Cradle Of Origin Research Articles

The genomic natural history of the aurochs.

Now extinct, the aurochs (Bos primigenius) was a keystone species in prehistoric Eurasian and North African ecosystems, and the progenitor of cattle (Bos taurus), domesticates that have provided people with food and labour for millennia1. Here we analysed 38 ancient genomes and found 4 distinct population ancestries in the aurochs-European, Southwest Asian, North Asian and South Asian-each of which has dynamic trajectories that have responded to changes in climate and human influence. Similarly to Homo heidelbergensis, aurochsen first entered Europe around 650 thousand years ago2, but early populations left only trace ancestry, with both North Asian and European B. primigenius genomes coalescing during the most recent glaciation. North Asian and European populations then appear separated until mixing after the climate amelioration of the early Holocene. European aurochsen endured the more severe bottleneck during the Last Glacial Maximum, retreating to southern refugia before recolonizing from Iberia. Domestication involved the capture of a small number of individuals from the Southwest Asian aurochs population, followed by early and pervasive male-mediated admixture involving each ancestral strain of aurochs after domestic stocks dispersed beyond their cradle of origin.

Study on vibration characteristics of large caliber naval gun cradle based on similarity theory

Aiming at the problems of long development cycle and high cost of large-diameter naval gun, the similarity analysis of vibration characteristics of cradle, the key component of large-diameter naval gun, is carried out. Based on the similarity principle, the modal similarity relationship between the original cradle model and the reduced scale model is established, the 1:4 reduced scale model of cradle and bracket is designed and processed, the numerical solution and Simulation of the theoretical model are carried out, and the modal test of the experimental model is carried out. The results show that the error between the original predicted data of the first six natural frequencies of the scaled model modal test and the numerical solution of the original structure is less than 10%, and the test modal shape is close to that in workbench modal simulation. It can provide some reference value for the initial design vibration characteristics analysis of key components of large caliber naval gun.

Local adaptations of Mediterranean sheep and goats through an integrative approach

Small ruminants are suited to a wide variety of habitats and thus represent promising study models for identifying genes underlying adaptations. Here, we considered local Mediterranean breeds of goats (n = 17) and sheep (n = 25) from Italy, France and Spain. Based on historical archives, we selected the breeds potentially most linked to a territory and defined their original cradle (i.e., the geographical area in which the breed has emerged), including transhumant pastoral areas. We then used the programs PCAdapt and LFMM to identify signatures of artificial and environmental selection. Considering cradles instead of current GPS coordinates resulted in a greater number of signatures identified by the LFMM analysis. The results, combined with a systematic literature review, revealed a set of genes with potentially key adaptive roles in relation to the gradient of aridity and altitude. Some of these genes have been previously implicated in lipid metabolism (SUCLG2, BMP2), hypoxia stress/lung function (BMPR2), seasonal patterns (SOX2, DPH6) or neuronal function (TRPC4, TRPC6). Selection signatures involving the PCDH9 and KLH1 genes, as well as NBEA/NBEAL1, were identified in both species and thus could play an important adaptive role.

Africa in the Surrealist Imaginary: Photographs of Sculpture in Minotaure and Documents

The Surrealist journals Documents (1929–1930) and Minotaure (1933–1939) sought to overturn the eurocentric hegemony of art history, especially the notion that Greece had formed the original cradle of civilization. Due to close-knit linkages with anthropologists in these periodicals, the Surrealists’ understanding of indigenous art was far from superficial; nor was it limited to mere aesthetic borrowings, as presented in William Rubin’s controversial “Primitivism” exhibition of 1984. The diverse range of African sculptures in both French journals testify to a much wider influence upon Surrealist thought, often aligned with uneasy but core concepts of universality, freedom of the spirit, the occult, automatism and non-national limits. As such, the original use-value of sculptures within their indigenous African cultures will be interrogated beyond purely aesthetic concerns, rearticulated through the prism of core Surrealist ideas to delineate both genuine resonances and intentional deviations. Although the Surrealists attempted to attenuate the colonial legacy of Western art history, the movement seems to rest in a state of exception à propos the provenance of sculpture featured in their periodicals and personal collections. Indeed, Minotaure published Marcel Griaule’s Mission Dakar-Djibouti and its treasure-trove of looted African wares which would become the property of France. Ultimately, photomechanical reproduction of these sculptures did not satiate the colonial powers’ lust to possess, nor that of avant-garde collectors. The original, “auratic” object still reigned supreme, creating a troubled complicity between Surrealism and the ideology of colonialism that they vehemently protested against.

Towards community-based in situ conservation strategies: a typological analysis of Borgou cattle herding systems in northeastern Benin.

