Il tempo e la crisi. Analisi di un binomio costitutivo della modernità europea

This article aims to reconstruct the history of the concept of crisis and its links with the main temporal models of European modernity, paying particular attention to Marxian thought and to some of the most significant critiques that have been addressed to it. During this historical and conceptual analysis, three objectives will be basically pursued: firstly, to show the positive meaning that ‘crisis’ has assumed within the modern philosophies of history and to investigate its debts with the Judeo-Christian tradition; secondly, to prove that Marx did not intend to support, as he has often been accused of, any staged and linear conception of history, but rather to highlight the existence of different temporal strata, within which ‘crisis’ does not produce any forced outcome; finally, to analyze how, between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, authors like Nietzsche and Spengler tried to eliminate – without succeeding – faith in historical progress

Radon concentration in self-bottled mineral spring waters as a possible public health issue

Since 2013, the Council Directive 2013/51/Euratom has been regulating the content of radioactive substances in water intended for human consumption. However, mineral waters are exempted from this regulation, including self-bottled springs waters, where higher radon concentration are expected. Therefore, a systematic survey has been conducted on all the 33 mineral spring waters of Lazio (a region of Central Italy) in order to assess if such waters, when self-bottled, may be of concern for public health. Waters have been sampled in two different ways to evaluate the impact of bottling on radon concentration. Water sampling was possible for 20 different spring waters, with 6 samples for each one. The results show that 2 (10%) of measured mineral spring waters returned radon concentrations higher than 100 Bq L−1, i.e., the parametric value established by the Council Directive. These results, if confirmed by other surveys involving a higher number of mineral spring waters, would suggest regulating also these waters, especially in countries like Italy for which: (i) mineral water consumption is significant; (ii) mineral concession owners generally allow the consumers to fill bottles and containers, intended for transport and subsequent consumption, directly from public fountains or from fountains within the plant; (iii) the consumers’ habit of drinking self-bottled mineral water is widespread

Models of radon exhalation from building structures: General and case-specific solutions.

Assessing the radon activity that exhales from building structures is crucial to identify the best strategies to prevent radon from entering a building or reducing its concentration in the inhabited spaces. The direct measurement is extremely difficult, so the common approach has consisted in developing models describing the radon migration and exhalation phenomena for building porous materials. However, due to the mathematical complexity of comprehensively modelling the radon transport phenomenon in buildings, simplified equations have been mostly adopted until now to assess the radon exhalation. A systematic analysis of the models applicable to radon transport has been carried out and it has resulted in four models differing in the migration mechanisms – only diffusive or diffusive and advective – and the presence of inner radon generation. The general solutions have been obtained for all the models. Moreover, three case-specific sets of boundary conditions have been formulated to account for all the actual scenarios occurring in buildings: both perimetral and partition walls and building structures in direct contact with soil or embankments. The corresponding case-specific solutions obtained serve as a key practical tool to improve the accuracy in assessing the contribution of building materials to indoor radon concentration according to the site-specific installation conditions in addition to the material inner properties

Immuno-chemotherapy reduces recurrence of malignant pleural mesothelioma: an experimental setting

Objective: To assess the effect of immuno-chemotherapy on the extent of local tumour recurrence in an established rat model of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Methods: Six days after subpleural inoculation of a syngeneic MPM cell line Interleukin-45 (IL-45), left-sided pneumonectomy and resection of the tumour nodule was performed. Animals were randomised into four treatment groups for intrapleural therapy: control (n=6), 500μg cytosine phosphate guanosine oligodeoxynucleotide (CpG-ODN) (n=6), cisplatin-fibrin (n=6), cisplatin-fibrin+500μg CpG (n=6). Six days later the volume of tumour recurrence was assessed, which was the primary endpoint. Secondary endpoints were quantification of the ratio host/tumour cells in the local recurrence and cytokine expression profile in the tumour tissue by real time quantitative PCR (qPCR). T lymphocyte subpopulations in the tumour recurrence tissue were evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Treatment-related toxicity was monitored by measuring blood chemistry and complete blood count. Results: The volume of tumour recurrence was significantly reduced from 610mm3 in the control group to 11.7mm3 in the cisplatin-fibrin group (p=0.004) and to 21.8mm3 in the cisplatin-fibrin+CpG group (p=0.004). Pro-inflammatory cytokines (Interferon-γ (IFN-γ), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Interleukin-12 (IL-12)) were increased after treatment with cisplatin-fibrin+CpG in comparison to cisplatin-fibrin alone but differences were not statistically significant. We found a higher ratio of host/tumour cells in the cisplatin-fibrin+CpG group (45/55%) compared to the cisplatin-fibrin group (27/73%). In comparison to the control group, animals treated with cisplatin-fibrin+CpG showed a higher number of CD8+ T-cells in the tumour tissue. No significant treatment-related toxicity was observed. Conclusions: Adjuvant treatment with chemotherapy or immuno-chemotherapy leads to significant reduction of mesothelioma recurrence after surgery in this rat MPM model. Immuno-chemotherapy resulted in an increased recruitment of inflammatory cells to the site of tumourigenesis and elicited higher level of tumour growth inhibiting cytokine

