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This essay begins with a phenomenological outline of the interchangeability of the terms 'form' and 'matter', and the transitivity of their relationship in metaphysics and aesthetics, when placed in the context of linguistic deconstruction. It then argues for an operative, rather than resultative, approach to 'form', pointing out that in a created cosmos created minds only ever approach substantial (metaphysical) forms by making use of language, i.e. by inventing linguistic forms. From there, the argument turns to the special language of the Scriptures, when read both in their historical relativity and as vehicles of the transcendent divine Word, and explores the analogy between the paradoxes of the matter‐form pair and several features of the Scriptures, such as the Möbius strip‐like enunciative structure, in which human and divine voices are reciprocally interwoven. Christ, the principle of the unity of the divine and human voices of the Scriptures, appears as the source of all the analogical instances of the transitivity and reversibility of form‐matter duality. Even more profoundly than his restoration of the signum, Christ re‐establishes 'form' in its interaction with 'matter'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multispectral digital in-line holographic microscopy (DIHM), aberrations of the optical system affect the repeatability of the reconstruction of transmittance, phase and morphology of the objects of interest. Here we address this issue first by model fitting calibration using transparent beads inserted in the sample. This step estimates the aberrations of the optical system as a function of the lateral position in the field of view and at each wavelength. Second, we use a regularized inverse problem approach (IPA) to reconstruct the transmittance and phase of objects of interest. Our method accounts for shift-variant chromatic and geometrical aberrations in the forward model. The multi-wavelength holograms are jointly reconstructed by favouring the colocalization of the object edges. The method is applied to the case of bacteria imaging in Gram-stained blood smears. It shows our methodology evaluates aberrations with good repeatability. This improves the repeatability of the reconstructions and delivers more contrasted spectral signatures in transmittance and phase, which could benefit applications of microscopy, such as the analysis and classification of stained bacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A professor of The École Biblique in Jerusalem doesn't offer a general description of Jewish-Christian interreligious dialogue but a personal insight into the stages of discovering Israel's specificity by a western catholic. He describes existential troubles of a catholic living in Israel and experiencing bulling by the state, e.g. through the unclearly defined status of Christian communities in the country. Venard criticises the idea that a western man should automatically love and support Israel regarding a guilty conscience or as an expression of antipathy toward Islam. He also writes about theological difficulties. A catholic is theologically interested in a dialogue with the older brothers in faith, but morally attracted to oppressed Palestinians. His conscience experiences a deep conflict. In addition, Orthodox Jews express no interest in any dialogue. Venard comes to the conclusion that Israel today is for a catholic an opportunity to cultivate his spiritual power, inner freedom and Christian hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay calls for a decolonization of European foreign policy in the Maghreb. Specifically, it identifies neo-Orientalizing dynamics within the EU foreign policy-making apparatus by tracking the contradictory and fragmenting effects of the European Neighbourhood Programme (ENP) on the promotion of economic development in Morocco and Tunisia. Drawing on sustained fieldwork conducted by one of the authors in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in both these countries, and inspired by a mid-twentieth century intellectual legacy emerging in and from the Maghreb, the essay proposes an “other thinking” (pensée autre) capable of refiguring the Europe–Maghreb relation beyond the stalemate offered by ENPI. Such a rethinking, it is argued, would consider more explicitly the presence of political Islam as a vector of economic development in ways that restage the Euro-Maghreb as a postcolonial horizon rather than a fixed border between self-sufficient geopolitical entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution has three overarching objectives. First, it seeks to describe the logics of fracture and cohesion governing current geopolitical dynamics in the Mediterranean. Second, in the face of these contradictory tendencies, it proposes the notion of archipelago-frontier as a concept for deepening our understanding of an ever more dispersed and ubiquitous geography defining the Southern border of the EU. In this light we draw on the contemporary