Cultural Heritability Research Articles

„QUESTI SCHIAVONI”: ITALIJANSKA RENESANSA I SLOVENI U DELU RASTKA PETROVIĆA

This paper explores Rastko Petrović’s last essay entitled Questi Schiavoni, which represents a trilogy about Italian Renaissance artists of Slavic origin. In his recognizable genealogically fluid manner, Petrović shapes three essayistic-documentary texts with historical-novelistic ele- ments, with the aim of illuminating the key features of the brightest era of European art, but also to point out the Slavic participation and importance in building the Italian cultural herit- age. Rastko Petrović’s two major themes, Slavism and Renaissance art, intertwine in this essay, created during his stay in America, a fact which activates another narrative and semantic com- plex in the text: alienation and immigrant experience as a universal ontological quality of the artist’s being. This paper tries to point out the poetic stimuli that came to the avant-garde writer precisely from the Renaissance, and to indicate the intercultural connections and permeations, the importance of which the avant-garde artist emphasized in both his explicit and implicit poetics, proving that intensive communication of ethnically, religiously, geographically distant cultures can be achieved through art. The last segment of the paper follows the so-called Slavic messianism as an idea that Rastko Petrović built upon during his entire creative engagement, mainly dealing with Slavic tribes at cultural and historical epochs turning points.

Wychowanie obywatelskie i społeczne w klasach I–III szkoły podstawowej

<p>Obecnie każdy człowiek staje wobec konieczności udzielania odpowiedzi na wiele pytań dotyczących trudnego i złożonego procesu kształtowania swojej tożsamości. Od najmłodszych lat należy więc zadbać o wychowanie obywatelskie i społeczne. Czyni się to poprzez przekazywanie dziedzictwa kulturowego z uwzględnieniem kultury regionu, poszanowanie tradycji narodowej oraz szacunek dla historii i teraźniejszości własnego kraju.</p><p>Kształtowanie postaw obywatelskich i społecznych uczniów w edukacji wczesnoszkolnej to jedno z fundamentalnych zadań polskiej szkoły. Uznaje się, że od jego wykonania zależy m.in. sposób rozumienia i wypełniania w dorosłym życiu roli obywatela, istnienie lub brak więzi z krajem ojczystym czy godne reprezentowanie Polski poza jej granicami. Dzięki warunkom do wszechstronnego rozwoju uczniów można wychowywać przyszłe pokolenie świadome swoich korzeni, a jednocześnie potrafiące odnaleźć się w Europie i świecie.</p>

Seismic Risk Assessment of Historic Masonry Towers: Comparison of Four Case Studies

AbstractThis paper focuses on the seismic risk assessment of historic masonry towers according to the Italian “Guidelines for the Assessment and Mitigation of the Seismic Risk of the Cultural Herit...

Развитие сельского туризма в Большом Севастополе – путь диверсификации туристско-рекреационного комплекса региона

The expedience of rural tourism development in Russia regions has been widely discussed at the different levels. According international and Russian experience the solution of the complex development of tourism resources of the territories, the reducing of the seasonality problem through diversification of tourist products, encouraging the development of new types of tourism can be combined with the self-employed agricultural production. Rural tourism in Russia is regarded by Tourism Development Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020 and other government documents as one of the priorities of tourism and recreational complex. The development of rural tourism in Sevastopol Region is determined by the number of factors, among which are the availability of rural areas and the farmers’ activity, natural and cultural herit- age, the proximity of large protected areas and historical and cultural sites; the presence of non-equipped network of hiking trails, known and used by local and visiting tourists ever since the Soviet Union, demand for holidays in the countryside, need for wine and gastronomic tours traditions. Risks of rural tourism development in Sevastopol Region are associated with system and industry-specific problems that can be effectively eliminated by using the international experience. The European countries’ experience in rural tourism demonstrates the necessity for combination of agricultural land usage with rendering tourist services for economic and social sustainable development.

