Enzyme polymorphism in the Sicilian honeybee

Summary In Sicily we can identify two genetically differentiated groups of local honeybee populations, on the basis of the only two polymorphic loci,Mdh-1 andEst; the western one, whose genetic characteristics are probably those of the native honeybee (Apis mellifera sicula) and the eastern one affected by recent large-scale importation of Italian bees from northern Italy.This research was supported by a grant of the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione.     

A Dispute Over Superposition: John Wallis,Honoré Fabri,and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli

This paper aims first and foremost to unravel and clarify an interesting 17^th century controversy around superposition in projectiles, which allegedly existed between the French Jesuit Honoré Fabri and the Italian physicist and astronomer Giovanni Alfonso Borelli. This conflict – initially described by the English mathematician John Wallis in a letter from 1670 to the secretary of the Royal Society – has been erroneously identified with Fabri's Dialogi physici (1669), a work written in response to Borelli's De vi percussionis (1669). In fact, this “conflict” was nothing but Wallis's account of a contradiction between Borelli's above mentioned work and Fabri's Tractatus physicus de motu locali from 1646, while Fabri's 1669 work expressed views very different from those contained in his Tractatus physicus. I will try here to reconstruct Fabri's change of heart between 1646 and 1669 concerning projectiles and superposition, while tracing the real bone of contention between (the later) Fabri and Borelli – superimposing contrary motions – to its Aristotelian origins. My analysis will lead me to problematize the way modern historians usually interpret the relation between Aristotle's physical thinking and projectile theories of early modern theoreticians (e.g. Nicollò Tartaglia's).     

Regulation of enzymes of ethanol metabolism in yeast (Rhodotorula gracilis)

Summary The three enzymes of ethanol metabolism alcohol dehydrogenase, aldehyde dehydrogenase and acetyl-CoA synthetase in the obligate aerobic yeastRhodotorula gracilis are repressed by glucose and induced by C₂ metabolic fuels with a regulatory pattern indicating a correlation in the control mechanisms. To try an identification of the molecular signals involved in the transmission of the inducing stimulus, experiments were carried out by blocking with 2 mM pyrazole the ethanol acetaldehyde metabolic step. Results indicate that ethanol is not specifically required as a molecular signal for induction.This work was supported by a grant from the Italian Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche.     

Testing for the usefulness of forecasts

Ashley (Journal of Forecasting 1983; 2 (3): 211–223) proposes a criterion (known as Ashley's index) to judge whether the external macroeconomic variables are well forecast to serve as explanatory variables in forecasting models, which is crucial for policy makers. In this article, we try to extend Ashley's work by providing three testing procedures, including a ratio‐based test, a difference‐based test, and the Bayesian approach. The Bayesian approach has the advantage of allowing the flexibility of adapting all possible information content within a decision‐making environment such as the change of variable's definition due to the evolving system of national accounts. We demonstrate the proposed methods by applying six macroeconomic forecasts in the Survey of Professional Forecasters. Researchers or practitioners can thus formally test whether the external information is helpful. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Piola’s contribution to continuum mechanics

This paper examines the contribution of Gabrio Piola to continuum mechanics.Though he was undoubtably a skilled mathematician and a good mechanician, little is commonly known about his papers within the international scientific community, principally because a large part of the Italian school of mechanics was isolated in the first half of the XIXth century.We examine and comment on Piola’s most important papers, and compare them with those of his contemporaries Cauchy, Poisson and Kirchhoff.     

The natures of numbers in and around Bombelli’s L’algebra

The purpose of this article is to analyse the mathematical practices leading to Rafael Bombelli’s L’algebra (1572). The context for the analysis is the Italian algebra practiced by abbacus masters and Renaissance mathematicians of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. We will focus here on the semiotic aspects of algebraic practices and on the organisation of knowledge. Our purpose is to show how symbols that stand for underdetermined meanings combine with shifting principles of organisation to change the character of algebra.     

Involvement of a surface concanavalin A-binding glycoprotein in the adhesion ofTrichomonas vaginalis to substrates

Summary Treatment ofTrichomonas vaginalis with EDTA removes their ability to adhere to glass surfaces and changes their affinity to Concanavalin A (ConA) by a different distribution of their surface structures. Filtrates of the EDTA-treatedTrichomonas passed through affinity chromatography columns (ConA bound to Sepharose 4B0 separate into 2 fractions, one fraction was bound to the ConA-Sepharose beads, the other was not. The Con A-bound fraction appears to be a glycoprotein which restores in a specific way the ability of the EDTA-treated protozoa to adhere to glass. We want to thank Dr.P. M. Comoglio for the donation of the FITC-labelled immunoglobulin fraction of anti-ConA rabbit antiserum. This work was supported by a grant from the Italian National Research Council (C.N.R.)     

