From 3-geometry transition amplitudes to graviton states

18 pagesIn various background independent approaches, quantum gravity is defined in terms of a field propagation kernel: a sum over paths interpreted as a transition amplitude between 3-geometries, expected to project quantum states of the geometry on the solutions of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. We study the relation between this formalism and conventional quantum field theory methods. We consider the propagation kernel of 4d Lorentzian general relativity in the temporal gauge, defined by a conventional formal Feynman path integral, gauge fixed à la Fadeev-Popov. If space is compact, this turns out to depend only on the initial and final 3-geometries, while in the asymptotically flat case it depends also on the asymptotic proper time. We compute the explicit form of this kernel at first order around flat space, and show that it projects on the solutions of all quantum constraints, including the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, and yields the correct vacuum and n-graviton states. We also illustrate how the Newtonian interaction is coded into the propagation kernel, a key open issue in the spinfoam approach

Entomologia elementare. Breve guida illustrata alla conoscenza degli insetti

Elementary Entomology is a informative work originally intended for elementary and secondary schools studentsEntomologia Elementare ? un opera divulgativa inizialmente pensata per gli alunni delle scuole elementari e medie inferiori. Essa ? stata infatti realizzata nell\u27ambito del progetto "Insecta Ludi Magistri" finanziato dall\u27Amministrazione Provinciale di Sassari. Questo testo pu? in realt? essere utilizzato da chiunque si avvicini al mondo degli insett

THE SOCIAL AUDIT AND SOCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AMBIGUITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING ADOPTION

An interesting initiative introduced in the public sector in recent years is participatory budgeting (PB), which has gained popularity, particularly with the advent of the New Public Governance (Touchton et al., 2023; Wampler & Touchton, 2019). PB aims to develop democratic strategies that allow communities to exercise popular control over decision-making processes (Mattei et al., 2022). While the preparatory side of PB has been extensively investigated in the literature, the user side remains largely unknown (Bartocci et al., 2022). In this light, it is possible to hypothesize that involving citizens in the evaluation and monitoring phases could improve the alignment between policy-making and citizens‘ expectations (Mattei et al., 2022). From this perspective, it becomes interesting to focus on social audit, which is a crucial process for an organization‘s social accountability. It is characterized by openness, transparency, and accountability, involving all stakeholders (Sathiabama, 2018). It serves as a managerial control mechanism that measures intangible and qualitative issues (Cotton, 2000). The purpose of a social audit is to enable organizations to evaluate and demonstrate their social, ethical, economic, and environmental benefits, as well as aspects related to health, working conditions, human rights, ethical rights, social protection, and transparency (Cotton, 2000; Humphrey & Owen, 2000; Sathiabama, 2018). It provides an assessment of an organization‘s performance and non-financial objectives by showcasing the achievement of its social goals and monitoring stakeholders‘ opinions (Sathiabama, 2018). However, the literature on this topic is still underdeveloped, and uncertainties persist, particularly regarding the terms used (e.g., ―social audit‖, ―social accountability‖, ―voice and accountability‖, or ―social control‖ used as synonyms) and the implied concepts (e.g., social auditing sometimes seen as equivalent to social accountability, while other times seen as a tool for it) (Baltazar & Sepúlveda, 2015). Therefore, considering the significance of participatory budgeting and the ambiguities surrounding social audit (or accountability), the aim is to understand how previous studies have analyzed the relationships between ―social audit‖ or ―social accountability‖ and ―participatory budgeting‖ to clarify the existing relations between these terms, given the aforementioned ambiguities about social audit and social accountability. To achieve this aim, a structured review of the literature (Massaro et al., 2016) has been carried out. In light of the purpose of the study, the keywords ‗participatory budget*‘ and ‗social audit*‘ and ‗social account*‘ were chosen in the string TITLE-ABS-KEY (―participatory budget*‖ and (―social audit*‖ or ―social account*‖)). This string was searched on Scopus because it is the most widely used and most available database for multidisciplinary scientific literature (De Moya-Anegón et al., 2007). The search was done in title, abstract and keywords because these are considered the sections‘ articles that typically contain keywords (Dal Mas et al., 2019; Natalicchio et al., 2017; Paoloni et al., 2020). The available papers were twelve. Then, the search was restricted to papers written in English to avoid translation problems (Mauro et al., 2017). Finally, two contributions were removed: a book that was a duplicate and a paper that was out of topic. Therefore, the eligible sample includes ten contributions. This analysis highlights the path of social auditing and its implications in the participatory process, like PB. The ten manuscripts have different natures; in detail: five are articles, and five are book chapters. Longitudinal analysis shows that the first publication dates to 2010 and that, thereafter, scientific production on this topic is very patchy. In fact, some years (2017, 2018 and 2021) present a couple of publications per year. In other years (2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2020), no articles are published. Looking at the geographical content considered by the authors of the eligible manuscripts, following the categorisation used by (Broadbent & Guthrie, 2008; Paoloni et al., 2020), it is possible to highlight that two documents have not considered a particular case because are literature review or conceptual paper. Then, four documents analysed the Asia context, followed by three manuscripts from Central and South America and only one document from Africa and the Middle East. The eligible studies are carried out with various methodologies; in detail: 7 used qualitative methods, only one author used a quantitative method, one used a conceptual, and one used a literature review. Finally, analysing the papers‘ content, it is possible to highlight how, over time, the social audit has become a means used not only by private companies to reconcile economic and social objectives (Evans et al., 1998) but also in the public sector, as the participatory budgeting, a participatory governance tool, even if they do it differently. Based on the literature review, social audit and participatory budgeting are considered tools within the broader concept of social accountability. Some authors (Chowdhury & Panday, 2018) see them as interconnected, while others view participatory budgeting as a means to enhance social accountability without explicitly mentioning social audit (Touchton et al., 2023). Future research could try to clarify these grey areas that have been highlighted. Further evidence emerges regarding the need to produce contextualised studies in Europe as well as a lack of quantitative studies analysing the above-mentioned phenomena. This study aims to emphasize the significance of social auditing, despite the persisting ambiguities surrounding the use of terms like social audit or social accountability in the context of PB. Additionally, it contributes by analyzing the present state of social auditing and social accountability in PB, highlighting the public sector reforms implemented during the analyzed period

