Breiz Atao e il rinnovamento del nazionalismo bretone nel primo dopoguerra

Di tutti i termini legati all’attivismo bretone della prima metà del XX secolo, il nome di Breiz Atao [“Bretagna sempre”] è senza dubbio quello che ha mobilitato di più lo spazio e l’immaginario collettivo. Apparso per la prima volta nel 1919 su una piccola rivista, è diventato nel primo dopoguerra e nella seconda metà del secolo un termine generico che rimanda ai militanti politici bretoni e alle loro idee. Tuttavia lo studio delle differenti organizzazioni che hanno utilizzato questo nome per i loro giornali, così come delle differenti correnti di pensiero politico che si sono espresse nelle sue colonne, invita necessariamente a complicare le analisi su questo tema. Questo titolo rimanda infatti, nel primo dopoguerra, a quattro organizzazioni politiche distinte e tutte con proprie specificità in termini di pensiero politico. Esso fu anche brevemente utilizzato durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale da militanti bretoni collaborazionisti in polemica con un altro organo nazionalista – anch’esso collaborazionista; ma il nome fu anche utilizzato in maniera sporadica negli anni Cinquanta per delle riviste clandestine, mentre oggigiorno è usato da un sito di estrema destra. Interessarsi alle origini di questo giornale permette di mettere in luce i dibattiti ideologici che hanno accompagnato le evoluzioni di una generazione militante che avrebbe segnato durevolmente la storia di questo movimento, ma i cui primi passi scompaiono spesso nelle analisi riguardanti il seguito del loro percorso. A questo proposito, sarà analizzata la prima grande trasformazione delle idee di Breiz Atao, dal regionalismo al nazionalismo, ampiamente sconosciuta o affrontata solo superficialmente. Of all the names related to early twentieth-century Breton activism, Breiz Atao [“Brittany Forever”] is doubtless the one which has mobilized the most both the collective imaginary and the public space. Having appeared for the first time in 1919 on a small journal, it became in the post-WWI period a general term to refer to Breton political activists and their ideas. However, a study of the various organizations that used this name for their journals and of the different trends of thought that found expression on its pages urges a more complex analysis of the topic. Such title indeed was related, in the post-WWI period, to four different political organizations, all characterized by their own political thought. The name was also used during WWII by Breton collaborationists to polemize against another nationalist organ which was also a collaborationist one; the name was also sporadically used, though, in the 1950s by some clandestine journals, while today it is used by a far-right website. Looking into the origin of this periodical allows us to shed light on the ideological debates that followed the evolutions of a generation of activists that would mark for long the history if this movement, but whose first steps are often overlooked in the analyses concerning the later course of their political engagement. In this regard, the analysis will focus on the first great transformation of Breiz Atao’s ideas, from regionalism to nationalism, a key moment largely unknown or only superficially dealt with

Variation of metabolic profiles in developing maize kernels up- and down-regulated for the hda101 gene

To shed light on the specific contribution of HDA101 in modulating metabolic pathways in the maize seed, changes in the metabolic profiles of kernels obtained from hda101 mutant plants have been investigated by a metabonomic approach. Dynamic properties of chromatin folding can be mediated by enzymes that modify DNA and histones. The enzymes responsible for the steady-state of histone acetylation are histone acetyltransferase and histone deacetylase (HDA). Therefore, it is interesting to evaluate the effects of up- and down-regulation of a Rpd-3 type HDA on the development of maize seeds in terms of metabolic changes. This has been reached by analysing nuclear magnetic resonance spectra by different chemometrician approaches, such as Orthogonal Projection to Latent Structure-Discriminant Analysis, Parallel Factors Analysis, and Multi-way Partial Least Squares-Discriminant Analysis (N-PLS-DA). In particular, the latter approaches were chosen because they explicitly take time into account, organizing data into a set of slices that refer to different steps of the developing process. The results show the good discriminating capabilities of the N-PLS-DA approach, even if the number of samples ought be increased to obtain better predictive capabilities. However, using this approach, it was possible to show differences in the accumulation of metabolites during development and to highlight the changes occuring in the modified seeds. In particular, the results confirm the role of this gene in cell cycle control

Measurements of 220Rn and 222Rn and CO2 emissions in soil and fumarole gases on Mt. Etna volcano (Italy) : implications for gas transport and shallow ground fracture

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 8 (2007): Q10001, doi:10.1029/2007GC001644.Measurements of 220Rn and 222Rn activity and of CO2 flux in soil and fumaroles were carried out on Mount Etna volcano in 2005–2006, both in its summit area and along active faults on its flanks. We observe an empirical relationship between (220Rn/222Rn) and CO2 efflux. The higher the flux of CO2, the lower the ratio between 220Rn and 222Rn. Deep sources of gas are characterized by high 222Rn activity and high CO2 efflux, whereas shallow sources are indicated by high 220Rn activity and relatively low CO2 efflux. Excess 220Rn highlights sites of ongoing shallow rock fracturing that could be affected by collapse, as in the case of the rim of an active vent. Depletion both in 220Rn and in CO2 seems to be representative of residual degassing along recently active eruptive vents.This work was funded by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (S.G., M.N.) and by the Dipartimento per la Protezione Civile (Italy), projects V3_6/28-Etna (M.N.) and V5/08-Diffuse degassing in Italy (S.G.), and NSF EAR 063824101 (K.W.W.S.)

