In the chapter on Observing Reason in the Phenomenology, as well as in §368 of the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel deals with the life sciences of his time. There, he labels the methodology of its representatives, namely zoology and comparative anatomy, as external teleology. In this paper I want to show that by doing so he is actually discussing a general kind of functionalism. Thereby, I want to highlight a line of thought in Hegel's texts which represents a productive reading of external teleology contrary to a destructive reading on which scholars have mainly focussed.

Starting with the author's own experience of ghostliness in the archive, the article explores the political meaning of the postwar Volkswagen in West Germany as embodiment of the country's “economic miracle.” The investigation follows the uncanny in texts and images about the Volkswagen between 1945 and 1960 and argues that the car carried with it a “public secret” as a “debris” from the Nazi empire that silently transcended the 1945 divide. This reading of the Volkswagen as well as the methodological path toward it highlight a phenomenon that postcolonial scholars have described as “haunting”: a confusion about the relationship between past and present that also bears on those who study the past. Taking this analysis as an encouragement to revisit the powerful myths and “miracles” of postwar consumer cultures in the West from a new angle, the article calls for historical genealogies of these myths that conceive of the postwar West as a—not yet—postcolonial space and that cross the 1945 threshold.

New ideas for diagnostics in clinical parasitology are needed to overcome some of the difficulties experienced in the widespread adoption of detection methods for gastrointestinal parasites in livestock. Here we provide an initial evaluation of the performance of a newly developed automated device (Telenostic) to identify and quantify parasitic elements in fecal samples. This study compared the Telenostic device with the McMaster and Mini-FLOTAC for counting of strongyle eggs in a fecal sample. Three bovine fecal samples were examined, in triplicate, on each of the three fecal egg-counting devices. In addition, both manual (laboratory technician) and automated analysis (image analysis algorithm) were performed on the Telenostic device to calculate fecal egg counts (FEC). Overall, there were consistent egg counts reported across the three devices and calculation methods. The Telenostic device compared very favourably to the Mini-FLOTAC and McMaster. Only in sample C, a significant difference (P < 0.05) was observed between the egg counts obtained by Mini-FLOTAC and by the other methods. From this limited dataset it can be concluded that the Telenostic-automated test is comparable to currently used benchmark FEC methods, while improving the workflow, test turn-around time and not requiring trained laboratory personnel to operate or interpret the results.

Apples are a rich source of polyphenols and fiber. Proanthocyanidins (PAs), the largest polyphenolic class in apples, can reach the colon almost intact where they interact with the gut microbiota producing simple phenolic acids. These metabolites have the potential to modulate gut microbiota composition and activity and impact on host physiology. A randomized, controlled, crossover, dietary intervention study was performed to determine the broad effects of whole apple intake on fecal gut microbiota composition and activity. Forty heathy mildly hypercholesterolemic volunteers (23 women, 17 men), with a mean BMI (± SD) 25.3 ± 3.7 kg/m2 and age 51 ± 11 years, consumed 2 apples/day (Renetta Canada, rich in PAs), or a sugar matched control apple beverage, for 8 weeks separated by a 4-week washout period in a random order. Fecal and 24-h urine samples were collected before and after each treatment. The broad effects of apple intake on fecal gut microbiota composition were explored by the high throughput sequencing (HTS) of 16S rRNA gene lllumina MiSeq sequencing (V3-V4 region). Sequencing data analysis was performed using the Quantitative Insight Into Microbial Ecology (QIIME) open-source pipeline version 1.9.1. Specific bacterial groups were also enumerated using the quantitative Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH). Furthermore, the potential formation of microbial polyphenol metabolites, after apple intake, was explored in urine using Liquid Chromatography (LC) High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) metabolomics. Preliminary analysis showed no changes in gut microbiota abundances measured by Illumina MiSeq, after correction for multiple testing. Apple intake significantly decreased Enterobacteriaceae population (P = 0.04) compared to the control beverage, as determined with FISH. Twenty-four polyphenol microbial metabolites were identified in higher concentrations in the apple group (P < 0.05) compared to the control, including valerolactones, valeric and phenolic acids. In conclusion, preliminary data suggest that the daily intake of 2 Renetta Canada apples significantly decreased Enterobacteriaceae population, a family known for its pathogenic members, in healthy mildly hypercholesterolemic subjects. Moreover, several polyphenol microbial metabolites were identified, suggesting that microbial activity is crucial and a prerequisite for the absorption of apple polyphenols, producing active metabolites with potential health benefits.

