Assessing Jesuit Intellectual Apostolate in Modern Shanghai (1847–1949)

The various endeavors led by Jesuits under the auspices to the Plan Scientifique du Kiang-Nan (Scientific Plan for the Jiangnan region) constituted a defining moment in the history of their mission in modern China. The Jesuits aimed to found a scientific capital that would also constitute the base of their East Asian mission, a project that led to a far-reaching engagement in education and sciences. The multiple projects they undertook were located within the framework of Western knowledge. The traditional Jesuit strategy adapted itself to a new context by encouraging a constructive and fruitful interaction between religion and science. Jesuit intellectual apostolate included not only research but also the dissemination of technologies and knowledge central to the rise of modernity in China. The entry into this country of well-educated, deeply zealous Jesuit missionaries along with their observations on the social and political changes taking place decisively contributed to the modernization of Shanghai and to the emergence of multi-perspective narratives about the destiny of the city. Assessing the Jiangnan-based Jesuits’ continuous efforts as well as the challenges and contradictions they met with help us to integrate the seemingly conflicting ethos of Christian mission and scientific quest into a reframed perspective of global history.

Disentangling the beta-diversity in anuran parasite communities

There is great heterogeneity in parasite communities among hosts, understanding the nature and drivers of such variations is still a great scientific quest. Here, we analyse the variation in parasite communities by addressing the following questions: (i) What is the beta-diversity component (nestedness or turnover) that most contributes to beta diversity in parasite communities among anuran species? (ii) Does the beta diversity of parasite communities follow a non-random pattern? (iii) Is the dissimilarity in composition of parasite communities related to the phylogenetic or functional dissimilarity among hosts? We found that turnover in parasite assemblages was the main component of beta diversity, but the variation observed both in the total beta diversity and in its components did not differ from the respective null models. The dissimilarity among parasite communities was not related to the phylogenetic species variability or functional dissimilarity among anuran species for most localities. In short, our findings may indicate a process of resource tracking by the parasite species, in which the resource may not necessarily be conserved phylogenetically in their hosts.

Automatic Inundation Mapping Using Sentinel-2 Data Applicable to Both Camargue and Doñana Biosphere Reserves

Flooding periodicity is crucial for biomass production and ecosystem functions in wetland areas. Local monitoring networks may be enriched by spaceborne derived products with a temporal resolution of a few days. Unsupervised computer vision techniques are preferred, since human interference and the use of training data may be kept to a minimum. Recently, a novel automatic local thresholding unsupervised methodology for separating inundated areas from non-inundated ones led to successful results for the Doñana Biosphere Reserve. This study examines the applicability of this approach to Camarque Biosphere Reserve, and proposes alternatives to the original approach to enhance accuracy and applicability for both Camargue and Doñana wetlands in a scientific quest for methods that may serve accurately biomes at both protected areas. In particular, it examines alternative inputs for automatically estimating thresholds while applying various algorithms for estimating the splitting thresholds. Reference maps for Camargue are provided by local authorities, and generated using Sentinel-2 Band 8A (NIR) and Band 12 (SWIR-2). The alternative approaches examined led to high inundation mapping accuracy. In particular, for the Camargue study area and 39 different dates, the alternative approach with the highest overall Kappa coefficient is 0.84, while, for the Doñana Biosphere Reserve and Doñana marshland (a subset of Doñana Reserve) and 7 different dates, is 0.85 and 0.94, respectively. Moreover, there are alternative approaches with high overall Kappa for all areas, i.e., at 0.79 for Camargue, over 0.91 for Doñana marshland, and over 0.82 for Doñana Reserve. Additionally, this study identifies the alternative approaches that perform better when the study area is extensively covered by temporary flooded and emergent vegetation areas (i.e., Camargue Reserve and Doñana marshland) or when it contains a large percentage of dry areas (i.e., Doñana Reserve). The development of credible automatic thresholding techniques that can be applied to different wetlands could lead to a higher degree of automation for map production, while enhancing service utilization by non-trained personnel.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Glial Numbers Legend

In the field of neuroscience and, more specifically glial cell biology, one of the most fundamentally intriguing and enduring questions has been “how many neuronal cells—neurones and glia—are there in the human brain?”. From the outset, the driving force behind this question was undoubtedly the scientific quest for knowledge of why humans are more intelligent than even our nearest relatives; the ‘neuronal doctrine’ dictated we must have more neurones than other animals. The early histological studies indicated a vast space between neurones that was filled by ‘nervenkitt’, later identified as neuroglia; arguably, this was the origin of the myth that glia massively outnumber neurones in the human brain. The myth eventually became embedded in ideology when later studies seemed to confirm that glia outnumber neurones in the human cortex—the seat of humanity—and that there was an inevitable rise in the glia-to-neurone ratio (GNR) as we climbed the evolutionary tree. This could be described as the ‘glial doctrine’—that the rise of intelligence and the rise of glia go hand-in-hand. In many ways, the GNR became a mantra for working on glial cells at a time when the neuronal doctrine ruled the world. However, the work of Suzana Herculano-Houzel which she reviews in this first volume of Neuroglia has led the way in demonstrating that neurones and glia are almost equal in number in the human cortex and there is no inexorable phylogenetic rise in the GNR. In this commentary we chart the fall and decline of the mythology of the GNR.

Letter to Turing

This personal, yet scientific, letter to Alan Turing, reflects on Turing's personality in order to better understand his scientific quest. It then focuses on the impact of his work today. By joining human attitude and particular scientific method, Turing is able to “immerse himself” into the phenomena on which he works. This peculiar blend justifies the epistolary style. Turing makes himself a “human computer”, he lives the dramatic quest for an undetectable imitation of a man, a woman, a machine. He makes us see the continuous deformations of a material action/reaction/diffusion dynamics of hardware with no software. Each of these investigations opens the way to new scientific paths with major consequences for contemporary live and for knowledge. The uses and the effects of these investigations will be discussed: the passage from classical AI to today's neural nets, the relevance of non-linearity in biological dynamics, but also their abuses, such as the myth of a computational world, from a Turing-machine like universe to an encoded homunculus in the DNA. It is shown that these latter ideas, which are sometimes even made in Turing's name, contradict his views.

A Hard Scientific Quest: Understanding Voluntary Movements

In this article we explore the complexities of what goes on in the brain when one wishes to perform even the simplest everyday movements. In doing so, we describe experiments indicating that the spinal cord interneurons are organized in functional modules and that each module activates a distinct set of muscles. Through these modules the central nervous system has found a simple solution to controlling the large number of muscle fibers active even during the execution of the simplest action. We also explore the many different neural signals that contribute to pattern formations, including afferent information from the limbs and information of motor memories.