Strengths of the resonances at 436, 479, 639, 661, and 1279 keV in the 22^{22}Ne(p,γ\gamma)23^{23}Na reaction

The $^{22}$Ne(p,$\gamma$)$^{23}$Na reaction is included in the neon-sodium cycle of hydrogen burning. A number of narrow resonances in the Gamow window dominates the thermonuclear reaction rate. Several resonance strengths are only poorly known. As a result, the $^{22}$Ne(p,$\gamma$)$^{23}$Na thermonuclear reaction rate is the most uncertain rate of the cycle. Here, a new experimental study of the strengths of the resonances at 436, 479, 639, 661, and 1279 keV proton beam energy is reported. The data have been obtained using a tantalum target implanted with $^{22}$Ne. The strengths $\omega\gamma$ of the resonances at 436, 639, and 661 keV have been determined with a relative approach, using the 479 and 1279 keV resonances for normalization. Subsequently, the ratio of resonance strengths of the 479 and 1279 keV resonances was determined, improving the precision of these two standards. The new data are consistent with, but more precise than, the literature with the exception of the resonance at 661 keV, which is found to be less intense by one order of magnitude. In addition, improved branching ratios have been determined for the gamma decay of the resonances at 436, 479, and 639 keV.Comment: Final version, now using the Kelly et al. (2015) data [15] for normalization; 10 pages, 7 figures, 3 table

ItaliaNLP @ TAG-IT: UmBERTo for Author Profiling at TAG-it 2020

In this paper we describe the systems we used to participate in the task TAG-it of EVALITA 2020. The first system we developed uses linear Support Vector Machine as learning algorithm. The other two systems are based on the pretrained Italian Language Model UmBERTo: one of them has been developed following the Multi-Task Learning approach, while the other following the Single-Task Learning approach. These systems have been evaluated on TAG-it official test sets and ranked first in all the TAG-it subtasks, demonstrating the validity of the approaches we followed

