hiatuses. The mounds are the end product of a complex mix of processes that include how often and how intensively mounds were used and reused, together with the nature of the shell populations that people exploited and the post-depositional environmental changes that have occurred over the centuries the mounds have existed.</p>

Multi-proxy evidence for late Holocene anthropogenic environmental changes at Bongpo marsh on the east coast of Korea

2012 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jungjae Park ◽  
Keun Bae Yu ◽  
Hyoun Soo Lim ◽  
Young Ho Shin
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Carbon Isotopic Composition ◽  
Proxy Record ◽  
Rice Agriculture ◽  
Carbon Isotopic ◽  
Undisturbed Samples ◽  
High Sedimentation ◽  
History Of

AbstractWe present a multi-proxy record (pollen, microscopic charcoal, magnetic susceptibility, carbon-isotopic composition, total organic carbon [TOC], carbon/nitrogen [C/N] ratios, and particle size) of the late Holocene environmental change and human activities from Bongpo marsh on the east coast of Korea. Mutual interaction between the environment and humans during the late Holocene has not been properly investigated in Korea due to the lack of undisturbed samples with high sedimentation rates. In this study, the history of human responses to late Holocene environmental changes is clearly reconstructed using a multi-proxy paleoenvironmental approach that has not previously been applied in Korea. The evidence from Bongpo marsh indicates that 1) Bongpo marsh began to develop ca. 650 BC as a coastal lagoon was rapidly filled with organic matter, 2) agricultural disturbance around the study site remained slight until ca. AD 600, 3) full-scale intensive agriculture prevailed and the area of deforestation increased between ca. AD 600 and ca. AD 1870, and 4) the land use changed from lowland rice agriculture to upland cultivation when agricultural productivity declined after AD 1870, probably due to severe deforestation and the consequent heavy influx of clastic sediment on rice fields, as described in various historical documents.

Late Holocene Environmental Changes in Arid Southwestern Madagascar

1993 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Burney
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Record ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Fossil Pollen ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
Natural Factors ◽  
Stratigraphic Record

AbstractA 5000-yr stratigraphic record containing fossil pollen, charcoal, and bones of the extinct Quaternary megafauna from Andolonomby, a hypersaline pond in arid southwestern Madagascar, shows evidence for climatic desiccation beginning about 3000 yr B.P. Pollen spectra shift at this time from primarily arboreal taxa characteristic of forests and woodlands of more mesic western Madagascar, to wooded savanna typical of somewhat drier localities. Between 3000 and 2000 yr B.P., the site became increasingly arid. Charcoal and pollen evidence indicates that increased fire and disturbance occurred at the site beginning ca. 1900 yr B.P., probably signaling the beginning of human settlement in the area. The fossil record suggests that various human and natural factors on the island may have interacted in the subsequent millennium to culminate in the extinction of the entire endemic megafauna.

Late Quaternary Stratigraphic Charcoal Records from Madagascar

1987 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Burney
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Time Of Arrival ◽  
Large Mammals ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
Human Use ◽  
Anthropogenic Fires ◽  
Natural Component

AbstractThe classic view regarding the cause of the extinction of at least 17 species of large mammals, birds, and reptiles in Madagascar during the late Holocene implicates human use of fire to modify the environment. However, analysis of the charcoal stratigraphy of three sediment cores from Madagascar shows that late Pleistocene and early- to mid-Holocene sediments deposited prior to human settlement often contain more charcoal than postsettlement and modern sediments. This observation, which is confirmed by independent measurements from direct assay and palynological counting techniques, suggests that widely held but previously untested beliefs concerning the importance of anthropogenic fires in late Holocene environmental changes and megafaunal extinctions of Madagascar may be based on an overly simplified version of actual prehistoric conditions. Moderate to low charcoal values characterized only the late Holocene millennia immediately prior to the presumed time of arrival of the first settlers. Human settlement is probably indicated in the stratigraphy by the sharp rise in charcoal content observed beginning ca. 1500 yr B.P. Fire appears to be a significant natural component of prehuman environments in Madagascar, but some factor, probably climate, has modulated the extent of natural burning.

scholarly journals Optically stimulated luminescence and isothermal thermoluminescence dating of high sensitivity and well bleached quartz from Brazilian sediments: from Late Holocene to beyond the Quaternary?

