Nature

We describe in detail a general strategy for implementing a conditional geometric phase between two spins. Combined with single-spin operations, this simple operation is a universal gate for quantum computation, in that any unitary transformation can be implemented with arbitrary precision using only single-spin operations and conditional phase shifts. Thus quantum geometrical phases can form the basis of any quantum computation. Moreover, as the induced conditional phase depends only on the geometry of the paths executed by the spins it is resilient to certain types of errors and offers the potential of a naturally fault-tolerant way of performing quantum computation.

Once marginal, knowledge that many other species share characteristics hitherto thought restricted to humans, including language, tool-use and consciousness, is now commonplace across many scientific fields, from ethology to biosemiotics to neurophysiology. 1 Such new scientific understandings of nonhuman life have been one important inspiration for posthuman theorists aiming to replace ontologies of division with those of connection and relative difference. Animal sexual selection, for example, is much more than an instrumental process. As theorized by Elizabeth Grosz, animal courtship and sex provide not merely the means for reproduction and genetic survival, but are playful, exuberant, creative articulations of the active, forward-moving force of life. 2 Similarly, Brian Massumi outlines how the play of young animals shows their 'capacity to mobilize the possible.' 3 The wolf cub nipping the ear of another wolf cub enacts a ludic gesture, saying 'this is play.' But for the cub to learn how to be an adult wolf, the play bite must also stand in for a real, violent bite. The distinction between violent-bite and play-bite is not simply that one is training for adult wolf-hood and one is childish play. Rather, both ways of biting operate in a zone of indiscernibility without the specific differences of either being erased. The paradox of play is its 'as if-ness.' For Massumi, when animals play, 'they are preparatorily enacting human capacities.' 4 In this vitalist mode, posthumanism places the human in a continuum with other animals, connected through both lines of descent and contemporary ecological relations. Animals become worthy subjects of academic attention in the humanities, while humans become creaturely beings.

During the Minoan Neopalatial period (ca. 1700-1450 BCE) female figures are depicted in visual art sitting on rocks and stepped cult structures, both of which may be symbolic representations of mountains. Trees are also depicted in conjunction with rocks and stepped altars, sometimes replacing the female figure, and suggesting a tree-and-mountain combination. These scenes echo a tradition in the iconography of Syro-Mesopotamia, the Levant and Egypt of an association betweenand even the interchangeability of-trees, or more broadly vegetation, and female figures. While the Minoan female figures are unidentified, the east Mediterranean examples are associated with known goddesses. This paper suggests that, along with cult structures, Cretan Neopalatial female garments also belong to this tree-and-mountain symbolic visual language. Not only do abstract mountain forms appear on female garments, but the combination of female torso and elaborate skirt forms a silhouette that evokes the cult scenes in which women sit on rocks and stepped altars and platforms. Examination of the decoration, structure, and shape of Minoan Neopalatial garments as depicted in glyptic, wall painting, and three dimensions, will demonstrate their suitability for incorporation into the classification of landscape epiphany.

As a comparative reading informed by recent work in integration theory and metaphor theory shows, Heinrich Schenker's and Arnold Schoenberg's Harmonielehren adumbrate broader theories of composition based in part on a conception of the tone as a partly unconsciously perceived, living idea, which the artist imitates in a piece of music as a manifestation or development of one particular tone by means of the motive and the key. Schenker and Schoenberg further conceive of a piece as a picture of the tone and a statement about the tone. This analysis reveals that Schenker's and Schoenberg's peculiar clashes, such as in their starkly opposed attitudes toward tonality, are the result of a mere difference in emphasis—attributable to temperament—on the absoluteness of the tone as an idea of nature versus the contingency of the artist's response to the tone in the formation of music, a contradiction inherent in both of their remarkably parallel theories. This deep unity in Schenker's and Schoenberg's musical thought invites a reassessment of the opposed historical categories of tonal and post-tonal music, which have informed our perception of a fundamental conflict between their theories and limited our perception of commonality between their theories.

