La Xiloteca Storica dell’Orto Botanico di Modena

Nell’ambito dei progetti di valorizzazione museale delle collezioni storiche, in corso presso l’Orto Botanico dell’Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, un recente intervento ha riguardato la Xiloteca Storica e, in particolare, 345 campioni di legno acquisiti nel periodo 1890-1969, provenienti sia da esemplari abbattuti nell’Orto Botanico modenese che da raccolte effettuate in natura oppure da donazioni da parte di istituzioni o privati

El discurso equivocado : semiótica de la Web Unusability

This article proposes a reflection about the usability of the web. By means of a semiotic analysis of design errors on the web a "web discourse" takes form. This discourse has its own enunciation figures and its particular textual dynamics that, for example, control the temporal dimension of interactions. The analysis of design errors permits the author to propose a semiotics of web unusability

Mirar y leer : de la pintura a la tipografía

Este documento se centra en gráficos visuales y el diseño a través de dos procesos semióticos, de ver y mirar: y el proceso de interpretación y construcción de la imagen gráfica de la música y las modulaciones rítmicas del autor y el lector. Si la mirada es una detención de la lectura rítmica, se entrelaza en este proceso y se destaca el objeto gráfico con señales y modulaciones plásticas.This paper focuses on graphic visual and design through the two semiotic processes of seeing and looking; the process of interpretation and construction of the graphic image to the music and the rhythmic modulations of the author and the reader. If the look is an arrest of rhytmical reading is always intertwined in this process and enhances the graphic object with signs and plastic modulations

La experiencia de la lectura a través de una historia de Alberto Breccia

El autor propone una lectura del cómic contemporáneo a través de seis niveles, desde un primer nivel de la lectura narrativa de base hasta un último nivel, denominado "lectura integral y recorrido de lectura". Los puntos focales del texto son la tensividad rítmica que transmite la historia y, sobre todo, las relaciones entre la experiencia vivida y la experiencia narrada. El ensayo concluye con la propuesta de una intensa relación del rito con la forma tensiva y narrativa de este cómic de Trillo y Breccia.The author proposes a reading of contemporary comics through six levels, from an initial level of basic reading narrative to a final level called comprehensive reading course. The focal points of the text are rhythmic tensivity transmitting the history and especially the relations between lived experience and the experience narrated. The paper concludes with the proposal about an intense relationship between ritual and tensive form and narrative in Trillo and Breccia's comic

Annunciazioni, rotazioni e samurai mancini. Il verso di lettura delle immagini e la scrittura

Not only the vertical direction of images – perceptually subject to the law of gravity and its consequences – plays an important role in their interpretation; the horizontal direction left-right  too seems to foster different interpretations from its converse. For this reason there are subjects and genres of painting, such as the Annunciation or the portrait, revealing some constants from this point of view, in their representation conventions. And for this same reason there are languages​​, like comics, where the left-right direction is critical not only for the succession of panels – clearly bound to the direction of verbal writing – but also for the panel’s internal organization. These reflections suggest a cultural explanation of the differences in horizontal organization in pictures, linking it to the habits of writing, while ruling out the explanations making reference to the physiology of brain

Ripetizione rituale e sviluppo narrativo

Modern seriality shares a number of features with what we could call primary seriality, being periodicity the main difference between them. The birth and development of the novel as a unitary narrative form historically separates them, and it is novel's very existence what allows the theoretical issue about the nature of seriality.  But in the intercourse between primary and modern seriality we meet also the birth and development of periodic print, which will represent a model for modern seriality. In understanding the relationship between seriality and narration, sagas play a crucial role, being the most difficult case to assimilate to standard model. We can observe that in some sagas narrative dynamics are actually not the focus of reader's attention, and just build up the frame of a sort of access to myth. And what happens when modern seriality reduces its distance from primary one, neutralizing its periodicity (e.g. by publishing TV series on the Web)?La serialità moderna condivide numerosi aspetti con quella che potremmo chiamare serialità primaria, differenziandosi sostanzialmente da essa per la presenza di una periodicità alla sua base. A separarle storicamente sta la nascita e lo sviluppo del romanzo, come forma narrativa unitaria, la cui esistenza stessa permette il porsi del problema teorico della natura della serialità. Ma tra la serialità primaria e quella moderna si trova anche la nascita e lo sviluppo della stampa periodica, la quale finisce per essere il modello della nostra serialità. Nella comprensione del rapporto tra serialità e narrazione, giocano un ruolo particolare le saghe, le più difficili da ricondurre al modello narrativo standard. È possibile osservare che in alcune saghe la dinamica narrativa non è in verità al centro dell'interesse del lettore, e si limita a costruire il quadro di una sorta di accesso al mito. Che cosa succede, infine, quando la serialità moderna si riavvicina a quella primaria, neutralizzando la periodicità (per esempio, attraverso la pubblicazione dei telefilm nel Web)

