Philippe De Research Articles

Influence of follicle stage on artificial ovary outcome using fibrin as a matrix.

STUDY QUESTION: Do primordial-primary versus secondary follicles embedded inside a fibrin matrix have different capabilities to survive and grow after isolation and transplantation? SUMMARY ANSWER: Mouse primordial-primary follicles showed a lower recovery rate than secondary follicles, but both were able to grow. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Fresh isolated mouse follicles and ovarian stromal cells embedded in a fibrin matrix are capable of surviving and developing after short-term autografting. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: In vivo experimental model using 11 donor Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) mice and 11 recipient severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice. Both ovaries from all NMRI mice were mechanically disrupted and primordial-primary and secondary follicles were isolated with ovarian stromal cells. They were then encapsulated in a fibrin matrix composed of 12.5 mg/ml of fibrinogen (F12.5) and 1 IU/ml of thrombin (T1) (F12.5/T1), and grafted to the inner part of the peritoneum of SCID mice for 2 and 7 days. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: This study was conducted at the Gynecology Research Unit, Universite Catholique de Louvain. All materials were used to conduct histological (H-E staining) and immunohistochemical (Ki67, TUNEL) analyses. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Although all grafted fibrin clots were recovered, the follicle recovery rate on day 2 was 16 and 40% for primordial-primary and secondary follicles respectively, while on day 7, it was 6 and 28%. The secondary group showed a significantly higher recovery rate than the primordial-primary group (23%, P-value <0.001). Follicles found in both groups were viable, as demonstrated by live/dead assays, and no difference was observed in the apoptosis rate between groups, as evidenced by TUNEL. Their growth to further stages was confirmed by Ki67 immunostaining. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: As demonstrated by our results, secondary follicles appear to be more likely to survive and develop than primordial-primary follicles in a fibrin matrix after both periods of grafting. These findings may also be attributed to the specific features of the fibrin matrix, which could benefit larger follicles, but not smaller follicles. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: This study is essential to understanding possible impairment caused by factors such as the isolation procedure or fibrin matrix composition to the survival and development of different follicle stages. It therefore provides the basis for further investigations with longer periods of grafting. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTERESTS: This study was supported by grants from the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique (grant Televie No. 7.4578.14 and 7.4627.13, grant 5/4/150/5 awarded to Marie-Madeleine Dolmans), Fonds Speciaux de Recherche, Fondation St Luc, the Foundation Against Cancer, and the Region Wallone (Convention N°6519-OVART) and donations from Mr Pietro Ferrero, Baron Frere and Viscount Philippe de Spoelberch. None of the authors have any competing interests to declare.

Transformative Poetry. A Case Study of W. H. Auden’s Musée Des Beaux Arts and General Conclusions

Abstract This article situates Auden’s poem Musée des Beaux Arts in the process of his conversion to Christianity. The author argues for the layered intertextuality of the poem, in which allusions to Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, The Census at Jerusalem, and The Massacre of the Innocents can be recognised. Moreover, Philippe de Champaigne’s Presentation in the Temple and Peter Paul Rubens’s The Martyrdom of St Livinus (in the same museum in Brussels) seem also to have influenced the poem. Finally, there is reason to suppose that John Singer Sargent’s Crashed Aeroplane influenced Auden. In an analysis of the structure of the poem, the author argues that there is a clear structure hidden under the surface of day-to-day language. He connects this hidden structure with Auden’s poem The Hidden Law, and suggests that Auden wished to claim that even though we cannot understand suffering, it has a hidden meaning known only to God. This hidden meaning connects our suffering with the self-emptying of Christ, a connection which the author demonstrates is in fact also made in Musée des Beaux Arts.

Songe du Viel Pelerin, by Philippe de Mézières, ed. Joël Blanchard with Antoine Calvet and Didier Kahn