In 1961, Rolf Landauer argued that the erasure of information is a dissipative process 1 . A minimal quantity of heat, proportional to the thermal energy and called the Landauer bound, is necessarily produced when a classical bit of information is deleted. A direct consequence of this logically irreversible transformation is that the entropy of the environment increases by a finite amount. Despite its fundamental importance for information theory and computer science 2-5 , the erasure principle has not been verified experimentally so far, the main obstacle being the difficulty of doing single-particle experiments in the low-dissipation regime. Here we experimentally show the existence of the Landauer bound in a generic model of a one-bit memory. Using a system of a single colloidal particle trapped in a modulated double-well potential, we establish that the mean dissipated heat saturates at the Landauer bound in the limit of long erasure cycles. This result demonstrates the intimate link between information theory and thermodynamics. It further highlights the ultimate physical limit of irreversible computation.

Gut microbial communities represent one source of human genetic and metabolic diversity. To examine how gut microbiomes differ among human populations, here we characterize bacterial species in fecal samples from 531 individuals, plus the gene content of 110 of them. The cohort encompassed healthy children and adults from the Amazonas of Venezuela, rural Malawi and US metropolitan areas and included mono-and dizygotic twins. Shared features of the functional maturation of the gut microbiome were identified during the first three years of life in all three populations, including age-associated changes in the genes involved in vitamin biosynthesis and metabolism. Pronounced differences in bacterial assemblages and functional gene repertoires were noted between US residents and those in the other two countries. These distinctive features are evident in early infancy as well as adulthood. Our findings underscore the need to consider the microbiome when evaluating human development, nutritional needs, physiological variations and the impact of westernization.

Paru aux é ditions Delarbre : http://www.marie-delarbre.fr/grignan.html - http://www.lelitteraire.com/?p=25909
« Je dois avoir un ancêtre qui s’appelle Rousseau, j’ai voulu relire Les Rêveries d’un promeneur solitaire, livre admirable mais dans lequel, au fond, Rousseau parle beaucoup de lui et très peu de la nature » déclarait Philippe Jaccottet en 1997. Malgré l’enracinement commun de leur écriture poétique et journalière au cœur de paysages naturels, la proportion des parts accordées au moi et à la nature les distingue très clairement. Le lecteur de Jaccottet le sait bien : le poète parle en ses recueils bien plus de la nature qu’il ne parle de lui-même, et aspire plus à faire parler la nature qu’il ne tente de parler lui-même. Sources, ruisseaux, rivières, montagnes, cerisiers, églantiers, cognassiers, pommiers, fleurs, cailloux, chats-huant, criquets, rossignols… la poésie de Jaccottet abrite un microcosme bruissant et animé, une nature loquace face à laquelle le « je » semble parfois demeurer taciturne ; l’élection qui l’attache à Grignan en 1953 fera de ces paysages qui s’offrent alors à lui le combustible essentiel à son écriture comme à sa vie poétique ; source d’inspiration, terre riche de fragments d’un âge d’or perdu, le paysage permet ainsi au poète d’éprouver son écriture par ses tentatives de (re)présentations, et son contact quotidien lui permet surtout de « vivre de telle manière que l’écrit naisse naturellement » (La Semaison) ; le paysage de Grignan, à la façon d’un attrape-rêve, filtrerait ainsi l’angoisse qui noue la gorge du poète pour lui permettre de s’abreuver enfin librement à la source de la Présence et de la vie. © Marie Delarbre Éditions Dépôt légal : octobre 2016 ISBN : 978-2-913351-33-2 ISSN collection : 1635-6373

