Sexual Violence: Are Women Victims or Responsible?

Sexual violence is the imposition of an unwanted physical contact obtained by force, manipulation, or coercion. This kind of violence, which is detrimental to the dignity of the person who suffers it, causes deep psychic as well as physical wounds in the victim and is the most widespread violation of human rights in all countries and cultures. This paper tries to investigate whether the stereotype of women being responsible for the sexual violence they suffered is dominant in our society. The study of this stereotype has been addressed through the survey "Gender roles stereotypes and the social image of sexual violence" carried out by ISTAT in 2019 (referred to 2018) on the adult, male and female, population aged between 18 and 74. With regard to the stereotypes proposed in the survey, the results have shown that there is a clear contrast between young and older women and between women with a higher educational qualification and those with an elementary school degree. At the regional level, however, the contrast is between Central-Northern regions and Southern Italy: in five of the eight regions belonging to the southern division the most widespread stereotype is that the responsibility for sexual violence is attributable to women

Italian Society and Gender Role Stereotypes. How Stereotypical Beliefs Concerning Males and Females are Still Present in Italian People at the Beginning of the Third Millennium

There are many forms of discrimination in our society. Why is more attention being paid to discrimination against women with awareness-raising debates, public demonstrations, and more? Women’s discrimination against men is discrimination, too!  To cope with this growing phenomenon, it is necessary to understand the roots from which it originates and is fed. Gender role stereotypes may be responsible for this (Ostuni, 2017).  In this work, thanks to a survey carried out by ISTAT in 2019 (referred to 2018) on the male and female Italian population aged between 18 and 74 years old, it will be explained if and how our society is "trapped" in stereotypical beliefs. The results obtained show that Italy is divided into two parts and that in the north-central regions stereotypes are less rooted than in the southern ones. The phenomenon is less widespread, for both sexes, both as they grow in age and when they have a higher educational degree. In this context, as far as family society, and the economy is concerned, the role of women aissubordinate to men, especially in the South. As stereotypes are responsible for different forms of discrimination against women, a possible way to establish fair gender equality can be obtained by eliminating them and bringing down the prevailing patriarchal culture

Sexual Violence in Italy: Are Women Victims or Responsible?

Sexual violence is the imposition of unwanted physical contact obtained by force, manipulation, or coercion. This kind of violence, which is detrimental to the dignity of the person who suffers it, causes deep psychic as well as physical wounds in the victim and is the most widespread violation of human rights in all countries and cultures. This paper tries to investigate whether the stereotype of women being responsible for the sexual violence they suffered is dominant in our society. The study of this stereotype has been addressed through the survey "Gender roles stereotypes and the social image of sexual violence" carried out by ISTAT in 2019 (referred to 2018) on the adult, male, and female, population aged between 18 and 74. With regard to the stereotypes proposed in the survey, the results have shown that there is a clear contrast between young and older women and between women with a higher educational qualification and those with an elementary school degree. At the regional level, however, the contrast is between Central-Northern regions and Southern Italy: in five of the eight regions belonging to the Southern division, the most widespread stereotype is that the responsibility for sexual violence is attributable to women

Sexual Violence: Are Women Victims or Responsible?

Sexual violence is the imposition of an unwanted physical contact obtained by force, manipulation, or coercion. This kind of violence, which is detrimental to the dignity of the person who suffers it, causes deep psychic as well as physical wounds in the victim and is the most widespread violation of human rights in all countries and cultures. This paper tries to investigate whether the stereotype of women being responsible for the sexual violence they suffered is dominant in our society. The study of this stereotype has been addressed through the survey "Gender roles stereotypes and the social image of sexual violence" carried out by ISTAT in 2019 (referred to 2018) on the adult, male and female, population aged between 18 and 74. With regard to the stereotypes proposed in the survey, the results have shown that there is a clear contrast between young and older women and between women with a higher educational qualification and those with an elementary school degree. At the regional level, however, the contrast is between Central-Northern regions and Southern Italy: in five of the eight regions belonging to the southern division the most widespread stereotype is that the responsibility for sexual violence is attributable to women