The love of truth

It is frequently said that belief aims at truth, in an explicitly normative sense—that is, that one ought to believe the proposition that p if, and only if, p is true. This truth norm is frequently invoked to explain why we should seek evidential justification in our beliefs, or why we should try to be rational in our belief formation—it is because we ought to believe the truth that we ought to follow the evidence in belief revision. In this paper, I argue that this view is untenable. The truth norm clashes with plausible evidential norms in a wide range of cases, such as when we have excellent but misleading evidence for a falsehood or no evidence for a truth. I will consider various ways to resolve this conflict and argue that none of them work. However, I will ultimately attempt to vindicate the love of truth, by arguing that knowledge is the proper epistemic goal. The upshot is that we should not aim merely to believe the truth; we should aim to know it.     

A New Translation of and Guide to Newton's Principia

This paper discusses the emergence of new medical experimental specialties at the Medical School of Surgery (Escola Médico-Cirúrgica) and the Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon University (Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa) between 1897 and 1946, as a result of the activities of Marck Athias's (1875–1946) histophysiology research school. In 1897, Marck Athias, a Portuguese physician who had graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, founded a research school in Lisbon along the lines of Michael Foster's physiology research school in England and Franz Hofmeister's physiological chemistry school in Germany. His research programme was highly innovative in Portugal. Not only did it bring together many disciples and co-workers, but it branched out and created new medical specialties within Portuguese medical science. These new disciplinary areas grew out of the study of the histology of the nervous system but eventually expanded into normal and pathological histophysiology, physiological chemistry and experimental endocrinology. The esprit de corps that existed between research school members ensured the school's success and influence in various fields social and political as well as scientific. Athias's school was strongly influenced by positivist ideals and promoted a teaching and research style that sought inspiration in Humboldt's university model, thus helping to bring about a change in the dominant scientific ethos and to modernize scientific research in Portugal during the first half of the twentieth century.     

Trends of karyological evolution in Pelobatoid frogs

Summary The Pelobatids have a basal karyotype of 26 chromosomes, with 6 pairs of large and 7 of small chromosomes (6+7). From this karyotype, shown byLeptobrachium, Pelobates andScaphiopus, those ofMegophrys andSpea (5+8) may be derived, as well as that ofL. pelodytoides, with only 24 chromosomes.Pelodytes has 24 chromosomes and a karyotype 7+5 differing from that of typical Pelobatids under several respects.Research supported by a contribution from the Italian C. N. R.     

The structure of fusicoccin A

Riassunto Con l'uso combinato di metodi chimici, spettroscopici, e di strutturistica chimica diffrattometrica è stato possibile assegnare la struttuta I alla fusicoccina A, metabolita fitopatogeno del fungoFusicoccum amygdali Del.

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This work was supported in part by the Italian National Research Council (CNR).     

Rounding numbers: Ptolemy’s calculation of the Earth–Sun distance

In this article, I analyze the coincidence of the prediction of the Earth–Sun distance carried out by Ptolemy in his Almagest and the one he carried out, with another method, in the Planetary Hypotheses. In both cases, the values obtained for the Earth–Sun distance are very similar, so that the great majority of historians have suspected that Ptolemy altered or at least selected the data in order to obtain this agreement. In this article, I will provide a reconstruction of some way in which Ptolemy could have altered or selected the data and subsequently will try to argue in favor of its historical plausibility.     

Karyological relationships between the Cryptobranchid salamanders

Summary The 3 living Cryptobranchids (Andrias japonicus, A. davidianus andCryptobranchus alleganiensis) show 2n=60 and nuclear DNA amounts of respectively 92.9, 100.1 and 112.5 pg. Karyologically, the 2 genera differ in the morphology of 2 chromosome pairs. The hypotheses are advanced that either theCryptobranchus karyotype is derived from that ofAndrias through an unequal translocation, or the karyotypes of both genera are derived from that of a common (perhaps hynobiid) ancestor with at least 62 chromosomes.Research supported by a contribution from the Italian C.N.R.     

Population genetics of a colonizing lizard: Loss of variability in introduced populations ofPodarcis sicula

Allozyme electrophoresis was used to study the genetic variability (proportion of polymorphic loci and heterozygosity) in insular populations (Corsica, Elba, Montecristo, Marettimo, Pantelleria) of the lacertid lizardPodarcis sicula. These populations were presumed to have originated from episodes of accidental anthropogenic introduction. In order to test the hypothesis of a man-aided colonization and to provide comparative data, heterozygosity and polymorphism were also estimated in autochthonous populations ofP. sicula from the Italian peninsula and Sicily. In each case, the presumed introduced population showed levels of genetic variability significantly lower than those detected in the autochthonous ones. Very little genetic differentiation was found among native and presumed colonist populations, Nei's standard genetic distances ranging from 0.001 to 0.009. These results strongly support the hypothesis thatP. sicula was only recently introduced to the studied islands, and provide additional evidence of reduced genetic variability due to founder effect in insular populations originating from episodes of human transportation.     

