Theme A: Modeling and simulation in biomedical research. Results and future works

This paper presents the activity of the theme A “Modeling and simulation in biomedical research” within the GdR STIC Santé. This group has organized four scientific meetings and has managed one action, together with the theme B “Biomedical Signal and Image Processing”, during the period 2011–2012. The meetings have focused on modeling of the cardiorespiratory control, on the modeling and physiopathology of cardiovascular system and on Complex Systems in Biology and Medicine (co-organized with the GDR “Dynamique et Contrôle des Systèmes Complexes” – DYCOEC). The fourth one represents the official start of the “VPH-France” network that has been labeled by the Réseau National de Systèmes Complexes (RNSC). The SIGnal-processing and Modeling methods to Undertake Neonatal care during Development (SIGMUND) action has concerned seven hospitals and five CIC-IT (Clinical Technological Innovation Center) and has brought to the development of a regional project (Care-Premi) including three of the seven hospitals. The future works will focus: on strengthening the interactions with other topics of this GDR and with other GDRs, on application of modeling to solve real clinical heath problems, on the better acceptation of modeling by the industrial community.     

Toward a General Theory of Expression

In this article, Luria evalutes Eisenstein's scientific work in the development of cultural-historical science by stating: “Eisenstein's principal idea was creating a general, scientifically based theory of expression.” The article is based on Eisenstein's handwritten archive notes, scientific cooperation (research on expressive movements under hypnosis), and personal meetings between Luria and Eisenstein. Eisenstein's own report about progress in elaborating the theory of expression is the “Outline of a Lecture on the Psychology of Expressiveness,” which Luria cites extensively. The lecture did not take place, but Luria recognizes the challenge to carefully analyzing the archive of an outstanding thinker and artist.     

A preliminary biography of Armand de Ricqlès (1938–), the great synthesizer of bone histology

Armand de Ricqlès has had a long, successful career. From his start as an Assistant in the University of Paris in 1961, he defended his doctoral thesis in 1963, became Maître-Assistant (Assistant Professor) in 1970 (tenured 1971), defended his “doctorat d’état” (habilitation thesis) in 1973, was nominated Professor in the University Paris 7, was promoted to first class (Full Professor) in 1987, and was finally nominated to the prestigious chair “Biologie Historique et Évolutionnisme” (Historical and Evolutionary Biology) of the Collège de France in 1996. He lectured on a wide range of topics, especially in comparative and evolutionary biology, and assumed important administrative responsibilities, including responsibility of various master's programs, leadership of the team “Formations squelettiques” (1973–2002; till Professor Jacques Castanet took over leadership of the team), involvement in various committees, and in organizing scientific meetings. He served on several editorial committees and was co-editor of the “Annales des Sciences Naturelles”, as well as co-editor-in-chief of the “Comptes Rendus Palevol”. His scientific research always emphasized bone histology, especially paleohistology, but he also made contributions to systematic paleontology, phylogenetics, history of paleontology, and biological nomenclature, in decreasing order of importance. He has so far published over 100 scientific papers and 120 semi-popular papers.     

2008 Alwyn Gentry Awards

Outstanding student presentations are recognized at the annual meetings of the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation, with the prestigious Alwyn Gentry Award. This year in Suriname we judged 47 oral presentations and 12 poster presentations. Mailyn Adriana Gonzalez , received the award for her oral presentation, entitled “Towards large‐scale inventories of tropical trees using DNA‐barcoding techniques”. The judges would also like to honor two finalists for best oral presentation: Adriana Bravo (Lousiana State University) and Alexandra Pardow (University of Kaiserslautern). The 2008 winner for her outstanding poster was Elodie Courtois , for “Emission of plant volatiles in the vegetative parts of 31 tropical tree species in French Guiana”. Susan G. Laurance (Chair, Alwyn Gentry Award Committee)     

MORPHOLOGY AND GENETICS OF A PERIODIC COLONIAL MUTANT OF NEUROSPORA CRASSA

A mutant of strain 69–1113a of Neurospora crassa, which shows periodic growth upon both complete and minimal media, was named “clock,” and some of the morphological and genetic differences between this mutant and the “patch” and “wild” strains were investigated. In contrast to the uniform growth of “wild,” the “clock” mutant produces a series of bands formed by cymelike aggregations of hyphae which become progressively more dense and finally mark the end (front) of a growth band. A new growth band is formed by a number of hyphae which grow out as in “wild” strains and dichotomize and form new cymes which again become progressively more dense and finally form a new front. It is shown that “clock” continues its rhythmic growth when cultured in continuous darkness. Some “wild” strains were induced to grow periodically on appropriate media. A medium containing equal quantities of sorbose and sucrose caused strain 65–811A (a “wild”) to produce the “patch” type growth. Random isolation, as well as ordered isolation, of ascospores following a cross between “wild” and “clock” show a 1: 1 segregation indicating that “clock” differs from “wild” by a single gene.     