‘Omics’ approaches in tomato aimed at identifying candidate genes for ascorbic acid accumulation in the fruit

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most important vegetables in the world with significant importance for human health and nutrition. This species has long served as model system for plant genetics, development, physiology, pathology, and fleshy fruit ripening, resulting in the accumulation of many genetic and genomic resources. In addition, the tremendous development of high-throughput technologies, such as transcriptomics, metabolomics and proteomics, collectively denoted as ‘omics’ technologies, has led to a huge collection of data and platforms today available on the net. Nowadays, identifying all the components of a single biological system is within our means; however, assigning function to genes, proteins and metabolites is still a daunting task. Major challenges include interpretation and integration of large datasets to understand the principles underlying the regulation of genes, metabolites and proteins, and how their combined interactions associate with variation in phenotype. In this review, we will focus on the role of the different high-throughput technologies in enhancing tomato breeding particularly for fruit quality traits. We also describe how two ‘omics’ approaches could be combined in order to identify candidate genes for the genetic control of ascorbic acid accumulation in tomato fruit. We report the example of transcriptomic and genomic approaches established on the use of different high-throughput platforms available for tomato.Key words: Tomato, introgression lines, quality trait, genomics, transcriptomics, candidate gene, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs)

Organic versus mineral fertilization: Assessing of yield and quality of durum wheat in marginal lands

Durum wheat is often cultivated in marginal areas with great management difficulties. Organic fertilization is a sustainable agricultural practice that allows preserving the environment, but its limit can be the reduction of yield and quality of crops, also in cereals. The aim of research was to evaluate the effects of the organic fertilization on yield and quality of Simeto, a variety of durum wheat, cultivated for two years in three different sites of the internal hill of Campania Region (San Giorgio la Molara, SGM; Ariano Irpino, AI; Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi, SAL). SGM was a sandy-clay-loam soil, with high fertility, while AI and SAL were clay soil. The organic fertilization (ORG), based on roasted leather, was compared to mineral fertilization (MIN) and the not fertilized treatment (N0). In SGM, crop growth rate (CGR) and leaf area index (LAI) were significantly higher than AI and SAL until the flowering (about 2-and 4-fold more, respectively). MIN and ORG significantly boosted CGR compared to N0, while for LAI, ORG was never different from N0. The two-years value of yield was 3.0 t ha–1; in SGM, it reached 4.2 t ha–1, and it was 54.6% more than the mean value of AI and SAL, while N0 was not different from MIN of AI and SAL. ORG yield was lower and not different from NO in AI, where the lowest values of 1000 kernels weight, and hectolitre weight were also recorded. MIN and ORG increased the number of spikes per square meter: 27.0%, and 12.8% over N0, respectively, but ORG showed an 11.2% decrease compared to MIN. The 1000 kernels weight reached the highest values in SAL, without differences between N0, MIN, and ORG. The values of protein and gluten percentage were highest in AI and SGM (about 13.5%, and 11.7%, respectively), but without differences between ORG and MIN in the 3 sites for protein percentage. The worst value of the vitreousness was recorded in SAL (52.3%), six-fold more than that of AI (8.2%), probably due to the high rainfall. NUE reached the highest value in SGM in the first year, when it was significantly different from AI and SAL (0.036 vs 0.030 t kg–1). Overall, the effect of nitrogen fertilization type results site-specific; indeed, organic fertilization had the same performance of mineral in the site with better soil (low clay content, high nitrogen, and organic matter content) and climate conditions

New insights in the control of antioxidants accumulation in tomato by transcriptomic analyses of genotypes exhibiting contrasting levels of fruit metabolites

