Nosso projeto consiste na discussão sobre a literatura e cultura contemporânea na Rússia, especialmente a questão do Pós-modernismo, por um recorte específico: a análise das obras ganhadoras do concurso Russian Booker Prize com enfoque no processo de classificação adotado pelos júris , bem como um apanhado geral da premiação na Rússia. Para tal, analisaremos, em um primeiro momento, os pensadores e críticos mais representativos dessa prosa alternativa ou pós-moderna, sempre com um embasamento histórico. Entender o indivíduo pós-soviético será de fundamental importância para lidar com os temas e personagens dos romances vencedores. Em um segundo momento, nosso trabalho será o de investigar os critérios utilizados pela banca, a fim de tentar encontrar (se houver) algum ponto comum entre algumas das obras ganhadoras. Pensar em tais pontos será de suma importância para compreender os sistemas de valores dos críticos envolvidos nesse processo de premiação, além de colaborar para o enriquecimento de uma nova abordagem analítica da nova literatura russa e de alguns de seus nomes mais prolíficos. / Our project consists in the discussion of contemporary literature and culture in Russia, especially the question of post-modernism, by a specific focus: the analysis of the winning works of the Russian Booker Prize contest focusing on the process of classification adopted by the judges as well as a overview of the awards in Russia. To this end, we will analyze, at first, critical thinkers and most representative of this \"prose alternative\" or post-modern, always with a historical foundation. Understanding the individual post-Soviet is of fundamental importance to deal with the issues and characters of novels winners. In a second step, our work is to investigate the criteria used by banks in order to try to find (if any) a common point among some of the winning works. Think about these points will be extremely important to understand the value systems of the critics involved in the awards process, and contribute to the enrichment of a new analytical approach of the new Russian literature and some of its most prolific names.

<p> The American Expeditionary Force, sent to Siberia in 1918, conducted operations other than war. The rationale for sending the American Expeditionary Force to Siberia was vague, but Wilson&rsquo;s instructions were to be as neutral as possible. The AEF&rsquo;s objectives were relatively ambiguous and therefore the chances for success were minimal. Nevertheless, the AEF proved to be surprisingly adept at the diplomacy required to maintain neutrality. The commanders of the AEF demonstrated the tact and skill necessary to prevent dangerous situations from escalating out of control. The success of the AEF offers a unique opportunity to learn what ground forces can accomplish without actively engaging in war. The overall failure of the intervention also shows the importance of detailed objectives and exit strategy prior to the start of any military operations.</p><p>