Association of ABO and Rh blood groups with breast cancer

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to determine the association of “ABO” and “Rhesus” blood groups with incidence of breast cancer.MethodsIn this study, we identified 70 research documents from data based search engines including “PubMed”, “ISI-Web of Knowledge”, “Embase” and “Google Scholar”. The research papers were selected by using the primary key-terms including “ABO blood type”, “Rhesus” blood type and “breast cancer”. The research documents in which “ABO” and “Rhesus” blood types and breast cancer was debated were included. After screening, we reviewed 32 papers and finally we selected 25 research papers which met the inclusion criteria and remaining documents were excluded.ResultsBlood group “A” has high incidence of breast cancer (45.88%), blood group “O” has (31.69%); “B” (16.16%) and blood group “AB” has (6.27%) incidence of breast cancer. Blood group “A” has highest and blood group “AB” has least association with breast cancer. Furthermore, “Rhesus +ve” blood group has high incidence of breast cancer (88.31%) and “Rhesus –ve” blood group has least association with breast cancer (11.68%).ConclusionBlood group “A” and “Rhesus +ve” have high risk of breast cancer, while blood type “AB” and “Rhesus –ve” are at low peril of breast cancer. Physicians should carefully monitor the females with blood group “A” and “Rh +ve” as these females are more prone to develop breast cancer. To reduce breast cancer incidence and its burden, preventive and screening programs for breast cancer especially in young women are highly recommended.     

Protistology Conferences: The Beginnings. The First International Protozoology Conference (Prague 1961) and the Tribute to Otto Jírovec,its Spiritual Father

Two events have helped to shape protozoology/protistology as a specific scientific discipline. The first such event was the creation of the Society of Protozoologists in the U.S. in 1947 (and of its Journal of Protozoology, first published in 1954), the second event was the First International Conference on Protozoology, held in 1961 in Prague. The history of the Society of Protozoologists was comprehensively treated by Corliss (1998); the history of the Prague Conference is presented here as reminiscences and personal interpretation of events of the author, who was one of the conference organizers and a member of the organization committee. Special attention is given to the personality and scientific accomplishments of Otto Jírovec, the 1961 conference spiritual father and president. It is concluded that the Prague Conference, while establishing the tradition of protistology meetings, helped protistology to attain its present status as a fundamental science discipline, which discovers and interprets the web of life at one of its, basic, “microbial” levels. Protists literally permeate the earth biosphere and in a way represent the “dark matter” of the living world, still awaiting many discoveries.     

Frontiers in Ecosystem Ecology from a Community Perspective: The Future is Boundless and Bright

In an era of increasingly multidisciplinary science, it is essential to identify the frontiers as well as the core of an inherently holistic discipline: ecosystem ecology. To achieve this, we led a series of town hall events at multiple scientific-society meetings over a two-year period followed by a workshop with a diverse set of ecosystem scientists to review and expand on those outcomes. For the society town hall events ~70 individuals were asked to give short, provocative (the so-called, soapbox) presentations and audience members (~250) filled out tailored surveys. Both presentations and surveys were transcribed and themes were extracted and analyzed before and during the follow-up workshop. Formal ethnographic analysis of the soapbox texts produced three major themes: “frontiers,” “capacity building,” and “barriers to implementation,” including several subthemes. A workshop was held to analyze the ethnographic data where workshop participants further grouped key frontiers as (1) rethinking the drivers of ecosystem change, (2) new insights into ecosystem process and function, (3) evaluating human dimensions of ecosystem ecology, and (4) new angles on problem-solving/applied research. In addition, 13 experts were interviewed to crosscheck interpretations. The survey data, workshop deliberations, and expert interviews suggest that the core of these frontiers defines the current state and provides the foundational knowledge that bounds ecosystem ecology as a discipline. In response to emerging complex environmental issues and ongoing socioecological challenges, the edges of these frontiers expand fundamental ecosystem ecology to engage and intersect with disciplinary realms to create new ways of making sense of complexity, and to develop an even more holistic understanding of ecological systems. In this paper, we present our synthesis of the frontier and core research themes with the goal of inspiring the next wave of studies in ecosystem ecology.     

Qualitative analysis of phospholipids isolated from nonviable plasmodium antigen

Plasmodium berghei infected mouse blood, and Plasmodium knowlesi infected monkey blood were processed by the French Press to prepare Antigen “A,” a parasitic fraction known to impart immunity, and Antigen “B,” a byproduct of Antigen “A” production. Normal mouse erythrocyte material was also prepared.The lipoidal material from these preparations was extracted using chloroform: methanol (1:1) and concentrated under nitrogen. This material was resuspended in chloroform and thin-layer chromatography was used to separate and identify the phospholipids therein. Antigen “A” contained sphingomyelin, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatydylinositol, and phosphatidylethanolamine. Antigen “B,” and uninfected mouse erythrocytic material, contained sphingomyelin, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylethanolamine, and possibly phosphatidylinositol. The absence of phosphatidylserine in Antigen “A” its presence in Antigen “B,” and in normal mouse material indicates that the protective Antigen “A” is free of host erythrocytic membrane fragments.     

