Search results for "Famine"
showing 10 items of 27 documents
The 1430s: a cold period of extraordinary internal climate variability during the early Spörer Minimum with social and economic impacts in north-west…
2016
Changes in climate affected human societies throughout the last millennium. While European cold periods in the 17th and 18th century have been assessed in detail, earlier cold periods received much less attention due to sparse information available. New evidence from proxy archives, historical documentary sources and climate model simulations permit us to provide an interdisciplinary, systematic assessment of an exceptionally cold period in the 15th century. Our assessment includes the role of internal, unforced climate variability and external forcing in shaping extreme climatic conditions and the impacts on and responses of the medieval society in north-western and central Europe. Climate…
Technology generation to dissemination: lessons learned from the tef improvement project
2018
Indigenous crops also known as orphan crops are key contributors to food security, which is becoming increasingly vulnerable with the current trend of population growth and climate change. They have the major advantage that they fit well into the general socio-economic and ecological context of developing world agriculture. However, most indigenous crops did not benefit from the Green Revolution, which dramatically increased the yield of major crops such as wheat and rice. Here, we describe the Tef Improvement Project, which employs both conventional- and molecular-breeding techniques to improve tef—an orphan crop important to the food security in the Horn of Africa, a region of the world w…
Transcriptome analysis of the Populus trichocarpa–Rhizophagus irregularis Mycorrhizal Symbiosis: Regulation of Plant and Fungal Transportomes under N…
2017
Nutrient transfer is a key feature of the arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis. Valuable mineral nutrients are transferred from the AM fungus to the plant, increasing its fitness and productivity, and, in exchange, the AM fungus receives carbohydrates as an energy source from the plant. Here, we analyzed the transcriptome of the Populus trichocarpa-Rhizophagus irregularis symbiosis using RNA-sequencing of non-mycorrhizal or mycorrhizal fine roots, with a focus on the effect of nitrogen (N) starvation. In R. irregularis, we identified 1,015 differentially expressed genes, whereby N starvation led to a general induction of gene expression. Genes of the functional classes of cell growth, memb…
The role of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) on aerobic granules formation: comparison between a case of synthetic wastewater supply and anot…
2017
The paper focused on the evolution and the comparison of the extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) content during the granulation process in two Granular Sequencing Batch Airlift Reactors (GSBAR) (3,5 L) fed with synthetic (R1) and industrial wastewater (R2). The results showed that in both the reactors the EPSs, in particular proteins (PN), were mainly produced during the feast phase because of the high substrate availability, especially under conditions of metabolic stress. Then, the EPSs content reduced during the famine period, because of biodegradation by bacteria. More in detail, during the granulation process, a greater polysaccharides (PS) consumption occurred in both reactors, …
The sensory and nutritional experience of parents guide offsprings' feeding behavior
2016
Le comportement alimentaire est régulé par des facteurs physiologiques intrinsèques et est largement influencé par l’environnement culturel. Une prise alimentaire excessive et un mode de vie trop sédentaire sont les principales raisons de l’épidémie mondiale d’obésité. Si l’influence du contexte familial sur les habitudes alimentaires ne fait aucun doute, le fait que l’état nutritionnel, métabolique et hormonal des parents avant la conception, puis de la mère pendant la gestation et l’allaitement puisse influencer le comportement alimentaire futur de l’enfant est un concept novateur qui ouvre la voie à des mesures de prévention. Au cours des dernières décennies, des travaux sur des cohortes…
Investigating the dietary life histories and mobility of children buried in St Gertrude Church cemetery, Riga, Latvia, 15th–17th centuries ad *
2020
Carbon and nitrogen isotope profiles were obtained from incremental dentine analysis of 19 non‐adults from a cemetery in Riga, Latvia. The research compared the life histories and diet between people buried in two mass graves and the general cemetery. The δ13C profiles of several children from the mass graves were similar but did not resemble the patterns seen in children from the general cemetery, suggesting that they probably represented a different population group. The rise in δ15N values towards the end of the life of four individuals from one mass grave suggests they were victims of an historically documented famine.
Mortality and demographic recovery in early post-black death epidemics: Role of recent emigrants in medieval Dijon
2020
International audience; Objective and methodsWe analyze the influence of population movement on susceptibility to death and resilience during two epidemics occurring in Dijon soon after the Black Death. Using a specific program designed to propose links between entries in annual tax registers, we define tentative heads of household, the elapsed time since their first registration and their ties with other persons within the city.ResultsDuring the 1400 epidemic heads of household who were registered for 1–3 years die in large numbers, whereas during years without epidemics, their death rate is lower than that of heads of household who were registered longer. Recent registration is an epidemi…
The Quest for Raw Materials in the British Paper Trade : The Development of the Bamboo Pulp and Paper Industry in British India up to 1939
2018
The British paper trade history was defined since the mid-1850s by a quest for a new raw material to replace rags. The requirements of the paper trade were first met by a discovery that esparto grass from Spain, and later from North Africa, could be utilised in British mills. Beginning in the late 1870s, the success of using esparto encouraged mill developments in British India. The increased dependence on imported wood pulp, the likelihood of a pulp famine, and the consequent increase in price for imported wood pulp drew attention to the possibility of making commercial volumes of good quality pulp from indigenous Indian grasses. Bamboo began being treated after the First World War, when t…
Land area fractions and population fractions exposed to extreme climate impact events derived from ISIMIP2b output data
2020
This dataset contains the land area fractions and population fractions exposed ('le' for land exposed and 'pe' for population exposed) to the following six extreme climate impact events: crop failures (lec/pec), drought (led/ped), heatwaves (leh/peh), river floods (ler/per), tropical cyclones (let/pet) and wildfire (lew/pew). It is the data behind Lange et al., 2020. The data are provided on a global 0.5° grid and in annual time steps. It was derived from multi-model climate impacts simulations generated within the second round (ISIMIP2b, https://www.isimip.org/protocol/2b, Frieler et al., 2017) of the Intersectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP, https://www.isimip.org). The …
Why People Born During World War II are Healthier
2017
War leads civilians to suffer. This can take extreme forms, such as during periods of intense violence or famines. But also outside of such episodes, civilians’ lives during wars can be harsh, as they suffer from poorer nutritional situations, stress, recessions, and sub optimally functioning health care systems. The more extreme types of suffering are proven to lead to a worse health among those prenatally exposed to them. But long-run effects of prenatal exposure to the latter circumstances have thus far largely been unexplored, even though in many wars more pregnant women are exposed to these “everyday” circumstances than to the extreme circumstances. We study the general, population-wid…