Promemoria storico giuridico

Sommario: I. La secessione e le sue ragioni. Il giuramento e la tribunicia potestas sacrosancta - 1. Secessione, 2. Giuramento plebeo, 3. Caio Sicinio Belluto, 4. Tribunato della plebe e libertà del popolo; II. Il Tribunato della plebe e la respublica: da Cicerone a Eutropio - 1. Cicerone, 2. Augusto, 3. Difesa imperiale delle plebi cittadine; III. Continuità tribunizia: da Cola di Rienzo a Gracchus Babeuf alla Repubblica Romana del ’49 - 1. Medioevo, 2. Età moderna, 3. Età contemporanea; IV. La cancellazione della memoria. Difensori civici, diritti umani e sovranità popolare - 1. Hegel e Mommsen, 2. Sindacati e “defensores del pueblo”, 3. Presa di coscienza del “potere negativo”; Bibliografia

Boosting the performance of the ASTRI SST-2M prototype: reflective and anti-reflective coatings

ASTRI is a Flagship Project of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, led by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, INAF. One of the main aims of the ASTRI Project is the design, construction and verification on-field of a dual mirror (2M) end-to-end prototype for the Small Size Telescope (SST) envisaged to become part of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. The ASTRI SST-2M prototype adopts the Schwarzschild-Couder design, and a camera based on SiPM (Silicon Photo Multiplier); it will be assembled at the INAF astronomical site of Serra La Nave on mount Etna (Catania, Italy) within mid 2014, and will start scientific validation phase soon after. The peculiarities of the optical design and of the SiPM bandpass pushed towards specifically optimized choices in terms of reflective coatings for both the primary and the secondary mirror. In particular, multi-layer dielectric coatings, capable of filtering out the large Night Sky Background contamination at wavelengths $\lambda \gtrsim 700$ nm have been developed and tested, as a solution for the primary mirrors. Due to the conformation of the ASTRI SST-2M camera, a reimaging system based on thin pyramidal light guides could be optionally integrated aiming to increase the fill factor. An anti-reflective coating optimized for a wide range of incident angles faraway from normality was specifically developed to enhance the UV-optical transparency of these elements. The issues, strategy, simulations and experimental results are thoroughly presented.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures. In Proceedings of the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2013), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). All ASTRI contributions at arXiv:1307.463

Volcanoes muon imaging using Cherenkov telescopes

A detailed understanding of a volcano inner structure is one of the key-points for the volcanic hazards evaluation. To this aim, in the last decade, geophysical radiography techniques using cosmic muon particles have been proposed. By measuring the differential attenuation of the muon flux as a function of the amount of rock crossed along different directions, it is possible to determine the density distribution of the interior of a volcano. Up to now, a number of experiments have been based on the detection of the muon tracks crossing hodoscopes, made up of scintillators or nuclear emulsion planes. Using telescopes based on the atmospheric Cherenkov imaging technique, we propose a new approach to study the interior of volcanoes detecting the Cherenkov light produced by relativistic cosmic-ray muons that survive after crossing the volcano. The Cherenkov light produced along the muon path is imaged as a typical annular pattern containing all the essential information to reconstruct particle direction and energy. Our new approach offers the advantage of a negligible background and an improved spatial resolution. To test the feasibility of our new method, we have carried out simulations with a toy-model based on the geometrical parameters of ASTRI SST-2M, i.e. the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope currently under installation onto the Etna volcano. Comparing the results of our simulations with previous experiments based on particle detectors, we gain at least a factor of 10 in sensitivity. The result of this study shows that we resolve an empty cylinder with a radius of about 100 m located inside a volcano in less than 4 days, which implies a limit on the magma velocity of 5 m/h.Comment: 21 pages, 21 figures, in press on Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A. Final version published online: 3-NOV-201

Single injection dual phase CBCT technique ameliorates results of trans-arterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular cancer

Cone-beam CT (CBCT) application to the field of trans-arterial chemoembolization has been recently the focus of several researches. This imaging modality is performed with a rotation of the C-arm around the patient, without needs of patient repositioning. Datasets are immediately processed, obtaining volumetric CT-like images with the possibility of post-processing and reconstruction of images. Dual phase CBCT recently introduced in clinical practice consists in a first arterial acquisition followed by a delayed acquisition corresponding to a venous phase. The introduction of this feature has overcome the limit of single-phase acquisitions, allowing lesions characterization. Moreover these recent advantages have several intra-procedural implications. Detailed technical and acquisition parameters will be widely exposed in this review with particular attention to: catheter positioning, acquisition delay, injection parameters, patient positioning and contrast dilution. Comparison with standard of practice second line imaging [multidetector computer tomography (MDCT) and MDCT/arteriography] demonstrate the capability of detecting occult nodules providing some clinical implications thus potentially identifying a sub set of patients with aggressive disease behaviour. Other intra-procedural advantages of dual phase CBCT usage consist in a better tumor feeder visualization, reduction of proper DSA and fluoroscopic time, suggestion the presence of an extrahepatic parasitic feeder thus resulting in a more accurate treatment. Finally, the volumetrical intraprocedural evaluation of accumulation of embolic agent has proved to be correlate with treatment response if compared with MRI