Making Races

Making Races Edward Beasley (bio) In the mid-1860s, the younger Charles Dilke, the grandson and namesake of the founder of Notes & Queries, set out to circle as much of the globe as he could without leaving the English-speaking world. He had, as he put it, “a conception of the grandeur of our race, already girdling the earth, which it is destined, perhaps, eventually to overspread” (Dilke vii). In 1868, he published the account of his voyage, Greater Britain. The book made his name and helped to launch his political career. Dilke’s idea of an English “race” spanning the globe was so new that it caught people’s fancy. This idea of a single British race would have made no sense at the beginning of Victoria’s reign, thirty years before. For the word “race” had not yet taken on its modern meaning. “Othering” was hardly new in Dilke’s time. The Victorians did not invent xenophobia, triumphalism, or other forms of ranking one’s own group above others. But they did invent a new way of understanding “race.” In the eighteenth century, the normal British practice was to judge others not by race but by how closely each group was thought to approach the British in the way they lived. How well-clothed were they? How civilized? How Christian, how energetic, how commercial? Some groups of people—lacking the invigorating influence of the British climate, British Protestantism, and the British constitution—fell far below the mark (see Wheeler). Races in the modern sense of several large, physically inherited skin-colour groups were not often thought about within Great Britain. It is true that references to the so-called races already proliferated in British discourse when Victoria came to the throne, in 1837. But we need to be careful about reading our modern ideas about what “race” means into how the word was used at the time. In a world without any clear idea about the difference between biological and cultural heritability, people talked of the “race” of London chimney sweeps, and they distinguished separate “races” in the different ridings of Yorkshire. For Henry Mayhew, writing in the 1850s and 1860s, the racial nature of the chimney sweeps or the racial characteristics of London street people qua street people were a set of acquired cultural characteristics (Mayhew 1: 477; 2: 137–38, 364–67). But these cultural characteristics also turned into physical differences—higher cheekbones and more protuberant jaws (Mayhew 1: 1–3). In some way, physical shape was thought to be quite mutable: people came to fit their environment and climate. The main early Victorian authority on all this, James Cowles Prichard, held for a time that early humans were black because they lived in a hot place and that other skin colours represented later adaptation to cooler climates (Stocking, Introduction li–lviii, lxxi–xc). In the 1820s, various colonial authors had considered—and some had come to accept—the proposition that the English population of sunny Australia or India would turn black (Livingstone). [End Page 48] Almost halfway through Victoria’s reign, climate still determined race for Dilke. In his view, there remained the American problem of whether the Englishman can live out of England. Can he thrive except where the mist and damp preserve the juices of his frame? … In Australia and America—hot and dry—the type has already changed. Will it eventually disappear? (Dilke 391–92) In South Australia, the climate had left the English settlers tall and thin and sunburned. They spoke from the head and no longer from the chest, Dilke said (367–69). For him, the hot, dry air had lengthened the English body and shortened the English voice. Climate could have its effect on morals as well. In the more humid, semitropical climate of Tasmania, the lack of strong winters led to laziness (358). Even in the same book, however, Dilke was beginning to express some doubt about how much climate could do in the end. While the New Englanders were coming to resemble “the Indians they expelled … tall, taciturn, and hatchet-faced, the Coloradans of the next age should be flat-faced warriors, five feet high” (84...

From Art Educational Perspective to Analyze Taiwan Siraya Tribe's Transculturation

Under the impact of the powerful culture and also from the colonial history, this new situation constantly marginalizes and threat ensour local culture. Therefore, Siraya tribe is becoming a disappearing ethnic group under the above impact. This study aims to explore cultural herit agerevit alization, to help the aborigines of facing these tough challenges. Through investigating Siraya tribes’ actual situation, researchers try to first discover the causes then find out solutions to amend this condition, by formulating cultural development patterns through this studyOur society should maintain the development of cultural diversity with multiculturalism. However, after three hundred years of colonization by different intruders in the history, the gap between urban and rural areas has brought job shortages and other factors such as the aging population, resulting in the losing balance of development in rural area. Since the hybridculture and multinational ethnic laden with strong mainst ream culture, they subvert the value of material life and affect to the aborigines’ development opportunities.Through cultural homogenization, Siraya people gradually lost it sautonomy, local cultural elements, and even the possession of land. T hese research target son T aiwan's Siraya Aborigines, who live in the disadvant aged areas, are our main case for study. The second author of this paper is actually a Siraya people; we have the mission to help the tribes through art educating process, to convey cultural elements to the young generation and also to the public. It is our hope to set up Siraya tribe as a model, in hope to increase Siraya's cultural ident ification, and bring the positive aspect of multicult uralism through educational process.