A guide to the identification of metabolites in NMR-based metabonomics/metabolomics experiments

Metabonomics/metabolomics is an important science for the understanding of biological systems and the prediction of their behaviour, through the profiling of metabolites. Two technologies are routinely used in order to analyse metabolite profiles in biological fluids: nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS), the latter typically with hyphenation to a chromatography system such as liquid chromatography (LC), in a configuration known as LC–MS. With both NMR and MS-based detection technologies, the identification of the metabolites in the biological sample remains a significant obstacle and bottleneck. This article provides guidance on methods for metabolite identification in biological fluids using NMR spectroscopy, and is illustrated with examples from recent studies on mice

Dominant components of the Thoroughbred metabolome characterised by 1H‐NMR spectroscopy: a metabolite atlas of common biofluids

Summary Reasons for performing study: Metabonomics is emerging as a powerful tool for disease screening and investigating mammalian metabolism. This study aims to create a metabolic framework by producing a preliminary reference guide for the normal equine metabolic milieu. Objectives: To metabolically profile plasma, urine and faecal water from healthy racehorses using high resolution 1H-NMR spectroscopy and to provide a list of dominant metabolites present in each biofluid for the benefit of future research in this area. Study design: This study was performed using seven Thoroughbreds in race training at a single time-point. Urine and faecal samples were collected non-invasively and plasma was obtained from samples taken for routine clinical chemistry purposes. Methods: Biofluids were analysed using 1H-NMR spectroscopy. Metabolite assignment was achieved via a range of 1D and 2D experiments. Results: A total of 102 metabolites were assigned across the three biological matrices. A core metabonome of 14 metabolites was ubiquitous across all biofluids. All biological matrices provided a unique window on different aspects of systematic metabolism. Urine was the most populated metabolite matrix with 65 identified metabolites, 39 of which were unique to this biological compartment. A number of these were related to gut microbial host co-metabolism. Faecal samples were the most metabolically variable between animals; acetate was responsible for the majority (28%) of this variation. Short chain fatty acids were the predominant features identified within this biofluid by 1H-NMR spectroscopy. Conclusions: Metabonomics provides a platform for investigating complex and dynamic interactions between the host and its consortium of gut microbes and has the potential to uncover markers for health and disease in a variety of biofluids. Inherent variation in faecal extracts along with the relative abundance of microbial-mammalian metabolites in urine and invasive nature of plasma sampling, infers that urine is the most appropriate biofluid for the purposes of metabonomic analysis

Metabolic Profiling of an Echinostoma caproni Infection in the Mouse for Biomarker Discovery

Consumption of raw fish and other freshwater products can lead to unpleasant worm infections. Indeed, such worm infections are of growing public health and veterinary concern, but they are often neglected, partially explained by the difficulty of accurate diagnosis. In the present study we infected 12 mice with an intestinal worm (i.e., Echinostoma caproni) and collected blood, stool, and urine samples 7 times between 1 and 33 days after the infection. At the same time points, blood, stool, and urine were also sampled from 12 uninfected mice. These biofluid samples were examined with a spectrometer and data were analyzed with a multivariate approach. We observed important differences between the infected and the uninfected control animals. For example, we found an increased level of branched chain amino acids in the stool of infected mice and subsequent depletion in blood plasma. Additionally, we observed changes related to a disturbed intestinal bacterial composition, particularly in urine and stool. The combination of results from the three types of biofluids gave the most comprehensive characterization of an E. caproni infection in the mouse. Urine would be the biofluid of choice for diagnosis of an infection because the ease of sample collection and the high number and extent of changed metabolites

Systematic NMR Analysis of Stable Isotope Labeled Metabolite Mixtures in Plant and Animal Systems: Coarse Grained Views of Metabolic Pathways