Philippe de Mézières (1327–1405) presents modern historians with a difficulty. His career challenges definition: Picard knight, professional soldier, crusader, courtier, scholar, chancellor of Cyprus, councillor to Charles V of France, intimate of monarchs, popes and saints, Celestine recluse, correspondent with Petrarch, promoter and patron of a new religious crusading military order, and author of at least a dozen literary works of hagiography, political commentary, and moral, social and institutional reform that combine allegory and devotional exhortation with autobiography and critiques of current affairs. He wrote in French, yet praised Latin as a superior language. A veteran of the sack of Alexandria in 1365, he was possibly the first French writer to quote Dante. His experience embraced all Christendom from the Baltic to the Levant. Adept at insinuating himself into the favour of the prominent and powerful, he slipped his moorings from one patron to another with silken ease, but ended as an apologist for the Valois kings. He ostensibly (ostentatiously even) abandoned the public stage to act out a literary stereotype of the medieval hermit sage for the last twenty-five years of his life in the Paris house of the Celestines, yet retained close contacts with the French court literally round the corner. We know so much about him (largely through his own testimony), yet he remains an oddly elusive quantity, each facet of his work and life posing contrasts. This is well caught by Joël Blanchard’s introduction to his excellent new edition of the massive Songe du Viel Pelerin of 1389, a magnum opus that argued for a redemptive reform of Christian society, politics, government, administration, credit, finance and justice symbolised in the objective, literal and spiritual, of the crusade and recovery of Jerusalem. Concentrating on excavating what he calls the ‘archaeological strata’ of Mézières’ thought, in addition to discussions of the text, manuscripts, form, style, content and literary references—Biblical, patristic, philosophical and poetic—Blanchard explores allegory, the influence of pseudo-Dionysian models of hierarchy, the links with the academic concerns of the university of Paris and the humanists of Italy, mysticism, magic, alchemy and astrology.

Crusade or Christianization? The polemic against the Teutonic Knights in light of French travelers’ accounts of the late Middle Ages

Crusade or Christianization? The polemic against the Teutonic Knights in light of French travelers’ accounts of the late Middle Ages As a continuation of the political unrest opposing the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania to the Order of the Teutonic Knights, the conversion of the last Baltic pagans was among the cases debated by the council of Constance (1414–1418). While the Teutonic Knights used to storm Lithuania twice a year, with the help of knights coming from all over Europe, Polish spokesmen intended to prove that no baptism could be achieved this way. The aim of this paper is to use narratives relating the experiences of some French travelers (crusaders or diplomats) who had the opportunity to encounter the Baltic reality. A comparative study of the texts read during the council of Constance with the writings of Guillaume de Machaut, Philippe de Mezieres or Guillebert de Lannoy enable the researcher to see this quarrel in a new light. Looking at these foreign sources leads us to understand that some of the facts used by the Polish and Lithuanian spokesmen in Constance to darken the Teutonic Order’s image were already known by a few people in Western Europe. In particular, Cracovian rector Paulus Vladimiri (Pawel Wlodkowic)’s characterization of the Teutonic raids as worldly and disconnected from Christian ideals match the critics formulated by Philippe de Mezieres on the noblemen’s crusades. Vladimiri’s questioning of the effectiveness of the Order’s methods to bring baptism to Baltic pagans was also raised in at least two French travelers’ testimonies. However, if the remnant of paganism within the territory held by the Teutonic brothers was noted by some visitors, it was not explicitly disapproved of; for these Frenchmen mostly interested in chivalric activities and honorable deeds, the conversion of unbelievers was far less important than it was for the Polish and Lithuanian diplomats at Constance. Whilst the same facts were observed by both, their interpretation differed heavily.

Un Deu Enemi. Jews and Judaism in French and English Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts in the Royal Library

Marina Vidas: Un Deu Enemi. Jews and Judaism in French and English Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts in the Royal Library&#x0D; The article analyzes images of and texts about Jews and Judaism in five medieval illuminated manuscripts in the collection of the Royal Library, Copenhagen. I begin by examining the references to Jews in a bestiary (MS GKS 3466 8º) composed in the twelfth century by Philippe de Thaon for Queen Adeliza of England and copied a century later in Paris. Then I analyze depictions of Jews in a French early thirteenth-century personal devotional manuscript (MS GKS 1606 4º) as well as in a number of related de luxe Psalters and Bibles in foreign collections. Textual references to Judaism and Jews are examined in a compilation of saints’ lives (MS Thott 517 4º) as well as depictions of individuals of this faith in an Hours (MS Thott 547 4º), both made in fourteenth-century England for members of the Bohun family. Lastly, I analyze images illustrating legends derived from the Babylonian Talmud in a Bible historiale (MS Thott 6 2º), executed for Charles V of France (r. 1364–1380).I argue that images depicting Jews in narrative cycles had a number of meanings, some of which can be interpreted as anti-Jewish. I suggest that the images also played a role in shaping the piety of their audiences as well as the intended viewers’ understanding of their social identity. Indeed, depictions of Jews in the manuscripts seem mostly unrelated to the actually existing Jews. Members of the Hebrew faith were often represented in contexts in which their appearance, beliefs, and activities were distorted to emphasize the holiness, goodness, and perfection of Christ and the Virgin Mary. It is also suggested that their representations may have spurred a reflection on, and sometimes even a criticism of, Christian behavior and attitudes.