The Karyotypes of Angelica dahurica and Their Taxonomical Significance (Umbelliferae)

The present paper deals mainly with the karyotype analysis of five materials in Angelica dahurica collected in Yanbian of Jilin, Anguo of Hebei, Yuxian of Henan, Hangzhou of Zhejiang and Suining of Sichuan. They are under the names “Dongbeidahuo”, “Qibaizhi”, “Yubaizhi”, ”Hangbaizhi” and “Chuanbaizhi” respectively. Among then “Dongbeidahuo” is a wild plant, which occurs in northeastern China, and the others are cultivated as important crude drugs in some provinces. “Qi-Baizhi” and “Yubaizhi” have been identified as conspecific with the wild Baizhi-“Do-Ngbeidahuo” (A. dahurica) according to the external morphological features, whereas the other cultivated ones, “Hangbaizhi” and “Chuanbaizhi”, treated as a variety (A. dahurica var. formosana). The results of karyotype analysis are shown in Plate 1, 2, with the formula 2n=22 =12 m+2 m^SAT+4sm+4st. The karyotypes described here are constantly characterized by satellites attached to the fourth pair of metacentric chromosomes and differ from the published reports on the other species of the genus. It is reasonable to say that the five materials collectively named “Baizhi” are taxonomically closely related to each other and could be regarded as conspecific. Since the second chromosome pair is submetacentric in “Dongbeidahuo”, it may be justifiable to separate the wild plant from the cultivated ones and treat them as two separate varieties.     

麋鹿行为谱及PAE编码系统

以麋鹿为实例,通过辨识行为的基本单元,区别了“姿势”、“动作”和“环境”,分解了动物行为的层次,然后根据行为的适应和社群机能归类,建立了以“姿势—动作—环境”为轴心的,以生态功能为分类依据的动物行为分类编码系统（PAE编码分类系统）。PAE编码分类系统以集合论为基础,明确了动物行为的三要素：姿势、动作和生态环境之间的关系,避免了笼统地将动物的姿势、动作和行为混为一谈的做法,区分了动物行为的组成要素和结构层次。行为要素编码方法为动物行为学研究提供了一个新的生长点。在继承前人工作的基础上,记录了有关麋鹿的姿势、动作和行为达200多种,还区别了各种行为在雄性、雌性和幼体之间的相对发生频次以及发生季节。     

The dietary patterns are a modifying risk factor for breast cancer: An ecological study

A comparative study of dietary patterns (DPs) with breast cancer (BC) incidence in different countries has been performed. It was established that in the countries with a high incidence of BC (76 per 100 000 people) the levels of consumption of the “nutrients of animal foods,” “fruits and beverages,” and “alcoholic drinks” are 1.5–2 times higher and that of “cereals and vegetables” is 1.5 times lower than in the countries with a low incidence of BC (35 per 100 000). In Mediterranean countries, where incidence of BC is 51 per 100 000, the levels of consumption of “animal foods” is two times lower than the levels of consumption of “cereals and vegetables.” A method of assessing the impact of DPs on the incidence of BC has been proposed.     

Form and Function in the Xenarthra–an Introduction to the Symposium Proceedings Volume

This special issue of the Journal of Mammalian Evolution represents the proceedings from a symposium held in conjunction with the 9th International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology (ICVM IX, Punta del Este, Uruguay, July 29, 2010), and entitled “Form and Function in the Xenarthra.” This symposium was the third on xenarthran biology to be presented in association with the ICVM meetings. In this brief introduction to the symposium proceedings, we plan to discuss the justification for the symposium, to provide a brief history of previous symposia and their results, and to introduce the contents of the present volume.     

Two enzyme active transport in vitro with ph induced asymmetrical functional structures: I. The model and its analytical treatment

A class of systems is characterized by the asymmetrical distribution of a sink and a source reaction, the asymmetry of the global chemical equation (energy liberation) and by an asymmetrical one-wave space profile. These systems belong to the family of primary chemical cells and can deplete and enrich the media they separate. A “ one way ” transport-reaction chain is needed for specific “ real ” active transport. A two enzyme model of this class is described in which the spatial asymmetry is due to a (diffusive) pH gradient; this distribution of “ potential ” enzyme activities is called the “ functional structure ”. Equal potential enzyme activities and absence of reactive back action on local pH are assumed in the “ square model ” version of the pump. Analytical expressions of the enzymatic diffusion reactions are derived for zero and first order kinetics, i.e. in function of substrate concentrations. Tables of equations are presented. The intrinsic properties of the pump are characterized by (dimensionless) transport reaction parameters, (membrane composition); the “ potential ” activity is controlled by the pH gradient; the “ effective ” pumping is also a function of the substrate concentrations on the boundaries.     