Sull'emissione filatelica celebrativa del MMD anniversario del giuramento della plebe al Monte Sacro e dell'istituzione del tribuno della plebe

Sommario: 1. Il Tribunato della plebe nell’età repubblicana; 2. Da Augusto al XVII secolo; 3. Dal XVIII secolo alla Rivoluzione russa; 4. Dall’Ombudsman al Defensor del pueblo

Proteomics Insights into Medullary Sponge Kidney Disease: Review of the Recent Results of an Italian Research Collaborative Network

Background: Medullary sponge kidney (MSK) disease is a rare and neglected congenital condition typically associated with nephrocalcinosis/nephrolithiasis, urinary concentration defects, and cystic anomalies in the precalyceal ducts that, although sporadic in the general population, is relatively frequent in renal stone formers. The physiopathologic mechanism associated with this disease is not fully understood, and omics technologies may help address this gap. Summary: The aim of this review was to provide an overview of the current state of the application of proteomics in the study of this rare disease. In particular, we focused on the results of our recent Italian collaborative studies that, analyzing the MSK whole and extracellular vesicle urinary content by mass spectrometry, have displayed the existence of a large and multifactorial MSK-associated biological machinery and identified some main regulatory biological elements able to discriminate patients affected by this rare disorder from those with idiopathic calcium nephrolithiasis and autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (including laminin subunit alpha 2, ficolin 1, mannan-binding lectin serine protease 2, complement component 4-binding protein β, sphingomyelin, ephrins). Key Messages: The application of omics technologies has provided new insights into the comprehension of the physiopathology of the MSK disease and identified novel potential diagnostic biomarkers that may replace in future expensive and invasive radiological tests (including CT) and select novel therapeutic targets potentially employable, whether validated in a large cohort of patients, in the daily clinical practice

Diffusion weighted imaging in cystic fibrosis disease: beyond morphological imaging

To explore the feasibility of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to assess inflammatory lung changes in patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) METHODS: CF patients referred for their annual check-up had spirometry, chest-CT and MRI on the same day. MRI was performed in a 1.5 T scanner with BLADE and EPI-DWI sequences (b = 0-600 s/mm(2)). End-inspiratory and end-expiratory scans were acquired in multi-row scanners. DWI was scored with an established semi-quantitative scoring system. DWI score was correlated to CT sub-scores for bronchiectasis (CF-CTBE), mucus (CF-CTmucus), total score (CF-CTtotal-score), FEV1, and BMI. T-test was used to assess differences between patients with and without DWI-hotspots

Unenhanced whole-body MRI versus PET-CT for the detection of prostate cancer metastases after primary treatment

The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of unenhanced whole-body MRI, including whole-body Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI), used as a diagnostic modality to detect  pathologic lymph nodes and skeletal metastases in patients with prostate cancer (PCa) undergoing restaging after primary treatment

An evaluation of morphological and functional multi-parametric MRI sequences in classifying non-muscle and muscle invasive bladder cancer

Objectives: Our goal is to determine the ability of multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) to differentiate muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) from non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). Methods: Patients underwent mpMRI before tumour resection. Four MRI sets, i.e. T2-weighted (T2W) + perfusion-weighted imaging (PWI), T2W plus diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), T2W + DWI + PWI, and T2W + DWI + PWI + dif-fusion tensor imaging (DTI) were interpreted qualitatively by two radiologists, blinded to histology results. PWI, DWI and DTI were also analysed quantitatively. Accuracy was determined using histopathology as the reference standard. Results: A total of 82 tumours were analysed. Ninety-six percent of T1-labeled tumours by the T2W + DWI + PWI image set were confirmed to be NMIBC at histopathology. Overall accuracy of the complete mpMRI protocol was 94% in differentiating NMIBC from MIBC. PWI, DWI and DTI quantitative parameters were shown to be significantly different in cancerous versus non-cancerous areas within the bladder wall in T2-labelled lesions. Conclusions: MpMRI with DWI and DTI appears a reliable staging tool for bladder cancer. If our data are validated, then mpMRI could precede cystoscopic resection to allow a faster recognition of MIBC and accelerated treatment pathways. Key Points: • A critical step in BCa staging is to differentiate NMIBC from MIBC. • Morphological and functional sequences are reliable techniques in differentiating NMIBC from MIBC. • Diffusion tensor imaging could be an additional tool in BCa staging