La série « Cultura dell’Anima », Soffici et Foscolo

Dans la série « Cultura dell’Anima » (1908-1938) Giovanni Papini a réuni un ensemble d’œuvres philosophiques et littéraires, soumises à des interprétations largement actualisées et présentées de façon à mettre en lumière leur contenu de « pensée » spécifique. Le Tomo dell’Io de Soffici présente d’évidents points en commun avec les volumes consacrés par Papini à Galilée et à Machiavel, en particulier dans la disposition des morceaux choisis par l’artiste toscan dans l’œuvre de Foscolo. Aux yeux de Soffici, les écrits foscoliens témoignent d’une sagesse philosophiques non superficielle, jaillie sans l’intermédiaire de grandes théories spéculatives. À l’instar de son ami Papini, Soffici exprimait ainsi son attitude sceptique à l’égard de la culture philosophique italienne contemporaine, en l’occurrence de la Philosophie de l’esprit de Benedetto Croce. Pour Soffici, Foscolo a manifesté un caractère héroïque et tragique en opposant à la conscience aiguë d’un « néant universel » l’acceptation stoïque de sa propre mission d’artiste.Philosophical and literary works which were submitted to broadly actualised interpretations and presented in a way that their content of specific “ideas” is brought forward. Soffici’s Tomo dell’Io shows some evident common points with the volumes Papini dedicated to Galileo and to Machiavelli, particularly in the disposition of the pages which the Tuscan artist chose in Foscolo’s works. According to Soffici the writings of Foscolo display a substantial philosophical wisdom which emerges without intervention of great speculative theories. In common with his friend Papini, Soffici thus expresses his sceptical attitude towards the Italian philosophical culture of his time, specifically Benedetto Croce’s Philosophy of Spirit. In Soffici’s opinion, Foscolo has manifested a heroic and tragic character by opposing the stoical acceptation of his own artistic mission to the sharp awareness of a universal ‘nothingness’

La série « Cultura dell’Anima », Soffici et Foscolo

Dans la série « Cultura dell’Anima » (1908-1938) Giovanni Papini a réuni un ensemble d’œuvres philosophiques et littéraires, soumises à des interprétations largement actualisées et présentées de façon à mettre en lumière leur contenu de « pensée » spécifique. Le Tomo dell’Io de Soffici présente d’évidents points en commun avec les volumes consacrés par Papini à Galilée et à Machiavel, en particulier dans la disposition des morceaux choisis par l’artiste toscan dans l’œuvre de Foscolo. Aux yeux de Soffici, les écrits foscoliens témoignent d’une sagesse philosophiques non superficielle, jaillie sans l’intermédiaire de grandes théories spéculatives. À l’instar de son ami Papini, Soffici exprimait ainsi son attitude sceptique à l’égard de la culture philosophique italienne contemporaine, en l’occurrence de la Philosophie de l’esprit de Benedetto Croce. Pour Soffici, Foscolo a manifesté un caractère héroïque et tragique en opposant à la conscience aiguë d’un « néant universel » l’acceptation stoïque de sa propre mission d’artiste.Philosophical and literary works which were submitted to broadly actualised interpretations and presented in a way that their content of specific “ideas” is brought forward. Soffici’s Tomo dell’Io shows some evident common points with the volumes Papini dedicated to Galileo and to Machiavelli, particularly in the disposition of the pages which the Tuscan artist chose in Foscolo’s works. According to Soffici the writings of Foscolo display a substantial philosophical wisdom which emerges without intervention of great speculative theories. In common with his friend Papini, Soffici thus expresses his sceptical attitude towards the Italian philosophical culture of his time, specifically Benedetto Croce’s Philosophy of Spirit. In Soffici’s opinion, Foscolo has manifested a heroic and tragic character by opposing the stoical acceptation of his own artistic mission to the sharp awareness of a universal ‘nothingness’

Choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid supplementation as an adjunct to calcium/vitamin D3 stimulates markers of bone formation in osteopenic females: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Mounting evidence supports a physiological role for silicon (Si) as orthosilicic acid (OSA, Si(OH)4) in bone formation. The effect of oral choline-stabilized orthosilicic acid (ch-OSA) on markers of bone turnover and bone mineral density (BMD) was investigated in a double-blind placebo-controlled trial. METHODS: Over 12-months, 136 women out of 184 randomized (T-score spine < -1.5) completed the study and received, daily, 1000 mg Ca and 20 microg cholecalciferol (Vit D3) and three different ch-OSA doses (3, 6 and 12 mg Si) or placebo. Bone formation markers in serum and urinary resorption markers were measured at baseline, and after 6 and 12 months. Femoral and lumbar BMD were measured at baseline and after 12 months by DEXA. RESULTS: Overall, there was a trend for ch-OSA to confer some additional benefit to Ca and Vit D3 treatment, especially for markers of bone formation, but only the marker for type I collagen formation (PINP) was significant at 12 months for the 6 and 12 mg Si dose (vs. placebo) without a clear dose response effect. A trend for a dose-corresponding increase was observed in the bone resorption marker, collagen type I C-terminal telopeptide (CTX-I). Lumbar spine BMD did not change significantly. Post-hoc subgroup analysis (baseline T-score femur < -1) however was significant for the 6 mg dose at the femoral neck (T-test). There were no ch-OSA related adverse events observed and biochemical safety parameters remained within the normal range. CONCLUSION: Combined therapy of ch-OSA and Ca/Vit D3 had a potential beneficial effect on bone collagen compared to Ca/Vit D3 alone which suggests that this treatment is of potential use in osteoporosis. NTR 1029.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

CRISPR/Cas9 screen in human iPSC‐derived cortical neurons identifies NEK6 as a novel disease modifier of C9orf72 poly(PR) toxicity

Introduction The most common genetic cause of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are hexanucleotide repeats in chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72). These repeats produce dipeptide repeat proteins with poly(PR) being the most toxic one. Methods We performed a kinome-wide CRISPR/Cas9 knock-out screen in human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) -derived cortical neurons to identify modifiers of poly(PR) toxicity, and validated the role of candidate modifiers using in vitro, in vivo, and ex-vivo studies. Results Knock-down of NIMA-related kinase 6 (NEK6) prevented neuronal toxicity caused by poly(PR). Knock-down of nek6 also ameliorated the poly(PR)-induced axonopathy in zebrafish and NEK6 was aberrantly expressed in C9orf72 patients. Suppression of NEK6 expression and NEK6 activity inhibition rescued axonal transport defects in cortical neurons from C9orf72 patient iPSCs, at least partially by reversing p53-related DNA damage. Discussion We identified NEK6, which regulates poly(PR)-mediated p53-related DNA damage, as a novel therapeutic target for C9orf72 FTD/ALS

Learning biophysically-motivated parameters for alpha helix prediction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Our goal is to develop a state-of-the-art protein secondary structure predictor, with an intuitive and biophysically-motivated energy model. We treat structure prediction as an optimization problem, using parameterizable cost functions representing biological "pseudo-energies". Machine learning methods are applied to estimate the values of the parameters to correctly predict known protein structures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Focusing on the prediction of alpha helices in proteins, we show that a model with 302 parameters can achieve a Q_{<it>α </it>}value of 77.6% and an SOV_{<it>α </it>}value of 73.4%. Such performance numbers are among the best for techniques that do not rely on external databases (such as multiple sequence alignments). Further, it is easier to extract biological significance from a model with so few parameters.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The method presented shows promise for the prediction of protein secondary structure. Biophysically-motivated elementary free-energies can be learned using SVM techniques to construct an energy cost function whose predictive performance rivals state-of-the-art. This method is general and can be extended beyond the all-alpha case described here.</p

There are not enough data to conclude that Monomethylsilanetriol is safe

This article is in response to Jugdaohsingh et al.: The silicon supplement ‘Monomethylsilanetriol’ is safe and increases the body pool of silicon in healthy Pre-menopausal women. Nutrition & Metabolism 2013 10:37: http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/10/1/37 The response from the authors is published as Jugdaohsingh et al.: Response to Prof D. Vanden Berghe letter: ‘There are not enough data to conclude that Monomethylsilanetriol is safe’. Nutrition & Metabolism 2013 10:65: http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/10/1/65 ABSTRACT: The authors claim that the silicon supplement 'Monomethylsilanetriol’ (MMST) is safe and is converted to orthosilicic acid (OSA) after ingestion. Critical analysis of the study results indicates that the presented data are insufficient to conclude that the use of MMST in food or food supplements is safe. Long term safety studies in humans and toxicological testing in vitro and in animals are an absolute requisite for such a conclusion but these are lacking in the present study and in the literature. Furthermore, none of the presented data show that MMST is actually converted to OSA, as OSA was not analyzed in neither serum or urine of supplemented subjects