4 Year Follow-Up After Carotid Bifurcation Resection and Interposition of a Poly tetrafluoroethylene Graft for Carotid Artery Disease

Introduction: The major cause of carotid artery disease is the presence of a significant carotid artery stenosis due to progressive arteriosclerosis. The gold standard remains carotid endarterectomy. However, other treatments have been performed: Eversion Carotid Endarterectomy, Carotid Artery Stenting and Carotid Bypass Grafting. In this article, the long-term follow-up results of an alternative surgical technique called Carotid Bifurcation Resection and Interposition of a Polytetrafluoroethylene Graft (BRIG) procedure are described. Method: All BRIG procedures between April 2006 and September 2013 were retrospectively analysed. All procedures were performed by a single experienced surgeon (Philippe De Vleeschauwer) in a single centre. Results: 70 BRIG procedures were performed during the study period. The median follow-up was 46.5 months (interquartile range 29.6–63.0 months, maximum 117 months). Indication for surgery was a symptomatic moderate stenosis (50–79% stenosis) in 10.0%, high-grade stenosis (≥ 80% stenosis) in 87.1% and (pseudo-) aneurysm in 2,9%. 34.3% of the procedures were for symptomatic carotid artery disease. 91.4% were primary treatments, whereas the remaining 8.6% had undergone a previous CEA on the ipsilateral carotid artery. During the 30 day post-operative follow-up period 1 patient died (1.4%) due to an acute myocardial infarction and 2 patients (2.9%) suffered a minor stroke with only minor residual fine motor impairment. Long-term patency showed a 50–69% restenosis rate of 4.3% a 70–99% restenosis of 0% and an occlusion rate of 1.4%. Jaw claudication occurred in 2 patients (2.9%). Conclusion: The BRIG procedure is a promising alternative surgical technique to carotid endarterectomy. The results show a low 30 day post-operative mortality and morbidity, with excellent long-term graft patency. The BRIG procedure appears to be a safe and promising technique.

'THE ENGLISH BESTIARY', THE CONTINENTAL 'PHYSIOLOGUS', AND THE INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN THEM

The Latin translations of the Greek work known after the name of its presumed author as Physiologus provoked Latin adaptations across (at least) what are now England, France, and Germany; and these in turn inspired the copying and often illustrating of manuscripts across an even wider area.1 From these Latin works sprang vernacular texts in (at least) English, Icelandic, German, French, Italian, Occitan, and Catalan.2 In researching these varied and far-flung developments, specialists have often unintentionally further dispersed and even fragmented the tradition from which they stem. Anglophone scholars call the texts on which they work 'bestiaries' whereas their continental colleagues continue to refer to them as manifestations of Physiologus.3 In French, 'bestiaire' may be used in the title of texts (Le Bestiaire de Pierre de Beauvais) but it does not designate a textual tradition so much as any set of animal representations possessing meaning, in any medium.4 Continental scholarship has been driven mainly by philological concerns whereas in the anglophone world it has been dominated by art historians. Ways of categorizing texts have changed over time as well as place, creating further inconsistencies in nomenclature. The result has been a historical fracturing of what was, at least initially, a unified literary phenomenon. At the most fundamental level, this affects how manuscripts are recognized, described, and catalogued. The fluctuations in medieval designations, and the variations which individual texts manifest from one copy to another, would be enough to make identification challenging even without these differing apprehensions of the Physiologus tradition and their conflicting terminology for designating its components.5This article is the outcome of my struggles with these hydra-like difficulties. It has two main aims: first, to integrate the conflicting accounts of the bestiary/ Physiologus put forward by anglophone and continental scholarship, marshalling them into a single narrative; and second, to identify some of the points of interaction between the kinds of text more typical of the Anglo-Norman domain and those more prevalent further east, in the parts of France less exposed to Anglo-Norman influence and in territories which, in the period relevant to this study, lay within 'the Empire', such as the present Low Countries, Germany, and northern Italy. Emphasis is thereby displaced from the model predominant in bestiary scholarship, focused on diachronic filiation, towards an interest in broadly synchronic intersection. Some of the important developments in the bestiary/ Physiologus tradition during the early twelfth century, such as the structure of Philippe de Thaon's bestiary and the emergence of the awkwardly named 'H-type B-Isidore' bestiary, may be best viewed as products of such intersection, as I will argue below. Another, later example that I also discuss is the French-language bestiary of Gervaise, often seen as somewhat marginal but which appears much less so when viewed in this context.A consequence of integrating the anglophone and continental histories of the bestiary/Physiologus is that what is now France emerges as a major zone of exchange and transaction between different textual traditions, a role that it played the more effectively because relatively little of the modern hexagon fell under the control of the medieval French crown, much of it being ruled or dominated by its powerful imperial neighbours on either side. Although the focus of this article is on textual relationships rather than the historical conditions that produced them, it is likely that monastic, ecclesiastical, or aristocratic networks operating between, rather than within, these imperial powers were responsible for much of the traffic in which these relationships between texts were forged.In the first part of this article I work towards a unified chronology of the European bestiary/Physiologus tradition so as to identify roughly contemporary groups of texts within a single narrative arc; these groups provide a framework in which to recognize moments of intersection that are analysed in its second part. …

