The growth of the pecan industry in San Saba offers a microcosm into the evolution of the industry as a whole. Individual ingenuity in agriculture, business, and technology carved a path for success for the native nut in San Saba. Thanks in part to the efforts by founding families of the area and their descendants, the pecan has become a widely-used ingredient in holiday sweets of the American South and a symbol of Texas identity. Yet, the industry's development and the lives of the people who have cultivated it are stories that have remained largely untold. Through oral histories with family pecan growers, descendants of migrant farm laborers, and others working in the industry as well as primary sources such as those from early pecan sales catalogs, United States Department of Agriculture and other government documents, this project will trace the history of the pecan in San Saba – including how it has shaped the natural landscape and the individual and collective identities of San Saba and its residents.

More than half of all people worldwide are infected with H. pylori. The infection always cause a gastric inflammation that may develop into peptic ulcer disease or gastric cancer. Attachment proteins, adhesins, mediate specific adherence of H. pylori to receptor structures on the human gastric mucosa. The best-characterized H. pylori adhesin-receptor interactions are the BabA adhesin and the binding to the fucosylated blood group antigens ABO/Lewis b (Leb) and the SabA adhesin and its binding to the inflammation associated sialyl-Lewis x antigen. During H. pylori infection the availability of receptor structures on the human gastric mucosa changes as a consequence of the host inflammatory and immune responses. Consequently the bacterial population need to adjust its adherence properties to stay colonized. This thesis describes mechanisms that generate H. pylori populations with variable adherence properties and mechanisms for adjustment of adhesin expression levels.In H. pylori strains devoid of Leb-binding, we found bacterial cells with Leb-binding. Isolation of such H. pylori clones demonstrated that the change in receptor binding phenotype was obtained via the mechanisms of homologous recombination and slipped strand mispairing (SSM). Disease presentation in relation to BabA expression was studied in H. pylori infected Mongolian gerbils. We showed that BabA was not essential for colonization but caused severe injury to the gastric mucosa and was turned off during long-term infection by nucleotide changes within the babA gene. Gerbils infected with BabA-weak-expressing strains maintained BabA expressing clones for a longer period than gerbils that were infected with BabA-high-expressing strains. Studies of the gerbil gastric mucosal glycosylation showed that gerbils respond in a similar way as humans and Rhesus monkeys which support gerbils to be a model suitable for studying H. pylori infection and disease outcome in relation to adherence.We studied the SSM mechanism of SabA phase variation and the cognate shift in sLex-binding phenotype and we show sLex-binding activity to be growth phase dependent. H. pylori vesicles were characterized for the major phosholipid and protein components. Virulence factors e.g., VacA, and CagA were identified and both the BabA and the SabA adhesins was shown to be located on the vesicle surface and to mediate specific binding to their cognate receptors present on the human gastric mucosa. H. pylori generate bacterial cells with different receptor binding phenotypes via the mechanisms of homologous recombination, SSM and nucleotide changes. These mechanisms will probably contribute to bacterial fitness by the generation of quasi species populations where some of the clones will be better adapted to the environmental chances during persistent infection.

Helicobacter pylori colonizes the human stomach, where it causes gastritis that may develop into peptic ulcer disease or cancer when left untreated. Neisseria gonorrhoeae colonizes the urogenital tract and causes the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea. In contrast, Lactobacillus species are part of the human microbiota, which is the resident microbial community, and are considered to be beneficial for health. The first host cell types that bacteria encounter when they enter the body are epithelial cells, which form the border between the inside and the outside, and macrophages, which are immune cells that engulf unwanted material.       The focus of this thesis has been the interaction between the host and bacteria, aiming to increase our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that underlie the host responses and their effects on bacterial pathogenicity. Understanding the interactions between bacteria and the host will hopefully enable the development of new strategies for the treatment of infectious disease. In paper I, we investigated the effect of N. gonorrhoeae on the growth factor amphiregulin in cervical epithelial cells and found that the processing and release of amphiregulin changes upon infection. In paper II, we examined the expression of the transcription factor early growth response-1 (EGR1) in epithelial cells during bacterial colonization. We demonstrated that EGR1 is rapidly upregulated by many different bacteria. This upregulation is independent of the pathogenicity, Gram-staining type and level of adherence of the bacteria, but generally requires viable bacteria and contact with the host cell. The induction of EGR1 is mediated primarily by signaling through EGFR, ERK1/2 and β1-integrins. In paper III, we described the interactions of the uncharacterized protein JHP0290, which is secreted by H. pylori, with host cells. JHP0290 is able to bind to several cell types and induces apoptosis and TNF release in macrophages. For both of these responses, signaling through Src family kinases and ERK is essential. Apoptosis is partially mediated by TNF release. Finally, in paper IV, we showed that certain Lactobacillus strains can reduce the colonization of H. pylori on gastric epithelial cells. Lactobacilli decrease the gene expression of SabA and thereby inhibit the binding mediated by this adhesin. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

