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This thesis describes Saramaccan Maroon medicinal plant knowledge, practices and beliefs in relation to local health care, education and biocultural conservation. The Saramaccan ethno-medical system in the village Pikin Slee focused primarily on cure followed by health promotion, and disease prevention. People made a deliberated choice for traditional medicines, even though most health concerns could be treated in the village health center. Herbal bathing plays a significant role in providing local health care among Maroons. The geographical separation between the Saramaccan and Ndyuka Maroons have led to distinct plant use in their herbal bathing practices.Writing proper Saramaccan plant names and the translation of health issues from Saramaccan into Dutch is a challenge for pupils in Pikin Slee, indicating a gap between the official school curriculum (in Dutch), traditional knowledge and literacy in Saramaccan. The growing influence of Sranantongo interrupts the conservation of Saramaccan traditional ecological and cultural knowledge stored in plant names which are influenced by European, African and Indigenous languages. Central-African Bantu languages, especially Kikongo, contributed most to the names followed by West-African Kwa languages. As Saramaccan plant names store large amounts of traditional knowledge, they play an important role in the conservation of Saramaccan biocultural heritage.

This thesis describes Saramaccan Maroon medicinal plant knowledge, practices and beliefs in relation to local health care, education and biocultural conservation. The Saramaccan ethno-medical system in the village Pikin Slee focused primarily on cure followed by health promotion, and disease prevention. People made a deliberated choice for traditional medicines, even though most health concerns could be treated in the village health center. Herbal bathing plays a significant role in providing local health care among Maroons. The geographical separation between the Saramaccan and Ndyuka Maroons have led to distinct plant use in their herbal bathing practices.Writing proper Saramaccan plant names and the translation of health issues from Saramaccan into Dutch is a challenge for pupils in Pikin Slee, indicating a gap between the official school curriculum (in Dutch), traditional knowledge and literacy in Saramaccan. The growing influence of Sranantongo interrupts the conservation of Saramaccan traditional ecological and cultural knowledge stored in plant names which are influenced by European, African and Indigenous languages. Central-African Bantu languages, especially Kikongo, contributed most to the names followed by West-African Kwa languages. As Saramaccan plant names store large amounts of traditional knowledge, they play an important role in the conservation of Saramaccan biocultural heritage.

Ten behoeve van de bouw van de parkeergarage aan het ziekenhuis Academisch Ziekenhuis Groningen (AZG) is een diep bouwput was aangelegd . Tijdens archeologisch onderzoek zijn geologische opnamen verricht (TNO ism archeologen van gemeente Groningen). De archeologen troffen in de bouwput Neolithische scherven en bewoningsporen aan op de Pleistocene ondergrond. Deze sporen waren overdekt met een ca. 2 meter dikke Holocene Hunze kleilaag. In de bouwput waren ook de Pleistocene gronden ontsloten tot 10 meter –NAP. Deze afzettingen, die deel uit maken van de opvulling van het ‘oer-Hunze rivierdal, bleken onder meer spectaculaire vorstwerkingstructuren (o.a. ijswiggen) te bevatten. Deze structuren waren gevormd tijdens de laatste ijstijd, het Weichselien. In opdracht van de gemeente Groningen heeft het TNO-NITG de ontsloten Pleistocene profielwanden van het AZG-terrein opgenomen. Doel van de veldopname was om de geologische structuren in de ondergrond van het AZG-terrein vast te leggen; ondermeer om de Groningese bevolking in kennis te kunnen stellen van de bijzondere geologische vormen die zich onder hun voeten bevinden.

Contains fulltext : 225287.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Radboud University, 04 november 2020 Promotores : Russel, F.G.M., Berg, M. van den

During life humans are exposed to diverse hazardous compounds, which can have toxicological effects. Reproductive and developmental toxicology are research areas dedicated to the study of the potential of a compound to affect male and female fertility, and development of the embryo and fetus during pregnancy, respectively. An important developmental process is the development of the neural system. The developing brain is more susceptible to toxic interference and can be affected at doses much lower than those affecting adult brain function. Alterations in these processes can result in severe congenital abnormalities of the nervous system of humans. Developmental neuro toxicity testing (DNT) is therefore an important toxicological area in the hazard and risk assessment of chemicals. Regulatory toxicity testing requires an enormous number of test animals. These in vivo tests are time consuming, expensive and give rise to many ethical concerns. To reduce the number of test animals used for reproductive toxicity testing, there is a need for high throughput alternative test methods. The use of embryonic stem cells (ESC) offers a great alternative, since they are able to differentiate into all cell types originating from the three germ layers in vitro. Therefore, ESC offer the ability to mimic early in vivo embryonic development. We studied the use of both mouse ESC (mESC) differentiation towards both myocardial and neural cells, and human ESC (hESC) differentiation towards neural cells, with transcriptomics to study gene expression as an indicator of developmental toxicity. Using mESC within the Embryonic Stem cell Test (EST) we demonstrated that the use of transcriptomics as a read-out after 24 hours of exposure enables ranking of compounds of one compound class of phthalates based on their potency, corresponding to existing in vitro and in vivo data. To lower the number of genes normally involved in whole genome array analysis, we described a statistical method to obtain smaller gene sets usable for potency ranking. Subsequently, a mESC based neural differentiation assay (mESTn) was developed as an alternative method for DNT. In the mESTn the effects of methyl mercury on neural outgrowth was demonstrated. However, mouse based test systems have a limited ability to the human toxicity response, due to differences in biological mechanisms, pathways and pharmacokinetics. Therefore, human based test systems are preferred for human risk analysis. We have developed a neural differentiation assay based on hESC cells (hESTn), as an alternative for DNT. The effects on neural differentiation of two anticonvulsant drugs, valproic acid and carbamazepine were studied. Neural differentiation and developmental processes were affected by drug exposure. Ultimately, with a comparative study between the mESTn and the hESTn it was shown that there were common genes regulates in both assays, involved in neural differentiation and affected by compound exposure.