L'aranéisme

The spiders are chelicerates arthropods living in various biotopes on all continents. Their bites are very rarely fatal for humans. One can schematically describe a neurotoxic araneism, the most dangerous of which are the Australian mygales of the Atrax genus and the black or brown widows of the genus Latrodectus. The necrotic araneism is not rare, usually benign, but the cutaneous necrosis can be sometimes large et complicated with an acute febrile haemolytic icterus which can lead to the death when the responsible Loxosceles species belong to some north-american or south-american ones. Besides, the South-American tarantulas possess a thick felting of urticating setae which can provoke accidentally serious keratitis. The serotherapy is an efficient specific treatment of the neurotoxic araneisms, but the anti-latrodectes sera are no more available. The other types of araneisms, in particular the necrotic araneism, are symptomatically treated.     

Modulation of hepatic mitochondrial energy efficiency with age

This study was designed to examine the effect of youth-adulthood transition on hepatic mitochondrial energy efficiency. The changes in basal and palmitate-induced proton leak, which contribute to mitochondrial efficiency, were evaluated in mitochondria isolated from the liver of young and adult rats. Alterations in mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase and aconitase specific activities, and in adenine nucleotide translocator content were also assessed. There was no difference in basal proton leak or thermodynamic coupling and efficiency of oxidative phosphorylation in liver mitochondria between the two rat groups. On the other hand, palmitate-induced proton leak increased significantly in adult rats. The function of this uncoupling could be avoidance of elevated formation of reactive oxygen species, which are known to accelerate ageing.Received 17 February 2004; received after revision 30 March 2004; accepted 1 April 2004     

The semantic conception and the structuralist view of theories: A critique of Suppe’s criticisms

Different conceptions of scientific theories, such as the state spaces approach of Bas van Fraassen, the phase spaces approach of Frederick Suppe, the set-theoretical approach of Patrick Suppes, and the structuralist view of Joseph Sneed et al. are usually put together into one big family. In addition, the definite article is normally used, and thus we speak of the semantic conception (view or approach) of theories and of its different approaches (variants or versions). However, in The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism (Urban and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), starting from certain remarks already made in “Theory Structure” (in P. Asquith and H. Kyburg (Eds.), Current Research in Philosophy of Science, East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 1979, pp. 317–338), Frederick Suppe excludes the structuralist view as well as other “European” versions from the semantic conception of theories. In this paper I will critically examine the reasons put forward by Suppe for this decision and, later, I will provide a general characterization of the semantic family and of the structuralist view of theories in such a way as to justify the inclusion of the structuralist view (as well as other “European” versions) as a member of this family.