Comte De Research Articles

Elucidation of pineapple softening based on cell wall polysaccharides degradation during storage

The degradation of cell wall polysaccharides in pineapple fruit during softening was investigated in the present study. Two pectin fractions and two hemicellulose fractions were extracted from the cell wall materials of ‘Comte de Paris’ pineapple fruit at five softening stages, and their compositional changes were subsequently analyzed. The process of softening of the fruit corresponded to an increase in the water-soluble pectin (WSP) and 1 M KOH-soluble hemicellulose (HC1) fractions, and a decrease in the acid-soluble pectin (ASP) fraction, which suggested the solubilization and conversion of cellular wall components. However, the content of 4 M KOH-soluble hemicellulose (HC2) decreased and then returned to the initial level. Furthermore, WSP, ASP, and HC1 showed an increment in the content of low molecular weight polymers while a decline in the high molecular weight polymers throughout softening, and not significant change in the contents of different molecular polymers of HC2 was observed. Moreover, the galacturonic acid (GalA) content in the main chain of WSP was maintained at a relatively constant level, but the major branch monosaccharide galactose (Gal) in WSP decreased. Different from WSP, the molar percentages of Gal and GalA in ASP decreased. The Gal or Arabinose (Ara) in HC1 exhibited a gradual decline while the molar percentages of xylose (Xyl) and glucose (Glu) in the main chain increased. These suggested that the main chain of ASP degraded while the branched chains of ASP, WSP and HC1 depolymerized during pineapple softening. Overall, fruit softening of ‘Comte de Paris’ pineapple was found to be the result of differential modification of pectin and hemicellulose.

A Lullian divertissement for King William III at Kensington in 1698

Abstract On 13 May 1698, according to the London press, ‘there was fine Dancing at Kensington, where his Majesty was present, as also his Excellency the French Ambassador’. The ‘Dancing’ referred to was a vocal and danced entertainment called (with many allusions to the beauties of Kensington Palace) Le Palais des Plaisirs, and probably staged at the behest of the new French ambassador, Camille d’Hostun, comte de Tallard, as part of the series of delicate negotiations in London following the signing of the Peace of Ryswick the previous year. The French libretto of the Kensington divertissement indicates that it was created out of extracts from scenes in earlier French court entertainments and operas, their music by Lully and words by Molière, Benserade and Quinault. The vocal music and dances for each of the five entrées were performed by members of the Paris Opéra and the London theatres, with choreography devised by Anthony L’Abbé, newly arrived in London from the Paris Opéra.

Romanticism and Deaf Justice

ABSTRACT Thomas Holcroft’s Deaf and Dumb (1801), an adaptation of J. N. Bouilly’s L’Abbé de L’Épée (1799), is a foundational story for deaf justice that models educational access as a route to self-determination for deaf people. Based on the real story of the Comte de Solar, Bouilly’s play, and its many translations, recounts the story of an abandoned deaf child who is rescued by the Abbé, taught sign language and restored to his family. This article follows the progress of the tale as it is reworked by deaf and hearing writers, circulating extensively in many genres on both sides of the Atlantic over the next two hundred years. Holcroft’s version is closely tied to fundraising for deaf schools, and is an important example of transatlantic exchange between deaf Anglophone and Francophone worlds. Although Holcroft’s play was embraced by pioneer deaf educators, such as Laurent Clerc, its sentimentality has proved to be problematic, as this article will also explore. The Solar story is, nevertheless, significant for the attention it pays to a number of deaf justice issues: the rights to family life and name; property ownership and inheritance; education and literacy; access to communication and community; and legal protections.

Defining the Aristocrat: From Geneva to Revolutionary France

In the political and social language of the early modern period, aristocracy did not denote a social class, but a form of state or government. At the dawn of the revolutionary age, however, the concept of aristocracy suddenly moved to the centre of disputes over the new political and social order in European states—and with it the previously unknown figure of the aristocrat. This article traces the conceptual history of aristocracy and aristocrats between about 1760 and 1789. It argues that the rise of these revolutionary battle terms was largely rooted in the constitutional struggles of the small Geneva Republic, which were widely observed and commented throughout Europe. Protagonists such as the Geneva opposition leaders and writers François d’Ivernois and Étienne Clavière, and the French philosophers and politicians Jacques-Pierre Brissot and Honoré Gabriel de Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, were involved in translating these concepts from the political language of republicanism into the context of the French monarchy, where members of the nobility were now denounced as aristocrats in the run-up to the Estates General. The outbreak of the French Revolution and its perception throughout Europe ultimately shaped the meanings of the concepts of aristocracy and aristocrat in the modern world.

