Power and the exercising body: a study of Foucalt and the gym experience

This study is framed by the writings of the French philosopher, Michel Foucault on power and the body, particularly his Discipline and Punish (1979) and The History ofSexuality (1979-1990). It seeks to fill the void that these texts are said to have left as to the way we understand our bodies and their significance for our society. Our bodies are, according to Foucault, the ultimate and most important loci of the establishment and exercise of power. Power - identified in Foucault's work with changing social conditions, relations and rules - influences our attitudes towards, and the ways we treat, our bodies. Yet, Foucault is often accused of not always convincingly showing how our bodies - as affected by power - are felt by us and how they live the world. The same failing that characterises the work of Foucault seems to characterise also the field of sociology of the body; an area of knowledge that is about the body as caught up in the social order and which Foucault is credited with having founded in some way. This study seeks to redress this failing through an empirical investigation of the embodied experiences of regular gym users, using participant observation and interviews.The main contribution of this study is twofold: First, by identifying the wide number of forces that bring people to the gym, it confirms the social character of power as presented by Foucault and further illuminates the idea of the social shaping of our bodies. But by exploring people's experiences of exercise, the study further reveals the materiality of the body, of how gym users live their bodies and how their bodies themselves live the world. Second, by looking at the variety of pains and pleasures associated with exercise and also at the knowledges that people gain through training, the study highlights the correctness of Foucault's argument that power should not only be seen as a repressive force but also as a productive one

Synergy between HIV-1 Tat and adenovirus E1A is principally due to stabilization of transcriptional elongation

We studied the combined effects of Tat and general trans-activators, such as E1A and phorbol esters, on human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) gene expression. Interaction between these two types of trans-activators may be involved in the transition from transcriptional quiesence during viral latency to active gene expression during productive infection. E1A cooperated with Tat to produce a fourfold greater increase in accumulation of full-length, cytoplasmic HIV-1-directed RNA than is expected if they were acting additively to increase RNA accumulation. Similarly, phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) also cooperated with Tat to elevate HIV RNA levels synergistically. Analysis of transcription rates across the HIV-1-directed transcription unit indicated, unexpectedly, that synergy between Tat and E1A could not be accounted for by increased promoter proximal transcription rates that were merely additive. However, Tat and E1A produced a greater than additive increase in transcription rates in the 3' end of the gene. These findings imply that synergy between Tat and E1A (or other general transcriptional activators) is due principally to stabilization of transcriptional elongation. Furthermore, the observation that Tat elicits only a small increase in promoter proximal transcription in the presence of E1A suggests that the magnitude of the effect of Tat on initiation is decreased when the basal level of transcription is increased. These findings underscore the importance of the ability of Tat to stabilize elongation, as well as to stimulate initiation, in an HIV-1-directed transcription unit

A taxonomy of competition-based approaches as innovation policy measures to foster external knowledge search

Purpose: This paper aims to provide a comprehensive view of the different competition-based approaches that policymakers can exploit to foster external knowledge search and their positioning among innovation policy measures. A growing number of companies have implemented initiatives to access external knowledge to increase their innovativeness, consistently with the open innovation paradigm. Competition-based approaches have received increasing attention by the private sector as a way to access external knowledge. However, despite their potential role as innovation policy measures, a limited attention has been devoted so far to investigate them from the policymakers’ perspective. Design/methodology/approach: To this aim, a two-stage empirical analysis has been carried out to develop a taxonomy of competition-based approaches. The first stage leveraged a multiple case study methodology including a sample of 20 competition-based approaches, while the second one leveraged interviews with Italian and European key informants. Findings: This paper proposes a novel taxonomy including eight competition-based approaches, which differ among each other in terms of policy strategy, scope breadth and output required. Moreover, this paper enriches a well-established taxonomy of innovation policy instruments with the identified competition-based approaches. Originality/value: This study contributes to the current debate on innovation policy by providing a taxonomy that includes eight competition-based approaches that can be exploited by policymakers to foster external knowledge search as well as their positioning among the innovation policy instruments. The taxonomy will hopefully support policymakers in identifying of the most suitable instruments in the light of their policy strategy and objectives

Nuclear Factor 90(NF90) targeted to TAR RNA inhibits transcriptional activation of HIV-1

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Examination of host cell-based inhibitors of HIV-1 transcription may be important for attenuating viral replication. We describe properties of a cellular double-stranded RNA binding protein with intrinsic affinity for HIV-1 TAR RNA that interferes with Tat/TAR interaction and inhibits viral gene expression.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Utilizing TAR affinity fractionation, North-Western blotting, and mobility-shift assays, we show that the C-terminal variant of nuclear factor 90 (NF90ctv) with strong affinity for the TAR RNA, competes with Tat/TAR interaction <it>in vitro</it>. Analysis of the effect of NF90ctv-TAR RNA interaction <it>in vivo </it>showed significant inhibition of Tat-transactivation of HIV-1 LTR in cells expressing NF90ctv, as well as changes in histone H3 lysine-4 and lysine-9 methylation of HIV chromatin that are consistent with the epigenetic changes in transcriptionally repressed gene.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Structural integrity of the TAR element is crucial in HIV-1 gene expression. Our results show that perturbation Tat/TAR RNA interaction by the dsRNA binding protein is sufficient to inhibit transcriptional activation of HIV-1.</p

The HIV-1 transcriptional activator Tat has potent nucleic acid chaperoning activities in vitro