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 209-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Oliveira Sawakuchi ◽  
Vinicius Ribau Mendes ◽  
Fabiano do Nascimento Pupim ◽  
Thays Desiree Mineli ◽  
Ligia Maria Almeida Leite Ribeiro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
Equivalent Dose ◽  
Optically Stimulated Luminescence ◽  
Osl Dating ◽  
Fluvial Sediments ◽  
Dose Distributions ◽  
Age Limit ◽  
Sediment Mixture

ABSTRACT: The development of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of sediments has led to considerable advance in the geochronology of the Quaternary. OSL dating is a well established technique to determine sediment burial ages from tens of years to few hundred thousand years. Recent studies have shown that Quaternary sediments of Brazil are dominated by quartz grains with high luminescence sensitivity, allowing the determination of precise and reliable OSL burial ages. In this paper, we show examples of OSL dating of quartz aliquots and single grains from different regions in Brazil, including young coastal-eolian Late Holocene (< 100 years) to Late Pleistocene (~ 150 ka) fluvial sediments. We discuss the OSL data and ages of sediments from carbonate and terrigenous (distributary and tributary systems) fluvial depositional contexts in Brazil. Most of the studied fluvial sediments show equivalent dose distributions with low to moderate dispersion, suggesting well bleached sediments. The comparison between aliquot and single grain data suggests that high overdispersion in equivalent dose distributions of some samples is more related with sediment mixture due to bioturbation than with incomplete bleaching during transport. Well bleached fluvial sediments contrast with the poor bleached pattern usually described for fluvial sediments in the literature. A large part of the fluvial sedimentary record in Brazil is older than the age limit for quartz OSL dating using blue light stimulation. Thus, isothermal thermoluminescence (ITL) dating protocols were tested for dating of fluvial sands from the Xingu River (eastern Amazonia). The studied sample can recover reliable equivalent doses up to 1600 Gy using the ITL 310oC signal. Therefore, this signal would be suitable to extend the age limit of quartz luminescence to the whole Quaternary or beyond (> 2 Ma) in the low dose rate (0.5 - 1.0 Gy/ka) environments typical for Brazilian sediments.

scholarly journals Philosophical Practice as Self-modification: An Essay on Michel Foucault’s Critical Engagement with Philosophy

2018 ◽  
pp. 8-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sverre Raffnsøe ◽  
Morten Thaning ◽  
Marius Gudmand-Høyer
Keyword(s):  
Truth Telling ◽  
Philosophical Practice ◽  
Cartesian Meditation ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Collège De France ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Come

This essay argues that what makes Michel Foucault’s oeuvre not only stand apart but also cohere is an assiduous philosophical practice taking the form of an ongoing yet concrete self-modification in the medium of thought. Part I gives an account of three essential aspects of Foucault’s conception of philosophical activity. Beginning with his famous characterization of philosophy in terms of ascēsis, it moves on to articulate his characterization of philosophical practice as a distinct form of meditation, differing from both Cartesian meditation and Hegelian meditation, as it aims to stand vigil for the day to come and operates as a preface to transgression. Part II begins the articulation of crucial traits left implicit in this understanding of philosophy by turning to Foucault’s in-depth investigation of philosophy in Antiquity during his lectures at the Collège de France in the 1980s. First, it develops how philosophy here begins to constitute and distinguish itself by establishing itself as an activity that has a privileged relationship to truth and truth-telling as an unremitting, existentially determining challenge for the philosopher. Further, it instantiates how Platonism elaborates the need for a sustained ‘auto-ascetic’ ethical non-compliant differentiation as the condition of possibility for accessing and stating truth, and then describes how the assertion of an ethical differentiation and attitude in Cynicism takes the form of an insistent combat for another world in this world. Finally, it underlines how the ethical-practical philosophical work upon oneself in Antiquity is developed in an ongoing critical and political exchange with others. Part III indicates how ethical differentiation according to Foucault remains an essential precondition for the practice of philosophy and is further developed in the modern age. This is particularly perspicuous in Kant’s determination of the Enlightenment, in the attitude of modernity exemplified by Baudelaire, and in the history of revolt since the beginning of early Modernity. On this background, Part IV develops how philosophy as an ongoing meditative practice of self-modification leads to an affirmative critique, confirming the virtuality of this world in order to investigate the potentiality in the examined. In this manner, the essay presents Foucault’s philosophical practice as well as an outline of the history of ideas of a seemingly alternate, yet still agenda-setting conception of philosophical practice today.

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