Rappresentazioni letterarie della polis nell'età della Seconda Sofistica

Lo scopo che mi propongo per il presente lavoro è un'analisi delle rappresentazioni della polis greca in alcuni dei testi letterari a nostra disposizione appartenenti al periodo che possiamo definire, secondo un'accezione ampia, della Seconda Sofistica, cioè nel periodo storico in cui la letteratura greca che conosciamo opera nel clima o sotto diretto influsso della cosiddetta Seconda Sofistica. Nella mia analisi ho cercato di tenere ben presente le differenze di personalità, di interessi, di genere che corrono tra i tre autori che ho scelto (Pausania, Elio Aristide e Dione di Prusa), e dei fattori che possono di volta in volta condizionare una deformazione dell'immagine della città in un senso piuttosto che in un altro. Ne emerge un quadro senza dubbio irriducibile a un'uniformità totale, ma che mi sembra possa restituire in gran parte quello che la stessa polis desiderava rappresentare di sé e quelle che erano le forme consuete di rappresentarla, alle quali poi ogni autore risponde secondo il gusto, lo stile e le esigenze specifiche. Il primo capitolo della presente tesi è dedicato all'immagine della città che possiamo ricavare dalla Periegesi di Pausania. Prendendo spunto dal caso specifico e particolare di una piccola città della Focide, Panopeo, la cui descrizione contiene una sorta di definizione di ciò che la polis è per l'autore, ho cercato di analizzare, all'interno dell'intera opera, la ricorrenza di alcuni elementi (topografici, architettonici, culturali e politici) che Pausania considera quando si trova di fronte a una realtà del tipo “polis” nella provincia di Achaia, per meglio comprendere in base a quali criteri egli la definisca tale. Nel Secondo Capitolo la mia attenzione si sposta sull'opera di uno degli esponenti più rappresentativi del movimento sofistico, Elio Aristide, e sul suo rapporto con alcune città del mondo ellenico, con particolare attenzione per alcune realtà dell'Asia Minore all'autore molto vicine e ben note. Una simile analisi è dedicata all'opera di Dione Crisostomo nel Capitolo Terzo e alla sua attività rivolta ad ambienti cittadini, nella sua patria e provincia e al di fuori. Anche in questo caso il mio interesse si concentra sugli elementi che contribuiscono a definire l'identità e l'immagine di una città che si considera greca all'interno dell'impero

Molecular Mechanism of DNA Topoisomerase I-Dependent rDNA Silencing: Sir2p Recruitment at Ribosomal Genes

Saccharomyces cerevisiae sir2Δ or top1Δ mutants exhibit similar phenotypes involving ribosomal DNA, including (i) loss of transcriptional silencing, resulting in non-coding RNA hyperproduction from cryptic RNA polymerase II promoters; (ii) alterations in recombination; and (iii) a general increase in histone acetylation. Given the distinct enzymatic activities of Sir2 and Top1 proteins, a histone deacetylase and a DNA topoisomerase, respectively, we investigated whether genetic and/or physical interactions between the two proteins could explain the shared ribosomal RNA genes (rDNA) phenotypes. We employed an approach of complementing top1Δ cells with yeast, human, truncated, and chimeric yeast/human TOP1 constructs and of assessing the extent of non-coding RNA silencing and histone H4K16 deacetylation. Our findings demonstrate that residues 115–125 within the yeast Top1p N-terminal domain are required for the complementation of the top1Δ rDNA phenotypes. In chromatin immunoprecipitation and co-immunoprecipitation experiments, we further demonstrate the physical interaction between Top1p and Sir2p. Our genetic and biochemical studies support a model whereby Top1p recruits Sir2p to the rDNA and clarifies a structural role of DNA topoisomerase I in the epigenetic regulation of rDNA, independent of its known catalytic activity

Infertility and assisted reproduction: legislative and cultural evolution in Italy. Infertilità e procreazione assistita: evoluzione legislativa e culturale in Italia

The social representation of the infertility coming out from the national newspapers has been explored in relation to the enactment of the Law 40/2004 and the 2005 referendum. All the articles (n=731), published in the last 15 years by the highest circulation Italian newspapers, have been collected in a corpus (token=360345) that underwent a multivariate analysis of textual data. Results show a difficulty in complementing together the mind and the body. The “biologic” is represented as the place of the technical and medical intervention while the “psycho-social” is conceived as the place of the family storytelling of the personal experiences of infertility and the public ethical debate on it. Before the law, newspapers deal with the theme of the family experience probably supporting the law enactment. After the referendum this thematic is dismissed and the theme of infertility as a pathology to treat emerges, bringing back infertility to the medical issu

Promoting Health for Chronic Conditions: a Novel Approach that integrates Clinical and Personal Decision Support

Direct and indirect economic costs related to chronic diseases are increasing in Europe due to the aging of population. One of the most challenging goals is to improve the quality of life of patients affected by chronic conditions, and enhance their self-management. In this paper, we propose a novel architecture of a scalable solution, based on mobile tools, aimed to keep patients with chronic diseases away from acute episodes, to improve their quality of life and, consequently, to reduce their economic impact. Our solution aims to provide patients with a personalized tool for improving self-management, and it supports both patients and clinicians in decision-making through the implementation of two different Decision Support Systems. Moreover, the proposed architecture takes into account the interoperability and, particularly, the compliance with data transfer protocols (e.g., BT4/LE, ANT+, ISO/IEEE 11073) to ensure integration with existing devices, and with the semantic web approaches and standards related to the content and structure of the information (e.g., HL7, ICD-10 and openEHR) to ensure correct sharing of information with hospital information systems, and classification of patient behaviors (Coelition). The solution will be implemented and validated in future study