C hemist Carl Djerassi published his first full-length autobiography just before his 70th birthday. Now, just weeks after his 91st, he delivers his second. Remarkably, In Retrospect does have new things to say. At an age when most scientists retire, Djerassi launched a second career as a novelist and playwright. And in the preface, he announces that In Retrospect is largely an "autopsychoanalysis", searching within his fiction for an understanding of his true self and motivations. The book is, however, much more wide-ranging and outward-looking than that implies, although Djerassi's powerful ego is ever-presentsometimes irritatingly, but often endearingly. Djerassi was born in Vienna to secular Jewish doctors who divorced, then remarried after Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany, so that Carl and his mother could escape to his father's native Bulgaria. From there, mother and son emigrated to the United States, where Djerassi learnt English and studied ferociously. In 1949, he joined the labs of the pharmaceutical company Syntex in Mexico City, where he led the research team that synthesized the first orally active steroid contraceptive compound, norethindrone. In 1959, he became a member of the chemistry faculty at Stanford University in California; he consolidated his reputation as a front-line chemist over three decades. Then he shifted his academic attention to outreach, before becoming a professor emeritus in 2002. Djerassi became enormously wealthy thanks to the soaring value of the Syntex stock acquired when he worked at the company, and he took up art (and house) collecting. Emotionally, his life was turbulent: he married three times, and had to face the tragedy of his daughter's suicide in 1978. His marvellous first autobiography, The Pill, Pygmy Chimps and Degas' Horse (Basic, 1992), covers this era in his life. In Retrospect goes over some of the same ground, using the prism of his other writingsrediscovering his Jewish identity through fictional characters in his books and plays, for example.

This thesis analyzes Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing from ecofeminist viewpoints by specifically examining the interconnections between women and nature in both future-societies. Essentially, ecofeminism is a radical literary theory and a political movement based on ecology and a sub-branch of ecocriticism, which proclaims that the subjugation of the females and the exploitation of nature are all interrelated stratums conducted by a prevailing masculine mindset; thus, this radical ecological criticism necessitates the analyses of these interconnected oppressions. According to the ecofeminist understanding, the patriarchy exerts and maintains its power and domination by making use of authoritative power structures that are based on dualisms like human/nature, men/women, nature/culture. Thus, ecofeminists attempt to destroy all the established dualities and they disseminate ecologically informed societies where equality and liberation are maintained for all genders. This study explores the specific ecofeminist themes prevalent within Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing. These novels trace the connections between gender, nature, femininity, masculinity, sexuality, religion and science. While the dystopic fiction of Atwood offers a catastrophic social order that reflects the fallacy of the modern man regarding his oppressive attitude towards nature and women, Starhawk’s ecotopia, on the other hand, proposes an ecotopia where all species, genders, the human and nonhuman communities live in equality, peace and harmony. Both fictions, thus, focus on the issues of women and nature and signal an ecofeminist message by reflecting that if the society does not change its patriarchal, hierarchal and mostly androcentric approach towards women and nature, the environmental crisis and gender-based discrimination will be sustained forever.

2. Dünya Savaşı sonrasında akademik alana hızla yayılan eleştirel düşünce, sosyal bilimler ve kültürel çalışmalar altında pek çok yeni çalışma alanının ortaya çıkmasını sağlamıştır. 1980'li yıllarda yaygın olarak gelişen edebiyat merkezli ekoeleştiri ve yine benzer dönemlerde gelişen eleştirel veya yeni müzikoloji çalışmaları, eleştirel yaklaşımlarıyla mevcut paradigmaları sarsmıştır. Ekoeleştiri düşüncesi ile müzikoloji disiplinini bir araya getiren ekomüzikoloji alanı ise müzik ve kültür arasındaki ilişkiye doğayı da katarak, çevre/doğa konusuna ses ve müzik açısından bakan yeni bir yaklaşım ortaya çıkarmıştır. Disiplinlerarası bir perspektifle çevre/doğa bağlamında birçok konuyla ilgilenen ekomüzikoloji çalışmaları, bilimsel ve aktivist bir çabadır. İnsan-doğa ilişkisini sorgulayan ve günümüzdeki çevre krizleri ile sürdürülebilirlik sorunlarına müzikolojinin sınırlarını genişleterek yanıtlar bulmaya çalışan ekomüzikoloji, 2000'li yıllardan itibaren tüm dünyada hızla gelişen bir alan olmuştur. Bu makalede, ekoeleştirel ve doğakültürel bir müzikoloji yaklaşımı olarak ekomüzikolojinin ortaya çıkışı, bu alanda yapılan çalışmalar ile alanla ilgili kavramsal ve yöntemsel tartışmalar konuyla ilgili temel kaynaklar üzerinden incelenmiştir. Bu makalenin, gelecekte Türkiye'de ekomüzikoloji alanında yapılacak araştırmalara yol gösterici olması hedeflenmiştir.
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After World War II, the rapid spread of critical theory led to the emergence of many new fields of study under the social sciences and cultural studies. The literary centered ecocriticism, which was developed in the 1980s, and the critical or new musicology studies that developed in similar periods, influenced the existing paradigms with their critical approaches. The field of ecomusicology, which brings together the idea of ecocriticism with the discipline of musicology, has brought a new approach to the environment/nature issues in terms of sound and music, adding nature to the relationship between music and culture. Ecomusicology studies dealing with many issues in the context of environment/nature from an interdisciplinary perspective is both a scientific and an activist effort. By questioning the human-nature relationship and trying to find answers to today's environmental crises and sustainability problems by expanding the boundaries of musicology, ecomusicology has been a rapidly developing field since the 2000s. In this article, the emergence of ecomusicology as an ecocritical and naturecultural musicology approach, as well as conceptual and methodological discussions concerning this field are examined through the main sources. This article is intended to be a guide to future research in the field of ecomusicology in Turkey.

