5. Book Reviews

Reviews of Pisanelli, Condorcet et Adam Smith. Réformes économiques et progrés social au siècle des Lumières, 2018; Matino, Klestinec eds., Art, Faith and Medicine in Tintoretto’s Venice, 2018; Holmberg, The Maurists’ Unfinished Encyclopedia, 2017

Bioprocess Studies of Biomass and Recombinant Protein Production by the Methylotrophic Yeast Pichia Pastoris

Pichia pastoris (P. pastoris) expression systems are gaining increased interest in industry due to their ability to achieve high cell densities and production levels. This thesis aims to characterise the following critical elements of P. pastoris upstream bioprocessing: cell growth, cell productivity and bioprocess monitoring. Methanol is the principle carbon source and gene expression induction agent in most P. pastoris fermentation strategies. Monitoring of methanol levels during fermentation enables cell growth and productivity to be optimised, whilst methanol toxicity is avoided. A novel approach to at-line methanol monitoring was investigated, seeking to exploit the chromogenic reactivity of dehydroascorbic acid (DHAA) with methanol. Recombinant variants of the human reporter enzyme, placental alkaline phosphatase (PLAP) were used as a model fermentation product, and the performance of two mechanistically distinct commercial assays was compared for their applicability to high cell density process streams. In total four new P. pastoris strains expressing PLAP variants were successfully created and the impact of methanol carbon source feed strategies on the strain performance investigated in terms of growth rate and recombinant protein production. A 2-fold increase in rate of methanol feed resulted in a final biomass increase of about 40% and in a volumetric productivity decrease of about 75%. A novel method, combining phases of low and high methanol feed rates, matched but did not exceed conventional methanol feed rate strategies

Di case, lingue e finestre: Ida Kaminska, attrice yiddish

This paper aims to explore the artistic biography of Ida Kaminska – the leading figure of the Yiddish theatre in Poland in the 20th century – proposing a new metaphor for the theatrical experience of the Ashkenazi Jews and a different use of the audio-visual sources. First, I will explain why we can look at the Yiddish theatre as a house (heym) with a lot of windows, then I will examine Kaminska’s performance in three different films – On a heym (Without a Home, 1939), Obchod na korze (The Shop on Main Street, 1965) and The Angel Levine (1970) – through this peculiar metaphor. Even if they are not recordings of the theatrical performance, these documents could help us to understand some of the features of Kaminska’s art (i.e., the focus on identity, otherness and Yiddish language) and how they changed after the Holocaust

Art, Faith and Medicine in Tintoretto’s Venice, G. Matino, C. Klestinec eds.

Those familiar with Tintoretto’s deep religious devotion, as well as with his attentive research on the human body, may be surprised by the almost complete absence of the artist from the Art, faith and medicine in Tintoretto’s Venice exhibition held at the Scuola Grande di San Marco . It is Venice itself, the city in which Tintoretto displayed his entrepreneurial spirit, that is the focus of the exhibition. In those days, Venice was the capital of medical publishing. Its churches and building..

Inference of Probabilistic Programs with Moment-Matching Gaussian Mixtures

Computing the posterior distribution of a probabilistic program is a hard task for which no one-fit-for-all solution exists. We propose Gaussian Semantics, which approximates the exact probabilistic semantics of a bounded program by means of Gaussian mixtures. It is parametrized by a map that associates each program location with the moment order to be matched in the approximation. We provide two main contributions. The first is a universal approximation theorem stating that, under mild conditions, Gaussian Semantics can approximate the exact semantics arbitrarily closely. The second is an approximation that matches up to second-order moments analytically in face of the generally difficult problem of matching moments of Gaussian mixtures with arbitrary moment order. We test our second-order Gaussian approximation (SOGA) on a number of case studies from the literature. We show that it can provide accurate estimates in models not supported by other approximation methods or when exact symbolic techniques fail because of complex expressions or non-simplified integrals. On two notable classes of problems, namely collaborative filtering and programs involving mixtures of continuous and discrete distributions, we show that SOGA significantly outperforms alternative techniques in terms of accuracy and computational time

Cyclodextrin-Based Supramolecules As Potential Molecular Devices

The work presented in this Thesis focuses on the synthesis of cyclodextrin-based supramolecules and the investigation of their potential as molecular devices. Daisy chains were initially targeted as a promising platform to build extended molecular muscles. Chapter 2 presents the synthesis of an oligomeric series of interlocked, cyclodextrin-based [c2]daisy chains through an innovative approach based on the direct self-assembly of cyclic dimeric complexes. The isolation and characterization of eight oligomeric species from this one pot reaction, as well as the photo-switching behaviour of some of these compounds, are discussed in this Chapter. The next phase of this research was focused on rotaxanes because of their crucial role in the development of molecular devices. In particular, isomeric rotaxanes, generally resulting from the capping of an inclusion complex between an asymmetric macrocycle and a mono-capped guest, can exhibit different properties depending on the orientation of the host. Chapter 3 describes a complementary synthetic approach based on the desymmetrization of a pre-formed rotaxane. This work includes the synthesis of an alpha-CD [2]rotaxane and the subsequent preparation, separation and characterization of bromine-functionalised orientational isomers. Finally, the behaviour of cyclodextrin-based rotaxanes as insulated molecular wires is investigated in Chapter 4. This work involved the discovery of the conductivity behaviour of crystals of two different alpha-CD rotaxanes showing pi-pi stacking aggregation in solution and in solid phase. The comparison with a blank experiment consisting of an alpha-CD crystal, the investigation of insulating properties of one of the rotaxanes, and some preliminary co-crystallisation experiments are also discussed as part of this study. This work identified the ability of self-assembled arrays of cyclodextrin-based rotaxanes to act as insulated molecular wires resembling coaxial cables. Overall, this Thesis describes new synthetic approaches to prepare daisy chain oligomers and [2]rotaxanes and develops their respective abilities to act as molecular muscles and microelectronic devices