A thorough knowledge of cattle herding systems is very important for planning sustainable genetic improvement and conservation strategies. This paper is initiated to characterize Benin native Borgou cattle farming systems in its department of origin by mean of survey including 180 cattle farmers owning at least one phenotype of that breed. Using multiple correspondence analysis and hierarchical ascending classification, four groups of Borgou cattle farms have been identified. The first group qualified as "semi-intensive purebred Borgou cattle farming" own high numbers (87.2 ± 3.95 heads) purchased and reared with the view to promote its genetic improvement, its production, and its conservation as Benin animal genetic resource. The second group (sedentary purebred Borgou cattle farming) is represented by Bariba ethnic group with small numbers (22.18 ± 0.71 heads) of purebred Borgou cattle used mainly for draught. Cattle farmers of the third group are "large transhumant of Zebu and Borgou crossbred cattle farmers" represented by Fulani and Gando ethnic groups whose herds are generally composed of high numbers (75.20 ± 3.43 heads) of cattle acquired by purchasing, inheriting, and fostering. The last one is the "small transhumant of Zebu and Borgou crossbred cattle farming" with an average herd size of 31.98 ± 0.72 heads. Cattle farming is their main activity and animals are used for the production of milk and cheese. These distinctions between Borgou cattle farmers can be an anchorage point for designing sustainable community-based in situ conservation strategies for safeguarding this local breed in its original cradle.

Finite-element analysis and structural optimization design study for cradle seat of CNC machine tool

In order to improve the machining precision of the five-axis CNC machine tool, the cradle seat must have good structure and mechanical properties. Using the CAD/CAE-integrated design platform, static finite-element analysis and sensitivity analysis of the original cradle seat were conducted. Based on the above analysis, the weak part of the original cradle seat was discovered. A multi-objective optimization design process for the cradle seat’s weak part was carried out, and six groups of non-inferior solutions were obtained. From the six groups of optimization design schemes and the original design scheme, the optimal design scheme was selected using fuzzy matter-element method and the entropy-weight method. The cradle seat’s mass was reduced by 2.76%, and the maximum deformation was reduced by 27.38%. The impact test analysis results showed that the dynamic performance of the cradle seat, after optimization design, was greatly improved, which proves that the proposed structural optimization design method based on sensitivity analysis is reasonable and feasible.

El Sentido de lo Común como Experiencia de Construcción Democrática: Estudio de Casos en Escuelas en Contextos de Pobreza en Chile

El trabajo de investigación que se presenta, expone los resultados con relación al sentido de lo común como experiencia democrática en jóvenes de sectores de extrema pobreza en Chile. Las unidades del estudio correspondieron a seis escuelas chilenas, bajo el diseño de Estudios de Caso colectivos e instrumentales. Producto del análisis de los datos (discurso, registros de observación, entrevistas, grupos focales y documentos), emergen líneas discursivas que se aglutinan en torno a cinco categorías matrices. En este artículo, sólo desarrollamos la categoría de pobreza, por ser la más densa y extensa. En ella hemos encontrado que el sentido de lo común se desvanece como experiencia democrática en escuelas que reproducen la profunda segmentación social que presenta Chile en su tejido social. Segmentación que se traduce en percepciones de dos mundos: “los de arriba” y “los de abajo”. En esta lógica tanto la escuela púbica, como el espacio de salud, la vivienda, el barrio, la protección civil y los transportes son servicios de mala calidad para un sector de la población que no puede comprar servicios de mejor calidad. En su escuela, su barrio y en su experiencia de lo social dichos jóvenes transitan por una vida amenazada, rodeada por vertederos, y por la ausencia de derechos a tener derechos. La pérdida de esperanza en la meritocracia (i.e. igualdad de oportunidades) se evidencia en sus relatos, que reflejan las distancias en sus posiciones sociales, lo que les indica que no pueden competir con el capital cultural y social que da la cuna de origen y que la escuela en el contexto chileno de políticas públicas reproduce, impidiendo e imposibilitando el surgimiento de un espacio político y ciudadano de lo común.

Evolutionary Asiacentrism, Peking Man, and the Origins of␣Sinocentric Ethno-Nationalism

This paper discusses how the theory of evolutionary Asiacentrism and the Peking Man findings at the Zhoukoudian site stimulated Chinese intellectuals to construct Sinocentric ethno-nationalism during the period from the late 1920s to the early 1940s. It shows that the theory was first popularized by foreign scientists in Beijing, and the Peking man discoveries further provided strong evidence for the idea that Central Asia, or to be more specific, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, was the original cradle of humans. Chinese scholars in the late 1930s and 1940s appropriated the findings to construct the monogenesis theory of the Chinese, which designated that all the diverse ethnic groups within the territory of China shared a common ancestor back to antiquity.

