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- Al Saadi, Tania, 1974-
(author)
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Three Arabic Novels Starting with a Crime
- 2012
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In: Edebiyât A journal of Middle Eastern literatures. - 1475-262X .- 1475-2638. ; 15:1, s. 1-19
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The present study treats three Arabic novels which belong to different periods and use different narrative techniques. Yet they all start with the same theme: the discovery of a murder. Despite this apparent similarity in their beginnings, the murder plot develops in a different way in the three cases. Each beginning contains elements that announce the development of the story. The three beginnings serve the special purposes of their respective novels, in the way the murder is presented to the reader, in the elements each beginning tries to draw attention to, in the language used in this purpose, in the identity of the character who discovers the murder and even in the type of the murder itself. The three novels have, beside the murder plot, various thematic and ideological objectives which influence the way the novel starts and even overshadow, in some cases, the murder plot.
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- Rooke, Tetz, 1955
(author)
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Feathers from Heaven: or what the paprika plant said to the hero
- 2006
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In: Middle Eastern Literatures. - 1475-262X. ; 9:2, s. 179-188
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article discusses some aspects of the 'problem of identity' explored in the novel al-Rish (1990) by the Syrian-born Kurdish writer Salim Barakat (b. 1951), against the background of the typology of history suggested in Bernard Lewis's "History: remembered, recovered, invented" (1975). As a member of a minority community denied their full cultural and political rights, Barakat is arguably particularly sensitive both to the constructed nature of history and identity, and to how the process of remembering, discovering/recovering and inventing works. The article presents a detailed analysis of al-Rish, concluding that the 'problem of identity' is never solved in the work: rather, the novel presents us with an array of partly conflicting, partly complementary identities, while the characters remain caught in a quest for a stable identity that disintegrates like a mirage as they approach it.
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- Kuil, Teun, et al.
(author)
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Ethanol tolerance of Clostridium thermocellum : the role of chaotropicity, temperature and pathway thermodynamics on growth and fermentative capacity
- 2022
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In: Microbial Cell Factories. - : Springer Nature. - 1475-2859. ; 21:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BackgroundClostridium thermocellum is a promising candidate for consolidated bioprocessing of lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol. The low ethanol tolerance of this microorganism is one of the remaining obstacles to industrial implementation. Ethanol inhibition can be caused by end-product inhibition and/or chaotropic-induced stress resulting in increased membrane fluidization and disruption of macromolecules. The highly reversible glycolysis of C. thermocellum might be especially sensitive to end-product inhibition. The chaotropic effect of ethanol is known to increase with temperature. This study explores the relative contributions of these two aspects to investigate and possibly mitigate ethanol-induced stress in growing and non-growing C. thermocellum cultures.ResultsTo separate chaotropic from thermodynamic effects of ethanol toxicity, a non-ethanol producing strain AVM062 (P-clo1313_2638::ldh* adhE) was constructed by deleting the bifunctional acetaldehyde/alcohol dehydrogenase gene, adhE, in a lactate-overproducing strain. Exogenously added ethanol lowered the growth rate of both wild-type and the non-ethanol producing mutant. The mutant strain grew quicker than the wild-type at 50 and 55 degrees C for ethanol concentrations >= 10 g L-1 and was able to reach higher maximum OD600 at all ethanol concentrations and temperatures. For the wild-type, the maximum OD600 and relative growth rates were higher at 45 and 50 degrees C, compared to 55 degrees C, for ethanol concentrations >= 15 g L-1. For the mutant strain, no positive effect on growth was observed at lower temperatures. Growth-arrested cells of the wild-type demonstrated improved fermentative capacity over time in the presence of ethanol concentrations up to 40 g L-1 at 45 and 50 degrees C compared to 55 degrees C.ConclusionPositive effects of temperature on ethanol tolerance were limited to wild-type C. thermocellum and are likely related to mechanisms involved in the ethanol-formation pathway and redox cofactor balancing. Lowering the cultivation temperature provides an attractive strategy to improve growth and fermentative capacity at high ethanol titres in high-cellulose loading batch cultivations. Finally, non-ethanol producing strains are useful platform strains to study the effects of chaotropicity and thermodynamics related to ethanol toxicity and allow for deeper understanding of growth and/or fermentation cessation under industrially relevant conditions.
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