The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet by Anna Zayaruznaya

Reviewed by: The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet by Anna Zayaruznaya Bradford Lee Eden The Monstrous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet. By Anna Zayaruznaya. (Music in Context.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. [xvii, 301 p. ISBN 9781107039667 (hardcover), $99.99; ISBN 9781316190982 (e-book), $80.] Music examples, illustrations, companion Web site, appendices, glossary, bibliography, indexes. This book focuses on the motets of the French Ars nova period, roughly ca. 1315– 70, encompassing the careers and compositions of Philippe de Vitry (1291–1361) and Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300–1377). The author begins her study of this period by relating an interesting interaction on the topic of isorhythm that is recorded in conference proceedings from 19–23 September 1955 near Liège, Belgium. The account of this discussion shows that it anticipated many of the chief debates in Ars nova research during the next sixty years, and the author frames her introduction around the diverse views of these early experts. The themes of monstrosity and hybridity appear in Ars nova motet texts, and Zaryaruznaya attempts to illustrate a similar approach to form and musical texture by Ars nova composers as the focus of this particular study. Zayaruznaya opens with a detailed description of the state of research on Ars nova motets. She begins with their structures, which exhibit an almost obsessive [End Page 285] approach to planning in terms of rhythm. Interlocking patterns of rhythms (talea) and pitches (color) form the well-known foundation of isorhythm, and current research has moved from a focus on deep structural understanding to that of sonic surface, supported by musicologists who are also medieval ensemble instrumentalists and conductors. This “supermusical” structure takes into account the excessive rhyme, assonance, and alliteration in the music that is meant to subsume and even drown out the words. On the other hand, some musicologists insist that the words have priority over the music, showing that the text often preceded and influenced the complex mathematical musical structures. In this book, the author indicates that she is taking a somewhat middle ground in her examination of the topic, paying attention to those aspects of form that are apparent to the listener, such as repetitive rhythms, the more audible and active upper voices (especially hockets), changes in declamation (when voices slow down or speed up), and changes in range. In the end, the goal is to add a new level of detail to the debate about the relative importance of words and music in the Ars nova motet. As indicated previously, hybrid and monstrous creatures are the subjects of a number of Ars nova motets (see table 5.1, p. 174); in a sense, the monsters are as colorful and vibrant as the musical and textual complexity that surrounds them, a reflection of the motets themselves and vice versa. Chapter 1 examines how musical form, monstrosity, and bodies are woven together in the texture of the Ars nova motet. This anthropomorphization of the music results in both song and bodies “coming alive” in this repertory, and the author explores this topic as found in musical treatises and literary theory. A number of songs are explored to illustrate this practice, from notational ligatures to Machaut’s Fons/O livoris (where the music represents dragons, serpents, and the stinging tail of the scorpion) to Johannes de Grocheo’s description, ca. 1300, of the motet De animalibus. There are also examples of self-referential songs, such as Machaut’s Ma fin est mon commencement and Baude Cordier’s Tout par compas, two rondeaux that essentially describe themselves and their structures in the first person during their performance. Finally, the profusion of creatures represented in the Roman de Fauvel adds substance to the argument for the interconnection between music and bodies, as the reader witnesses songs being born into the world and then endowed with bodies. In sum, Chapter 1 sets up a framework for how song, bodies, and structure have been woven together in medieval music and literature to the ultimate height of complexity and union in the work of the Ars nova composers and their motets. Specific music examples of this and their dissection (so...