Différents voyageurs ont décidé de leur fait ou de par leurs obligations gouvernementales, religieuses ou commerciales de visiter et d’explorer l’Afrique. Ce qu’ils ont pu observer de la population des côtes va être généralisé aux peuples de toute l’Afrique. Dès leur arrivée, les voyageurs sont frappés par la différence qui existe, entre la population africaine, la faune et la flore et celle du reste du monde. La découverte d'un monde différent est très certainement à la source de la fascination pour l’Afrique. L’Afrique est seule capable, de produire des prodiges au niveau de la nature, des royaumes et de leurs souverains, ainsi que des animaux et des hommes. C’est de l’observation et de l’écriture que naissent les mythes. Alors que l’Afrique est décrite comme un continent avec des peuples pauvres, ignorants, superstitieux, de sauvages et d’anthropophages, les auteurs font part de terres où les pierres précieuses et l’or poussent à même le sol, quand ils ne sont pas transbordés après la pluie par les fleuves en crue. Dans les terres inconnues, au-delà de la domination de l’Islam, se conçoit l’existence de régions fabuleusement riches en or, authentiques paradis terrestres. Là est localisé l’Ophir de Salomon, mais aussi le royaume de la Reine de Saba, riche en or et encens. C’est là que se trouve, quelque part, l’Empire du Royaume du Prêtre Jean, symbole d’une chrétienté idéale, mais aussi le fabuleux royaume du Monomotapa, dirigé par le Mwenemutapwa, où habitent les Amazones. / Different travellers decided to visit and explore Africa either on their own or because of government, religious or commercial obligations. They had various motivations : some were really interested in this continent and wanted to know more about it, others went there to satisfy a desire of discovery and to share unknown lands for trade. As soon as they arrived visitors were struck by the difference - in physionomy - between the African population and the rest of the world. Travel stories - reports of bygone days - bring back the African peoples who were seing white people for the first time. The discovery of a new world, its exploration and literature are the root of the fascination for Africa. In this context the representation and the enchantment - that Sub-Saharan Africa aroused in the collective imagination of the Classical Age travellers - will be studied. Africa has become over the centuries a name which sounds mysterious, suggesting to the minds of men a stream of unusual landscapes. Myths were born from the observation of unknown lands through writing. In fact thanks to different travellers from previous centuries Africa shows in the collective imagination of Europeans from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries two mythical and real pictures, opposed but complementary. This continent is described as a huge desert territory filled with fabulous beings where precious stones and gold grow or are washed away by the rivers flooded after rain. Africa is then described as a contintent with poor, ignorant, superstitious peoples : savages and cannibals. Everything looks different for travellers : men, civilisations, plants and lands so myths linked with Africa sprouted from them. The symbolic value of the myth is transferred in travel books and provide a common background of marvellous pictures.

