Memory of the Rising and Futurology in the Same-Sex Marriage Referendum Debate

According to the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, the ideals of many of the rebels who fought in the 1916 Easter Rising to free the country from a foreign power have not yet been attained by today’s Republic: among these ideals Higgins listed wealth redistribution, eradication of inequalities and progressive positions on women’s rights. The idea that the task taken on by the 1916 Rising is yet to be accomplished is widespread in Ireland and has often turned into a rhetorical strategy in texts addressing very different topics within different discourses. This paper aims to investigate how the futurology inherent in today’s collective memory of 1916 was revisited by Yes and No campaigners in the mainstream debate prior to the same-sex marriage referendum in 2015. Accordingly, the tools of Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Studies are employed to analyse how the potential outcomes of the referendum were framed by both Yes and No sides as (contrasting) accomplishments of a nationalist and supposedly republican agenda

Memory of the Rising and Futurology in the Same-Sex Marriage Referendum Debate

According to the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, the ideals of many of the rebels who fought in the 1916 Easter Rising to free the country from a foreign power have not yet been attained by today’s Republic: among these ideals Higgins listed wealth redistribution, eradication of inequalities and progressive positions on women’s rights. The idea that the task taken on by the 1916 Rising is yet to be accomplished is widespread in Ireland and has often turned into a rhetorical strategy in texts addressing very different topics within different discourses. This paper aims to investigate how the futurology inherent in today’s collective memory of 1916 was revisited by Yes and No campaigners in the mainstream debate prior to the same-sex marriage referendum in 2015. Accordingly, the tools of Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Studies are employed to analyse how the potential outcomes of the referendum were framed by both Yes and No sides as (contrasting) accomplishments of a nationalist and supposedly republican agenda

INVESTIGATION ON NEURAL RESPONSES RELATED TO THE LOCALIZATION OF NATURAL SOUNDS

Spatial hearing allows the localization of sounds in complex acoustic environments. There is considerable evidence that this neural system rapidly adapts to changes in sensory inputs and behavioral goals. However, the mechanisms underlying this context-dependent coding are not well understood. In fact, previous studies on sound localization have mainly focused on the perception of simple artificial sounds, such as white-noise or pure tone bursts. In addition, previous research has generally investigated the localization of sounds in the frontal hemicircle while ignoring rear sources. However, their localization is evolutionary relevant and may show different neural coding, given the inherent lack of visual information. Here we present a pilot electroencephalography (EEG) study to identify robust indices of sound localization from participants listening to a short natural sound from eight source positions on the horizontal plane. We discuss a procedure to perform a within-subject classification of the perceived sound direction. Preliminary results suggest a pool of discriminative subject-specific temporal and topographical features correlated with the characteristics of the acoustic event. Our preliminary analysis has identified temporal and topographical features that are sensitive to spatial localization, leading to significant decoding of sounds direction for individual subjects. This pilot study adds to the literature a methodological approach that will lead to the objective classification of natural sounds location from EEG responses

The history of Lake Maggiore industrial pollution traced through lake sediment and long term monitoring of the biota

In Lake Maggiore large watershed (ca. 6,600 sq. km), industrial activities along the XX century led to the discharge into the lake or its tributaries of several pollutants, such as DDT, PCBs and mercury. Other pollutants, such as PAHs and flame retardants (such as PBDEs) are still reaching the lake. Analyses of some of these pollutants in lake biota were performed continuously since 1998 and form a unique time series. We used in parallel lake sediment cores to infer the history of lake contamination, and analyses of biological samples to describe the distribution of these pollutants in the lake food web and its year-to-year variability. Furthermore, analysis of the sediment of the main rivers flowing towards Lake Maggiore was used to get information on present sources of pollution. Results also show that legacy pollutants, which are no more used nor produced, still reach the lake from polluted soils located around the industrial sites, in particular during heavy rainfall. In particular, we paid special attention to Hg and to DDT and its metabolites, because of the presence of a large pollution source close to the River Toce, one of the main inlets of Lake Maggiore. Although DDT production ended in 1996, p,p\u27-DDT is still found in river sediment and in molluscs collected in Lake Maggiore, deriving probably from polluted soils. On the contrary, p,p\u27-DDE prevails in fish tissues, zooplankton and molluscs. Finally, high values of the concentration of some pollutants in the sediment of Lake Maggiore outlet (River Ticino) show that the lake does not act as a perfect sink for these compounds. Considering present day pollution, PAHs derive from diffuse sources and are found in the sediment of all tributaries, while PBDEs where found only in the sediment of two inlets, revealing the presence of active point sources

GEN-O-MA project: an Italian network studying clinical course and pathogenic pathways of moyamoya disease—study protocol and preliminary results