Dulce bellum inexpertis. “Skøn er krigen for den, der ikke kender den.” Arild Huitfeldt og Christian 4.

Arild Huitfeldt’s prefaces to the individual volumes of his Chronicles of Denmark (1595–1604) assume their character of political admonitions addressed to the young Christian IV. Harald Ilsøe has characterized Huitfeldt as a “secret” student of Machiavelli and has shown that the prefaces contain concealed quotations from the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio. An undisguised ideal figure, whom Huitfeldt likes to quote, is Philippe de Commines. Huitfeldt, in his foreword to Hans Mogensen’s Danish translation of Philippe de Commines’ Memoirs (1605), accordingly adopts as his own ideal the analytical and “realistic” approach to writing history of Philippe de Commines and Guicciardini.Huitfeldt does more than simply paraphrase Machiavelli and de Commines. In his preface to King Hans’ history (1599), Huitfeldt, proceeding from this king’s efforts to reconquer Sweden, stresses that even a just war could go wrong. His arguments are political as well as moral and draw on undeclared references to Erasmus of Rotterdam’s antiwar essay Dulce bellum inexpertis – war is beautiful for those who do not know it – which is contained in his Adagia, a collection with commentaries of Greek and Latin sayings.Erasmus’ point is that war is often started by inexperienced princes, who lack insight.Huitfeldt’s use of such formulations in a preface to a young king, who desires an expansive foreign policy, must be seen as daring.By combining Erasmus and Machiavelli, Huitfeldt emphasizes that morality and realpolitik are not opposites; avoiding the devastation of war is a form of realpolitik.Relying one-sidedly on a military solution is a sign of inexperience, dulce bellum inexpertis. This point of view was reiterated at a meeting of the war council in 1604, where Huitfeldt and his supporters opposed the king’s war plans by explaining that politics is not simply a matter of having right on one’s side: he who aims to rule must be able to dissemble and to exercise self-discipline. One must take account of reality.

Experiments in fiction: framing and reframing romance at the end of the Middle Ages, and beyond

The prefaciers of fifteenth-century fictions and histories are comfortably self-congratulatory: the readers they have in mind, and whose tastes, they say with happy confidence, they are satisfying, are newly sophisticated, newly demanding, “plus agut[s] et soubtille[s]”, says Philippe de Vigneulles, than readers used to be, and thus appreciative of new and different modes and styles. These new readers prefer, says Philippe in the preface to his mise en prose of the Geste des Lorrains, “chose ...

Influence of follicle stage on artificial ovary outcome using fibrin as a matrix.

Do primordial-primary versus secondary follicles embedded inside a fibrin matrix have different capabilities to survive and grow after isolation and transplantation? Mouse primordial-primary follicles showed a lower recovery rate than secondary follicles, but both were able to grow. Fresh isolated mouse follicles and ovarian stromal cells embedded in a fibrin matrix are capable of surviving and developing after short-term autografting. In vivo experimental model using 11 donor Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) mice and 11 recipient severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice. Both ovaries from all NMRI mice were mechanically disrupted and primordial-primary and secondary follicles were isolated with ovarian stromal cells. They were then encapsulated in a fibrin matrix composed of 12.5 mg/ml of fibrinogen (F12.5) and 1 IU/ml of thrombin (T1) (F12.5/T1), and grafted to the inner part of the peritoneum of SCID mice for 2 and 7 days. This study was conducted at the Gynecology Research Unit, Université Catholique de Louvain. All materials were used to conduct histological (H-E staining) and immunohistochemical (Ki67, TUNEL) analyses. Although all grafted fibrin clots were recovered, the follicle recovery rate on day 2 was 16 and 40% for primordial-primary and secondary follicles respectively, while on day 7, it was 6 and 28%. The secondary group showed a significantly higher recovery rate than the primordial-primary group (23%, P-value <0.001). Follicles found in both groups were viable, as demonstrated by live/dead assays, and no difference was observed in the apoptosis rate between groups, as evidenced by TUNEL. Their growth to further stages was confirmed by Ki67 immunostaining. As demonstrated by our results, secondary follicles appear to be more likely to survive and develop than primordial-primary follicles in a fibrin matrix after both periods of grafting. These findings may also be attributed to the specific features of the fibrin matrix, which could benefit larger follicles, but not smaller follicles. This study is essential to understanding possible impairment caused by factors such as the isolation procedure or fibrin matrix composition to the survival and development of different follicle stages. It therefore provides the basis for further investigations with longer periods of grafting. This study was supported by grants from the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique (grant Télévie No. 7.4578.14 and 7.4627.13, grant 5/4/150/5 awarded to Marie-Madeleine Dolmans), Fonds Spéciaux de Recherche, Fondation St Luc, the Foundation Against Cancer, and the Region Wallone (Convention N°6519-OVART) and donations from Mr Pietro Ferrero, Baron Frère and Viscount Philippe de Spoelberch. None of the authors have any competing interests to declare.