The sceptre of moderation: Montlosier and the emergence of the modern right in the French counter-revolution

ABSTRACT Intellectual historians have tended to focus on the most radical intellectuals of the counter-revolution such as Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald, but the counter-revolution was an intellectually composite movement with many intellectual currents and ideas. In this article, I shed light on the composite character of the counter-revolution by focusing on one of its most moderate members, the comte de Montlosier. The article presents contextualised analysis of Montlosier’s conception of moderation, his theory of politics, his critique of fellow counter-revolutionaries, and his ideas for a new aristocratic order build on public opinion and separation of powers. I argue that Montlosier’s moderate politics reflected a moderate enlightenment approach to politics, which was neither wholly rationalist nor wholly traditionalist. Rather, it was an attempt to find a middle ground between the two integrating a conservative view of history with a sociological approach to power and politics. I furthermore argue that even if Montlosier was unsuccessful in his endeavours to moderate the counter-revolution, he nonetheless provided a moderate response to it that would become integral to nineteenth-century conservative and liberal ideas.

Insects and the American Farmer: Crèvecœur's Response to Buffon's and Raynal's Theories of American Nature

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur's Letters from an American Farmer includes memorable scenes in which the farmer revives bees he has rescued from the craw of a king bird, and welcomes a hornet's nest inside his house. As I will argue, the book represented insects in a sentimental manner, as a retort to theories advanced by Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, and Georges-Louis Leclerc, comte de Buffon, that insects were noxious and overabundant in America. Insects played a key role in the late eighteenth-century controversy Antonio Gerbi called “the Dispute of the New World,” in which Crèvecœur's book weighed in to promote the North American colonies. In the collection of manuscript essays Crèvecœur presented to London publisher Davis and Davies in 1781, some described plagues ruining crops, or swarms biting colonists, but these texts were passed over, and not published until the 1920s. The article traces Crèvecœur's interactions with Buffon and with Raynal, who were variously rivals and mentors to him, as well as examining how the French-American soldier, farmer, author, and diplomat survived two revolutions and laid down principles today associated with sustainable agriculture.

D'Aulnoy's Histoire d'Hypolite : A Manifesto for the Subversive Power of Music

Abstract: It is well known that Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy's historical novel, Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas contains the first literary fairy tale in the French tradition and that the dynamic between novel and fairy tale in this work provided French readers with a model of production and reception for the publication of future tales. However, in creating a manifesto for the fairy tale as a new literary genre, Histoire d'Hypolite also provided a model for the ways in which the incorporation of music in fairy tales could advance the socio-political agendas of authors interested in subverting Louis XIV's absolutism while simultaneously avoiding censorship. This essay examines how the model that the novel's main character Hypolite advances for incorporating music into fairy tales was reprised in the fairy tales and frame novels that d'Aulnoy composed over the course of the decade that followed the publication of Histoire d'Hypolite . Although musical interventions in literary texts are more commonly known for distilling the particularities of fictional and dramatic works into aphorism and for transforming the diegetic universe of the text into the universal appeal of a social or emotional lesson, in Hypolite's model, the musical interventions do not refer back to the diegesis of the tale. Rather, they comment directly on the teller's reality, serving as a means of communication with the tale's intended audience and encouraging cooperation from that audience in a collective endeavor to resist patriarchal oppression and the political systems that sustain it.

"I Told Him That the French Army Being Auxiliary in This Continent, It Was Up to the American General to Give His Orders": The Paradoxes of French Military Operations in America, 1778–1783

Abstract: On 19 October 1781, at the surrender of Yorktown, the Comte de Rochambeau replied to the British general Charles O'Hara, who wanted to give his sword to Rochambeau rather than George Washington, that the French army was only auxiliary on this continent. This reply corresponded exactly to the mission defined at Versailles the previous year. But it is surprising: how can a great military power take orders from a smaller one? The answer lies in the evolution of the practical arrangements for Franco-American military cooperation between 1778 and 1781. France sent large naval and land forces across the Atlantic. But for success to be possible, the French and Americans had to be able to act together, and French sailors and soldiers had to be able to master combined operations.

