Sexuality and the Nation: Urban Popular Music and Queer Identities in Krámpack

Since popular music entered film music studies debates between the mid-1990s and early-2000s (Romney and Wootton, 1995; Smith, 1998; Kassabian, 2001; Wojcik and Knight, 2001; Inglis, 2003; Lanin and Caley, 2005), scholarly attention for Spanish film music has grown (Vernon and Eisen, 2006; Fraile Prieto, 2010; Viñuela Suárez and Fraile Prieto, 2010) and contributions about songs quickly started appearing (Evans, 2002; Vernon, 2005; Shaw and Stone, 2012). There are obvious signs of a growing field including a broad range of disciplines. While different backgrounds produce a diverse picture, different disciplines can bring a certain focus, which predictably imposes a few recurrent limitations. Film scholars often focus on auteurs, often leaving not-yet-established directors off the scholarly map, while musicologists are still drawn towards the great film music composers – two sides that often come together to produce studies about established director-composer pairs. In Spain, film music studies remains largely centred in the musicological circles where these debates began and the interdisciplinary perspective which characterises Anglophone scholarship about Spanish films and their soundtracks has not yet reached film studies in the Spanish context

Loose Cannons Unloaded: Popular Music, Space, and Queer Identities in the Films of Ferzan Özpetek

Ferzan Özpetek’s films are known for overtly breaching the subject of queer identities in Italian mainstream cinema. Popular music, however, often complicates the inclusive representations claimed by films in which queer and other non-dominant identities are visible. Where these identities are positioned and which space their members can claim are other key factors for a critical appraisal of their representations. Songs and their placement can produce different associative audiovisual combinations between Italian and non-Italian music on the one hand, and queer and other non-dominant identities on the other. The few camp songs heard where queer characters are shown outside their space and their systematic aural erasure illustrate the limited ‘audibility’ these films allow for queer identities despite their visibility. In this article I discuss the interaction between popular music and space in the films of Ferzan Özpetek, looking at what I term ‘conditions of the audible’ and considering how these audiovisual representations can situate queer identities in the shifting landscape of Italian mainstream cinema. The way these identities are spatially and musically contained, I argue, can complicate their newly-found visibility and the transnational dimension in which Özpetek’s films are often located. While Özpetek did make queer identities visible, these representations inescapably negotiate the national – a dimension where queerness remains spatially and musically contained and Othered

Studio della Distribuzione di Determinanti Genetici di Resistenza Antibiotica in Isolati di Escherichia coli da Molluschi Bivalvi del Veneto

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'Playing' cultural identities in and out of the cinematic nation: popular songs in British, Spanish, and Italian cinema of the late 1990s

The questions I set out to address in the thesis originate at the point where film music scholarship on identifications via popular songs and film scholarship on the necessity to look beyond national identity in cinema, intersect. By analysing the processes through which popular songs bring meaning into films, and focussing on how their meaning and other textual factors intersect in the film, I argue that soundtracks construct identities that are not uncovered through considerations of films as visual texts. To explore these processes, I chose to focus on films from three European national cinemas – British, Spanish, and Italian – and show how considering popular songs can reveal the paths audiences tread when they not only see but also hear the differences soundtracks construct in films. After situating my study in relation to the literature on film music studies and film studies, I discuss the concept of cultural identities used in the thesis and highlight its relevance to the study of films as audiovisual texts. In the nine case studies presented in the three central chapters, I illustrate how songs participate in the construction and positioning of cultural identities in films. Via connections between different musical groupings and the cultural identities these articulate, songs can acquire further meaning, which often changes during the course of the films and can situate cultural identities in relation to the cinematic representations of a dominant national culture. The possibilities for identifications offered through popular music in films are being explored in interesting ways in the field of film music studies. By applying these theorists’ ideas to British, Spanish, and Italian films, I propose to show the readings that a consideration of films as visual texts alone does not account for. In addition to illustrating how an audiovisual approach to films can inform other neighbouring disciplines, I build on existing ideas in film music studies and propose a basic model for understanding how songs can map cultural identities in the cinematic representation of nations as well as be influenced by their textual voyages through films. In this project, I ultimately aim to argue for the necessity to listen beyond national identity in order to understand where these narratives allow audiences to situate themselves in relation to the nations they inhabit

Morphologic Criteria of Lesion Activity in Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Consensus Article