Active learning of user’s preferences estimation towards a personalized 3D navigation of geo-referenced scenes

The current technological evolutions enter 3D geo-informatics into their digital age, enabling new potential applications in the field of virtual tourism, pleasure, entertainment and cultural herit...

Heritability of dental and skeletal cephalometric variables in monozygous and dizygous Iranian twins

Background and purpose To assess the influence of genetic and environmental factors on craniofacial morphology in an Iranian study sample. Setting and sample population The department of orthodontics at Islamic Azad Medical University and Iranian Twin Centre. Fifty pairs of twins were selected (25 monozygotic, MZs and 25 dizygotic, DZs). The mean age of subjects in MZ and DZ groups were 16.2 (13.4–19.8) and 16.6 (13.8–20.1) years, respectively. Methods and materials A cross-sectional twin study carried out using lateral cephalograms. The subjects were required to pass their pubertal growth spurts and received no previous orthodontic treatment. Thirty-three linear and angular cephalometric variables were identified and used. The heritability assessments were undertaken according to the Path Analysis model and also using the Holzinger's equation. For each cephalometric variables Pearson's intra-pair correlation coefficients were calculated for MZ and DZ twin pairs. The estimate of heritability ( h 2) and coefficient of cultural heritability ( c 2) were then calculated for cephalometric variables. Results Overall vertical variables showed higher heritability than horizontal variables. The anterior cranial base (S-N), saddle angle (NSBa), total anterior facial height (N-Me), lower anterior facial height (ANS-Me), SNA, SNB, SNPog, Gonial angle, SN-GoGn angle and SN-Maxillary plane angle showed high heritability. Heritability was low to moderate for the dento-alveolar variables. Conclusions Vertical variables (in particular total anterior facial height, TAFH and lower anterior facial height, LAFH) showed more heritability than horizontal ones. Heritability seems to be expressed more anteriorly than posteriorly. The lower third of the face seems to be under strong genetic control.

Genetic and environmental effects on coronary heart disease risk factors in northern Norway. The cardiovascular disease study in Finnmark.

This study comprised 1377 first degree relatives in 575 families ascertained through a comprehensive screening of the general population from 20 to 52 years of age. Path analysis using parsimonious models gave evidence of significant biologic and environmental transmission for total cholesterol (genetic and cultural heritabilities were 0.46 and 0.05, respectively), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (0.42, 0.10), triglycerides (0.21, 0.07), and systolic (0.48, 0.04) and diastolic (0.35, 0.05) blood pressure. Compared with other studies employing the same path analytic model, heritability estimates in general were among the highest reported, except for the somewhat lower genetic component in total cholesterol and triglycerides. For the first time in a single sample from the general population, lipid and blood pressure variables were investigated applying the same methodology, and good agreement was illustrated by the result that identical parsimonious models were reached for all phenotypes, with the exception of a single additional parameter for total cholesterol. About one fourth to one half of the total phenotypic variance could be ascribed to genetic sources, whereas the contribution from shared familial environment was much smaller.

Familial aggregation of lipids and lipoproteins in families ascertained through random and nonrandom probands in the Stanford lipid research clinics family study

We examined the familial aggregation of lipids [total cholesterol (CH) and triglyceride (TG)] and lipoproteins [high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL)] in families ascertained through random and nonrandom probands in the Stanford Lipid Research Clinics Family Study. Nonrandom probands were selected because their lipid levels at a prior screening visit exceeded a certain prespecified threshold. The statistical method is based on selection through indirect truncation on a correlated trait (in which the likelihood function is conditioned on the actual event that the proband's value is beyond the threshold). This method allows for estimation of the path model parameters in randomly and nonrandomly ascertained families jointly and separately, thus enabling tests of heterogeneity between the two types of samples. The results suggest that the multifactorial transmission is homogeneous in the random and hyperlipidemic samples for CH. However, the evidence for heterogeneity is moderate for LDL, marked HDL, and mixed for TG. The general pattern of observed results is for somewhat higher genetic heritabilities in the random than nonrandom samples, which is compatible with a higher prevalence in the random sample of certain dyslipoproteinemias associated with nonelevated lipids. Substantial genetic heritability is found for CH, HDL, and LDL, with somewhat lower estimates for TG. Cultural heritability is low but significant for all four traits. Little or no spouse resemblance or nontransmitted shared sibship effects are seen. In contrast to the findings from previous studies, little or no parental cultural transmission is seen.