resonances of the destabilising cartographic imagination of Al-Idrissi (1100-1165). And we argue that, read today, it helps us rethink the current symbolic, terminological (and hence geopolitical) abduction of the Mediterranean by the European Union, which the very term 'Euromediterranean' encapsulates. Finally, the paper underlines the necessity of forging new vistas on the Mediterranean engendering perspectives that are more dialogical, plurivocal and sensitive to permanent transformation, as evoked by a long-term spatial as well as political horizon of struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the work of philosopher-semiotician Louis Marin, this contribution to Outlook on Europe reveals the 'spatial play' of contending outlooks hovering fitfully over the construction of a bridge at the 'ends of Europe', in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, on that very spot where French Guiana and Brazil, the European Union and Mercosul, physically touch one another over a muddy tributary, the Rio Oyapock. The inter-play of visions colliding around the Oyapock bridge, it is argued, illuminates the paradoxes and contradictions of European territorial governance in the globalised time-space of its postcolonial frontiers. In spite of the high geopolitical rhetoric seeking to unite both continents, the peculiar blindness of Europe's metropolitan gaze vis-à-vis indigenous difference sets the stage for perverse effects of exclusion and disempowerment in and around the site of the bridge itself, extending far into its regional hinterlands. Framed against the backdrop of a long, 'utopian' modernity of European imperial expansion and territorial conquest, the ghostly spatial dynamics surrounding the Oyapock River bridge project serve to illuminate wider challenges to the projection of EU influence 'in the world'. A close examination of similar dynamics elsewhere may help bring into focus the lineaments of a more fully confident and mature postcolonial European border studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proposing an ‘inverted telescope’ for border studies, we problematized existing calls to ‘see like a border’, arguing that such moves miss an opportunity to define what is properlypoliticalabout b/ordering space. Inverting the telescope on borders that matter reveals an ontologically grounded politics of bordering, one that illuminates an inherent multiplicity to borders that can best be captured in those contact zones that resist our conventional understanding of where European borders lie. Focusing on localized bordering practices that contest demarcation and re-appropriation within the logics of global, European and state-centered geopolitical designs, we canvas the ontological politics emerging from the furnace of three spatio-temporal European horizons: the Istrian peninsula connecting Slovenia and Croatia; the historical, path-dependent trajectory of a seasonal labor force crossing Polish and Danish borders; and a ‘European’ border located deep in Amazonía. We name the space produced by the tensions in each of these theatersCafé Europa, designating both a material location of border praxis as well as a collective intellectual project in which the authors are themselves self-reflexively implicated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses scriptural hermeneutics and the Thomistic teachings about the making of a doctrine of God. Topics discussed include paradigmatic theopany, the burning bush in the Holy Scripture and the revealed name in Exodus 3:14 and the faithfulness of St. Thomas Aquinas' theology to poetics, aesthetics and pedagogy of theophanies.

Sclareol is a high-value natural product obtained by solid/liquid extraction of clary sage (Salvia sclarea L.) inflorescences. Because processes of excretion and accumulation of this labdane diterpene are unknown, the aim of this work was to gain knowledge on its sites of accumulation in planta. Samples were collected in natura or during different steps of the industrial process of extraction (steam distillation and solid/liquid extraction). Samples were then analysed with a combination of complementary analytical techniques (gas chromatography coupled to a mass spectrometer, polarized light microscopy, environmental scanning electron microscopy, two-photon fluorescence microscopy, second harmonic generation microscopy). According to the literature, it is hypothesized that sclareol is localized in oil pockets of secretory trichomes. This study demonstrates that this is not the case and that sclareol accumulates in a crystalline epicuticular form, mostly on calyces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the meaning of border activist in today world. It informs that the topic was initiated the scholary organization, the Association for Borderlands Studies (ABS) meeting, held from September 23-25, 2010 in Veroia, Greece. It states that the panel also expressed ideas on 19th century architectural dream emerging from the thought and actions of French socialist-utopian Charles Fourier.

