Water Stress and Disruption of Mycorrhizae Induce Parallel Shifts in Phyllosphere Microbiome Composition

ABSTRACTWater and nutrient limitation are key stressors that affect plant health and ecosystem function. These environmental factors impact both soil- and root-associated microbial communities, and systemically alter plant physiology, but it is less clear how they affect aboveground plant-microbe interactions. Through experimental manipulations in the field and growth chamber, we examined the interacting effects of irrigation, soil fertility, and root mycorrhizal associations on bacterial and fungal communities of the tomato phyllosphere (Solanum lycopersicum). Both water stress and mycorrhizal disruption reduced bacterial richness within plants, homogenized bacterial community diversity among plants, and reduced the relative abundance of dominant fungal taxa. We observed striking parallelism in the individual microbial taxa affected by irrigation and mycorrhizal associations. Given the increasingly understood role of the phyllosphere in shaping plant health and pathogen susceptibility, these results offer an additional mechanism by which belowground conditions shape plant fitness.

RAWAKEJA AND QASIREWIJA ACCORDING TO THE TEXTS OF LINEAR B

This article examines the terms rawakeja (an organization of lawagetas) and qasirewija (an organization of basileis) based on the evidence from documents written in the Linear B script. In an analysis of the Knossos text As 1516, the author finds that these organizations are groups that include a number of men who belong to specific settlements and are headed by lawagetas and basileis, respectively. Given the striking parallelism in this text between rawakeja and qasirewija, the author concludes that these organizations were similar in nature and performed similar functions. The study determined that a basileus, as a local leader, had the people from the area he headed under his control; these people themselves, subordinating to him within this organization, had to perceive him, first of all, not as a palace representative, but as their own, local leader. Analyzing the positions of the rawakeja and qasirewija in the text As 1516, the author concludes that the lawagetas played the same role in the Knossian rawakeja as the basileis played in their local qasirewija, and performed functions similar to those performed by the basileis, albeit on the scale of a metropolitan settlement; in addition, the lawagetas apparently had to coordinate the activities of all the basileis of the state. The lack of any clear evidence pertaining to the economic activities of rawakeja and qasirewija leads the author to reject the view that the activities of these organizations were related to the economic and craft sphere. Instead, the rawakeja and qasirewija, as groups of adult men recruited on the principle of living in one settlement, and being led by specific leaders, and as those who are dependent on the state, are comparable to the detachments of rowers listed in the An 610 tablet. All this, in turn, allows the author to draw the main conclusion that rawakeja and qasirewija are groups of men recruited by the state for the purpose of involvement in the military sphere.

THE CORE-OBLIQUE DISTINCTION IN SOME AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES OF INDONESIA AND BEYOND

This paper explores the nature of core-oblique distinctions in some Austronesian languages of Indonesia, focusing on the intermediate status between core and oblique categories. It proposes a core index, a novel method to determine the core status of an argument. Core index evidence shows that there is a cline running from syntactically core to non-core (oblique), and that the degree of coreness in Indonesian and Balinese shows striking parallelism. The proposed core-index-based analysis allows us to claim syntactic transitivity with confidence and to resolve successfully the controversial transitivity problem of the Indonesian bare verb construction. The analysis advances our understanding of the nature of semi-core arguments, syntactic transitivity, symmetricality of voice system, and alternative argument realisations, not only in Indonesian and Balinese, but also in other typologically different Austronesian languages of central and eastern Indonesia and beyond. Importantly, the core-index study also provides a means for cross-linguistic comparative analysis of the unusual alternative pattern of applicativisation whereby no core promotion is involved. The paper also discusses how the gradient nature of the core-oblique distinction, particularly semi-coreness of arguments, poses a challenge for any theory that posits discrete classes of relations.

Comparison with an indeterminate pronoun

Chapter 4 focuses on the dual-use phenomenon of comparison with an indeterminate pronoun in Japanese (and other languages) and considers the similarities and differences between at-issue comparative meaning (i.e. individual comparison) and a CI comparative meaning (i.e. noteworthy comparison). Although an individual comparison and a noteworthy comparison are compositionally and dimensionally different, there is a striking parallelism in terms of the scale structure. The chapter explains the similarities and differences between the two kinds of comparison in a systematic way. It also considers the role of scalarity and comparison in a discourse context and argues that they provide a way of signaling to what extent an at-issue utterance contributes to the goal of the conversation. The timing of signaling information on noteworthiness in a discourse and its pragmatic effect are also discussed.