Genetic traits related to hypertension and electrolyte metabolism.

The genetic and cultural heritability and intercorrelation of traits related to hypertension have been carried out in 98 Utah pedigrees (2,500 person) and 58 sibships with two or more hypertensive persons (131 hypertensive persons). Although none of these traits has been established as a marker for "sodium-sensitive hypertension," many of them are related at least indirectly to both electrolyte metabolism and risk of hypertension. Significant recessive monogenic effects and high total heritability (52-84%) were found for urinary kallikrein, high fat pattern index, intraerythrocytic sodium, Na-Li countertransport, and ouabain binding sites. Familial correlations more strongly attributable to shared environment than to genetic effects were found for Na,K-ATPase pump activity, intraerythrocytic magnesium, plasma digoxin-like factor, plasma renin activity, and plasma sodium concentration. All anthropometric variables tested showed highly significant genetic heritability with low and insignificant shared family environmental effects. Several of the genetically determined cellular cation tests also correlated with other genetic traits including plasma lipids, anthropometric measurements, and other cellular cation tests. Among hypertensive individuals with familial dyslipidemic hypertension, plasma insulin levels correlated with obesity and lipid abnormalities and with several cellular cation flux tests associated with hypertension.

Familial Aggregation of Lipids and Lipoproteins in Families Ascertained through Random and Nonrandom Probands in the Iowa Lipid Research Clinics Family Study

The aggregation of lipids [total cholesterol (CH) and triglyceride (TG)] and lipoproteins [high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL)] in families ascertained through random and nonrandom probands in the Iowa Lipid Research Clinics family study was examined. Nonrandom probands were selected because their lipid levels (at a prior screening visit) exceeded a certain pre-specified threshold. The statistical method conditions the likelihood function on the actual event that the proband's value is beyond the threshold. This method allows for estimation of the path model parameters in randomly and nonrandomly ascertained families jointly and separately, thus enabling tests of heterogeneity between the two types of samples. Marked heterogeneity between the random and the hyperlipidemic samples is detected in the multifactorial transmission for TG and HDL, and moderate heterogeneity is detected for CH and LDL, with a pattern of higher genetic heritability estimates in the random than nonrandom samples. The observed pattern of heterogeneity is compatible with a higher prevalence in the random sample of certain dyslipoproteinemias that are associated with nonelevated lipids. For the random samples, genetic heritabilities are higher for CH and HDL (about 60%) than for TG and LDL (about 50%). For the nonrandom samples those estimates are about 45, 40, 35 and 30% for HDL, CH, LDL and TG, respectively. Little to no cultural (familial environmental) heritability is evident for CH and LDL, although 10-20% of the phenotypic variance is due to cultural factors for TG and HDL. These results suggest that the etiologies for lipids and lipoproteins may be quite different in random versus hyperlipidemic samples.

Heterogeneity in the familial aggregation of fasting serum uric acid level in five North American populations: The lipid research clinics family study

This study represents the first formal examination for heterogeneity in the familial aggregation of fasting serum uric acid (UA) levels. Data from 5 clinics (Cincinnati, Stanford, Iowa, Minnesota, and Oklahoma) participating in the Lipid Research Clinics (LRC) family study, which included a total of 685 nuclear families (N = 2,146), were analyzed. Heterogeneity among the clinics in familial resemblance was detected. However, this heterogeneity could not be attributed to differences in distributional properties (such as means and variances) or to path model parameters representing latent genetic or cultural (environmental) components associated with UA levels. Intergenerational differences in genetic heritabilities were found, with higher offspring (h2 = 43%) than parent (h2z2 = 16%) estimates, but no generational differences were detected for cultural heritability (c2 = 0.09). Equal maternal and paternal cultural transmission was found, and effects due to extra sibling environments and to marital resemblance were both significant. These results show no clear indication as to the source of the heterogeneity observed for familial resemblance of UA levels in randomly selected data. This question should be further investigated, especially in clinical samples such as dyslipoproteinemic families.

