«Benvenuta devastazione». Una proposta di lettura in chiave “antropologica” de Il contagio. Parte I

This work (divided in two parts) looks at Walter Siti’s Il contagiofrom an anthropological perspective. Throughout the reading of Amselle, Augéand Lévi-Strauss a new way of reading one of the most important Italian authors in the XXIcentury is depicted. By this reading, the meaning of life in the “borgata romana”acquires a new, and more significant, point of view

«Non aveva mai, prima d’allora, sparso sangue». Quando il Commissario Montalbano incontrò Padre Cristoforo

I riferimenti manzoniani nella scrittura di Camilleri sono molteplici; dopo una breve panoramica dedicata alla rassegna dei testi critici incentrati sul tema, il presente lavoro confronta la figura di Carlo Zanchi, protagonista di “Un diario del ’43”, (apparso anche sul piccolo schermo nella puntata de “Il commissario Montalbano” nel febbraio 2019) con quella di Lodovico personaggio di manzoniana memoria. Entrambi i personaggi, infatti, seguono uno schema ben definito che dal delitto li porterà alla conversione.Andrea Camilleri’s “Un diario del ‘43” shows a carachter, Carlo Zanchi, which could be compared with Lodoviso, one of the most important carachters in Manzoni’s ‘Promessi sposi’. The first part of this work is focused on the connections between Camilleri and Manzoni, looking at the critical interventions writen in the last twenty years. The second part of the article compares the lives of two characters in their transitions from the murder to the conversion

Tertiary treatment of urban wastewater by solar and UV-C driven advanced oxidation with peracetic acid: effect on contaminants of emerging concern and antibiotic resistance

Photo-driven advanced oxidation process (AOP) with peracetic acid (PAA) has been poorly investigated in water and wastewater treatment so far. In the present work its possible use as tertiary treatment of urban wastewater to effectively minimize the release into the environment of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and antibiotic-resistant bacteria was investigated. Different initial PAA concentrations, two light sources (sunlight and UV-C) and two different water matrices (groundwater (GW) and wastewater (WW)) were studied. Low PAA doses were found to be effective in the inactivation of antibiotic resistant Escherichia coli (AR E. coli) in GW, with the UV-C process being faster (limit of detection (LOD) achieved for a cumulative energy (QUV) of 0.3 kJL−1 with 0.2 mg PAA L−1) than solar driven one (LOD achieved at QUV = 4.4 kJL−1 with 0.2 mg PAA L−1). Really fast inactivation rates of indigenous AR E. coli were also observed in WW. Higher QUV and PAA initial doses were necessary to effectively remove the three target CECs (carbamazepine (CBZ), diclofenac and sulfamethoxazole), with CBZ being the more refractory one. In conclusion, photo-driven AOP with PAA can be effectively used as tertiary treatment of urban wastewater but initial PAA dose should be optimized to find the best compromise between target bacteria inactivation and CECs removal as well as to prevent scavenging effect of PAA on hydroxyl radicals because of high PAA concentration

Long-term enzyme replacement therapy for Pompe disease with recombinant human alpha-glucosidase derived from chinese hamster ovary cells.

Pompe disease is a rare autosomal recessive myopathy due to the deficiency of lysosomal acid alpha-glucosidase. Clinical phenotypes range from the severe classic infantile form (hypotonia and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), to milder late onset forms (skeletal myopathy and absence of significant heart involvement). Enzyme replacement therapy with recombinant human alpha-glucosidase derived from either rabbit milk or Chinese hamster ovary cells has been introduced and is undergoing clinical trials. Reported is a long-term follow-up of 3 Pompe patients presenting without cardiomyopathy, treated with recombinant human alpha-glucosidase derived from Chinese hamster ovary cells. This study suggests that enzyme replacement therapy can lead to significant motor and respiratory improvement in the subgroup of patients who start the therapy before extensive muscle damage has occurred. The recombinant enzyme derived from Chinese hamster ovary cells, administered at doses significantly higher than previously reported, appears to have the same safety as the drug derived from rabbit milk