Once again on the Empress Zoe: Women, dermatology, cosmetics, and materia medica (medical matter) in the ancient world

An article published in 2012 in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology discussed the historical sources presenting the Byzantine Empress Zoe Porphyrogenita as an expert in cosmetic and pharmacological remedies that could give their users a youthful appearance and a kind of eternal youth. However, it did not take into account a dermatological recipe attributed to Zoe which text transmission has preserved

Thumiamata: bruciare erbe, pietre, corna ed altro. Fumo e fumigazioni nella medicina e nella iologia antiche e tardo antiche.

L'uso di fumigazioni terapeutiche è attestato nel trattato De Materia Medica di Pedanio Dioscoride (I sec. d. C). Infatti, secondo alcune teorie che risalgono alla tradizione aristotelica e peripatetica, il fumo e l'odore veicolavano le proprietà della sostanza, potenziate dal calore della combustione

Designing the Parlay Call-Control Using ASMs

Recently different standardization bodies have joined to create a new standard to open network API between the telecom service level, which gives connectivity to different networks, and the application level, which is built by enterprises outside the telecom network domain. This OSA (Open Service Access) API is a standard interface for applications to use the capabilities of a network without knowing technology details. Parlay/OSA specification covers different aspects: messaging, location, conferencing, security, call-control, etc. Our work focuses on the Call Control API specification whose main goal is both to allow applications creating whichever kind of call between voice terminals connected to different networks, and also react to call requests coming from various networks, according to the service-logic implemented by the applications. The Parlay documentation provides a specification of the Call Control Service Capability Feature (SCF) aspects of the interface by means of UML class, state, and sequence diagrams. However, although UML emerges as the best practice modeling notation for object-oriented software development, in its current setting it still lacks of a formal semantics. As a consequence its usage and, correspondingly, the interpretation of developed models may differ considerably. For this reason several of semantics models for UML diagrams have been provided. We present a methodology to produce an ASM specification of the Parlay call control from the UML diagrams provided in the documentation

Corroborating the autoptic identification of archeological glyptics in museum collections: the contribution of portable Raman spectroscopy

A collection of Hellenistic–Roman glyptics, kept at the Regional Archaeological Museum “Paolo Orsi” (Syracuse, Italy), was investigated in situ with portable Raman spectroscopy with the aim of assessing the viability of this approach, not only for the immediate identification of the gemstones but also for a more in-depth successive data treatment. At the same time, a corroboration of the autoptic identification of the materials, both archeological and belonging to historical collections, was looked for in order to verify and potentially correct what reported in the museum catalogue. Actually, most of the identifications could be confirmed, the glyptics being mainly made of chalcedony. Other materials found were garnet, glass, and amber. The larger group of chalcedony Raman spectra was subjected to principal components analysis treatment that, after appropriate pretreatment, resulted successful in separating spectra with higher or lower contribution of the band due to the presence of moganite and Si OH bonds. The garnet spectra were instead subjected to quantitative study to identify the main end member. Both the quick identifications and the more detailed studies on chalcedonies and garnets were achieved thanks to the nondestructive and noninvasive investigation, directly in situ, with no sample preparation and minimal interference with the museum's activities

Smoking Cessation in Mice Does Not Switch off Persistent Lung Inflammation and Does Not Restore the Expression of HDAC2 and SIRT1

Once COPD is established, pulmonary lesions can only progress and smoking cessation by itself is not sufficient to switch off persistent lung inflammation. Similarly, in former-smoker mice, neutrophil inflammation persists and lung lesions undergo progressive deterioration. The molecular mechanisms underlying disease progression and the inefficiency of smoking cessation in quenching neutrophilic inflammation were studied in male C57 Bl/6 mice after 6 months of rest from smoking cessation. As compared with the mice that continued to smoke, the former-smoker mice showed reduced expression of histone deacetylases HDAC2 and SIRT1 and marked expression of p-p38 MAPK and p-Ser10. All these factors are involved in corticosteroid insensitivity and in perpetuating inflammation. Former-smoker mice do show persistent lung neutrophilic influx and a high number of macrophages which account for the intense staining in the alveolar structures of neutrophil elastase and MMP-9 (capable of destroying lung scaffolding) and 8-OHdG (marker of oxidative stress). "Alarmins" released from necrotic cells together with these factors can sustain and perpetuate inflammation after smoking cessation. Several factors and mechanisms all together are involved in sustaining and perpetuating inflammation in former-smoker mice. This study suggests that a better control of COPD in humans may be achieved by precise targeting of the various molecular mechanisms associated with different phenotypes of disease by using a cocktail of drug active toward specific molecules

Anti-rabies vaccination between the 18th and 19th centuries and its pioneer Eusebio Giacinto Valli (1755-1816)

An eclectic, versatile Tuscan doctor, Eusebio Giacinto Valli (1755-1816) was a scholar of several branches of medicine, particularly public health, preventive medicine and epidemiology. His brilliant and wide-ranging education, and his intense passion for physics and chemistry, as applied to the human body, enabled him to conduct numerous studies in the field of vaccinology. He travelled to the Middle East in order to study the epidemiology of the plague and carried out experiments aimed at discovering a cure and a prophylaxis for rabies, succeeding in attenuating the rabies virus by inoculating a mixture of saliva from rabid dogs and gastric juice from frogs. Having travelled to Spain and then to Cuba, where he undertook the study of yellow fever, he died in Havana in September 1816, after injecting attenuated germs of the disease into his own body. He was buried in the great Monumental Cemetery \u201cCristobal Colon\u201d, where his tomb bears the epigraph: \u201cvictima de su amor \ue0 la humanidad (\u201ca victim of his love for humanity\u201d

The DEM or Mt. Etna: geomorphological and structural implications

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Il lavoro in crisi.Trasformazioni del capitalismo e ruolo dei soggetti

Disoccupazione, sottoccupazione, scoraggiamento, precarietà e scarsa qualità sono le facce con cui si presenta il lavoro oggi in Italia; già presenti dagli anni ’80 vengono aggravate dalla crisi finanziaria del 2007. Per capirne le cause è indispensabile da un lato guardare alle trasformazioni del capitalismo industriale in Occidente in conseguenza della globalizzazione e dall'altro alle trasformazioni di una società che diventa più complessa, lacerata da conflitti tra ceti e classi: in essa attori sociali con identità multiple sembrano avere più possibilità di manovra, ma di fatto continuano ad avere molti vincoli. Gli scarsi investimenti, inoltre, non permettono di assorbire le poche persone laureate e diplomate: dunque la qualità del lavoro non corrisponde a quella della forza lavoro.Unemployment, underemployment, discouragement, insecurity and poor quality are the faces with which work appears today in Italy; they are present already in the 80s, they were exacerbated by the financial crisis of 2007. To understand the causes is essential to one side to look at the transformations of industrial capitalism in the West as a result of globalization and on the other to the transformation of a society that becomes more complex, torn by conflicts between classes: in it social actors with multiple identities seem to have more possibilities of maneuver, but in fact they still have many constraints. Underinvestment, also, does not allow to absorb the few people graduates and diplomate: therefore, the quality of work does not match whit the workforce