Penetration of sink as well as source leaves of wheat plants by the Russian wheat aphid, Diuraphis noxia (Mordvilko) was investigated using light, fluorescence and transmission electron techniques, to determine the feeding strategies adopted by the aphid in penetrating and successfully feeding from the phloem, and to assess the structural effects of the probing and feeding behaviour of D. noxia on the feeding sites. Examination of aphid-infested sink, as well as source leaf tissue, showed that D.noxia probed in cells of the vascular bundle more frequently than mesophyll cells. Within the vascular bundle, thin-walled sieve tubes were visited (probed) more than the other cells. In sink leaf material, 68 of 82 (83%) stylets and stylet tracks encountered during the examination of 1000 serial sections (from 5 different plants) terminated in thin-walled sieve tubes and only 14 (17%) in thick-walled sieve tubes. Thin-walled sieve tubes were visited more significantly than thick-walled sieve tubes. However, examination of the aphid.,.infested sink leaf on a per centimetre basis, from the tip of the leaf, revealed that thick-walled sieve tubes in the area closest to the tip (0-2cm from the tip) were as attractive to the aphid as were thin-walled sieve tubes, with no significant difference in the number of times thick- and thin-walled sieve tubes were probed in this area. Some 2-4cm from the tip however, thinwalled sieve tubes were significantly more probed and therefore more attractive than thick-walled sieve tubes. Examination of 2000 serial sections using aphid-infested source leaf tissue, showed that the thin-walled sieve tubes were significantly more probed than thickwalled sieve tubes, along the whole leaf, expressed as a total of all leaves, as well as on a per centimetre basis along the length of the leaf, with 212 (95%) of 222 terminations within the thin-walled sieve tubes and only 10 (5%) in thick-walledsieve tubes. The aphid probed the small vascular bundles (loading bundles) many more times than intermediate or large transport vascular bundles, in sink as well as source leaf. Of a total of 82 stylets and stylet tracks encountered in sink leaf tissue, 31 terminated in small vascular bundles ang the remaining 28 and 16 were located within large and intermediate vascular bundles respectively. In source leaf tissue 121 of 222 stylets and stylet tracks encountered were associated with small vascular bundles and only 58 tracks and 43 tracks with intermediate and large vascular bundles, respectively. The effect of sustained RWA feeding on the transport capacity was examined after the application of 5,6 carboxyfluoresceine diacetate (5,6-CFDA) in control (sink and source leaf tissue) and aphid-infested (source) wheat leaves, using fluorescence microscopy. After 3h acropetal longitudinal transport of 5,6-CF had occurred in sink leaves in longitudinal veins, as well as a lateral transfer via cross veins and subsequent unloading into mesophyll cells close to the tip of the leaf was observed. In control leaf tissue, the fluorescence front was detected up to about 5cm from the point of application and was only associated with the phloem and not unloaded. In contrast, aphid-infested leaf tissue showed very little 5,6-CF transport, being limited to 2cm or less from the point of application. Structural damage to the phloem in general and to the sieve tubes in particular within of control and infested wheat leaves was investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). In addition, leaf strips were mounted in aniline blue to visualise callose deposition using the fluorescence microscopy. At the TEM level. infested leaf tissue showed various abnormalities, which included destruction of cell contents, membrane damage and subsequent loss of cell contents. TEM studies suggest severe osmotic shock resulted from the aphid's probing. Examination of leaf tissue using fluorescence microscopy showed that there was very little characteristic aniline blue-stained callose visible in control leaf tissue, other than the thin diffuse patches along the sieve plates and punctate spots associated with pore plasmodesmatal areas and plasmodesmatal aggregates. In contrast, the aphid-infested leaf tissue was heavily callosed, with callose deposited not only within the phloem tissue but also in neighbouring vascular parE:}nchyma cells as well. The data collectively suggest that D. noxia feeds preferentially within thin-walled sieve tubes, within the small longitudinal vascular bundles in sink , as well source leaf tissue. Based upon the data presented here the thin-walled sieve tubes in the wheat leaf appear to be more attractive to the aphid and that they are probably more functional in terms of transport system and unlo?lding in sink leaves. Aniline blue stained leaf material that had previously hosted large aphid colonies showed evidence of extensive callose deposits 24 to 36h after the aphids were removed, suggesting that the aphids caused severe mechanical damage to the vascular tissue and mesohyll cells as well. Damage (transient or more permanent) and the subsequent deposition of wound callose, disrupted phloem transport and hence the export of photoassimilate from the leaves.

No description available.

The Russian wheat aphid (RWA) is a pest of cereals, such as wheat and barley. It feeds on these hosts by injecting saliva into the plants’ phloem tissue and consuming the mixture of saliva and photoassimilates. It has been proposed that the insect’s saliva contains elicitors or virulence factors, which cause the symptoms typically observed in susceptible wheat cultivars. These are leaf rolling, chlorotic streaking, a decrease in yield and death in cases of heavy infestation. In contrast, resistant plants display symptoms typical of defence responses, such as the formation of necrotic lesions and an increase in the expression of pathogenesis related proteins. But, most importantly, RWA feeding on these hosts does not result in their subsequent death. The objectives of the present study are thus to elucidate any putative virulence factors, present in insect saliva, that can result in the breakdown of resistance of cultivars and thus, lack of recognition and/or delayed onset of the plants’ defence responses. Thus, this thesis investigates the RWA on protein level to determine which components of these insects induce the different changes observed in the resistant and susceptible plants. Also, it examines whether or not the biotypes uniquely altered their elicitors in response to selective pressure. In Chapter 1 a brief introduction is presented on the Russian wheat aphid, its distribution and the effects of its feeding on resistant and susceptible wheat cultivars. In Chapter 2 a literature review provides insight on how the Russian wheat aphids feed and survive on wheat. It also outlines the control mechanisms which plants could employ to withstand attack from pests and pathogens. In Chapter 3 proteins were extracted from different parts of two Russian wheat aphid biotypes and separated on high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Two biotypes were selected for the study to provide comparative information on the development of biotypes and/or their virulent elicitors. The presence of the potential elicitors was determined by examining the extent of leaf rolling chlorotic streaking/spots on injected plants’ leaves, determining the activity of defence related enzymes of the injected plants and visualizing the proteins extracted from these plants on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) gels. This was done in order to examine the plants on phenotypic, enzymatic and proteomic levels, which could confirm the results obtained on three different levels. It was found that resistant cultivars react similarly to the two biotypes, but that the RWA biotypes differ significantly on a protein level. Potential motivations for these variations are discussed. Results presented in this dissertation represent the outcomes of a study conducted from March 2005 to December 2006 in the Department of Genetics, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute, University of Pretoria, under the supervision of Prof. A-M Botha-Oberholster. Chapter 3 is being prepared to be submitted for review in Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. / Dissertation (MSc (Plant Genetics))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Genetics / unrestricted