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is a primate lentivirus that causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In addition to the virion structural proteins and enzyme precursors, that are Gag, Env and Pol, HIV-1 encodes several regulatory proteins, notably a small nuclear transcriptional activator named Tat. The Tat protein is absolutely required for virus replication since it controls proviral DNA transcription to generate the full-length viral mRNA. Tat can also regulate mRNA capping and splicing and was recently found to interfere with the cellular mi- and siRNA machinery. Because of its extensive interplay with nucleic acids, and its basic and disordered nature we speculated that Tat had nucleic acid-chaperoning properties. This prompted us to examine in vitro the nucleic acid-chaperoning activities of Tat and Tat peptides made by chemical synthesis. Here we report that Tat has potent nucleic acid-chaperoning activities according to the standard DNA annealing, DNA and RNA strand exchange, RNA ribozyme cleavage and trans-splicing assays. The active Tat(44–61) peptide identified here corresponds to the smallest known sequence with DNA/RNA chaperoning properties

HIV Promoter Integration Site Primarily Modulates Transcriptional Burst Size Rather Than Frequency

Mammalian gene expression patterns, and their variability across populations of cells, are regulated by factors specific to each gene in concert with its surrounding cellular and genomic environment. Lentiviruses such as HIV integrate their genomes into semi-random genomic locations in the cells they infect, and the resulting viral gene expression provides a natural system to dissect the contributions of genomic environment to transcriptional regulation. Previously, we showed that expression heterogeneity and its modulation by specific host factors at HIV integration sites are key determinants of infected-cell fate and a possible source of latent infections. Here, we assess the integration context dependence of expression heterogeneity from diverse single integrations of a HIV-promoter/GFP-reporter cassette in Jurkat T-cells. Systematically fitting a stochastic model of gene expression to our data reveals an underlying transcriptional dynamic, by which multiple transcripts are produced during short, infrequent bursts, that quantitatively accounts for the wide, highly skewed protein expression distributions observed in each of our clonal cell populations. Interestingly, we find that the size of transcriptional bursts is the primary systematic covariate over integration sites, varying from a few to tens of transcripts across integration sites, and correlating well with mean expression. In contrast, burst frequencies are scattered about a typical value of several per cell-division time and demonstrate little correlation with the clonal means. This pattern of modulation generates consistently noisy distributions over the sampled integration positions, with large expression variability relative to the mean maintained even for the most productive integrations, and could contribute to specifying heterogeneous, integration-site-dependent viral production patterns in HIV-infected cells. Genomic environment thus emerges as a significant control parameter for gene expression variation that may contribute to structuring mammalian genomes, as well as be exploited for survival by integrating viruses

tre modelli di produzione della voce: Ippocrate, Aristotele e Galeno

Il contributo mette a confronto i modeli di priduzione della voce e del linguaggio ricostruiti, rispettivamente, a partire dai tre corpora delle opere attribuite ad Ippocrate, Aristotele e Galeno. I primi due autori sono esponenti del cosiddetto 'monocentrismo biologico' (Vegetti). I modelli biologici più antiche in Grecia concetravano infatti tutte le funzioni vitali in un unico organo: il cervello (Ippocrate) o il cuore (Aristotele9: Dunque, coerentemente, in Ippocrate il cervello è l'organo in cui ha sede la vita, da cui proviene la voce e che sovraintende al pensiero. La medesima funzione è svolta in Aristotele dal cuore. Galeno, autore tardoantico, è fieramente avverso al monocentrismo biologico. per Galeno dunque la voce è emessa dagli organi respiratori (polmoni e laringe) e il cervello è l'organo del pensiero. E tuttavia Galeno descrive minuziosamente come il cervello sia collegato alla laringe da alcuni nervi, detti nervi vocali, che permettono la traduzione immediata del pensiero in voce. In tutti i modelli della voce e del linguaggio presenti nella tradizione greca, la voce è dunque immediatamente collegata all'espressività e alla semanticità

Il linguaggio degli uccelli: Aristotele e lo specifico fonetico del linguaggio umano

A partire da Pagliaro e Belardi, padri fondatori degli studi italiani di fonetica greca, prevale la convinzione che lo specifico del linguaggio umano non si trovi su base fonetica. Spcifico del linguaggio sarebbe 'non la fonicità nè l'articolazione ma la funzione simbolica. Attraverso l'analisi minuziosa delle opere di Aristotele, il contributo si propone di sfatare questo mito. L'analisi è condotta sul linguaggio degli uccelli, in confronto al linguaggio fonetico umano. Il risultato è che, per quanto gli uccelli siano capaci come gli uomini di produrre voce articolata (dialektos) è questo è importanti a livello di continuità fra le specie e come smentita dell'antropocentrismo, il linguaggio fonetico degli uccelli è notevolmente più povero; e ciò, non solo a livello di povertà di fonemi, ma soprattutto per carenza di organizzazione prosodica fine, come quella che sovraintende alla formazione di sillabe complesse. Il risultato è che lo specifico del linguaggio umano può rinvenersi già su base fonetica. Non si tratta tuttavia dell'articolazione, ma dell'organizzazione prosodica

La definzione di arthron nel XX capitolo della Poetica di Aristotele

This paper deals with Aristotle's definiton of arthron in the XX chapter of the Poetics. This definition has always been considered as an unsolvable dilemma. Starting with a detailed analysis of the Greek text, and of the various attempts to make sense of it, the paper attempts to read it in an innovative way. The xx chapter of the Poetics is not a classification of parts of speech, as it is usually considered; we have to read it in light of Aristotle's biological program. Arthron (as well as syndesmos, syllabé) are biological terms. In linguistics as well as in biology arthron is thus a 'joint': it has nothing to do with the «article» in later grammatical sense. In this light, the book offers a new textual conjecture for the first example of arthron in the Poetics