Audre Lorde, Myth, and the Problem of the Other

The presence of blacks in the United States of America today constitutes one of the most peculiar phenomena in the history of modern man. Never had such a significant abduction of a people from their fatherland been recorded. Blacks were considered beasts of burden and property but did not create the language or metaphors by which they were defined. Having neither logos nor identity, they craved the motherland. To perpetuate slavery and colonialism, the white imperialists made up fallacious philosophical arguments that negated the selfhood of blacks. The white subject defined them as the “Other” and objectified them. Racist theorists like Thomas Jefferson, Friedrich Hegel, and Comte de Gobineau posited the black person as the antithesis of the white man. In “Notes on the State of Virginia”, Jefferson sets the “Negro” as an evil force within the nation. In Philosophy of History, Hegel argues that the “negro” stands outside the history of intellectual, technological, moral and cultural progress driven by reason. The history of the Negro stands outside of intellectual history, and so only by colonisation can the black be civilised. As Michelle Wright makes us understand, however, Senghor was to draw heavily from Gobineau in theorising negritude. Gobineau did concede the emotional and artistic component to blacks.

Postharvest treatments influenced the incidence of internal browning, phenol, ABA, AND GA3 contents of two pineapple clones

Phenol is an internal browning (IB) enzymatic reaction substrate and endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) used to suppress IB incidence in the Comte de Paris cultivar (Queen type). There is no information on the correlation between pineapple IB to endogenous total phenol content (TPC), ABA, and gibberellic acid 3 (GA3) after postharvest applications of decrowning. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze the relationship of IB incidence to total TPC, ABA, and GA3 after postharvest treatments of decrowning and coating in GP3 and MD2 pineapple clones. The structure was based on a completely randomized design with 3 factors, namely clone (GP3 and MD2), decrowning (crown and crownless), and coating [50 mg L-1 ABA, 1% chitosan, ABA+Chitosan mixture, and control (H2O)]. The results showed that the MD2 had a lower IB incidence and higher TPC than the GP3 stored at 7°C for 37 days. The increased TPC was positively correlated with IB incidence. TPC was also negatively correlated with ABA but positively with endogenous GA3 2 weeks earlier. Coating with 50 mg L-1 ABA and 1% chitosan on MD2 decreased IB incidence. Pineapple crown pruning decreased ABA and increased TPC, GA3, and IB incidence.

Integrative Analysis of Metabolome and Transcriptome Provides Insights into the Mechanism of Flower Induction in Pineapple (Ananas comosus (L.) Merr.) by Ethephon.

Exogenous ethylene is commonly utilized to initiate flower induction in pineapple (Ananas comosus (L.) Merr.). However, the molecular mechanisms and metabolic changes involved are not well understood. In this study, we explored the genetic network and metabolic shifts in the 'Comte de Paris' pineapple variety during ethylene-induced flowering. This was achieved through an integrative analysis of metabolome and transcriptome profiles at vegetative shoot apexes (0 d after ethephon treatment named BL_0d), the stage of bract primordia (8 d after ethephon treatment named BL_8d), stage of flower primordia (18 d after ethephon treatment named BL_18d), and the stage of stopped floret differentiation (34 d after ethephon treatment named BL_34d). We isolated and identified 804 metabolites in the pineapple shoot apex and inflorescence, categorized into 24 classes. Notably, 29, 31, and 46 metabolites showed significant changes from BL_0d to BL_8d, BL_8d to BL_18d, and BL_18d to BL_34d, respectively. A marked decrease in indole was observed, suggesting its role as a characteristic metabolite during flower induction. Transcriptomic analysis revealed 956, 1768, and 4483 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) for BL_0d vs. BL_8d, BL_8d vs. BL_18d, and BL_18d vs. BL_34d, respectively. These DEGs were significantly enriched in carbohydrate metabolism and hormone signaling pathways, indicating their potential involvement in flower induction. Integrating metabolomic and transcriptomic data, we identified several candidate genes, such as Agamous-Like9 (AGL9), Ethylene Insensitive 3-like (ETIL3), Apetala2 (AP2), AP2-like ethylene-responsive transcription factor ANT (ANT), and Sucrose synthase 2 (SS2), that play potentially crucial roles in ethylene-induced flower induction in pineapple. We also established a regulatory network for pineapple flower induction, correlating metabolites and DEGs, based on the Arabidopsis thaliana pathway as a reference. Overall, our findings offer a deeper understanding of the metabolomic and molecular mechanisms driving pineapple flowering.