Did Vitry write an Ars vetus et nova?

In book 7 of his Speculum musicae, the fourteenth-century music theorist Jacobus structures a defense of music as it had been practiced in the thirteenth century by such eminent musicians and theorists as Lambertus, Franco, and Petrus de Cruce against the practices of certain unnamed moderni active at the time of Jacobus’s writing. While Jacobus’s quotations from various theoretical works by Jehan des Murs have long been recognized, it previously had been supposed that the remaining quotations were jumbled references from many different theorists. With specific reference to Philippe de Vitry only two quotations from the text edited in vol. 8, Corpus scriptorum de musica, had been identified previously. In fact, there is substantial sustained treatment of a single author, whom I have termed the doctor modernus and who is not Jehan des Murs, that occupies at least five contiguous central chapters of book 7. Following Jacobus’s practice in the previous six books of commentary on a handful of specific works, the writing of Book 7 appears to have been structured around the written works of just four theorists: Lambert, Franco, Jehan des Murs, and the doctor modernus. Furthermore, Jacobus’s vehemence toward the doctor modernus was particularly pronounced and may indicate a personal relationship between the two men. His treatise is quoted with reference to some fundamental ars nova theories, such as extension of long notes beyond the duplex long, remote imperfection, the use of imperfect longs, and imperfect measure in general, and his treatise is described as outlining the precepts of both the old and new arts. The similarities between the treatise of the doctor modernus and many ars nova theory texts (some of which were attributed to Vitry) hints at the possibility that the treatise of the doctor modernus may have been the ancestor text that these other texts had in common, and hence also that Philippe de Vitry may have been the author of the text known to Jacobus, whose subject was the Ars vetus et nova.

Sibilas en Europa y América: repercusiones del Sibyllarum Icones de Crispijn de Passe en los siglos XVII y XVIII

Prints published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Flanders were reworked throughout Europe many times over. This paper is a study of the complex network of republishing and new productions of one such set of prints: the Sibyllarum icones elegantissimi, engraved by Crispijn de Passe in 1601. As a result of this research, the authors propose new engraved sources for three well-known derivatives of this series: the paintings of Philippe de Champaigne in the Luxembourg Palace in Paris; the woodcuts published in Spain by Baltasar Porreno; and the paintings in the Palacio de Autonomia in Mexico City by Pedro Sandoval. All three can be traced to Jacques Granthomme, working in Paris c.1609.

Improving haemophilia patient care through sharing best practice.

At the 2014 Annual Congress of the European Haemophilia Consortium (EHC) held in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Pfizer initiated and funded a satellite symposium entitled: 'Improving Patient Care Through Sharing Best Practice'. Co-chaired by Brian Colvin (Pfizer Global Innovative Pharma Business, Rome, Italy) and Brian O'Mahony [President of the EHC, Brussels, Belgium], the symposium provided an opportunity to consider patient care across borders, to review how patient advocacy groups can successfully engage with policymakers in healthcare decision-making and to discuss the importance of patient involvement in data collection to help shape the future environment for people with haemophilia. Professor Philippe de Moerloose (University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine of Geneva, Switzerland) opened the session by discussing the gap between the haemophilia management guidelines and the reality of care for many patients living in Europe, highlighting the importance of sharing of best practice and building a network of treaters and patient organisations to support the improvement of care across Europe. Daniel Arnberg (SCISS AB, Hägersten, Sweden) reviewed the health technology assessment process conducted in Sweden, the first for haemophilia products, as a case study, focusing on the role of the patient organisation. Finally, Brian O'Mahony reflected on the central role of patients as individuals and also within patient organisations in shaping the future of haemophilia care.