In 1930 the French historian Lucien Febvre and geographer Albert Demangeon were commissioned to coauthor a book on the Rhine. In preparation for this volume, and with war clouds gathering on the horizon, they took an upriver Rhineland journey into Europe's heart of darkness. Around this time, Febvre began taking notes for what would later become his magisterial study of Francois Rabelais. From the intellectual cross-fertilization of these apparently unrelated events this paper suggests Febvre inaugurates a political moment for European border studies, with important resonances for our day. This moment, derived from Febvre's analysis of the Rhine as a vast, integrating force in the modern period and his reading of Rabelais's own stubbornly persistent religiosity, suggests a method for border studies that takes into account the temporal specificity of borders in European history and trains attention on the everyday 'mentalities' of those inhabiting lived borders, while foregrounding the problem of the Other as central to any proper understanding of the spatiality of borders. In thus posing the border as a geohistorical histoire-probléme, Febvre reinjects the notion of possibility into border studies and makes of border space a properly political object of re-worlding. The paper then reviews a selection of canonical texts in border studies dating from the mid to late l990s and invites a dialogue with the smiling figure of Rabelais. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on the relationship between theology and literature. The author offers his thoughts on overcoming the dualist understanding if these disciplines, discerning their common ground, and elaborating the formal object of the interdisciplinary research. It discusses the dualist approach to literature and theology, the reason for the ongoing conflict, and combining the literary and theological insights.

• Reconstruction of objects of interest shifted relative to a fixed background in digital holography microscopy. • Unmixing of the coherent background noise and the signal of interest, using only two shifted in-line holograms. • Optimal inverse problems based approach inverting a forward model that accounts for the interferences between the two signals. • Demonstration on shifted holograms of bacteria. In-line digital holography is a simple yet powerful tool to image absorbing and/or phase objects. However, the holograms of interest are corrupted by the background signal due to unwanted scattering elements located in the optical path. Using only two holograms of the same object, shifted to different locations, an inverse problems approach is applied to jointly estimate the complex transmittance of the sample and the contribution of the interferent background signal at the sensor plane. Experimental results with stained bacteria are presented and show improved reconstructions of the sample while also accounting for the background contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the process of formation of the Christian canon that comes not from a disciplinary disposition but from the dynamics of the Judaism that the first disciples of Jesus followed. The Scriptures of Israel are read by Jesus and His disciples as an announcement of the events of His life, which in turn indicate the fulfillment of these Scriptures. This is done in the light of the Holy Spirit and maybe also in the liturgical context. Afterwards, the Scripture that forms the canon, because of its Scriptural quality, became the living word in diverse Church practices of actualization: the liturgy, the lectio divina, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Notions of immanence provide the implicit theoretical grammar for much work exploring the political terrain of an active transnational or radically cosmopolitan society in our day. In this paper I attempt to problematize such a gesture in the recent `turn to cosmopolis', arguing that its conceptual frame fails to specify adequately the geohistorical preconditions for a politics capable of mediating between nationalizing and cosmopolitanizing tendencies at work in a globalizing world. For the case of Europe, I argue such a legacy may be more productively located in the `border work' of mid-2Oth-century anti-imperialism and decolonization, whose struggles to redefine the postcolonial couplet of `nation' and `state' haunt current attempts by the European Union to craft a more inclusive and cosmopolitan transboundary future. I explore how such governmentalizing phantasms specifically inform attempts to create viable cross-border regions (euregios) within the EU, and continue to gnaw at attempts to negotiate boundary disputes at the outer limits of the continent. In conclusion, a cautious rite of exorcism is ventured by engaging with the elusive anti-imperial cosmopolitanism of Frantz Fanon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the failed geopolitics of European Union (EU) enlargement in the case of Cyprus. Cyprus joined EU on May 1, 2004, along with the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. A brief history of the island of Cyprus is presented. A forecast on the EU-Cyprus relationship is discussed.

Interprets the narrative of early 20th century Catalan cultural history in Spain. Issues relating to human geography and regional political economy; Role of culture and aesthetic reflexivity as constitutive features of place-making under conditions of late capitalist modernity; Role of the city in the formation of modern consciousness; Aspects of Catalan cultural industry.