A Tale of Enduring Myths: Buffon’s Theory of Animal Degeneration and the Regeneration of Domesticated Animals in Mid-19th Century Brazil

The long 19th century was a period of many developments and technical innovations in agriculture and animal biology, during which actors sought to incorporate new practices in light of new information. By the middle of the century, however, while heredity steadily became the dominant concept in animal husbandry, some policies related to livestock improvement in Brazil seemed to have been tailored following a climate-deterministic concept established in the mid-18th century by the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon. His theory of animal degeneration posited, among other things, the necessity of recurrent crossbreeding to preserve animal species living in nonnative environments from climate-induced degeneration. Although largely discredited by the early 19th century, the teachings of the French naturalist seem to have found supporters in a Brazilian program to modernize national agriculture through the application of the natural sciences. Herein I examine the revival of Buffon’s theories in that government-sponsored program to improve animal husbandry and breeding techniques, including actual applications of this theory in the real world. Ultimately, I argue that Buffon’s theory of degeneration was used to tailor public policies and funding for the improvement of domesticated animals in Brazil between 1856 and 1860.

Integration of Metabolomics and Transcriptomics to Explore Dynamic Alterations in Fruit Color and Quality in 'Comte de Paris' Pineapples during Ripening Processes.

Pineapple color yellowing and quality promotion gradually manifest as pineapple fruit ripening progresses. To understand the molecular mechanism underlying yellowing in pineapples during ripening, coupled with alterations in fruit quality, comprehensive metabolome and transcriptome investigations were carried out. These investigations were conducted using pulp samples collected at three distinct stages of maturity: young fruit (YF), mature fruit (MF), and fully mature fruit (FMF). This study revealed a noteworthy increase in the levels of total phenols and flavones, coupled with a concurrent decline in lignin and total acid contents as the fruit transitioned from YF to FMF. Furthermore, the analysis yielded 167 differentially accumulated metabolites (DAMs) and 2194 differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Integration analysis based on DAMs and DEGs revealed that the biosynthesis of plant secondary metabolites, particularly the flavonol, flavonoid, and phenypropanoid pathways, plays a pivotal role in fruit yellowing. Additionally, RNA-seq analysis showed that structural genes, such as FLS, FNS, F3H, DFR, ANR, and GST, in the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway were upregulated, whereas the COMT, CCR, and CAD genes involved in lignin metabolism were downregulated as fruit ripening progressed. APX as well as PPO, and ACO genes related to the organic acid accumulations were upregulated and downregulated, respectively. Importantly, a comprehensive regulatory network encompassing genes that contribute to the metabolism of flavones, flavonols, lignin, and organic acids was proposed. This network sheds light on the intricate processes that underlie fruit yellowing and quality alterations. These findings enhance our understanding of the regulatory pathways governing pineapple ripening and offer valuable scientific insight into the molecular breeding of pineapples.

From Buffon to Coleridge: Sociability and Humanity in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Comparative Anatomy

This article investigates the redefinition of human and animal sociabilities in the light of comparative anatomy. Linnaeus's classification questioned and redrew the frontiers of humanity, raising new debates on what makes a being human, who or what is entitled to humanity, what corrupts humanity, and why some beings degenerate. Enlightenment anthropology, as a new science accommodating itself to philosophical inquiry, became an ideological battleground on which two representations of man's degeneracy were fought out. Was human depravity the consequences of consumption, luxury, and social needs that increasingly characterised European cultures in the eighteenth century, or was it to be understood as a result of physical degeneration, that is, alienation from the civilised world? The natural man, whether as an imaginary state or embodied in ‘wild' creatures, crystallised the anxiety about degeneration and natural forces acting upon bodies and organisms. To ring-fence humanity and distinguish it from the lower orders of nature, typically human attributes were constructed in comparative anatomy discourses. Reason, language and sociality came to characterise human behaviours while animals were deprived of any ‘social’ faculties. Through analogy, the human social group was often compared to insect communities or animal herds, clusters or shoals, yet these animal or insect assemblages were systematically studied from an anthropocentric perspective. The article weaves seemingly disparate discourses - the writings of the Comte de Buffon, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lord Monboddo, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, William Lawrence and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - into a dialogue and debate that decisively defined the nature of human and animal sociabilities.

Discrimination of internal browning in pineapple during storage based on changes in volatile compounds

Internal browning (IB) is a physiological disorder without external symptoms of postharvest pineapples, but whether and how IB influences pineapple volatiles remain unknown. We examined eigenvalues of volatiles in ‘Comte de Paris’ pineapples with or without IB using electronic nose (E-nose) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Correlation coefficients between the responses of E-nose sensors S7 and S9 and IB were 0.836 and 0.804, respectively. The multilayer perceptron neural network and radial basis function neural network models classified IB degree with accuracy of 94.77% and 91.67%. GC–MS analysis revealed 30 volatile substances upregulated in pineapple with IB compared to those without, of which 15 were esters. IB regulated volatile compound synthesis through the lipoxygenase pathway which involved lipoxygenase, pyruvate decarboxylase 1, alcohol dehydrogenases, acyl-CoA oxidase 1, and alcohol acyltransferase genes and their related enzymes. These results suggested that volatiles regulated by IB could be used to discriminate IB severity in pineapples.

