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"Alessandra Russo"
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A New Antiquity
We tend to think of sixteenth-century European artistic theory as separate from the artworks displayed in the non-European sections of museums. Alessandra Russo argues otherwise. Instead of considering the European experience of \"New World\" artifacts and materials through the lenses of \"curiosity\" and \"exoticism,\" Russo asks a different question: What impact have these works had on the way we currently think about—and theorize—the arts?
Centering her study on a vast corpus of early modern textual and visual sources, Russo contends that the subtlety and inventiveness of the myriad of American, Asian, and African creations that were pillaged, exchanged, and often eventually destroyed in the context of Iberian colonization—including sculpture, painting, metalwork, mosaic, carving, architecture, and masonry—actually challenged and revolutionized sixteenth-century European definitions of what art is and what it means to be human. In this way, artifacts coming from outside Europe between 1400 and 1600 played a definitive role in what are considered distinctively European transformations: the redefinition of the frontier between the \"mechanical\" and the \"liberal\" arts and a new conception of the figure of the artist.
Original and convincing, A New Antiquity is a pathbreaking study that disrupts existing conceptions of Renaissance art and early modern humanity. It will be required reading for art historians specializing in the Renaissance, scholars of Iberian and Latin American cultures and global studies, and anyone interested in anthropology and aesthetics.
eBook
A New Antiquity
We tend to think of sixteenth-century European artistic theory
as separate from the artworks displayed in the non-European
sections of museums. Alessandra Russo argues otherwise. Instead of
considering the European experience of \"New World\" artifacts and
materials through the lenses of \"curiosity\" and \"exoticism,\" Russo
asks a different question: What impact have these works had on the
way we currently think about-and theorize-the arts?
Centering her study on a vast corpus of early modern textual and
visual sources, Russo contends that the subtlety and inventiveness
of the myriad of American, Asian, and African creations that were
pillaged, exchanged, and often eventually destroyed in the context
of Iberian colonization-including sculpture, painting, metalwork,
mosaic, carving, architecture, and masonry-actually challenged and
revolutionized sixteenth-century European definitions of what art
is and what it means to be human. In this way, artifacts coming
from outside Europe between 1400 and 1600 played a definitive role
in what are considered distinctively European transformations: the
redefinition of the frontier between the \"mechanical\" and the
\"liberal\" arts and a new conception of the figure of the
artist.
Original and convincing, A New Antiquity is a
pathbreaking study that disrupts existing conceptions of
Renaissance art and early modern humanity. It will be required
reading for art historians specializing in the Renaissance,scholars
of Iberian and Latin American cultures and global studies, and
anyone interested in anthropology and aesthetics.
eBook
Gut microbiota profile in children affected by atopic dermatitis and evaluation of intestinal persistence of a probiotic mixture
Atopic dermatitis (AD) has been hypothesised to be associated with gut microbiota (GM) composition. We performed a comparative study of the GM profile of 19 AD children and 18 healthy individuals aimed at identifying bacterial biomarkers associated with the disease. The effect of probiotic intake (
Bifidobacterium breve
plus
Lactobacillus salivarius
) on the modulation of GM and the probiotic persistence in the GM were also evaluated. Faecal samples were analysed by real-time PCR and 16S rRNA targeted metagenomics. Although the probiotics, chosen for this study, did not shape the entire GM profile, we observed the ability of these species to pass through the gastrointestinal tract and to persist (only
B. breve
) in the GM. Moreover, the GM of patients compared to CTRLs showed a dysbiotic status characterised by an increase of
Faecalibacterium, Oscillospira, Bacteroides, Parabacteroides
and
Sutterella
and a reduction of short-chain fatty acid (SCFA)-producing bacteria (i.e.,
Bifidobacterium, Blautia, Coprococcus, Eubacterium
and
Propionibacterium
). Taken togheter these results show an alteration in AD microbiota composition with the depletion or absence of some species, opening the way to future probiotic intervention studies.
Journal Article
Gut microbiota signatures in cystic fibrosis: Loss of host CFTR function drives the microbiota enterophenotype
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a disorder affecting the respiratory, digestive, reproductive systems and sweat glands. This lethal hereditary disease has known or suspected links to the dysbiosis gut microbiota. High-throughput meta-omics-based approaches may assist in unveiling this complex network of symbiosis modifications.
The aim of this study was to provide a predictive and functional model of the gut microbiota enterophenotype of pediatric patients affected by CF under clinical stability.
Thirty-one fecal samples were collected from CF patients and healthy children (HC) (age range, 1-6 years) and analysed using targeted-metagenomics and metabolomics to characterize the ecology and metabolism of CF-linked gut microbiota. The multidimensional data were low fused and processed by chemometric classification analysis.
The fused metagenomics and metabolomics based gut microbiota profile was characterized by a high abundance of Propionibacterium, Staphylococcus and Clostridiaceae, including Clostridium difficile, and a low abundance of Eggerthella, Eubacterium, Ruminococcus, Dorea, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, and Lachnospiraceae, associated with overexpression of 4-aminobutyrate (GABA), choline, ethanol, propylbutyrate, and pyridine and low levels of sarcosine, 4-methylphenol, uracil, glucose, acetate, phenol, benzaldehyde, and methylacetate. The CF gut microbiota pattern revealed an enterophenotype intrinsically linked to disease, regardless of age, and with dysbiosis uninduced by reduced pancreatic function and only partially related to oral antibiotic administration or lung colonization/infection.