The Spectacle de la Nature in Eighteenth-Century Spain: From French Households to Spanish Workshops

This paper analyzes the Spanish appropriation of one of the great French eighteenth-century best-sellers, the Spectacle de la Nature (1732--1750) by the abbé Antoine Nöel Pluche. In eight volumes, the abbé discussed current issues in natural philosophy, such as Newtonianism, the origin of fossils, artisan techniques, natural history, machines, gardening or insect-collection in a polite-conversation format. It was translated into English (1735), Dutch (1737), Italian (1737), German (1746) and Spanish (1753). But the four Spanish editions were very different from their European counterparts. In Spain, it was delivered in 16 carefully printed and extensively commented volumes. In Pluche's original, there was a concern for the young gentleman's education, new pedagogical methods and an enthusiastic defence of experimental knowledge. However, Le Spectacle in Spain was conceived as a useful tool for modernizing the country, it served political and propagandist goals, defended Spanish culture and science (in particular with respect to American flora, fauna and geography) and the Jesuit contribution to science and aimed to harmonize experimental knowledge and scholastic tradition. The analysis of the more than 1500 footnotes, prefaces, some readers’ comments and other questions related to the format gives insight on how it was appropriated.     

Mating type-specific antibodies in the ciliateEuplotes raikovi

Summary Three different types of gamones, each representing a different mating type ofEuplotes raikovi, were used to elicit the production of antisera in mice. Each type of antiserum proved to be capable of preventing the gamone activity in correlation with the different specificities of the mating type.This work was supported by a grant from Italian M.P.I.     

The experimenter's regress as philosophical sociology

I will divide my discussion into two. In the first part I will discuss Godin and Gingras's delicious claim (this volume) that the experimenter's regress is anticipated by Sextus Empiricus's formulation of scepticism. In the second part, I will try to deal with Godin and Gingras's ‘critical argument’, that the experimenter's regress would be redundant if we were less concerned with ‘frightening philosophers’.     

The lunar and Paschal tables of De ratione paschali attributed to Anatolius of Laodicea

Summary of conclusions The seven MS lunar and Paschal tables of De ratione paschali fall into two distinct groups which we have classified as Sirmond-type and Padua-type respectively, and from these we have restored the tables of their archetype. The Sirmond-type tables preserve a unique lunar year, which we term the Anatolian lunar year, and they first emerge in the context of a larger computus which was assembled in southern Ireland c. 658, a copy of which Wilfrid had evidently obtained by the time of the Synod of Whitby. The weight of circumstantial evidence supports the hypothesis that it was he who then instigated the corruption of both the tables and the patristic authorities of De ratione paschali, a copy of which subsequently passed to Bede and thence to the Sirmond group of MSS. The Padua-type tables on the other hand are represented only by the Padua MS, and they appear to have originated from within Insular circles on the Continent. These too were crudely corrupted, first by changing their lunar year from Anatolian to Roman and moving their ferial data from January to December and changing some Paschal data, and then secondly by collation with Sirmond-type tables. In the case of both types the objective was clearly to weaken the relationship between the lunar and Paschal tables and to try and obscure the Paschal principles that they preserve and thereby undermine the position of those followers of the Insular latercus who relied on the authority of De ratione paschali for their Pasch. These conclusions naturally give a rather different colour to the events of Whitby from that given by Bede, who places them completely in a theological context. However in material terms what was really at stake at Whitby was the transfer of the patronage of the entire kingdom of Northumbria from the Celtic to the Roman church. Here then was sufficient motivation to justify the most ruthless of expedients.     

Leibniz on the requisites of an exact arithmetical quadrature

In this paper we will try to explain how Leibniz justified the idea of an exact arithmetical quadrature. We will do this by comparing Leibniz's exposition with that of John Wallis. In short, we will show that the idea of exactitude in matters of quadratures relies on two fundamental requisites that, according to Leibniz, the infinite series have, namely, that of regularity and that of completeness. In the first part of this paper, we will go deeper into three main features of Leibniz's method, that is: it is an infinitesimal method, it looks for an arithmetical quadrature and it proposes a result that is not approximate, but exact. After that, we will deal with the requisite of the regularity of the series, pointing out that, unlike the inductive method proposed by Wallis, Leibniz propounded some sort of intellectual recognition of what is invariant in the series. Finally, we will consider the requisite of completeness of the series. We will see that, although both Wallis and Leibniz introduced the supposition of completeness, the German thinker went beyond the English mathematician, since he recognized that it is not necessary to look for a number for the quadrature of the circle, given that we have a series that is equal to the area of that curvilinear figure.