Risk factors for Panic Disorder in pregnancy: A cohort study

Background The study investigates the prevalence of Panic Disorder (PD) with or without comorbid Major (MD) or Minor Depressive (md) disorder during pregnancy and focuses its attention on the different pattern of risk factors in these two subgroups in a sample of women attending two Centres for Prenatal Care of the Public Health Service. Methods Two-hundred and seventy-seven pregnant women were assessed monthly throughout the whole pregnancy period using the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders (PRIME-MD) for the screening of PD and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) for the evaluation of severity of anxious and depressive symptoms. Results Twenty-one women (7.5%) were diagnosed as affected by PD, of whom 12 (57.1%) showed MD or md comorbidity. The development of PD without depressive comorbidity is predicted by a history of previous episodes of Anxiety Disorders while the development of PD plus depressive comorbidity is predicted by a history of previous depressive episodes and by the lack of familiar support. Limitations Given the small sample size of our anxious and depressed women, the present data need to be verified by using larger samples. Conclusions The frequent association between PD and MD or md, the analysis of risk factors and of temporal relationship strongly suggests that the panic-depressive comorbidity might represent in fact depressive disorders with intense anxiety symptoms. These findings raise the question if the PD-depressive association is a true comorbidity or reveals the anxious symptomatology of a depressive disorder (MD or md). © 2014 Elsevier B.V

Sourdough fermentation of whole and sprouted lentil flours: In situ formation of dextran and effects on the nutritional, texture and sensory characteristics of white bread

Exopolysaccharides produced in situ by lactic acid bacteria during sourdough fermentation are recognized as bread texture improvers. In this study, the suitability of whole and sprouted lentil flours, added with 25% on flour weight sucrose for dextran formation by selected strains during sourdough fermentation, was evaluated. The dextran synthesized in situ by Weissella confusa SLA4 was 9.2 and 9.7% w/w flour weight in lentil and sprouted lentil sourdoughs, respectively. Wheat bread supplemented with 30% w/w sourdough showed increased specific volume and decreased crumb hardness and staling rate, compared to the control wheat bread. Incorporation of sourdoughs improved the nutritional value of wheat bread, leading to increased total and soluble fibers content, and the aroma profile. The integrated biotechnological approach, based on sourdough fermentation and germination, is a potential clean-label strategy to obtain high-fibers content foods with tailored texture, and it can further enhance the use of legumes in novel foods.Peer reviewe

Bioprocessing of barley and lentil grains to obtain in situ synthesis of exopolysaccharides and composite wheat bread with improved texture and health properties

A comprehensive study into the potential of bioprocessing techniques (sprouting and sourdough fermentation) for improving the technological and nutritional properties of wheat breads produced using barley and lentil grains was undertaken. Dextran biosynthesis in situ during fermentation of native or sprouted barley flour (B or SB) alone or by mixing SB flour with native or sprouted lentil flour (SB-L or SB-SL) by Weissella paramesenteroides SLA5, Weissella confusa SLA4, Leuconostoc pseudomesenteroides DSM 20193 or Weissella confusa DSM 20194 was assessed. The acidi-fication and the viscosity increase during 24 h of fermentation with and without 16% sucrose (on flour weight), to promote the dextran synthesis, were followed. After the selection of the fermentation parameters, the bioprocessing was carried out by using Leuconostoc pseudomesenteroides DSM 20193 (the best LAB dextran producer, up to 2.7% of flour weight) and a mixture of SB-SL (30:70% w/w) grains, enabling also the decrease in the raffinose family oligosaccharides. Then, the SB-SL sourdoughs containing dextran or control were mixed with the wheat flour (30% of the final dough) and leavened with baker’s yeast before baking. The use of dextran-containing sourdough allowed the production of bread with structural improvements, compared to the control sourdough bread. Compared to a baker’s yeast bread, it also markedly reduced the predicted glycemic index, in-creased the soluble (1.26% of dry matter) and total fibers (3.76% of dry matter) content, giving pe-culiar and appreciable sensory attributes

A comparison between the effects of over-expression of miRNA-16 and miRNA-34a on cell cycle progression of mesothelioma cell lines and on their cisplatin sensitivity

The prognosis of patients affected by malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is presently poor and no therapeutic strategies have improved their survival yet. Introduction of miRNA mimics to restore their reduced or absent functionality in cancer cells is considered an important opportunity and a combination of miR's might be even more effective. In the present study, miR-16 and miR-34a were transfected, singularly and in combination, in MPM cell lines H2052 and H28, and their effects on cell proliferation and sensitivity to cisplatin are reported. Interestingly, the overexpression of both miRs, alone or combined, slows down the cell cycle progression, modulates the p53 and HMGB1 expression and increases the sensitivity of cells to cisplatin, producing a marked impairment of cell proliferation and strengthening the apoptotic effect of the drug. However, the co-overexpression of the two miRs results more effective only in the regulation of the cell cycle, but does not enhance the sensitivity of MPM cells to cisplatin. Consequently, although the potential of miR-16 and miR-34a is confirmed, we must conclude that their combination does not improve the response of MPM to chemotherapy