All together, the results obtained suggest that the gut microbiota enterophenotypes of CF, together with endogenous and bacterial CF biomarkers, are direct expression of functional alterations at the intestinal level. Hence, it's possible to infer that CFTR impairment causes the gut ecosystem imbalance.This new understanding of CF host-gut microbiota interactions may be helpful to rationalize novel clinical interventions to improve the affected children's nutritional status and intestinal function.
Journal Article
Iterative Learning of Answer Set Programs from Context Dependent Examples
In recent years, several frameworks and systems have been proposed that extend Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) to the Answer Set Programming (ASP) paradigm. In ILP, examples must all be explained by a hypothesis together with a given background knowledge. In existing systems, the background knowledge is the same for all examples; however, examples may be context-dependent. This means that some examples should be explained in the context of some information, whereas others should be explained in different contexts. In this paper, we capture this notion and present a context-dependent extension of the Learning from Ordered Answer Sets framework. In this extension, contexts can be used to further structure the background knowledge. We then propose a new iterative algorithm, ILASP2i, which exploits this feature to scale up the existing ILASP2 system to learning tasks with large numbers of examples. We demonstrate the gain in scalability by applying both algorithms to various learning tasks. Our results show that, compared to ILASP2, the newly proposed ILASP2i system can be two orders of magnitude faster and use two orders of magnitude less memory, whilst preserving the same average accuracy.
Journal Article
Antioxidant and Anti-Proliferative Activity of Essential Oil and Main Components from Leaves of Aloysia polystachya Harvested in Central Chile
The aim of this study was to determine, first, the chemical composition of Aloysia polystachya (Griseb) Moldenke essential oil, from leaves harvested in central Chile; and second, its antioxidant and cytotoxic activity. Eight compounds were identified via gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analyses, with the most representative being R-carvone (91.03%), R-limonene (4.10%), and dihydrocarvone (1.07%). For Aloysia polystachya essential oil, antioxidant assays (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), H2O2, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), and total reactive antioxidant potential (TRAP)) showed good antioxidant activity compared to commercial antioxidant controls; and anti-proliferative assays against three human cancer cell lines (colon, HT-29; prostate, PC-3; and breast, MCF-7) determined an IC50 of 5.85, 6.74, and 9.53 µg/mL, and selectivity indices of 4.75, 4.12, and 2.92 for HT-29, PC-3, and MCF-7, respectively. We also report on assays with CCD 841 CoN (colon epithelial). Overall, results from this study may represent, in the near future, developments for natural-based cancer treatments.
Journal Article
Phylogenetic and Metabolic Tracking of Gut Microbiota during Perinatal Development
The colonization and development of gut microbiota immediately after birth is highly variable and depends on several factors, such as delivery mode and modality of feeding during the first months of life. A cohort of 31 mother and neonate pairs, including 25 at-term caesarean (CS) and 6 vaginally (V) delivered neonates (DNs), were included in this study and 121 meconium/faecal samples were collected at days 1 through 30 following birth. Operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were assessed in 69 stool samples by phylogenetic microarray HITChip and inter- and intra-individual distributions were established by inter-OTUs correlation matrices and OTUs co-occurrence or co-exclusion networks. 1H-NMR metabolites were determined in 70 stool samples, PCA analysis was performed on 55 CS DNs samples, and metabolome/OTUs co-correlations were assessed in 45 CS samples, providing an integrated map of the early microbiota OTUs-metabolome. A microbiota \"core\" of OTUs was identified that was independent of delivery mode and lactation stage, suggesting highly specialized communities that act as seminal colonizers of microbial networks. Correlations among OTUs, metabolites, and OTUs-metabolites revealed metabolic profiles associated with early microbial ecological dynamics, maturation of milk components, and host physiology.
Journal Article
Management of the Brain: Essential Oils as Promising Neuroinflammation Modulator in Neurodegenerative Diseases
Neuroinflammation, a pivotal factor in the pathogenesis of various brain disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases, has become a focal point for therapeutic exploration. This review highlights neuroinflammatory mechanisms that hallmark neurodegenerative diseases and the potential benefits of essential oils in counteracting neuroinflammation and oxidative stress, thereby offering a novel strategy for managing and mitigating the impact of various brain disorders. Essential oils, derived from aromatic plants, have emerged as versatile compounds with a myriad of health benefits. Essential oils exhibit robust antioxidant activity, serving as scavengers of free radicals and contributing to cellular defense against oxidative stress. Furthermore, essential oils showcase anti-inflammatory properties, modulating immune responses and mitigating inflammatory processes implicated in various chronic diseases. The intricate mechanisms by which essential oils and phytomolecules exert their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects were explored, shedding light on their multifaceted properties. Notably, we discussed their ability to modulate diverse pathways crucial in maintaining oxidative homeostasis and suppressing inflammatory responses, and their capacity to rescue cognitive deficits observed in preclinical models of neurotoxicity and neurodegenerative diseases.
Journal Article