Heterogeneity in the Familial Aggregation of Fasting Plasma Glucose in Five North American Populations: The Lipid Research Clinics Family Study

Heterogeneity in the familial aggregation of plasma glucose in five samples of the Lipid Research Clinics Family Study (LRC) was investigated using path analysis. This study was deemed appropriate since recent investigations reported a wide range of estimates for genetic and cultural factors. The path model incorporated a measured index of the familial environment in order to separate the effects of genes and environments in the nuclear family design, genetic and environmental heritabilities, spouse resemblance, sibling environmental effects, and parental cultural transmission. The methodology was completely general in allowing sample-specific, as well as pooled-sample, estimation of all or any subset of the model parameters. Genetic heritability estimates were heterogeneous, ranging from zero to 33% across the clinics. Environmental heritability (7%), spouse resemblance, non-transmitted sibling environmental effects, and parental cultural transmission were homogeneous across samples. No support was found for specific maternal effects, nor for intergenerational differences in cultural or genetic heritability. We conclude that the genetic and environmental heritabilities for plasma glucose in the LRC are consistent with the diverse reports by earlier investigators. In addition, we were able to exclude methodological differences as a cause of this heterogeneity. Furthermore, formal hypothesis tests suggest that the aetiology of this heterogeneity is genetic (and not cultural), taking the form of two distinct homogeneous patterns (one for no genetic effect, and one for a moderate genetic effect). Only formal heterogeneity tests of the type described here can detect these effects, and allow pooling of separate studies in order to obtain more precise estimates of the parameters of interest.

Preterm baby delivery: Some genetic epidemiological aspects.

The present paper considers genetic risk factors associated with preterm births. We investigated two main hypotheses, namely: 1) Whether there is a detectable genetic or at least a family resemblance component that may predispose a mother to give birth prematurely and 2) whether the risk to preterm delivery can be predicted in the early stages of pregnancy by means of associated morphometric traits and biochemical genetic markers. Our data and published literature certainly point to the existence of a significant family component, although the findings are still scanty for precise determination of genetic and cultural heritability components. In particular, the available data on family correlations in gestational age do not allow one to distinguish between the contribution of the fetus's genotype from the maternal environment and maternal genotype. Parent-children and marital correlations in gestational age, critical for nuclear family analysis, are rather difficult, if not impossible, to obtain. Therefore, we discuss in the present paper several realistic path analysis models for estimating the relative contribution of genetically inherited and environmental components. Some biochemical markers and also morphological asymmetry correlate with a predisposition to preterm delivery. Again, however, more empirical data are needed to properly assess these relationships.

Path analysis under generalized marital resemblance: evaluation of the assumptions underlying the mixed homogamy model by the Monte Carlo method.

Path analysis of nuclear family data has been widely applied to resolve genetic and environmental sources of familial resemblance. Here we report the results of a systematic evaluation of the effects of departures from five modeling assumptions often made when analyzing nuclear family data; i) the observed environmental index is unaffected by the genotype, ii) the basis of marital resemblance is correctly specified in the model, iii) there are no intergenerational differences in either the genetic or cultural heritability, iv) there is no genetic dominance, and v) there is no genotype by family environment interaction. "Deterministic simulations" identified various situations where model misspecification could lead to substantial bias in the estimation of the heritabilities. For these situations, "stochastic simulations" were performed to determine whether the "goodness-of-fit" test used in path analysis would correctly reject the misspecified model. In samples of 500 nuclear families, each comprising two parents and two children, the goodness-of-fit test was found to be sensitive to misspecifications of the source of marital resemblance and the existence of intergenerational differences in heritabilities, although reduced power would make the test less sensitive in smaller samples. The test was largely insensitive to misspecifications of possible genetic effects on the environmental index, and to the existence of multiplicative interaction between the genotype and familial environment. When genetic effects on the index are ignored, the genetic heritability (h2) is underestimated, the cultural heritability (c2) is overestimated, but h2+c2 remains unchanged. Neglecting the interaction was found to result in an overestimate of h2.