The Reverse Transcription Inhibitor Abacavir Shows Anticancer Activity in Prostate Cancer Cell Lines

Background: Transposable Elements (TEs) comprise nearly 45% of the entire genome and are part of sophisticated regulatory network systems that control developmental processes in normal and pathological conditions. The retroviral/ retrotransposon gene machinery consists mainly of Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements (LINEs-1) and Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs) that code for their own endogenous reverse transcriptase (RT). Interestingly, RT is typically expressed at high levels in cancer cells. Recent studies report that RT inhibition by non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) induces growth arrest and cell differentiation in vitro and antagonizes growth of human tumors in animal model. In the present study we analyze the anticancer activity of Abacavir (ABC), a nucleoside reverse transcription inhibitor (NRTI), on PC3 and LNCaP prostate cancer cell lines. Principal Findings: ABC significantly reduces cell growth, migration and invasion processes, considerably slows S phase progression, induces senescence and cell death in prostate cancer cells. Consistent with these observations, microarray analysis on PC3 cells shows that ABC induces specific and dose-dependent changes in gene expression, involving multiple cellular pathways. Notably, by quantitative Real-Time PCR we found that LINE-1 ORF1 and ORF2 mRNA levels were significantly up-regulated by ABC treatment. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate the potential of ABC as anticancer agent able to induce antiproliferative activity and trigger senescence in prostate cancer cells. Noteworthy, we show that ABC elicits up-regulation of LINE-1 expression, suggesting the involvement of these elements in the observed cellular modifications

Effectiveness of Radiomic ZOT Features in the Automated Discrimination of Oncocytoma from Clear Cell Renal Cancer

Background: Benign renal tumors, such as renal oncocytoma (RO), can be erroneously diagnosed as malignant renal cell carcinomas (RCC), because of their similar imaging features. Computer-aided systems leveraging radiomic features can be used to better discriminate benign renal tumors from the malignant ones. The purpose of this work was to build a machine learning model to distinguish RO from clear cell RCC (ccRCC). Method: We collected CT images of 77 patients, with 30 cases of RO (39%) and 47 cases of ccRCC (61%). Radiomic features were extracted both from the tumor volumes identified by the clinicians and from the tumor’s zone of transition (ZOT). We used a genetic algorithm to perform feature selection, identifying the most descriptive set of features for the tumor classification. We built a decision tree classifier to distinguish between ROs and ccRCCs. We proposed two versions of the pipeline: in the first one, the feature selection was performed before the splitting of the data, while in the second one, the feature selection was performed after, i.e., on the training data only. We evaluated the efficiency of the two pipelines in cancer classification. Results: The ZOT features were found to be the most predictive by the genetic algorithm. The pipeline with the feature selection performed on the whole dataset obtained an average ROC AUC score of 0.87 ± 0.09. The second pipeline, in which the feature selection was performed on the training data only, obtained an average ROC AUC score of 0.62 ± 0.17. Conclusions: The obtained results confirm the efficiency of ZOT radiomic features in capturing the renal tumor characteristics. We showed that there is a significant difference in the performances of the two proposed pipelines, highlighting how some already published radiomic analyses could be too optimistic about the real generalization capabilities of the models

Minimally invasive vs. open segmental resection of the splenic flexure for cancer: a nationwide study of the Italian Society of Surgical Oncology-Colorectal Cancer Network (SICO-CNN)

Background Evidence on the efficacy of minimally invasive (MI) segmental resection of splenic flexure cancer (SFC) is not available, mostly due to the rarity of this tumor. This study aimed to determine the survival outcomes of MI and open treatment, and to investigate whether MI is noninferior to open procedure regarding short-term outcomes. Methods This nationwide retrospective cohort study included all consecutive SFC segmental resections performed in 30 referral centers between 2006 and 2016. The primary endpoint assessing efficacy was the overall survival (OS). The secondary endpoints included cancer-specific mortality (CSM), recurrence rate (RR), short-term clinical outcomes (a composite of Clavien-Dindo > 2 complications and 30-day mortality), and pathological outcomes (a composite of lymph nodes removed >= 12, and proximal and distal free resection margins length >= 5 cm). For these composites, a 6% noninferiority margin was chosen based on clinical relevance estimate. Results A total of 606 patients underwent either an open (208, 34.3%) or a MI (398, 65.7%) SFC segmental resection. At univariable analysis, OS and CSM were improved in the MI group (log-rank test p = 0.004 and Gray's tests p = 0.004, respectively), while recurrences were comparable (Gray's tests p = 0.434). Cox multivariable analysis did not support that OS and CSM were better in the MI group (p = 0.109 and p = 0.163, respectively). Successful pathological outcome, observed in 53.2% of open and 58.3% of MI resections, supported noninferiority (difference 5.1%; 1-sided 95%CI - 4.7% to infinity). Successful short-term clinical outcome was documented in 93.3% of Open and 93.0% of MI procedures, and supported noninferiority as well (difference - 0.3%; 1-sided 95%CI - 5.0% to infinity). Conclusions Among patients with SFC, the minimally invasive approach met the criterion for noninferiority for postoperative complications and pathological outcomes, and was found to provide results of OS, CSM, and RR comparable to those of open resection