Causal mechanisms of evolution and the capacity for niche construction

Ernst Mayr proposed a distinction between “proximate”, mechanistic, and “ultimate”, evolutionary, causes of biological phenomena. This dichotomy has influenced the thinking of many biologists, but it is increasingly perceived as impeding modern studies of evolutionary processes, including study of “niche construction” in which organisms alter their environments in ways supportive of their evolutionary success. Some still find value for this dichotomy in its separation of answers to “how?” versus “why?”questions about evolution. But “why is A?” questions about evolution necessarily take the form “how does A occur?”, so this separation is illusory. Moreover, the dichotomy distorts our view of evolutionary causality, in that, contra Mayr, the action of natural selection, driven by genotype-phenotype-environment interactions which constitute adaptations, is no less “proximate” than the biological mechanisms which are altered by naturally selected genetic variants. Mayr’s dichotomy thus needs replacement by more realistic, mechanistic views of evolution. From a mechanistic viewpoint, there is a continuum of adaptations from those evolving as responses to unchanging environmental pressures to those evolving as the capacity for niche construction, and intermediate stages of this can be identified. Some biologists postulate an association of “phenotypic plasticity” (phenotype-environment covariation with genotype held constant) with capacity for niche construction. Both “plasticity” and niche construction comprise wide ranges of adaptive mechanisms, often fully heritable and resulting from case-specific evolution. Association of “plasticity” with niche construction is most likely to arise in systems wherein capacity for complex learning and behavioral flexibility have already evolved.     

Logical-Semantic Analysis and the Development of L.S. Vygotsky's Ideas About “Units” and “Elements” of Psychological Systems

Based on an analysis of L.S. Vygotsky's concepts of “units” and “elements” of psychological systems, this article highlights five of their attributes. It shows that these attributes are logically symmetrical, since in their wording they can be converted into one another by negation or by replacing some words with their opposites. This suggests that the concepts of the “unit” and “element” of a system are different poles of one theoretical construct of the activity of human psychology. Thus methods for the study of psychological systems by breaking them down into elements or by separating them into units can be seen as complementary. The article describes differences among the concepts of “unit,” “minimal unit,” and “cell” of a psychological system. It reviews several problems that are solvable using the “method of units,” as well as some concepts of the theory of psychological systems that are understood as holistic, conceptual, and active processes and/or results of human interaction with the world. Among the examples of such systems are “systems of psychological functions” (according to Vygotsky), as well as separate activities (according to A.N. Leontiev), human actions and operations (interactions with the world on the level of objects and mental or physical means). The “component” of a psychological system is defined as any “something” that in some sense belongs to or is included in human interaction with the world. A component that belongs to the system is called an “element” of it, but a component that is included in the functioning and development of the system is called a “part” of it. The article presents the mathematical and psychological foundation of these definitions. It identifies and discusses the substantial (independently existing) components of psychological systems and their attributes (properties and conditions). It describes the relationships between them using the bipolar theoretical constructs “part-element” and “substantial-attributive” component of a system.     

中国栎属九种植物的核型分析

报道了中国栎属 ( Quercus L inn.) 9种植物的核型。结果如下 :帽斗栎 ( Q.guyavaelofia) :2 n=2 4 =2 2 m+2 sm,属于“1A”类型 ;富宁栎 ( Q.setulosa) :2 n=2 4 =2 0 m+4sm,属于“2 A”类型 ;炭栎 ( Q.utilis) :2 n=2 4 =2 4 m,属于“2 A”类型 ;乌冈栎 ( Q.phillyraeoides) :2 n=2 4 =2 0 m+4sm,属于“2 B”类型 ;匙叶栎 ( Q.dolicholepis) :2 n=2 4 =2 0 m+4sm,属于“2 B”类型 ;岩栎( Q.acrodonta) :2 n=2 4 =2 2 m+2 sm,属于“2 B”类型 ;麻栗坡栎 ( Q.marlipoensis) :2 n=2 4 =2 4 m,属于“1B”类型 ;锥连栎 ( Q.franchetii) :2 n=2 4 =2 2 m +2 sm ,属于“1B”类型 ;麻栎 ( Q.acutissima) :2 n=2 4 =2 0 m+4sm,属于“2 B”类型 .其中除麻栎外 ,另 8种的核型系首次报道。研究结果表明 ,上述核型在种间较相似 ,但以组为单位进行比较时 ,则有一定的价值 ,有可能为揭示栎属的系统演化提供新的证据。