Knowledge of the parasite fauna of Australian freshwater fish is fragmentary and incomplete. An understanding of fish hosts and their associated parasites is vital for the successful management of aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we surveyed the parasite fauna of carp gudgeons (Hypseleotris spp.), a complex of species of Australian freshwater fishes, using morphology and molecular data for the 18S and 28S ribosomal RNA genes. We examined 137 individuals of three different taxa in the carp gudgeon species complex and found 16 parasitic taxa of the Digenea, Cestoda, Nematoda and Arthropoda (five adults and 11 larvae). Eleven parasites are reported for the first time from the carp gudgeons (Pseudodactylogyrus sp., Gyrodactylus sp., Clinostomum sp., Paradilepis patriciae, P. cf. kempi, two unidentified species of Paradilepis, Dendrouterina sp., Parvitaenia sp., two lineages of Cyclophyllidea gen. sp., Procamallanus sp., larvae of a spirurine nematode and Lernaea sp.), in addition to Apatemon cf. hypseleotris Negm-Eldin & Davies, 2001 and the invasive tapeworm Schyzocotyle acheilognathi (Yamaguti, 1934), which were previously reported from these fish hosts. Parasite species richness was double in Lake's and Midgley's carp gudgeons relative to western carp gudgeon. These findings highlight the key role of carp gudgeons as intermediate hosts for multiple parasites with complex life cycles using native birds as definitive hosts and the usefulness of DNA data for the identification of parasite larvae.

Acanthogyrus (Acanthosentis) maroccanus (Dollfus, 1951), an insufficiently described quadrigyrid acanthocephalan of cyprinid fishes from Northwest Africa, is redescribed based on recently collected specimens from the Algerian barb Luciobarbus callensis (Valenciennes) in Algeria. Newly observed morphological features for A. (A.) maroccanus include the arrangement of proboscis hooks (not in regular circles), the male reproductive structures extending into the copulatory bursa and the presence of a para-receptacle structure and vaginal sleeve. The mechanism of copulation of this acanthocephalan is described based on several copulating pairs. The phylogenetic position of A. (A.) maroccanus within Eoacanthocephala was assessed based on partial 28S rDNA sequences. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference analyses placed A. (A.) maroccanus in a clade with Palliolisentis (Demidueterospinus) ophiocephalus (Thapar, 1931), both species included in the Quadrigyridae, the only family within the Gyracanthocephala.

The Late Pennsylvanian (Kasimovian, early Stephanian) sub- to perimontaneous Souss basin, situated in the present-day southwestern High Atlas mountains of Morocco, contains the hitherto only known late Paleozoic entomofauna from North Africa, which is simultaneously also the southernmost Euramerican entomofauna. The present study provides descriptions, identifications, and revisions of several species belonging to the genera Phyloblatta and Anthracoblattina (family Phyloblattidae) and of the genus Compsoblatta (family Compsoblattidae). A relatively large number of well-preserved Phyloblatta forewings, compared with congeneric species from several insect localities in Europe and North America, permits insights into the individual, intraspecific, and interspecific variability of the venation pattern as indispensable base for the description of the new specimens and the revision of several older species. The Souss insect beds cover a wide range of potential habitats. They are situated in different paleogeographical positions within the Souss basin and scattered across a 900 m thick succession of sediments. The single insect beds represent different sedimentary and biotic subenvironments from swamps and mires to shallow and deep lakes within a fluvial-dominated megaenvironment.

In this paper, the possibility of using neural networks for fast tomographic reconstructions of tokamak plasma soft X-ray (SXR) emissivity is investigated. Indeed, the radiative cooling of heavy impurities like tungsten could be detrimental for the plasma core performances of ITER, thus developing robust and fast SXR diagnostic tools is a crucial issue to monitor the impurities and to mitigate in real-time their central accumulation. As preliminary work, a database of emissivity phantoms with associated synthetic measurements is used to train the neural network to solve the inversion problem. The inversion method, training process, and first tomographic reconstructions are presented with the perspectives about our future work.