Much recent writing on the restructuring of the nation-state presupposes a functionalist and unidirectional logic defined by capital-centric 'jumping of scales' and 'spatial fixes'. This is the guiding trope underlying much work on emergent forms of supra- as well as sub-national regional governance within the European Union. In this paper, the author takes issue with such formulations as they apply to Europe's cross-border regions, arguing that their territorial dynamics must be embedded within a larger geo-historical framework which takes into account another period of attempted capital-centred transcendence—namely, European overseas imperialism. Drawing on early 20th-century Marxist theories of imperialism, the author juxtaposes the period of state scale restructuring within the Dutch colonial context in Indonesia with contemporary efforts at cross-border institution-building in the Dutch-German-Belgian euregios. In so doing, he sketches the conditions for new forms of post-scalar, trans-sovereign political agency that may be emerging at the interstices of the European interstate system. European state theory is thereby invited to engage with broader post-colonial debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early systemic sclerosis (Scleroderma, SSc), the vasculature is impaired. Although the exact etiology of endothelial cell damage in SSc remains unclear, it is hypothesized that endothelial to mesenchymal transition (EndoMT) plays a key role. To perform physiologically relevant angiogenic studies, we set out to develop an angiogenesis-on-a-chip platform that is suitable for assessing disease parameters that are relevant to SSc and other vasculopathies. In the model, we substituted Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS) with Human Serum without impairing the stability of the culture. We showed that 3D microvessels and angiogenic factor-induced sprouts exposed to key pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic cytokines (TNFα and TGFβ) undergo structural alterations consisting of destructive vasculopathy (loss of small vessels). We also showed that these detrimental effects can be prevented by compound-mediated inhibition of TGFβ-ALK5 signaling or addition of a TNFα neutralizing antibody to the 3D cultures. This demonstrates that our in vitro model is suitable for compound testing and identification of new drugs that can protect from microvascular destabilization or regression in disease-mimicking conditions. To support this, we demonstrated that sera obtained from SSc patients can exert an anti-angiogenic effect on the 3D vessel model, opening the doors to screening for potential SSc drugs, enabling direct patient translatability and personalization of drug treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Genetic differences between blood and mucosal-derived HIV-1 strains have been widely reported. As amplification of HIV-1 strains from mucosal samples including semen or saliva by co-culture has low sensitivity, we developed the construction of chimeric viruses expressing wild-type seminal HIV-1 envelope protein. Chimeric viruses were produced by co-transfection of a V1–V3 deleted pNL 43 vector and PCR fragments spanning the deleted region, amplified from HIV-1 RNA positive seminal plasma samples. After an initial testing of co-receptor usage by a tropism recombinant test, replication capacity and amplification of these recombinant viruses were assessed using PBMC. Four chimeric replicative strains, all using CXCR4 as coreceptor, were produced. The interaction between cell-free viral particles and reporter cell lines was assessed by confocal microscopy. These replicative chimeras exhibiting HIV-1 env from seminal strains represent useful tools for the in vitro study of the heterosexual transmission of HIV-1 and testing of microbicide activity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: Dendritic cells (DCs) are antigen presenting cells capable of inducing innate and adaptive immune responses. According to the stimulus and their maturation state, DCs induce immunogenic or tolerogenic responses. Platelets (PLTs), which are involved in haemostasis and inflammation, can also interact with DCs. In this study, we examined the effect of PLTs on DC maturation in vitro. Human monocyte-derived DCs were co-cultured for 2 days with homologous PLTs either in the same well or in 0.4 µm-pore size filter-separated compartments. Results: Confocal microscopy showed the attachment of PLTs to DC membranes. The DC receptor involved in this interactions was found to be CD162. In addition, we observed that DCs co-cultured with PLTs in filter-separated compartments acquired a mature phenotype (high CD80, CD86, and intermediate CD83 expression; IL-12(p70) production; efficient stimulation of autologous CD4+ T cell proliferation), while DCs co-cultured with PLTs in the same compartment did not undergo phenotypic maturation, did not secrete IL-12(p70) or IL-1β, but instead induced moderate Th2-polarized T cell proliferation. Conclusion: These data indicate that (i) PLTs secrete a soluble DC-activating factor that was demonstrated not to be soluble CD40-Ligand (CD154; as