Heterogeneity in the Biological and Cultural Determinants of High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Five North American Populations: The Lipid Research Clinics Family Study

Heterogeneity in the source of familial resemblance for high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol in 5 different Lipid Research Clinics (Cincinnati, Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Stanford) was assessed using a general linear model for cultural and biological inheritance. No evidence of heterogeneity was found in any of the parameters of the model. Under the most parsimonious hypothesis, using data pooled over all clinics, genetic and cultural heritability were both significant and were estimated to be 0.52 +/- 0.04 and 0.09 +/- 0.02, respectively; there was cultural transmission but no maternal effects; marital and nontransmitted sibship environmental resemblance were significant.

Family resemblance for glucose tolerance in a Melanesian population, the Tolai.

Path analysis of family resemblance for plasma glucose concentration, 2 h after an oral glucose challenge, failed to detect significant genetic heritability. There were no intergenerational differences and marital resemblance was moderate. Over one-third of sibling environmental similarity was due to non-inherited factors. Cultural inheritance was very strong, tending to mimic genetic inheritance, and cultural heritability was considerable. Measures of obesity were included in the environmental index, an estimate of familial environment, in this analysis, for comparability with previous studies. Since obesity appears, in part, to be a heritable trait, in future studies a bivariate approach to family resemblance for both glucose tolerance and obesity could yield important additional insight.

Cardiovascular risk factors in a French Canadian population: resolution of genetic and familial environmental effects on blood pressure using twins, adoptees, and extensive information on environmental correlates.

Genetic and environmental influences on systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP), and mean arterial (MBP) blood pressure were examined using an expanded version of a path model in which parents and their singleton, twin, and adopted offspring were incorporated, and which also included an environmental index as an estimate of the underlying familial environmental component. Estimates of genetic heritability are lower in parents (10-15%) than in offspring (40-50%). Cultural heritability was significant for SBP (0.31) and MBP (0.40), and an intergenerational effect was found for DBP, with higher estimates in parents (0.42) than in offspring (0.21). Marital resemblance was significant, and no support was found for differential maternal and paternal cultural transmission. Two novel results arising from this study are 1) gender-specific sibling effects, with greater female than male resemblance for SBP and MBP and the opposite pattern for DBP, and 2) the suggestion of extra twin resemblance arising on account of additional shared environments and resulting in greater like-sex than opposite-sex twin resemblance. The major conclusions drawn from this study are that 1) parameter estimates are stable with or without the use of extensive environmental indices, and 2) the addition of twins and adoptees did not significantly impact the results, with the exception of a possible influence of the adoptees in estimates of cultural heritability for DBP. Combining both these features (i.e., extended relatives and environmental indices) enables testing for additional sources of familial aggregation, which is not possible using the traditional nuclear family approach and results in a more accurate assessment of the relative roles of heredity and environment on blood pressure than has been previously possible.

Family resemblance for serum uric acid in a Jerusalem sample of families.

Familial aggregation of serum uric acid was studied in a sample of families examined in the Jerusalem Lipid Research Clinic. We first examined homogeneity of familial correlations across the major origin groups in the Israeli population sample. In general correlations were homogeneous across origin groups, except for spouse pairs. Pooled correlations among biological relatives across the origin groups were all statistically significant. Spouse correlation upon adjustment for concomitant variables was moderately positive (r = 0.115), yet significantly different from zero. Genetic and cultural determinants of uric acid were estimated utilizing a path model with 10 parameters to be estimated from a total of 16 correlations. Under a reduced model, genetic heritability (h2) was estimated to be 0.47 +/- 0.05 and cultural heritability (c2) was 0.11 +/- 0.03. However, our data gave suggestive evidence that cultural heritability was higher in parents (c2 = 0.28) than in children (c2 = 0.10). Commingling analysis and segregation analysis were also performed, and our findings imply that in the Israeli population there is no evidence for a major gene for high uric acid levels segregating in families.