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Ce volume comporte trois chapitres : le premier décrit les linéaments d'une doctrine archaïque de la « phusis » visant toujours à connaître la « nature » de chaque chose, cet ensemble de caractéristiques qui fonde sa puissance, sa capacité d'agir ; le second décrit une représentation archaïque de l'Univers au moyen du schème de la croissance végétale, reconnu dans l'usage du verbe « phuô » et la poursuit jusqu'à la grande synthèse de la cosmologie archaïque, telle qu'elle s'énonce dans la deuxième partie du poème de Parménide : l'Univers est comme une grande plante qui croît et distribue l'ensemble des « natures » des choses. Le schème de la croissance et celui de la distribution des natures convergent ainsi pour esquisser la première représentation globale d'un tout cosmique organisé. La troisième partie est consacrée au débat qui, dans le deuxième Ve siècle, autour de « l'enquête sur la nature », chez les sophistes et les médecins, accompagne l'apparition d'un tout de plus en plus homogène, mais néanmoins susceptible de plusieurs visages : ainsi celui de l'homogénéité du mode de production de toutes choses ou celui de la distribution des natures de toutes choses. La Nature commence à paraître, oscillant entre une logique génétique et une logique distributive : c'est ainsi que s'accomplit une histoire qui fait progressivement du terme distribué à toutes choses pour décrire leurs puissances respectives le nom du tout organisé où chacune trouve sa place.

Obesity is heritable and predisposes to many diseases. To understand the genetic basis of obesity better, here we conduct a genome-wide association study and Metabochip meta-analysis of body mass index (BMI), a measure commonly used to define obesity and assess adiposity, in up to 339,224 individuals. This analysis identifies 97 BMI-associated loci…

In two previously described donors, the extracellular domain of LAIR1, a collagen-binding inhibitory receptor encoded on chromosome 19 (ref. 1), was inserted between the V and DJ segments of an antibody. This insertion generated, through somatic mutations, broadly reactive antibodies against RIFINs, a type of variant antigen expressed on the surface of Plasmodium falciparum-infected erythrocytes. To investigate how frequently such antibodies are produced in response to malaria infection, we screened plasma from two large cohorts of individuals living in malaria-endemic regions. Here we report that 5-10% of malaria-exposed individuals, but none of the European blood donors tested, have high levels of LAIR1-containing antibodies that dominate the response to infected erythrocytes without conferring enhanced protection against febrile malaria. By analysing the antibody-producing B cell clones at the protein, cDNA and gDNA levels, we characterized additional LAIR1 insertions between the...

Figurations de la nature ambivalente dans l'oeuvre d'Albert Camus Images-principes du décor de l'existence Je suis né pauvre, sous un ciel heureux, dans une nature avec laquelle on se sent un accord, non une hostilité. Je n'ai donc pas commencé par le déchirement, mais par la plénitude. 1

The antimicrobial peptide human α-defensin 5 (HD5) is expressed in Paneth cells, secretory epithelial cells in the small intestine. Unlike other characterized defensins, HD5 is stored in secretory vesicles as a propeptide. The storage quantities of HD5 are ∼90-450 µg per cm 2 of mucosal surface area, which is sufficient to generate microbicidal concentrations in the intestinal lumen. HD5 peptides isolated from the intestinal lumen are proteolytically processed forms-HD5(56-94) and HD5(63-94)-that are cleaved at the Arg 55 -Ala 56 and Arg 62 -Thr 63 sites, respectively.We show here that a specific pattern of trypsin isozymes is expressed in Paneth cells, that trypsin colocalizes with HD5 and that this protease can efficiently cleave HD5 propeptide to forms identical to those isolated in vivo. By acting as a prodefensin convertase in human Paneth cells, trypsin is involved in the regulation of innate immunity in the small intestine.