The importance of Anatolian mountains as the cradle of global diversity in Arabis alpina, a key arctic–alpine species

Anatolia is a biologically diverse, but phylogeographically under-explored region. It is described as either a centre of origin and long-term Pleistocene refugium, or as a centre for genetic amalgamation, fed from distinct neighbouring refugia. These contrasting hypotheses are tested through a global phylogeographic analysis of the arctic-alpine herb, Arabis alpina. Herbarium and field collections were used to sample comprehensively the entire global range, with special focus on Anatolia and Levant. Sequence variation in the chloroplast DNA trnL-trnF region was examined in 483 accessions. A haplotype genealogy was constructed and phylogeographic methods, demographic analysis and divergence time estimations were used to identify the centres of diversity and to infer colonization history. Fifty-seven haplotypes were recovered, belonging to three haplogroups with non-overlapping distributions in (1) North America/Europe/northern Africa, (2) the Caucuses/Iranian Plateau/Arabian Peninsula and (3) Ethiopia-eastern Africa. All haplogroups occur within Anatolia, and all intermediate haplotypes linking the three haplogroups are endemic to central Anatolia and Levant, where haplotypic and nucleotide diversities exceeded all other regions. The local pattern of haplotype distribution strongly resembles the global pattern, and the haplotypes began to diverge approx. 2·7 Mya, coinciding with the climate cooling of the early Middle Pleistocene. The phylogeographic structure of Arabis alpina is consistent with Anatolia being the cradle of origin for global genetic diversification. The highly structured landscape in combination with the Pleistocene climate fluctuations has created a network of mountain refugia and the accumulation of spatially arranged genotypes. This local Pleistocene population history has subsequently left a genetic imprint at the global scale, through four range expansions from the Anatolian diversity centre into Europe, the Near East, Arabia and Africa. Hence this study also illustrates the importance of sampling and scaling effects when translating global from local diversity patterns during phylogeographic analyses.

Identification of teosinte, maize, and Tripsacum in Mesoamerica by using pollen, starch grains, and phytoliths

We examined pollen grains and starch granules from a large number of modern populations of teosinte (wild Zea spp.), maize (Zea mays L.), and closely related grasses in the genus Tripsacum to assess their strengths and weaknesses in studying the origins and early dispersals of maize in its Mesoamerican cradle of origin. We report new diagnostic criteria and question the accuracy of others used previously by investigators to identify ancient maize where its wild ancestor, teosinte, is native. Pollen grains from teosinte overlap in size with those of maize to a much greater degree than previously reported, making the differentiation of wild and domesticated maize in palynological studies difficult. There is presently no valid method for separating maize and teosinte pollen on a morphological basis. Starch grain analysis, a recently developed tool of archaeobotany, appears to be of significant utility in distinguishing the seeds of teosinte from maize. We propose that the differences in starch grain morphology and size between wild and domesticated maize defined in this study may be associated with domestication genes in Zea that have been documented in the starch biosynthesis pathway. As previously reported, phytoliths effectively discriminate the female reproductive structures of Tripsacum, teosinte, and maize. Multiproxy microfossil studies of archaeological and paleoecological contexts appear to be effective tools for investigating the earliest stages of maize domestication and dispersals.

INDIRECT SOMATIC EMBRYOGENESIS OF ACTINIDIA CHINENSIS PL.A FEMALE HAYWARD VARIETY CASE

The original cradle of Actinidia chinensis PL. is China. This species has been introduced in the botanical gardens of Paris Museum and the tests garden of Algiers (Algeria). This plant is commercially cultivated since more then thirty years in New Zealand. Tests of indirect somatic embryogenesis have been achieved on the Hayward variety. The results have shown that the calluses are green beige and very crumbly with often green dark small points. The calluses led in a MS media + 4.5 µ M of 2.4-D and 4.65 µ M of kinetin in 12g/l Agar are dry in appearance because of the strong Agar content and the weaker water potential. The most elevated relative average growth rate (RGR) is obtained on a MS media + 4.5 µ M (2.4-D) and 4.65 µ M kinetin in 8 g/l of Agar. The histological analysis revealed the presence of various structures suggesting a bourgeonnement process. Among the structures observed many meristematic diffuse masses with occasionally center visible tracheids and fibbers.

An Improved Particle Swarm Optimization Based on Self-Adaptive Escape Velocity

To deal with the problem of premature convergence and slow search speed, this paper proposes a novel particle swarm optimization (PSO) called self-adaptive escape PSO, which is guaranteed to converge to the global optimization solution with probability one. Considering that the organisms have the phenomena of escaping from the original cradle when they find the survival density is too high to live, this paper uses a special mutation –escape operator to make particles explore the search space more efficiently. The novel strategy produces a large speed value dynamically according to the variation of the speed, which makes the algorithm explore the local and global minima thoroughly at the same time. Experimental simulations show that the proposed method can not only significantly speed up the convergence, but also effectively solve the premature convergence problem .