BACKGROUND: Metabolic phenotyping has become an important 'bird's-eye-view' technology which can be applied to higher organisms, such as model plant and animal systems in the post-genomics and proteomics era. Although genotyping technology has expanded greatly over the past decade, metabolic phenotyping has languished due to the difficulty of 'top-down' chemical analyses. Here, we describe a systematic NMR methodology for stable isotope-labeling and analysis of metabolite mixtures in plant and animal systems. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The analysis method includes a stable isotope labeling technique for use in living organisms; a systematic method for simultaneously identifying a large number of metabolites by using a newly developed HSQC-based metabolite chemical shift database combined with heteronuclear multidimensional NMR spectroscopy; Principal Components Analysis; and a visualization method using a coarse-grained overview of the metabolic system. The database contains more than 1000 (1)H and (13)C chemical shifts corresponding to 142 metabolites measured under identical physicochemical conditions. Using the stable isotope labeling technique in Arabidopsis T87 cultured cells and Bombyx mori, we systematically detected >450 HSQC peaks in each (13)C-HSQC spectrum derived from model plant, Arabidopsis T87 cultured cells and the invertebrate animal model Bombyx mori. Furthermore, for the first time, efficient (13)C labeling has allowed reliable signal assignment using analytical separation techniques such as 3D HCCH-COSY spectra in higher organism extracts. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Overall physiological changes could be detected and categorized in relation to a critical developmental phase change in B. mori by coarse-grained representations in which the organization of metabolic pathways related to a specific developmental phase was visualized on the basis of constituent changes of 56 identified metabolites. Based on the observed intensities of (13)C atoms of given metabolites on development-dependent changes in the 56 identified (13)C-HSQC signals, we have determined the changes in metabolic networks that are associated with energy and nitrogen metabolism

The ANTENATAL multicentre study to predict postnatal renal outcome in fetuses with posterior urethral valves: objectives and design

Abstract Background Posterior urethral valves (PUV) account for 17% of paediatric end-stage renal disease. A major issue in the management of PUV is prenatal prediction of postnatal renal function. Fetal ultrasound and fetal urine biochemistry are currently employed for this prediction, but clearly lack precision. We previously developed a fetal urine peptide signature that predicted in utero with high precision postnatal renal function in fetuses with PUV. We describe here the objectives and design of the prospective international multicentre ANTENATAL (multicentre validation of a fetal urine peptidome-based classifier to predict postnatal renal function in posterior urethral valves) study, set up to validate this fetal urine peptide signature. Methods Participants will be PUV pregnancies enrolled from 2017 to 2021 and followed up until 2023 in >30 European centres endorsed and supported by European reference networks for rare urological disorders (ERN eUROGEN) and rare kidney diseases (ERN ERKNet). The endpoint will be renal/patient survival at 2 years postnatally. Assuming α = 0.05, 1–β = 0.8 and a mean prevalence of severe renal outcome in PUV individuals of 0.35, 400 patients need to be enrolled to validate the previously reported sensitivity and specificity of the peptide signature. Results In this largest multicentre study of antenatally detected PUV, we anticipate bringing a novel tool to the clinic. Based on urinary peptides and potentially amended in the future with additional omics traits, this tool will be able to precisely quantify postnatal renal survival in PUV pregnancies. The main limitation of the employed approach is the need for specialized equipment. Conclusions Accurate risk assessment in the prenatal period should strongly improve the management of fetuses with PUV

Sediment source fingerprinting: benchmarking recent outputs, remaining challenges and emerging themes

Abstract: Purpose: This review of sediment source fingerprinting assesses the current state-of-the-art, remaining challenges and emerging themes. It combines inputs from international scientists either with track records in the approach or with expertise relevant to progressing the science. Methods: Web of Science and Google Scholar were used to review published papers spanning the period 2013–2019, inclusive, to confirm publication trends in quantities of papers by study area country and the types of tracers used. The most recent (2018–2019, inclusive) papers were also benchmarked using a methodological decision-tree published in 2017. Scope: Areas requiring further research and international consensus on methodological detail are reviewed, and these comprise spatial variability in tracers and corresponding sampling implications for end-members, temporal variability in tracers and sampling implications for end-members and target sediment, tracer conservation and knowledge-based pre-selection, the physico-chemical basis for source discrimination and dissemination of fingerprinting results to stakeholders. Emerging themes are also discussed: novel tracers, concentration-dependence for biomarkers, combining sediment fingerprinting and age-dating, applications to sediment-bound pollutants, incorporation of supportive spatial information to augment discrimination and modelling, aeolian sediment source fingerprinting, integration with process-based models and development of open-access software tools for data processing. Conclusions: The popularity of sediment source fingerprinting continues on an upward trend globally, but with this growth comes issues surrounding lack of standardisation and procedural diversity. Nonetheless, the last 2 years have also evidenced growing uptake of critical requirements for robust applications and this review is intended to signpost investigators, both old and new, towards these benchmarks and remaining research challenges for, and emerging options for different applications of, the fingerprinting approach