The popularity of public gardening in post-Soviet countries has arisen quite recently along with the penetration of neoliberal ideas. Public gardening not only visually improves the environment, but it also creates a range of public spaces and “other” places in which urban citizens can come together; eventually it could help to enhance the image of distressed neighbourhoods. Such community initiatives can be divided into sanctioned intervention and unauthorised intervention (“commoning”); unauthorised intervention is when residents are displeased with their surroundings and attempt to improve their environment in their own way. This paper explores the limitations of the practices of commoning as a source of regeneration and compares its cultural dimensions. In this paper I discuss the initial results of an ongoing research project focused on the expectations of people involved in these forms of participation. During this process, the differing typical understandings and perceptions of urban gardening in public and semi-public spaces will be applied.
Brachiola algerae (Vavra et Undeen, 1970), a parasite of Anopheles mosquitoes, has also been isolated from a human cornea, a cutaneous nodule and deep muscle tissue. All three human isolates of B. algerae are morphologically, serologically, and genetically similar to the mosquito-derived isolates including the original isolate of Vavra and Undeen. All of these isolates grew well in mammalian cell cultures at 37°C and produced spores. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that all developmental stages including meronts, sporoblasts and spores were diplokaryotic and developed in direct contact with the host cell cytoplasm, a feature characteristic of the genus Brachiola. Spores of all isolates reacted well, in the immunofluorescence assay, with the rabbit anti-B. algerae serum. In the immunoblot assay, although the overall banding patterns of the human and mosquito isolates were similar, minor differences could be discerned. Sequencing of the PCR products of the amplified SSU rRNA gene revealed the existence of two distinct genotypes; the original mosquito (Undeen) isolate belonged to genotype 1 and the isolate from cornea and that from the deep muscle biopsy to genotype 2, whereas the isolates from a mosquito and one of the other two human isolates (one from skin abscess) had both genotypes, 1 and 2. It is known that spores of mosquito-derived B. algerae can not only proliferate in mammalian cell cultures at 37°C but also can infect mice when injected into footpads or deposited on the corneal surface. These observations indicate that the spores have potential to be a risk factor for humans, especially those with immunodeficiency.