Grammar, Contact and Time

A continuing issue in work on language contact has been determining the relative borrowability of various structural features. It is easy to imagine, for example, how a tendency to use particular word order patterns in one language might be replicated by bilinguals in another, but difficult to understand how abstract morphological structures could be transferred. When we look at linguistic areas, however, we often find grammatical features shared by genetically unrelated languages that seem unborrowable. Here we consider the importance of adding the dimension of time to investigations into the potential effects of contact. As a point of departure we examine a relatively straightforward example from western North America, a striking parallelism in verbal structure among large numbers of languages indigenous to California. The example illustrates the fact that parallel grammatical structures in neighboring languages need not have been borrowed in their current form. They might instead be the result of an earlier transfer of patterns of expression that set the stage for subsequent parallel developments.

A Biographical Note on Marcel Proust's Professor Cottard

A medical practitioner, Professor Cottard, features in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, which has been described as one of the supreme achievements of world literature. Proust modelled the character of Cottard on the real-life Parisian neurologist and psychiatrist Dr Jules Cotard (1840–1889). Marcel Proust's father, Dr Adrien Proust, was an eminent Parisian surgeon and a contemporary of Cotard. A review of the biographical literature (in French) relating to Dr Jules Cotard and an analysis of his published work (in English and French) have revealed a striking parallelism between the lives of the fictional Cottard and Jules Cotard.

Les Relations Causales Directes en Français et en Coréen

This paper analyzes the properties of discourses in French and in Korean which express a direct causal relation. Our work leads us to observe a striking parallelism between the two languages although they are very distant from each other. It goes considerably further than Danlos's remarks, which are confined to the analogy between Romance languages and English. Furthermore, it is very interesting to see that Danlos's hypotheses are language-independent and that Pustejovsky's event structure and the relations of generalization and particularization are notions which can be applied in the same way in all these languages.

Rapid clearance of malaria circumsporozoite protein (CS) by hepatocytes.

The circumsporozoite protein (CS) covers uniformly the plasma membrane of malaria sporozoites. In vitro, CS multimers bind specifically to regions of the hepatocyte plasma membrane that are exposed to circulating blood in the Disse space. The ligand is in the region II-plus of CS, an evolutionarily conserved stretch of the protein that has amino acid sequence homology to a cell adhesive motif of thrombospondin. We have now found that intravenously injected CS constructs bind rapidly to the basolateral surface of hepatocytes, provided that the recombinant proteins contain region II-plus, and that they are aggregated. Significant amounts of CS were not retained in any other organ. The striking parallelism between these in vitro and in vivo findings with the target specificity of malaria sporozoites, reinforces the hypothesis that the attachment of the parasites to hepatocytes is via region II-plus of CS.

Hepatosplenomegaly in infectious mononucleosis, assessed by ultrasonic scanning

SummaryThe present study aims at an assessment of hepato-splenomegaly in infectious mononucleosis (IM). In 29 patients admitted to the ENT department with IM, based on the typical clinical and laboratory findings, including a positive mononucleosis test in most cases, the size of the liver and spleen was estimated by ultrasonic scanning on days 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 90 and 120 after admission. A control group of eight patients with peritonsillar abscess was included for comparison. The results showed that all patients had an enlarged spleen (mean enlargement: 50–60 per cent) but only a few were palpable. Half of the patients had enlargement of the liver (5–20 per cent), which was palpable in only 8 per cent. There was no correlation between the size of the spleen and that of the liver, not between the changes in the size of these organs. There was no enlargement of the liver or spleen in the control group. No correlation was found between the size, or changes in the size, of the organs and blood values such as lactatdehydrogenase and aspartatamino-transferase. There is, however, a striking parallelism between the curves for these parameters, which might indicate that the organs as well as the blood tests return to normal within 28 days. If this holds true, our warning to abstain from physical exercise and alcoholic intake may be limited to a period of about 1 month.

INVERSE EFFECTS OF CORTICOSTERONE AND THYROXINE ON GLUCOCORTICOID BINDING SITES IN THE ANTERIOR PITUITARY GLAND

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to determine whether pituitary glucocorticoid binding sites are under hormonal control. It was shown that corticosterone and thyroxine exerted antagonistic effects on both the transcortin-like component and true receptor present in the hypophysis: thyroid hormones, in contrast to glucocorticoids which exhibited opposite influence, increased maximum binding without affecting significantly the apparent association constant. Thus, it seems that the concentration of glucocorticoid binding sites is regulated by the glucocorticoid ligands, as well as by a different hormone. Moreover, a striking parallelism was found between plasma transcortin and pituitary transcortin-like capacity, argueing in favour of a plasma origin for this pituitary binder.