If capitalist cities are dense, hierarchical, and exploitative, how might socialist space be differently organized to maximize productivity, equitability, and collectivity? That question—central to early Soviet planning specialists—is the basis of this dissertation, which investigates the origins and evolution of the socialist spatial project from land nationalization to the end of the first Five-Year Plan (1917-1932). This dissertation asserts that socialist urban practices and forms emerged not by ideological edict from above, but through on-the-ground experimentation by practitioners in collaboration with local administrators—by praxis, by doing. Existing scholarship on early Soviet architecture and planning relies on paper projects of the Moscow avant-garde—radical, exciting, and yet largely unbuilt. This dissertation, based on new empirical research, uncovers the untold origins of socialist urban practice through the brick and mortar, steel and concrete projects that defined Soviet urban praxis in the 1920s and 30s. Through interweaved stories of three so-called “socialist settlements” in Baku, (Azerbaijan), Magnitogorsk (Russia), and Kharkiv (Ukraine) this study explores how Soviet physical planners and their clients addressed unprecedented socioeconomic requirements. Provisions like affordable housing near the workplace, robust municipal transportation and evenly distributed social services emerged from these experiments to affect far-flung sites in the Soviet sphere for decades to follow. Material gathered from now accessible archives—including architectural briefs, bureaucratic memos, drawings and photographs—finally permits deep inquiry into these significant years and projects. It draws the Soviet case into dialogue with scholarship on industry, urbanization, and social modernization in Europe and the United States, and highlights the contributions of Soviet designers to devise viable alternatives to the capitalist city. / Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning

A BODY OUTSIDE THE KREMLIN is a historical mystery novel set in the Northern Camps of Special Significance, a Soviet Russian penal institution based in the Solovetsky Archipelago during the 1920s. The protagonist, working first with the camp authorities, then in spite of their disapproval, solves the murder of a fellow prisoner. In the process he improves his position within the camp, while also becoming hardened to the brutal necessities of camp life. Prior to the establishment of the penal camp, the Solovetsky Archipelago was the site of an important Russian Orthodox monastery, and the mystery proves to involve valuables, particularly icons, seized from the monks by the Soviet secret police. Thus the novel treats themes not only of statist repression, but also religious epiphany and the problems of true perception in a world of symbols.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

The great movement in Russian literature known as realism has been aptly described by one of its later adherents, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, as "imaginative literature", which "depicts life as it really is", and that "its aim is truth-unconditional and honest". There truly could be no better standard than this for enlightened literature. For although life is never static, and modes in literature of various regimes have come and gone and will continue to do so, nevertheless, truth sought sincerely by all serious thinkers throughout the ages remains eternal. Unfortunately hierarchies, oligarchies and dictatorships of various kinds have been forced upon human beings since the beginning of known history. With these regimes have come the masterminds who endeavored to mold into their particular cast the minds subjected to them. In some instances they have succeeded, but there have always been those refugees of independent thought who, because they refused to bow down to the decrees of a tyrant, have either hid in catacombes or fled to other lands. Such people are the illuminators of the ages— God's shining stars. Theirs was the spirit of 19th Century Russian realism. Its portrayal of truth is one of the most glorious in all literature. / Arts, Faculty of / Central Eastern Northern European Studies, Department of / Graduate