Background: GENetics of mOyaMoyA (GEN-O-MA) project is a multicenter observational study implemented in Italy aimed at creating a network of centers involved in moyamoya angiopathy (MA) care and research and at collecting a large series and bio-repository of MA patients, finally aimed at describing the disease phenotype and clinical course as well as at identifying biological or cellular markers for disease progression. The present paper resumes the most important study methodological issues and preliminary results. Methods: Nineteen centers are participating to the study. Patients with both bilateral and unilateral radiologically defined MA are included in the study. For each patient, detailed demographic and clinical as well as neuroimaging data are being collected. When available, biological samples (blood, DNA, CSF, middle cerebral artery samples) are being also collected for biological and cellular studies. Results: Ninety-eight patients (age of onset mean ± SD 35.5 ± 19.6 years; 68.4% females) have been collected so far. 65.3% of patients presented ischemic (50%) and haemorrhagic (15.3%) stroke. A higher female predominance concomitantly with a similar age of onset and clinical features to what was reported in previous studies on Western patients has been confirmed. Conclusion: An accurate and detailed clinical and neuroimaging classification represents the best strategy to provide the characterization of the disease phenotype and clinical course. The collection of a large number of biological samples will permit the identification of biological markers and genetic factors associated with the disease susceptibility in Italy

First Evidence of Immunomodulation in Bivalves under Seawater Acidification and Increased Temperature

Water acidification, temperature increases and changes in seawater salinity are predicted to occur in the near future. In such a global climate change (GCC) scenario, there is growing concern for the health status of both wild and farmed organisms. Bivalve molluscs, an important component of coastal marine ecosystems, are at risk. At the immunological level, the ability of an organism to maintain its immunosurveillance unaltered under adverse environmental conditions may enhance its survival capability. To our knowledge, only a few studies have investigated the effects of changing environmental parameters (as predicted in a GCC scenario) on the immune responses of bivalves. In the present study, the effects of both decreased pH values and increased temperature on the important immune parameters of two bivalve species were evaluated for the first time. The clam Chamelea gallina and the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis, widespread along the coast of the Northwestern Adriatic Sea, were chosen as model organisms. Bivalves were exposed for 7 days to three pH values (8.1, 7.7 and 7.4) at two temperatures (22 and 28°C). Three independent experiments were carried out at salinities of 28, 34 and 40 PSU. The total haemocyte count, Neutral Red uptake, haemolymph lysozyme activity and total protein levels were measured. The results obtained demonstrated that tested experimental conditions affected significantly most of the immune parameters measured in bivalves, even if the variation pattern of haemocyte responses was not always linear. Between the two species, C. gallina appeared more vulnerable to changing pH and temperature than M. galloprovincialis. Overall, this study demonstrated that climate changes can strongly affect haemocyte functionality in bivalves. However, further studies are needed to clarify better the mechanisms of action of changing environmental parameters, both individually and in combination, on bivalve haemocytes

Volere o potere? Hildesheimer, Joyce e Annalivia Plurabelle

i rapporti tra Hildesheimer e Joyce e l´ influenza di Finnegans Wake sull´autore tedescoThis paper deals with an array of diverse and yet interrelated topics, such as the Irish folklore and its musical legacy, James Joyce and his Finnegans Wake, in order to think, through its relevance to Hildesheimer’s understanding of art and literature, how and to what extent these elements affected the author’s poetics. Despite starting from Hildesheimer’s scholarly works, the essay especially focuses on his stylistic choices in translating the Anna Livia Plurabelle section into German, so as to retrospectively appreciate his compelling reasons to embark on such an ambitious venture

Estimation of Diagonal Volterra Kernels of an Audio System During Normal Operation with Multiple Least Mean Squares Adaptive Filters

The usage of Complete Volterra Kernels for emulating the nonlinear behavior of sound systems has been investigated for decades. Due to the computational load, the real-time implementation is typically limited to second order distortion and not feasible for higher orders. This is usually unsatisfactory for audio systems in which the disturbing distortions occur mostly at orders three and five. The same authors of this work already solved the problem with the Diagonal Volterra Kernels technique, which allowed to model arbitrarily high distortion orders. The estimation of the coefficients was obtained by exciting the system with an Exponential Sine Sweep signal. However, the result was often suboptimal since the signal reproduced by the sound system is usually different from a sinusoid. In this paper, a new method for estimating the Diagonal Volterra Kernels coefficients is proposed, by employing any music, noise or speech signal being played by a sound system in real-time. Multiple Least Mean Square algorithms are used to estimate the coefficients up to the 5 th distortion order, thus allowing to emulate the nonlinearities of a typical audio system