Urban agriculture is spreading within the Global North, largely for food production, ranging from household individual gardens to community gardens that boost neighborhood regeneration. Additionally, UA is also being integrated into buildings, such as urban rooftop farming. Some URF experiences succeed in North America both as private and community initiatives. To date, little attention has been paid to how stakeholders perceive UA and URF in the Mediterranean or to the role of food production in these initiatives. This study examines the (...) promotion and inclusion of new forms of UA through the practice of URF and contributes to the nascent literature on the stakeholder and public perceptions of UA. It seeks to understand how those perceptions shape the development of new urban agriculture practices and projects. Barcelona was used as a Mediterranean case study where UA and URF projects are growing in popularity. Through semi-structured interviews with 25 core stakeholders, we show that UA is largely perceived as a social activity rather than a food production initiative, because the planning of urban gardens in Barcelona was traditionally done to achieve leisure and other social goals. However, several stakeholders highlighted the potential to increase urban fertility through URF by occupying currently unused spaces. As a result, the positive valuation of URF depends on the conceptualization of UA as a social or food production activity. In turn, such conceptualization shapes barriers and opportunities for the development of URF. While most UA-related stakeholders preferred soil-based UA, newer stakeholders highlighted the economic, social and environmental opportunities of local and efficient food production through innovative URF. (shrink)

El tratado exegético ort. et obit. de Isidoro incluye la presentación detallada de tres mujeres que representan, cada una según su historia, las virtudes femeninas más destacadas en la Escritura. Isidoro presenta sus perfiles basándose en el texto bíblico y en la tradición teológica que ya en su época si había ido configurando y asentando. Una atención especial merece el capítulo dedicado a María que no solamente sintetiza la reflexión mariológica anterior, sino que constituye una de las bases para su (...) desarrollo posterior. (shrink)

Chondrogenesis is a key process in skeletogenesis since endochondral ossification requires the formation of a cartilaginous template. Knowledge of molecular mechanisms regulating chondrogenesis is extremely valuable not only to understand many human disorders but also in regenerative medicine. Embryonic skeletogenesis is an excellent model to study this mechanism. Most cartilages share the cellular basis underlying chondrogenesis but the high heterogeneity in morphologies of the different skeletal elements appears to be generated by differential participation of a variety of chondrogenic signals. Here (...) we overview the regulatory factors responsible for chondrogenesis concluding that early chondrogenic signals for the digit cartilages differ from those implicated in the formation of other axial and appendicular skeletal components. BioEssays 29:725–737, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)