ion is arguably one of the most important methods in modern science in analysing and understanding complex phenomena. In his book The Philosophy of Information, Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011) presents the method of levels of abstraction as the main method of the Philosophy of Information. His discussion of abstraction as a method seems inspired by the formal methods and frameworks of computer science, in which abstraction is operationalised extensively in programming languages and design methodologies. (...) Is it really clear what we should understand by levels of abstraction? How should they be specified? We will argue that levels of abstraction should be augmented with annotations, in order to express semantic information for them and reconcile the method of level of abstraction (LoA’s) with other approaches. We discuss the extended method when applied e.g. to the analysis of abstract machines. This will lead to an example in which the number of LoA’s is unbounded. (shrink)

The present article examines the textual transmission of the Aristotelian Mechanics, a treatise on mechanical questions now generally ascribed to the Peripatetic School. The treatise was edited three times in the nineteenth century, namely by Johannes van Cappelle, Immanuel Bekker and Otto Apelt ; most recently, an edition was produced in the twentieth century by Maria Elisabetta Bottecchia. Bottecchia's edition is a clear improvement over the previous editions in the extent of its research. Whereas the other editors of the Mechanics (...) altogether consulted a total of nine manuscripts, Bottecchia considered nearly the complete manuscript material for her critical edition of the text. When I started my project I did not expect to find significant new results which would make a completely new critical edition of the text necessary. (shrink)

Recent analysis of genome sequences has identified individuals that are healthy despite carrying severe disease‐associated mutations. A possible explanation is that these individuals carry a second genomic perturbation that can compensate for the detrimental effects of the disease allele, a phenomenon referred to as suppression. In model organisms, suppression interactions are generally divided into two classes: genomic suppressors which are secondary mutations in the genome that bypass a mutant phenotype, and dosage suppression interactions in which overexpression of a suppressor gene (...) rescues a mutant phenotype. Here, we describe the general properties of genomic and dosage suppression, with an emphasis on the budding yeast. We propose that suppression interactions between genetic variants are likely relevant for determining the penetrance of human traits. Consequently, an understanding of suppression mechanisms may guide the discovery of protective variants in healthy individuals that carry disease alleles, which could direct the rational design of new therapeutics. (shrink)