Campos magnéticos e leucemia linfocítica aguda em crianças: revisão sistemática de estudos caso-controle

Leukemia incidence in children has increased worldwide in recent decades, particularly due to the rise in acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Studies have associated exposure to non-ionizing radiation generated by low frequency magnetic fields with childhood leukemia. The current article reviews the case-control studies published on this subject. Of 152 articles tracked in different databases, ten studies from North America, Asia, and Europe met the defined selection criteria, with patients diagnosed from 1960 to 2004. Methodological limitations were observed in these articles, including difficulties with the procedures for assessing exposure. An association may exist between exposure to low frequency magnetic fields and acute lymphoblastic leukemia in children, but this association is weak, preventing the observation of consistency in the findings. Future studies from a wider range of geographic regions should focus on the analysis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is the subtype with the greatest impact on the increasing overall incidence of childhood leukemia.A incidência de leucemias em crianças tem aumentado nas últimas décadas no mundo, com influência predominante da leucemia linfocítica aguda, principal subtipo em crianças. Estudos têm relacionado a exposição às radiações não-ionizantes geradas pelos campos magnéticos de baixa freqüência com leucemia infantil. Neste artigo foram revisados os estudos caso-controle publicados sobre essa questão. Dos 152 artigos localizados em diferentes bases de dados, dez estudos da América do Norte, Ásia e Europa preencheram os critérios de seleção, comportando pacientes diagnosticados entre 1960 e 2004. Algumas limitações metodológicas foram observadas como dificuldades nos procedimentos de avaliação da exposição. É possível a existência de associação entre exposição a campos magnéticos de baixa freqüência e leucemia linfocítica aguda em crianças, porém, a força desta associação é tênue, impedindo observar consistência entre os resultados. Futuros estudos, com maior diversidade de regiões, deveriam concentrar-se na análise da leucemia linfocítica aguda, pois é o subtipo com maior influência na incidência crescente da leucemia infantil

Mineralogical and Chemical Investigations of the Amguid Crater (Algeria): Is there Evidence on an Impact Origin?

Mineralogical and chemical investigations were carried out on intra-craterial bedrocks (Lower Devonian sandstone) and regolithic residual soil deposits present around the Amguid structure, to discuss the hypothesis of its formation through a relatively recent (about 0.1 Ma) impact event. Observations with an optical microscope on intra-craterial rocks do not unequivocally confirm the presence of impact correlated microscopic planar deformation features (PDFs) in quartz crystals. Field observations, and optical and instrumental analysis (Raman spectroscopy) on rocks and soils (including different granulometric fractions) do not provide any incontrovertible pieces of evidence of high energy impact effects or products of impact (e.g., high pressure—temperature phases, partially or totally melted materials, etc.) either in target rocks or in soils. A series of selected main and trace elements (Al, Fe, Mg, Ni, Co and Cu) were analysed on rocks and soils to evaluate the presence in these materials of extraterrestrial sources. Comparative chemical data on rocks and soils suggest that these last are significantly enriched in Fe-poor Mg-rich materials, and in Co, Ni and Cu, in the order. A large number of EDAX-SEM analyses on separated soil magnetic particles indicate an abnormally high presence of Al-free Mg-rich sub-spherical or drop-like silicate particles, showing very similar bulk chemistries compatible with forsterite olivine. Some particles were found associated with a Ni-rich iron metal phase, and this association suggests a specific extraterrestrial origin for them. Electron microscope analysis made on a large number of soil magnetic particles indicates that 98% of them are terrestrial phases (almandine garnet, tourmaline and Fe-oxides, in abundance order), whereas, only a few grains are of questionable origin. One of the Mg-rich silicate particles was found to be a forsterite (Mg = 0.86) Mn-rich (MnO: 0.23%) Cr-free olivine, almost surely of extraterrestrial sources. Electron microprobe analysis of three soil particles allowed identification of uncommon Cr-rich (Cr2O3 about 8%) spinels, poorly compatible with an origin from terrestrial sources, and in particular from local source rocks. We propose a specific extraterrestrial origin for sub-spherical olivine particles characterised by quite similar magnesian character. Excluding any derivation of these particles from interplanetary dust, two other possible extraterrestrial sources should be considered for them, i.e., either normal micrometeorite fluxes or strongly un-equilibrated, or the Vigarano type Carbonaceous (CV) chondrite meteorite material. In this case, further studies will confirm an impact origin for Amguid, as such magnesian olivine components found in soils might represent the only remnants of a vaporised projectile of ordinary non-equilibrated meteoritic composition