Giuseppe Tateo, Under the sign of the cross: The People’s Salvation Cathedral and the church-building industry in postsocialist Romania, New York & Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, pp. 256

Book review of Giuseppe Tateo, Under the sign of the cross: The People’s Salvation Cathedral and the church-building industry in postsocialist Romania, New York & Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, pp. 256.Recensione di Giuseppe Tateo, Under the sign of the cross: The People’s Salvation Cathedral and the church-building industry in postsocialist Romania, New York & Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, pp. 256

26th Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2017): Part 3 - Meeting Abstracts - Antwerp, Belgium. 15–20 July 2017

This work was produced as part of the activities of FAPESP Research,\ud Disseminations and Innovation Center for Neuromathematics (grant\ud 2013/07699-0, S. Paulo Research Foundation). NLK is supported by a\ud FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship (grant 2016/03855-5). ACR is partially\ud supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

A Context-Grounded Approach to Religious Freedom: The Case of Orthodoxy in the Moldovan Republic

This paper explores the relationship between human rights and social analysis within the main historical and theoretical perspectives adopted by social sciences. In particular, religious freedom will be analysed as one of the central issues in the recent engagement of the social sciences with human rights. After examining current narratives and mainstream approaches of the social sciences towards the right to religious freedom, this article will then underline the importance of a social epistemology which goes beyond a normative and legal perspective, bridging the gap between the framework of human rights and the social roles of religion in context. Within this framework, religious freedom represents a social construct, whose perception, definition and implementation dynamically evolves according to its influence, at different levels, in the lived dimension of social relations. The second part of the article proposes a context-grounded analysis of religious freedom in the Republic of Moldova. This case study is characterised by the impressive growth of Orthodoxy after the demise of the Soviet Union and by a complex and contradictory political approach towards religious freedom, both as a legal standard and as a concept. Emerging through the analysis of local political narratives and some preliminary ethnographical observations, the social importance of religion will be investigated both as a governmental instrument and as an embodied means of dealing with widespread socio-economic insecurity, creating tensions between religious rootedness and religious freedom. The local debate on religious freedom will then be related to the influence of geopolitical borders, the topic of traditional identity and the religious form of adaptation to the ineffectiveness of the new secular local policies, with orthodox institutions and parishes having new socio-political roles at both a global and local scale

Criminal humanitarianism. A visual exploration of criminal legitimisation, between alterna-tive moralities and the political vacuum

This article pledges to pursue three different, but closely correlated, lines of investigation related to the pro- cesses of legitimising contemporary criminal organizations. Starting from the analysis of visuals related to two regional contexts, Mexico and southern Italy, it explores how criminals engage in moral self-promotion, philanthropy, and other social practices through which criminal groups seek their own humanisation, mythi- cisation and sanctification. Observing two fields of criminal practices and symbolic production, with their capabilities of cultural sedimentation and social structuring, it explores the fil rouge weaving together the logic of promoting the internal cohesion of group with the mechanisms of external recognition. A more gen- eral reflection about the role of criminal organizations at the margins of neoliberal economies will be con- ducted by reviewing and analysing episodes of narco-charity, controversial connections between mafia bosses and local priests, business initiatives sponsored by criminals, visuals representing ‘bad’ non-state actors (out- laws) doing ‘good’ things

Criminal humanitarianism. A visual exploration of criminal legitimisation, between alterna-tive moralities and the political vacuum

This article pledges to pursue three different, but closely correlated, lines of investigation related to the pro- cesses of legitimising contemporary criminal organizations. Starting from the analysis of visuals related to two regional contexts, Mexico and southern Italy, it explores how criminals engage in moral self-promotion, philanthropy, and other social practices through which criminal groups seek their own humanisation, mythi- cisation and sanctification. Observing two fields of criminal practices and symbolic production, with their capabilities of cultural sedimentation and social structuring, it explores the fil rouge weaving together the logic of promoting the internal cohesion of group with the mechanisms of external recognition. A more gen- eral reflection about the role of criminal organizations at the margins of neoliberal economies will be con- ducted by reviewing and analysing episodes of narco-charity, controversial connections between mafia bosses and local priests, business initiatives sponsored by criminals, visuals representing ‘bad’ non-state actors (out- laws) doing ‘good’ things.<br /

When happiness pays in negotiation

Negotiation, Emotion, Anger, Happiness, Target, Interpersonal effects, Strategic behavior,

Serum Albumin Is Inversely Associated With Portal Vein Thrombosis in Cirrhosis

We analyzed whether serum albumin is independently associated with portal vein thrombosis (PVT) in liver cirrhosis (LC) and if a biologic plausibility exists. This study was divided into three parts. In part 1 (retrospective analysis), 753 consecutive patients with LC with ultrasound-detected PVT were retrospectively analyzed. In part 2, 112 patients with LC and 56 matched controls were entered in the cross-sectional study. In part 3, 5 patients with cirrhosis were entered in the in vivo study and 4 healthy subjects (HSs) were entered in the in vitro study to explore if albumin may affect platelet activation by modulating oxidative stress. In the 753 patients with LC, the prevalence of PVT was 16.7%; logistic analysis showed that only age (odds ratio [OR], 1.024; P = 0.012) and serum albumin (OR, -0.422; P = 0.0001) significantly predicted patients with PVT. Analyzing the 112 patients with LC and controls, soluble clusters of differentiation (CD)40-ligand (P = 0.0238), soluble Nox2-derived peptide (sNox2-dp; P &lt; 0.0001), and urinary excretion of isoprostanes (P = 0.0078) were higher in patients with LC. In LC, albumin was correlated with sCD4OL (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient [r(s)], -0.33; P &lt; 0.001), sNox2-dp (r(s), -0.57; P &lt; 0.0001), and urinary excretion of isoprostanes (r(s), -0.48; P &lt; 0.0001) levels. The in vivo study showed a progressive decrease in platelet aggregation, sNox2-dp, and urinary 8-iso prostaglandin F2 alpha-III formation 2 hours and 3 days after albumin infusion. Finally, platelet aggregation, sNox2-dp, and isoprostane formation significantly decreased in platelets from HSs incubated with scalar concentrations of albumin. Conclusion: Low serum albumin in LC is associated with PVT, suggesting that albumin could be a modulator of the hemostatic system through interference with mechanisms regulating platelet activation