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This article aims at clarifying Rheinberger's conception of experimental systems in the context of Bachelard's concept of phenomenotechnique to show its usefulness in the analysis and understanding of a particular case: the emergence of the epistemic object, "living cell", in contemporary cell biology. In this case, the starting point is cell theory, cytology and biochemistry, up to the most recent developments based on live cell imaging. According to the notion of experimental system, it has been argued that it includes epistemic or scientific objects and experimental conditions, as well as junctures, hybridizations and bifurcations. Rheinberger's conception of experimental system is a finer characterization of contemporary science, involving a central element of research activity: the emergence of the scientific-epistemic object (living cell) co-generated between a representation space and a grapheme (an experimental trace that leaves signifiers) within an experimental system called living cell imaging. Finally, in the context of recent studies on science, technology and society, we also seek to show how it is possible to integrate philosophical reflections with scientific practice, as it actually happens in the laboratory, something rare in current works on philosophy of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The efficient compounds' design taking advantage of the molecule's structural characteristics and efficient search for therapeutic targets has provided effective tools for the research of new treatments when this is focused on disease cellular mechanisms. Phenotypic changes produced by in vitro interaction between molecules and targets can be monitored quantitatively by live cell imaging. To guarantee adequate interaction, it is necessary to consider different crucial elements: 1. Structural characteristics and molecular dynamics of the evaluated compound. 2. Target relevance for the concern physiopathology. However, overview's ignorance of the drug discovery, from structural and cellular problems, has slowed the new treatments research. This literature review presents some important structural aspects for compounds' characterization as therapeutic candidates and experimental approaches for cellular systems development. Subjects discussed are focused on live cell imaging and we also provide relevant examples. Phenotypic monitoring of interactions' produced effects between the chemical candidate and therapeutic target in a cellular system can favor the efficient search of potentially therapeutic molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cervical cancer can be cured if detected and treated early, for which the Pap test has been fundamental. In this context, technological aids can reduce the subjective nature of the diagnosis, although there are still several issues to be solved. Here we address two of them: the identification of the cytoplasm and the nucleus in a cell image, and the determination of a set of relevant features for the detection of injured cells. In this paper we present two contributions. First, we propose an interactive segmentation method based on multispectral morphological processing in which most misleading imperfections are eliminated with a simple interaction of the analyst. Second, we made an analysis of the relevance of certain variables that characterize the relative sizes of nucleus and cytoplasm, their shapes, textures and roughness of the edges. The analysis is based on performance measures of a detector that uses feature extraction through principal component analysis (PCA) and separation of normal and injured cells by a support vector machine (SVM). We have found that minimal interaction with the physician allows for much more accurate and reliable segmentation than purely automatic methods. On the other hand, we have found that the most important characteristics for detection of injured cells are the relative sizes of the nucleus and the cytoplasm and their form, while other features, such as texture and roughness, are less relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]