International or French? The Early International Sanitary Conferences and France’s Struggle for Hegemony in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Mediterranean

International Sanitary Conferences (ISCs) paved the way for the creation of permanent global health agencies such as today’s World Health Organization. However, the analysis of their internationalism can be misleading if the underlying struggle between states for political and sanitary hegemony is ignored. This article argues that the early ISCs held between 1851 and 1866 were essentially a French project. They were deeply rooted in French plans aimed at the standardization and liberalization of quarantines, reaching back as far as the 1830s and which had been led by health officials such as Philippe de Segur, François Mélier and Sulpice-Antoine Fauvel. During Napoleon III’s reign, in parallel with other international initiatives such as the construction of the Suez Canal, the ISCs were the culmination of three decades of French struggle on both shores of the Mediterranean against a number of European competitors, of which Great Britain had come to be the most prominent.

Abstract 1165: Identification of a cholesterol onco-metabolite, promoter of tumor in breast cancers, and of the enzyme involved in its biosynthesis

Abstract Breast cancer (BC) is the most common female cancer. Although hormonotherapy (HT), such as Tamoxifen (Tam), is effective for the treatment of most patients with BC expressing estrogen receptors (ER +), resistance to HT is frequent and a number of BC do not express these receptors and do not respond to HT. The mechanisms responsible for these treatment failures remain unclear, indicating that it is necessary to characterize the molecular actors involved in BC etiology, progression and resistance that will help to improve BC phenotyping and treatment efficacy and to identify new therapeutic targets. Recent literature highlights that cholesterol metabolism can produce new targets for cancer progression and resistance. We characterized a new pathway in cholesterol metabolism at the level of Cholesterol Epoxide Hydrolase (ChEH). ChEH selectively catalyses the hydrolysis of cholesterol 5,6-epoxides (EC) into cholestan-3β,5α,6β-triol (CT) and is a high affinity target of anti-cancer compounds, such as Tam (de Medina et al, PNAS, 2010). We showed that the enzymatic transformation of EC leads to the production of a tumor suppressor metabolite, dendrogenin A (DDA), involved in the control of cell differentiation and growth, and reported that DDA production is decreased in BC compared with normal tissue (de Medina et al, Nature Commun, 2013, Silvente-Poirot et al, Science, 2014). The aim of the present study was to characterize further the deregulations of this metabolism and to determine the potential role of ChEH activation in BC progression. We established that the activity of ChEH in BC cells generates an unexpected metabolite from CT. By using RP-HPLC and GC-MS, we determined this unknown metabolite to be the oxysterol: 6-oxo-cholestan-3β,5α-diol (OCDO). We characterized that OCDO stimulates proliferation in vitro and in vivo of various BC cells expressing or not the ER. Interestingly, OCDO formation in tumor cells and tumors grafted into mice was strongly inhibited by ChEH inhibitors known to have anti-tumor activity such as Tam, PBPE or DDA. We identified the enzyme responsible for the transformation of CT into OCDO (OCDO synthase). The knock down of OCDO synthase expression using specific shRNA decreased OCDO production and proliferation of MCF7 tumor implanted into mice, and OCDO treatment reversed these inhibitions. Moreover, immunohistology analyses of patient samples indicated that OCDO synthase was overexpressed in tumors compared with normal tissues. In conclusion, the data obtained indicate that deregulations of the metabolism of cholesterol 5,6-epoxides occur in ER-positive and ER-negative tumor cells to favor OCDO production, an onco-metabolite promoter of BC. Therefore, OCDO, EC and CT production as well as the expression of the enzymes producing these metabolites could be markers of BC and of the efficacy of anti-cancer compounds such as Tam or DDA. Citation Format: Maud Voisin, Philippe de Medina, Michael R. Paillasse, Magali Lacroix-Triki, Florence Dalenc, Marc Poirot, Sandrine Silvente-Poirot. Identification of a cholesterol onco-metabolite, promoter of tumor in breast cancers, and of the enzyme involved in its biosynthesis. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 1165. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-1165

The description and symbolic value of the unicorn in French literature of the 12th and 13th centuries

The paper considers naturalist and symbolic traits attributed to the unicorn in French 12th and 13th century literature. The corpus encompasses the bestiaries comprised by Philippe de Thaon, Gervaise, Guillaume de Normandy, Pierre de Beauvais, Richard de Fournival and pseudo-Pierre de Beauveis, which belong to the tradition of the Physiologoi, as well as other encyclopedic and other works which contain the bookish zoological and geographic knowledge of the middle ages: Mappemonde by Pierre de Beauvais, The letter of presbyter John, and the Mappemonde by Gossouin de Metz. In this corpus where the description of the animals comes mainly from the same written sources (from antiquity and late antiquity and the Bible), we consider how this nonexistent animal is described and to what extent a symbolic interpretation is present.