From the History of the Decipherment of West Semitic Writing: Events and People. VII. Barthélemy-Orientalist: Between Scholarship and High Society. Part III

The article is the third essay on the life and scholarly activity of the outstanding French scholar Abbоt J.-J. Barthlemy as part of a series of publications on the history of the decipherment of West Semitic writing (events and people). The essay examines the circumstances of Barthlemys appointment in September 1753 to the post of the Keeper of the Royal Cabinet of Medals. This event, long awaited by the abbot, became possible with the help and mediation of Marquis de Gonto and Comte de Stanville, both close to Marquise de Pompadour. Some events that led to the rapprochement of the influential mistress of the king with Comte de Stanville may, in a sense, be regarded as a background to this important appointment for Barthlemy. This Barthlemys appointment to a new post was the occasion for his personal acquaintance with de Stanville family, with whom the abbot would associate for the rest of his life and to which, by his own admission, he would sacrifice his scholarly career and the name that he could have in scholarship.

Сторінки історії Національного музею природознавства (Париж) в медальєрному мистецтві

The article briefly covers the pages of the history of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris, France), which was established in 1793, inheriting the material base and collections of one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world—the Royal Garden of Medicinal Plants. Contribution to the development of the Royal Garden of Medicinal Plants was made by its leaders and employees: Guy de La Brosse, Guy Crescent Fagon, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, Pierre Chirac, the family of French botanists de Jussieu, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, and Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. After its foundation, the museum was managed, among others, by Louis Jean-Marie D’Aubenton, Bernard Germain Étienne de Laville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède, George-Léopold-Chrétien-Frédéric-Dagobert Cuvier, Michel Eugène Chevreul, Adolphe Théodore Brongniart, André Marie Constant Duméril, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Alphonse Milne-Edwards, Jean Octave Edmond Perrier, Achille Joseph Urbain, Maurice Alfred Fontaine, and Jean Dorst. The heyday of the scientific activity of the Museum was during the long years of leadership of Michel Eugène Chevrel. Table medals of France and the USA, researched and described by the authors of the article, were created to honour these famous scientists. Attention is also drawn to modern tourist medals (tokens) dedicated to the Museum’s facilities: the Garden of the Plants, the Great Evolution Gallery, the Palaeontological Museum (Galleries of Comparative Anatomy and Palaeontology), the Botanical Garden Zoo, and the Vincennes Zoo. The results of the analysis of the medals made it possible to display in a new plane the most vivid pages of the history of the Museum, the function of which is teaching, research, and dissemination of natural science knowledge, its modernity, biographies of outstanding personalities who worked in it. Most of the medals were first introduced into scientific biological circulation. The obtained information once again confirmed the possibility of using objects that are studied by special historical disciplines (in this case, the section of numismatics, medal art) for the study of the history of science.

(2958) Proposal to conserve the name Marattia attenuata (Ptisana attenuata) against M. acuminata (Marattiaceae)

(2958) Proposal to conserve the name <i>Marattia attenuata</i> (<i>Ptisana attenuata</i>) against <i>M. acuminata</i> (<i>Marattiaceae</i>)

Capture: American Pursuits and the Making of a New Animal Condition

Capture: American Pursuits and the Making of a New Animal Condition

Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton and the Royal Society: three unnoticed letters at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

This article brings attention to three manuscript letters by Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton in the Darmstaedter collection at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, two of which are published here for the first time. Of principal interest is a 1678 letter from Hooke to Newton, which concerns the controversy with Anthony Lucas over Newton's prism experiments and Hooke's disinclination ‘to print transactions’ on behalf of the Royal Society. A second Hooke letter, written to the French savant Nicolas Toinard in 1680, sends some astronomical observations together with English mathematician Robert Wood's book on a proposed calendrical reform. While the text of the third item, a 1706 letter by Newton welcoming its addressee into the Royal Society, has long been available in draft form, the Darmstaedter manuscript allows the recipient to be identified as a Savoyard diplomat, the Comte de Briançon, who can further be recognized as the intended addressee of another Newton letter.