Role of myristoylation in modulating PCaP1 interaction with calmodulin

Plasma membrane-associated Cation-binding Protein 1 (PCaP1) belongs to the plant-unique DREPP protein family with largely unknown biological functions but ascertained roles in plant development and calcium (Ca2+) signaling. PCaP1 is anchored to the plasma membrane via N-myristoylation and a polybasic cluster, and its N-terminal region can bind Ca2+/calmodulin (CaM). However, the molecular determinants of PCaP1-Ca2+-CaM interaction and the functional impact of myristoylation in the complex formation and Ca2+ sensitivity of CaM remained to be elucidated. Herein, we investigated the direct interaction between Arabidopsis PCaP1 (AtPCaP1) and CaM1 (AtCaM1) using both myristoylated and non-myristoylated peptides corresponding to the N-terminal region of AtPCaP1. ITC analysis showed that AtCaM1 forms a high affinity 1:1 complex with AtPCaP1 peptides and the interaction is strictly Ca2+-dependent. Spectroscopic and kinetic Ca2+ binding studies showed that the myristoylated peptide dramatically increased the Ca2+-binding affinity of AtCaM1 and slowed the Ca2+ dissociation rates from both the C- and N-lobes, thus suggesting that the myristoylation modulates the mechanism of AtPCaP1 recognition by AtCaM1. Furthermore, NMR and CD spectroscopy revealed that the structure of both the N- and C-lobes of Ca2+-AtCaM1 changes markedly in the presence of the myristoylated AtPCaP1 peptide, which assumes a helical structure in the final complex. Overall, our results indicate that AtPCaP1 biological function is strictly related to the presence of multiple ligands, i.e., the myristoyl moiety, Ca2+ ions and AtCaM1 and only a full characterization of their equilibria will allow for a complete molecular understanding of the putative role of PCaP1 as signal protein

On the perturbative expansion of a quantum field theory around a topological sector

The idea of treating general relativistic theories in a perturbative expansion around a topological theory has been recently put forward in the quantum gravity literature. Here we investigate the viability of this idea, by applying it to conventional Yang--Mills theory on flat spacetime. We find that the expansion around the topological theory coincides with the usual expansion around the abelian theory, though the equivalence is non-trivial. In this context, the technique appears therefore to be viable, but not to bring particularly new insights. Some implications for gravity are discussed.Comment: 7 page

Effect of electrode distance in grid electrode: Numerical models and in vitro tests

Electrochemotherapy is an emerging local treatment for the management of superficial tumors and, among these, also chest wall recurrences from breast cancer. Generally, the treatment of this peculiar type of tumor requires the coverage of large skin areas. In these cases, electrochemotherapy treatment by means of standard small size needle electrodes (an array of 0.73 cm spaced needles, which covers an area of 1.5 cm2) is time-consuming and can allow an inhomogeneous coverage of the target area. We have previously designed grid devices suitable for treating an area ranging from 12 to 200 cm2. In this study, we propose different approaches to study advantages and drawbacks of a grid device with needles positioned 2 cm apart. The described approach includes a numerical evaluation to estimate electric field intensity, followed by an experimental quantification of electroporation on a cell culture. The electric field generated in a conductive medium has been studied by means of 3-dimensional numerical models with varying needle pair distance from 1 to 2 cm. In particular, the electric field evaluation shows that the electric field intensity with varying needle distance is comparable in the area in the middle of the 2 electrodes. Differently, near needles, the electric field intensity increases with the increasing electrode distance and supply voltage. The computational results have been correlated with experimental ones obtained in vitro on cell culture. In particular, electroporation effect has been assessed on human breast cancer cell line MCF7, cultured in monolayer. The use of 2-cm distant needles, supplied by 2000 V, produced an electroporation effect in the whole area comprised between the electrodes. Areas of cell culture where reversible and irreversible electroporation occurred were identified under microscope by using fluorescent dyes. The coupling of computation and experimental results could be helpful to evaluate the effect of the needle distance on the electric field intensity in cell cultures in terms of reversible or irreversible electroporation