Urena

Abstract: A key text on Spanish architectural reform, Marques de Urena’s Reflexiones sobre la arquitectura, ornato, y musica del templo of 1785, contains a rich and layered discussion of the doctrinal and aesthetic foundations of ecclesiastical architecture. Urena’s Reflexiones appears at a moment of transition for Spanish architectural history by calling for a return to the ancient basilica type. The paper reconstructs a discussion waged by Urena and his contemporaries on problems within the contemporary Spanish church interior: its use of wooden ornament, ephemerals, transformable altars and other Spanish late-baroque ecclesiastical decor. Thus, the return to origins in Christian architecture might be framed in terms of a wider debate on usage, and the sense in which the basilica offered a corrective for the relationship between the religious building and religious practitioners. The integration of doctrine and aesthetic reason in this defence of the original basilica furthermore demonstrates Urena’s wish to modernize devices that had traditionally undergirded religious practice and featured materially in the education of the faithful. Finally, the paper argues for the importance, given Urena’s introduction of a framework that allowed for an aesthetic way of reasoning, of considering affective responses to architecture in the Iberian and Hispanic context.

Abstract: A laboratory evaluation of growth, food consumption and food utilisation by larvae of Spodoptera littoralis (Boisd.) was made from the beginning of the fifth instar to the prepupal stage on cabbage, cotton, kenaf and Congo jute (Urena lobata). Growth, measured by daily larval fresh weight, was highest on cabbage and similar on kenaf, Urena and cotton. Development was fastest on cabbage and slowest on cotton and Urena. Larvae underwent an extra moult on the latter two food-plants. Weight gain was highest on cabbage, followed by cotton, Urena and kenaf, in that order. Total food consumption was highest on cotton and lowest on kenaf and Urena. Cabbage was most efficiently digested, followed by kenaf, cotton and Urena, in that order. Digestive efficiency on all four plants declined with larval age. The efficiency of conversion of ingested food to body material was highest on cabbage and lowest on cotton and kenaf. Digested portions of Urena were most efficiently converted to body substance while digested portions of cabbage and kenaf were most inefficiently converted to body material. It is concluded that S. littoralis is better adapted to cabbage than any of the other three plants and that increasing cultivation of cabbage in Ghana is likely to enhance the pest status of the insect.

Abstract: Objectives: Diarrhoeal disease is often a leading source of mortality and morbidity, especially among children in developing countries causing a major healthcare problem. As per suggestion of WHO, treatment of diarrhoea with traditional medicine is the main focus of our present studies. The present study is designed to evaluate the anti-diarrhoeal activity of crude methanol extract of Urena sinuata L. (U. sinuata) and its fractions. Methods: Crude methanol extracts are obtained by in vacue methods and its fractionating is done by Kupchan partitioning method. The anti-diarrhoeal activity is screened by castor oil-induced diarrhoea, castor oil-induced enteropooling and gastrointestinal motility test. Results: The diarrheal severity was reduced significantly (P