Intravitreal antivascular endothelial growth factor drugs represent the current standard of care for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). Individualized treatment regimens aim at obtaining the same visual benefits of monthly injections with a reduced number of injections and follow-up visits, and, consequently, of treatment burden. The target of these strategies is to timely recognize lesion recurrence, even before visual deterioration. Early detection of lesion activity is critical to ensure that clinical outcomes are not compromised by inappropriate delays in treatment, but questions remain on how to effectively monitor the choroidal neovascularization (CNV) activity. To assess the persistence/recurrence of lesion activity in patients undergoing treatment for nAMD, an expert panel developed a decision algorithm based on the morphological features of CNV. After evaluating all current retinal imaging techniques, the panel identified optical coherent tomography as the most reliable tool to ascertain lesion activity when funduscopy is not obvious

Relationship between lipid droplets size and integrated optical density

Lipid accumulation is largely investigated due to its role in many human diseases. The attention is mainly focused on the lipid droplets (LDs), spherical cytoplasmic organelles which are devoted to the storage of the lipids. The amount of lipid content is often evaluated by measuring LDs size and/or the integrated optical density (IOD) in cultured cells. Both evaluations are directly associated to the lipid content and therefore they are correlated to each other, but a lack of theoretical relationship between size and IOD was observed in literature. Here we investigated the size-IOD relationship of LDs observed in microscopical images of cultured cells. The experimental data were obtained from immature and differentiated 3T3-L1 murine cells, which have been extensively used in studies on adipogenesis. A simple model based on the spherical shape of the LDs and the Lambert-Beer law, which describes the light absorption by an optical thick material, leads to a mathematical relationship. Despite only light rays\u2019 absorption was considered in the model, neglecting their scattering, a very good agreement between the theoretical curve and the experimental data was found. Moreover, a computational simulation corroborates the model indicating the validity of the mathematically theoretical relationship between size and IOD. The theoretical model could be used to calculate the absorption coefficient in the LDs population and it could be applied to seek for morphologically and functionally LDs subpopulations. The identification of LDs dynamic by measuring size and IOD could be related to different pathophysiological conditions and useful for understand cellular lipid-associated diseases

Influence of Storage Temperature on Radiochemical Purity of 99mTc-Radiopharmaceuticals

The influence of effective room temperature on the radiochemical purity of 99mTc-radiopharmaceuticals was reported. This study was born from the observation that in the isolators used for the preparation of the 99mTc-radiopharmaceuticals the temperatures can be higher than those reported in the commercial illustrative leaflets of the kits. This is due, in particular, to the small size of the work area, the presence of instruments for heating, the continuous activation of air filtration, in addition to the fact that the environment of the isolator used for the 99mTc-radiopharmaceuticals preparation and storage is completely isolated and not conditioned. A total of 244 99mTc-radiopharmaceutical preparations (seven different types) have been tested and the radiochemical purity was checked at the end of preparation and until the expiry time. Moreover, we found that the mean temperature into the isolator was significantly higher than 25 C, the temperature, in general, required for the preparation and storage of 99mTc-radiopharmaceuticals. Results confirmed the radiochemical stability of radiopharmaceutical products. However, as required in the field of quality assurance, the impact that different conditions than those required by the manufacturer on the radiopharmaceuticals quality have to be verified before human administration

The direction, timing and demography of Popillia japonica (Coleoptera) invasion reconstructed using complete mitochondrial genomes

The Japanese beetle Popillia japonica is a pest insect that feeds on hundreds of species of wild and cultivated plants including important fruit, vegetable, and field crops. Native to Japan, the pest has invaded large areas of the USA, Canada, the Azores (Portugal), Italy, and Ticino (Switzerland), and it is considered a priority for control in the European Union. We determined the complete mitochondrial genome sequence in 86 individuals covering the entire distribution of the species. Phylogenetic analysis supports a major division between South Japan and Central/North Japan, with invasive samples coming from the latter. The origin of invasive USA samples is incompatible, in terms of the timing of the event, with a single introduction, with multiple Japanese lineages having been introduced and one accounting for most of the population expansion locally. The origin of the two invasive European populations is compatible with two different invasions followed by minimal differentiation locally. Population analyses provide the possibility to estimate the rate of sequence change from the data and to date major invasion events. Demographic analysis identifies a population expansion followed by a period of contraction prior to the invasion. The present study adds a time and demographic dimension to available reconstructions

La "compilation soundtrack" nel cinema sonoro italiano

The issue addresses the compilation soundtrack in the Italian sound cinem