Being among the most prevalent of persistent infectious agents in humans worldwide, Helicobacter pylori induces chronic inflammation (gastritis), which may progress to peptic ulceration and stomach cancer. The ability to adhere to the gastric mucosa is considered to be both a colonization and virulence property of H. pylori. For adherence, H. pylori expresses surface-located attachment proteins (adhesins) that bind to specific receptors in the gastric mucosa. The best characterized H. pylori adhesin-receptor interaction is that between the blood group antigen binding adhesin (BabA) and the fucosylated blood group antigens, which are glycans highly expressed in the gastric mucosa. Our recent results have changed the view of the blood group antigen-specific binding mode of H. pylori. We have tested clinical isolates of H. pylori from human populations worldwide for their ability to bind to ABO blood group antigens. The results revealed that more than 95% of isolates from Sweden, Germany, Spain, Japan and Alaska that bind fucosylated blood group antigens, bind both the Lewis b antigen (Leb) (of blood group O) and the blood group A-related antigen A-Lewis b, i.e. they exhibit a generalist type of binding mode. In contrast, the majority of strains (62%) from South American Amerindians bound best to Leb, i.e. they exhibit a specialist blood group “O antigen” binding mode. This specialization in binding coincides with the unique predominance of blood group O in the South American Amerindian populations. Furthermore, we also showed that H. pylori could switch from specialist to generalist binding modes by chromosomal integration of foreign babA gene fragments. A mutant strain lacking the babA gene turned out to adhere to inflamed gastric epithelium, despite the fact that it did not bind Leb. We identified the receptor to which the mutant binds to as the sialyl-dimeric-Lewis x antigen (sdiLex) and found its expression to be associated with persistent H. pylori infection and chronic inflammation, both in humans and Rhesus monkeys. The cognate sialic acid binding adhesin (SabA) was identified by our ReTagging technique. Deletion of sabA caused loss of H. pylori binding to sialylated glycans, and screening of single colony isolates revealed a high frequency of spontaneous on⇒off phase variation in sLex binding. Using erythrocytes as a model for sialyl dependent cell adhesion, we could show that SabA is the sought-after H. pylori sialyl-dependent hemagglutinin. Swedish clinical H. pylori isolates were analyzed for sialyl-dependent hemagglutination (sia-HA), and the sia-HA titers were found to be highly correlated to the levels of sLex binding. Clinical isolates were shown to exhibit several distinct binding modes for sialylated glycans, which suggest that SabA exhibit polymorphism in binding. We also found that SabA binds to sialylated glycans on neutrophil surfaces by mechanisms involving “selectin mimicry”, and that SabA plays an important role in nonopsonic activation of neutrophils. In the human stomach, H. pylori is exposed to selective pressures such as immune and inflammatory responses, and this is reflected by changes in mucosal glycosylation patterns. The high mutation and recombination rates of H. pylori in combination with bio selection will continuously generate clones that are adapted to changes in individual gastric mucosa. Such adaptive selection contributes to the remarkable diversity in binding modes and to the extraordinary chronicity of H. pylori infections worldwide.

This project exposes the problems with the dominant conception of agency in secular liberal discourse. The main critique is that the dominant conception of agency tends to attribute value to certain aspects of action that are not necessarily the most telling or valuable in terms of what constitutes agency. I use Saba Mahmood’s Politics of Piety to aid in this critique. Her project uses the Muslim rituals performed by women of the mosque movement in Egypt to demonstrate the need for a more nuanced conception of agency in academics. I use CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary to support the approach offered by Mahmood and demonstrate the applicability of such an approach outside of typical considerations of “ritual”. In this case, the approach is applied to cricket.

This thesis uses a philosophical discussion to explore the tensions that result in the meeting between universal claims and particular contexts regarding human rights and how these tensions can be mediated by exploring the right to religious freedom. In order to do this, two approaches will be studied, one liberal and one postcolonial, represented by Martha Nussbaum and Saba Mahmood respectively. In comparing the approaches of Nussbaum and Mahmood, their arguments and positions become clearer, but also the nuances of the debate between universalism and contextualism. The right to religious freedom, with its many tensions between theory and practice, has been useful in exploring what values are at stake when we talk about human rights in general and how we can think about the apparent tension between universalism and contextual sensitivity. The thesis thus shows that there are more similarities between these two approaches than it may first seem and that they are not incompatible. This is argued to provide insight into possible ways of mediating human rights between theory and practice. / Denna uppsats utgår från en filosofisk diskussion kring spänningen mellan universella anspråk och specifika sammanhang när det kommer till mänskliga rättigheter och hur dessa spänningar kan medlas utifrån en undersökning av religionsfriheten. För att åstadkomma studeras två inriktningar, den ena liberal och den andra postkolonial. Dessa inriktningar representeras av Martha Nussbaum respektive Saba Mahmood. I och med en jämförande analys mellan dessa två inriktningar är förhoppningen att deras likheter och skillnader blir tydligare, samt att nyanserna inom debatten mellan universalism och kontextualism blir tydligare. Det finns många spänningar mellan teori och praktik när det kommer till rätten till religionsfrihet och just denna rättighet är på så sätt användbar för att utforska spänningen mellan universalism och kontextualism när det kommer till mänskliga rättigheter. Denna uppsats visar därmed att det finns flera likheter mellan dessa inriktningar och att de därför inte kan anses vara oförenliga med varandra. Detta för med sig en insikt i möjligheter till att medla mänskliga rättigheter mellan teori och praktik.

