Man Is What He Eats: The Philosophy and Ethics of Eating

The article is based on Feuerbach's well-known ruling that "man is what he eats", to analyse its possible different meanings, even the most recondited ones. To do this the research winds through a long journey, which begins with a reflection on the role that food has in some Western religions, especially in Judaism and Christianity. Two processes which have deeply characterized the relationship of Western man with food are then examined: the process of industrialization and that of the medicalization of food. Finally, coming to the contemporary, the article goes into the merits of the relationship that different cultures have with food in a multicultural society and offers some indications for alternative models compared to those currently dominant. The conclusion, with Feuerbach and beyond Feuerbach, is that man is yes what he eats, but also what he does not eat and, above all, man eats what he is

Chromosomal imbalances are uncommon in chagasic megaesophagus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chagas' disease is a human tropical parasitic illness and a subset of the chronic patients develop megaesophagus or megacolon. The esophagus dilation is known as chagasic megaesophagus (CM) and one of the severe late consequences of CM is the increased risk for esophageal carcinoma (ESCC). Based on the association between CM and ESCC, we investigated whether genes frequently showing unbalanced copy numbers in ESCC were altered in CM by fluorescence in situ (FISH) technology.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 50 formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded esophageal mucosa specimens (40 from Chagas megaesophagus-CM, and 10 normal esophageal mucosa-NM) were analyzed. DNA FISH probes were tested for <it>FHIT</it>, <it>TP63</it>, <it>PIK3CA</it>, <it>EGFR, FGFR1</it>, <it>MYC</it>, <it>CDKN2A, YES1 </it>and <it>NCOA3 </it>genes, and centromeric sequences from chromosomes 3, 7 and 9.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No differences between superficial and basal layers of the epithelial mucosa were found, except for loss of copy number of <it>EGFR </it>in the esophageal basal layer of CM group. Mean copy number of <it>CDKN2A and </it>CEP9 and frequency of nuclei with loss of <it>PIK3CA </it>were significantly different in the CM group compared with normal mucosa and marginal levels of deletions in <it>TP63</it>, <it>FHIT, PIK3CA, EGFR, CDKN2A, YES </it>and gains at <it>PIK3CA, TP63, FGFR1, MYC, CDNK2A </it>and <it>NCOA3 </it>were detected in few CM cases, mainly with dilation grades III and IV. All changes occurred at very low levels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Genomic imbalances common in esophageal carcinomas are not present in chagasic megaesophagus suggesting that these features will not be effective markers for risk assessment of ESCC in patients with chagasic megaesophagus.</p

Autoantibodies Against Oxidized LDLs and Atherosclerosis in Type 2 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE —The aim of our study was to examine, in type 2 diabetic patients, the relationship between autoantibodies against oxidatively modified LDL (oxLDL Ab) and two indexes of atherosclerosis, intimal-medial thickness of the common carotid artery (CCA-IMT), which reflects early atherosclerosis, and the ankle-brachial index (ABI), which reflects advanced atherosclerosis. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS —Thirty newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic patients, 30 type 2 diabetic patients with long duration of disease, and 56 control subjects were studied. To detect oxLDL Ab, the ImmunoLisa Anti-oxLDL Antibody ELISA was used. ABI was estimated at rest by strain-gauge plethysmography. Carotid B-mode imaging was performed on a high-resolution imaging system (ATL HDI 5000). RESULTS —In patients with long duration of disease, IgG oxLDL Ab were significantly higher and ABI significantly lower compared with the other two groups. We found a correlation between IgG oxLDL Ab and CCA-IMT in all diabetic patients. A significant inverse correlation between IgG oxLDL Ab and ABI only in patients with long duration of disease was seen, demonstrating a close relationship between these autoantibodies and advanced atherosclerosis. CONCLUSIONS —IgG OxLDL Ab may be markers of the advanced phase of the atherosclerotic process and the response of the immunological system to the oxLDL, which are present within atherosclerotic lesions

Estudo de caso da avaliação dos riscos alimentares e ambientais da soja geneticamente modificada - método GMP-RAM para avaliação caso a caso dos riscos de plantas geneticamente modificadas.

A avaliação da segurança é essencial para a pesquisa e desenvolvimento das plantas geneticamente modificadas (PGMs), incluindo a análise dos riscos potenciais das plantas ou das práticas relacionadas ao seu cultivo para o meio ambiente e efeitos para a saúde humana e animal de maneira comparativa com a variedade convencional. O método GMP ? RAM (Risk Assessment Method for Genetically Modified Plants), é a primeira metodologia para avaliação caso a caso dos riscos de PGMs, a partir desta análise, possibilita a adoção de medidas para evitar ou controlar tal risco. A possibilidade de inserir indicadores específicos para a avaliação da PGM em questão e a necessidade de elaborar a lista de recomendações a partir dos resultados levantados permite uma análise caso a caso do evento, neste trabalho foi realizado o estudo de caso da segurança alimentar e ambiental da Soja Roundup Read

A systematic approach to the Planck LFI end-to-end test and its application to the DPC Level 1 pipeline

The Level 1 of the Planck LFI Data Processing Centre (DPC) is devoted to the handling of the scientific and housekeeping telemetry. It is a critical component of the Planck ground segment which has to strictly commit to the project schedule to be ready for the launch and flight operations. In order to guarantee the quality necessary to achieve the objectives of the Planck mission, the design and development of the Level 1 software has followed the ESA Software Engineering Standards. A fundamental step in the software life cycle is the Verification and Validation of the software. The purpose of this work is to show an example of procedures, test development and analysis successfully applied to a key software project of an ESA mission. We present the end-to-end validation tests performed on the Level 1 of the LFI-DPC, by detailing the methods used and the results obtained. Different approaches have been used to test the scientific and housekeeping data processing. Scientific data processing has been tested by injecting signals with known properties directly into the acquisition electronics, in order to generate a test dataset of real telemetry data and reproduce as much as possible nominal conditions. For the HK telemetry processing, validation software have been developed to inject known parameter values into a set of real housekeeping packets and perform a comparison with the corresponding timelines generated by the Level 1. With the proposed validation and verification procedure, where the on-board and ground processing are viewed as a single pipeline, we demonstrated that the scientific and housekeeping processing of the Planck-LFI raw data is correct and meets the project requirements.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures; this paper is part of the Prelaunch status LFI papers published on JINST: http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/-page=extra.proc5/jins

Método Gmp-Ram para avaliação caso a caso dos riscos alimentares e ambientais da soja geneticamente modificada.

A avaliação da segurança é essencial para a pesquisa e desenvolvimento das Plantas Geneticamente Modificadas (PGMs). A análise dos riscos potenciais das plantas transgênicas ou das práticas relacionadas ao seu cultivo para o meio ambiente e para a saúde humana e animal, comparativamente com a variedade convencional, possibilita a adoção de medidas para evitar ou controlar tal risco. O método GMP - RAM é a primeira metodologia formulada para avaliação caso a caso dos riscos de PGMs. A possibilidade de inserir indicadores específicos para a avaliação da PGM em questão e a necessidade de elaborar a lista de recomendações a partir dos resultados levantados permite uma análise caso a caso do evento, neste trabalho foi realizado o estudo de caso da segurança alimentar e ambiental da Soja Roundup Read