Od perfekcije do menzure: Francova in Vitryjeva zamisel ritma

A comparative reading of Franco’s Ars cantus mensurabilis and the treatise Ars nova, formerly attributed to Philippe de Vitry, illustrates the transition from the ternary, by means of perfect values organized rhythm, to the system of mensurations.

The best source of isolated stromal cells for the artificial ovary: medulla or cortex, cryopreserved or fresh?

What is the best source of ovarian cells for the artificial ovary: medulla or cortex, cryopreserved or fresh? Ovarian cells from fresh medullary tissue, which can be isolated in larger numbers, show higher viability and are able to improve graft vascularization. In a previous study, addition of endothelial cells along with ovarian cells was found to be crucial for formation of a well-vascularized ovary-like structure. This study is the first to evaluate both the effect of cryopreservation and the source of ovarian tissue on isolated ovarian cells. Prospective experimental study in an academic research unit using ovarian tissue from seven patients undergoing surgery for benign gynecologic disease. Ovarian tissue was retrieved from seven patients, with one half processed as fresh (fresh group) and the other half frozen and thawed before processing (frozen group). In each group, ovarian cells from the cortex and medulla were isolated separately, and their viability was tested using a calcein AM/ethidium homodimer viability assay. Fifty thousand cells were then encapsulated in fibrin and grafted to peritoneal pockets in nude mice (14 in all). Grafts recovered after 7 days were analyzed by immunohistochemistry for the presence of ovarian cells (vimentin), proliferation (Ki67) and graft vascularization (double CD34). Cell apoptosis was analyzed by TUNEL assay. Cryopreservation decreased ovarian cell yield (-2804 cells/mg, P = 0.015) and viability (-9.72%, P = 0.052) before grafting and had a considerable (5-fold, P = 0.2) but non-significant negative impact on ovarian cell presence in grafts. The medulla yielded many more cells (+3841 cells/mg, P < 0.001) with higher viability (+18.23%, P < 0.001) than did the cortex. Moreover, grafts with cells from the medulla exhibited a statistically significant 6.44- and 2.47-fold increase in human and total vascular surface area, respectively. P-values were adjusted for multiple testing using the Benjamini-Hochberg method to achieve a 10% false discovery rate and adjusted P-values < 0.1 were therefore considered significant. Pilot study involving a limited number of experiments. Knowing that fresh medullary tissue is the best source of stromal cells is important for construction of the artificial ovary, as isolated follicles require structural support and a rich vascular network for their survival and development. This work was supported by grants from the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique (5/4/150/5 and 7.4518.12F), Fonds Spéciaux de Recherche, Fondation Saint Luc and Foundation Against Cancer, and donations from Mr Pietro Ferrero, Baron Frère and Viscount Philippe de Spoelberch. None of the authors have any conflicting interests to declare.

Inner Margins of the Literary Digital Text: From Allusion to Rewriting

This paper aims to take into account the process of annotation as it can be inserted in a literary text driven by digital culture. Focusing on a corpus of digital literary texts, it will study how writers use hyperlinking as a way to build a network of allusions or commentaries inside the boundaries of their own text, or as support of reading of an another text. Three ranges of use are to be exposed. The first acts as a mediated reading of one's own work. Guillaume Vissac's Accident de personne, published as a twitter feed in 2010, has been edited as a (digital) whole by digital editor publie.net. The author used hyperlinks to reinforce patterns of similarity between characters and specific circumstances. The second use of semantic links inserts essayistic discourse and urban fabulation, as it can be found in Francois Bon's Tiers livre, in the web of its tentacular work and in a discursive ground of the social and literary environment of the writer. The third range of use covers writing-as-reading works, where links enact a set of commentaries or a way of rewriting a prior text. Philippe De Jonkheere's site, Desordre.net, and more specifically his project Tentative d'epuisement de Tentative d'epuisement d'un lieu parisien de Georges Perec, build on this idea. This project takes Perec's own reading of an urban place which tries to exhaust the real world by description, and adds a layer of hyperlinks giving back a reading of the reality depicted by Perec. These three uses show how literary writing in a digital context inherit from the tradition of marginal annotation and inscribe it in the most basic function of electronic publication, which is linking. In that perspective, links appear as a way to build a multidimensional textuality based on the depth of a virtual network.