This essay studies the implicit and explicit perspectives of Bruce Lincoln, Jürgen Habermas, Talal Asad, Saba Mahmood, Charles Taylor, José Casanova and their approach to secularism as a phenomenon. This is done by categorizing them into three categories. The categories,enlightenment-centered theorists, critical theorists and implicit-theological theorists, all have explicit accounts and implicit forms of reasoning that shape and contextualize their respective approach. The Enlightenment-centered theorists tend to regard secularism as a neutral and peace-keeping statecraft. This approach implicitly contains the idea of a clear division between secular and religious. This implicit form of reasoning I argue is problematically non-reflexive to the theorist’s own standpoint and risks becoming a form of secular ideology. The theorists categorized as critical theorists view secularism more as a type of discourse where what is seen as religious and the secular is inherently fluid. This is then analyzed by them as a special strategy for Western sovereignty. The perspective of the implicit-theological theorists is similar both to the Enlightenment-centered and the criticaltheorists' perspective in that secularism is primarily peace-keeping and that the categories are often fluid. I show that their approach contains theological assumptions that religion responds to a realm which challenges the immanent world. In the last chapter of the essay, I give a normative evaluation of the three approaches to secularism where I argue that while the enlightenment-centered theorists have useful explanatory models, the critical and to a lesser extent implicit-theological approach to secularism are more fruitful for religious studies. They allow for more flexibility in studying the relationship between secular and religious groups as they do not determine the categories in advance. The essay also contains a concluding discussion on the type of problems for philosophy of science and religious studies that arise when secularism and what is seen as the secular is deconstructed.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a human-specific gastric pathogen which is responsible for a spectrum of diseases ranging from superficial gastritis to gastric and duodenal ulceration, and which is also highly associated with gastric cancer. The pathogenesis of severe gastric disorders caused by H. pylori is multifactorial and involves complex interactions between the microbe and the gastric mucosa. H. pylori expresses several adhesion proteins. These molecules have important roles in the establishment of persistent infection and chronic inflammation, which cause tissue damage. The aim of this thesis was to study the attachment of this bacterium to human gastric epithelium, mediated by blood group antigens in both health and disease. One of the bestcharacterized H. pylori adhesins is the histo-blood group antigen binding adhesin (BabA), which binds specifically to the Lewis b antigen (Leb) in the gastric mucosa. A protective mucus layer lines the stomach. The mucosal glycosylation patterns (GPs) vary between different cell lineages, different locations along the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and different developmental stages. In addition, GPs undergo changes during malignant transformation. MUC5AC is a mucin molecule produced by the surface epithelium. Three distinctly different types of human gastrointestinal tissue were studied by bacterial adherence analysis in situ. MUC5AC is the most important carrier of Leb and the new results demonstrate that it forms major receptors for H. pylori adherence. By analysing an H. pylori babA-deletion mutant, a novel adhesin-receptor binding mode was found. Surprisingly, the mutant bound efficiently to both human gastric mucosa and to gastric mucosa of Leb transgenic mice. The sialylated and fucosylated blood group antigen, sialyl-dimeric-Lewis x (sdiLex), was structurally identified as the new receptor. A positive correlation was found between adherence of H. pylori to sialyl-Lewis x (sLex) and elevated levels of inflammation response in the human gastric mucosa. These results were supported by detailed analysis of sialylated and fucosylated blood group antigen glycosylation patterns and, in addition, in situ bacterial adherence to gastric mucosa of experimentally challenged Rhesus monkey. The cognate sialic acid-binding adhesin (SabA) was purified by the retagging technique, and the corresponding sabA-gene was identified. H. pylori lipopolysaccharide (LPS) contains various Lewis blood group antigens such as Lewis x (Lex) and Lewis y (Ley). Additional bacterial adherence modes, which are independent of the BabA and/or SabA adhesins, could possibly be mediated by Lex interactions. Adherence of a clinical isolate and its corresponding Lex mutant to human gastric mucosa with various gastric pathologies was studied in situ. The results suggest that H. pylori LPS plays a distinct but minor role in promotion of bacterial adhesion. Taken together, the results suggest mechanisms for continuous selection of H. pylori strains, involving capacity to adapt to changes in the local environment such as shifts in cell differentiation and associated glycosylation patterns. Adherence of H. pylori is dependent on both the BabA and the SabA adhesin. Multi-step dependent attachment mechanisms may direct the microbes to distinct ecological niches during persistent infections, driving the chronic inflammation processes further toward the development of peptic ulcer disease and/or malignant transformation. Key words: H. pylori, BabA, adhesin, Lewis b, MUC5AC, sialyl-dimeric-Lewis x, chronic inflammation, SabA, Lewis x, LPS.

In the third millennium CNB took over a Policy of Inflation Targeting. Czech Republic was one of the first countries which adopted that policy. This diploma is connected with bachelor thesis, entitled "Instruments of Monetary Policy in Czech Republic since 2000" written in 2009 and deals with explanations of tools and principles of monetary policy in terms of the political course of inflation targeting.