T-cell growth factor (TCGF or interleukin-2) is an inducible glycoprotein hormone of molecular weight 15,000 (ref. 1) synthesized and secreted by T lymphocytes following activation with antigen or mitogen2,3. TCGF is required for proliferation and expansion of T cells following antigen encounter4,5 and to maintain them in long-term culture in vitro6-9. Full expression of the human immune response requires both the induction of TCGF synthesis and the formation of specific TCGF membrane receptors10,11. Monoclonal antibodies binding TCGF have been prepared12,13. In contrast, antibodies specific for the TCGF membrane receptor have not been identified, nor has the receptor been characterized. We have prepared a monoclonal antibody, termed anti-Tac14,15, which appears to bind to the human membrane receptor for TCGF. In support of this, we now demonstrate that anti-Tac suppresses TCGF induced proliferation of T cells and blocks binding of radiolabelled TCGF to cells from a cloned human continuous T-cell line. Also we have partially purified and characterized the putative TCGF receptor. This receptor is a glycoprotein with a molecular weight (Mr) of 47,000-53,000.

A large variation in prognosis is observed despite the use of clinical prognostic factors in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). It is likely that this variation is due to the different biological properties of the tumour cells. In this work we aimed to identify gene signature that could predict survival in advanced NSCLC. Total RNA was extracted from five 5 μm-thick sections of the FFPE using the High Pure RNA Paraffin Kit (Roche). RNA amplification was performed using WT-Ovation™ FFPE RNA Amplification System V2 (NuGen). The amplified cDNA was then labelled and hybridised onto Illumina HumanRef-8 v3.0 Expression BeadChips. Microarray data analysis was subsequently performed using Genespring GX version 9.0. Out of 75 FFPE samples, only 32 had sufficient RNA quality and quantity for microarray gene expression analysis. Patients were grouped into long and short survival groups based on the time to cancer-related death. After normalization and filtration, 19,002 genes were selected for differential gene expression analysis. A total of 440 genes differed significantly between the long and short survival groups (ANOVA, p <; 0.05, with Benjamini and Hochberg False Discovery Rate multiple testing correction). Unsupervised Hierarchial Clustering with Pearson correlation and average linkage identified two broad clusters of patients corresponding to the long and short survival. Thirteen genes were selected based on the TTest, 2-fold expression changes, principal components analysis and univariate Cox regression analysis and risk scores were calculated for each patient. These gene signatures were independent predictors of survival. The model was validated with a published microarray data from 130 patients with NSCLC. Using Gene Set Analysis (GSA), we found certain biological processes including metastasis and chemotherapy resistance were up-regulated in the short survival group while TID pathway and MAPKKK cascade were enriched in th- - e long survival group. As the conclusion, there is several distinct gene expression profiles associated with survival of patients with advanced stage NSCLC. Survival outcomes in advanced NSCLC could be predicted based on a 13-gene signature.

Sox2 has yet to be determined. Sox2 can act synergistically with Oct3/4 in vitro to activate Oct-Sox enhancers, which regulate the expression of pluripotent stem cellspecific genes, including Nanog, Oct3/4 and Sox2 itself. These findings suggest that Sox2 is required by ES cells for its Oct-Sox enhancer activity. Using inducible Sox2-null mouse ES cells, we show that Sox2 is dispensable for the activation of these Oct-Sox enhancers. In contrast, we demonstrate that Sox2 is necessary for regulating multiple transcription factors that affect Oct3/4 expression and that the forced expression of Oct3/4 rescues the pluripotency of Sox2-null ES cells. These results indicate that the essential function of Sox2 is to stabilize ES cells in a pluripotent state by maintaining the requisite level of Oct3/4 expression.