could have been expected from in vivo and previous in vitro work) but to be nucleotide, and (ii) that cell-to-cell contact did not induce DC maturation, possibly because nucleotide release by PLTs was prevented by direct contact with DCs. This work demonstrates that PLTs are active elements of the immune system that might play a role in balancing the ability of DCs to polarize T cell responses, therefore making them critical factors in transfusion processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recruitment of T cells is a crucial component in the inflammatory cascade of the body. The process involves the transport of T cells through the vascular system and their stable arrest to vessel walls at the site of inflammation, followed by extravasation and subsequent infiltration into tissue. Here, we describe an assay to study 3D T cell dynamics under flow in real time using a high-throughput, artificial membrane-free microfluidic platform that allows unimpeded extravasation of T cells. We show that primary human T cells adhere to endothelial vessel walls upon perfusion of microvessels and can be stimulated to undergo transendothelial migration (TEM) by TNFα-mediated vascular inflammation and the presence of CXCL12 gradients or ECM-embedded melanoma cells. Notably, migratory behavior was found to differ depending on T cell activation states. The assay is unique in its comprehensiveness for modelling T cell trafficking, arrest, extravasation and migration, all in one system, combined with its throughput, quality of imaging and ease of use. We envision routine use of this assay to study immunological processes and expect it to spur research in the fields of immunological disorders, immuno-oncology and the development of novel immunotherapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A piezoelectric nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) with integrated actuation and detection capabilities was fabricated using lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thin films patterned by microcontact printing. PZT-coated cantilever resonators of various dimensions were fabricated to assess the variability in PZT properties as a function of the device dimensions; the microcontact-printed PZT was 281 nm thick. PZT layers of the cantilevers were poled at 107 kV cm−1 and 150 °C to improve their piezoelectric properties. It was demonstrated that PZT piezoelectrics can be utilized for simultaneous actuation and detection of resonance. The PZT cantilevers were analytically modelled to estimate values of their piezoelectric coefficient d31. Mechanical tip displacement detection of the cantilevers by laser vibrometer was also carried out to validate the estimation of d31. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal cancers due to a high chemoresistance and poor vascularization, which results in an ineffective systemic therapy. PDAC is characterized by a high intratumoral pressure, which is not captured by current 2D and 3D in vitro models. Here, we demonstrated a 3D microfluidic interstitial flow model to mimic the intratumoral pressure in PDAC. We found that subjecting the S2-028 PDAC cell line to interstitial flow inhibits the proliferation, while maintaining a high viability. We observed increased gemcitabine chemoresistance, with an almost nine-fold higher EC50 as compared to a monolayer culture (31 nM versus 277 nM), and an alleviated expression and function of the multidrug resistance protein (MRP) family. In conclusion, we developed a 3D cell culture modality for studying intratissue pressure and flow that exhibits more predictive capabilities than conventional 2D cell culture and is less time-consuming, and more scalable and accessible than animal models. This increase in microphysiological relevance might support improved efficiency in the drug development pipeline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the effects of non-ideal clamping shapes on the dynamic behavior of silicon nanocantilevers. We fabricated silicon nanocantilevers using silicon on insulator (SOI) wafers by employing stepper ultraviolet (UV) lithography, which permits a resolution of under 100 nm. The nanocantilevers were driven by electrostatic force inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Both lateral and out-of-plane resonance frequencies were visually detected with the SEM. Next, we discuss overhanging of the cantilever support and curvature at the clamping point in the silicon nanocantilevers, which generally arises in the fabrication process. We found that the fundamental out-of-plane frequency of a realistically clamped cantilever is always lower than that for a perfectly clamped cantilever, and depends on the cantilever width and the geometry of the clamping point structure. Using simulation with the finite-elements method, we demonstrate that this discrepancy is attributed to the particular geometry of the clamping point (non-zero joining curvatures and a flexible overhanging) that is obtained in the fabrication process. The influence of the material orthotropy is also investigated and is shown to be negligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]