LE STUDIUM Multidisciplinary Journal

The research has shown to that up to ca. 1550 many of the inhabitants of “average” French towns as Tours and Orléans were literate and that they did have access to religious texts in French, contrarily to ideas regularly expressed in historical scholarship. Archival documents, as well as surviving handwritten texts and printed books have provided information about the wide range of social backgrounds of the readers, from stocking makers in Tours and Orléans, the grandson of Gaultiere who ran the public baths in Tours, to well-off merchants and lawyers. Next to books and their owners, the research has resulted in evidence about the presence and location of libraries, open access texts and books, booksellers and printers. Furthermore, an inventory of a book collection (probably a bookshop) with more than 276 books in French in Tours has given much data about textual cultures and reading interests. The historical data often allow plotting these “lieux de savoir” on historical maps of premodern Tours and Orléans. Further analysis of places of religious knowledge by making use of computerised Geographical Information Systems allow for more refined conclusions about concentrations (near religious institutions and schools) and accessibility (in the heart of urban life). The project has already resulted in one accepted peer-reviewed publication; two other articles and a collection of articles in open access, authored by specialists in the field, are in preparation.

Peatlands are key ecosystems in the global carbon balance due in part to the slow microbial degradation of the organic matter (OM) in peat soils. Role of peatlands as powerful carbon storage systems may be threatened by climate change, leading to a potential huge release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Our knowledge on the mechanisms behind the microbial OM degradation is still incomplete, and it is also essential to develop better management strategies and mitigate global change impacts. In the frame of the present fellowship, the microbial extracellular enzymatic mechanisms of the OM degradation in peat soil and pore water were studied in a French altered peatland, assessing changes in soil depth and warming effect during an annual cycle. Additionally, to the research programme, during the present fellowship a new technique for the host laboratory was implemented (protocol to measure extracellular enzyme activities in pore water and peat soil), the fellow participated in several conferences and seminars, three publication were or are in the process of being published, and a new project with the host laboratory is in developing.

This Le Studium Fellowship was used to analyze the crystal growth in levitated melts. Furthermore, methodical questions concerning the method EBSD as well as XRD were addressed. Finally, the literature concerning oriented surface nucleation in glasses was completed. 

Infections with parasitic helminths expose serious health threats to humans and animals alike. Prevention of disease is dependent on the effective treatment using anthelmintics. Unfortunately, anthelmintic resistance (AR) has evolved in many helminth species during the past decades and meanwhile poses a major constraint to established worm control approaches. This project aimed to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which helminths, particularly the potentially deadly horse parasite Parascaris sp., become capable of withstanding drug treatment. To this end, Parascaris P-glycoproteins (Pgp), belonging to an important group of mediators of anthelmintic resistance, were introduced into the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans using the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The resulting transgenic lines will subsequently be analyzed to functionally elucidate the role of putatively AR-associated Parascaris Pgp sequence polymorphisms.