Abstract Background Tomato is an economically important crop with fruits that are a significant source of bioactive compounds such as ascorbic acid and phenolics. Nowadays, the majority of the enzymes of the biosynthetic pathways and of the structural genes controlling the production and the accumulation of antioxidants in plants are known; however, the mechanisms that regulate the expression of these genes are yet to be investigated. Here, we analyzed the transcriptomic changes occurring during ripening in the fruits of two tomato cultivars (E1 and E115), characterized by a different accumulation of antioxidants, in order to identify candidate genes potentially involved in the biosynthesis of ascorbic acid and phenylpropanoids. Results RNA sequencing analyses allowed identifying several structural and regulator genes putatively involved in ascorbate and phenylpropanoids biosynthesis in tomato fruits. Furthermore, transcription factors that may control antioxidants biosynthesis were identified through a weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). Results obtained by RNA-seq and WGCNA analyses were further confirmed by RT-qPCR carried out at different ripening stages on ten cultivated tomato genotypes that accumulate different amount of bioactive compounds in the fruit. These analyses allowed us to identify one pectin methylesterase, which may affect the release of pectin-derived D-Galacturonic acid as metabolic precursor of ascorbate biosynthesis. Results reported in the present work allowed also identifying one L-ascorbate oxidase, which may favor the accumulation of reduced ascorbate in tomato fruits. Finally, the pivotal role of the enzymes chalcone synthases (CHS) in controlling the accumulation of phenolic compounds in cultivated tomato genotypes and the transcriptional control of the CHS genes exerted by Myb12 were confirmed. Conclusions By using transcriptomic analyses, candidate genes encoding transcription factors and structural genes were identified that may be involved in the accumulation of ascorbic acid and phenylpropanoids in tomato fruits of cultivated genotypes. These analyses provided novel insights into the molecular mechanisms controlling antioxidants accumulation in ripening tomato fruits. The structural genes and regulators here identified could also be used as efficient genetic markers for selecting high antioxidants tomato cultivars

Comparative transcriptomic profiling of two tomato lines with different ascorbate content in tomato fruit.

In recent years, interest in tomato breeding for enhanced antioxidant content has increased as medical research has pointed to human health benefits from antioxidant dietary intake. Ascorbate is one of the major antioxidants present in tomato, and little is known about mechanisms governing ascorbate pool size in this fruit. In order to provide further insights into genetic mechanisms controlling ascorbate biosynthesis and accumulation in tomato, we investigated the fruit transcriptome profile of the Solanum pennellii introgression line 10-1 that exhibits a lower fruit ascorbate level than its cultivated parental genotype. Our results showed that this reduced ascorbate level is associated with an increased antioxidant demand arising from an accelerated oxidative metabolism mainly involving mitochondria, peroxisomes, and cytoplasm. Candidate genes for controlling ascorbate level in tomato fruit were identified, highlighting the role of glycolysis, glyoxylate metabolism, and purine breakdown in modulating the ascorbate pool size

Evaluation of Tomato Genetic Resources for Response to Water Deficit

Water deficit strongly affects plant yield and quality. However, plants can minimize drought injury by adaptation mechanisms that have evolved to escape harmful conditions. The response to water deprivation is a complex trait controlled by several genes. In order to gain a deeper understanding of drought response mechanisms in tomato, a collection of 27 genotypes was studied under different water deficit conditions. Since developmental stages might be differently influenced by drought, analyses were carried out on young plantlets during fruit setting. The only genotype that showed good performances both as water retention and fruit production was the ecotype Siccagno. All the genotypes were analysed at molecular level with the aim of detecting structural polymorphisms in selected stress-responsive genes. In addition, the expression level of a number of these genes was measured in the genotypes more tolerant to water deficit. Many polymorphisms were detected in six stress-responsive genes, and some could imply significant modifications in the protein structure. Furthermore, the expression analysis by RT-qPCR of three stress-responsive genes allowed arguing that a higher level of expression of the gene erd15 might be related to the better response to water deficit exhibited by Siccagno. Similarly, the lower expression of eight genes in the same genotype analysed through a microarray experiment confirmed the involvement of these stress-related genes in the tomato response to drought. Further investigations are required for a better comprehension of the mechanisms underlying response to water deficit in tomato by exploiting the genetic resource identified as more tolerant. The use of new technologies able to globally analyse structural polymorphism and expression level of genes will succeed to identify crucial genes involved in stress response in the ecotype Siccagno grown under different water regimes