'Hello darkness, my old friend': The company of music in a cinema of (shared) loneliness

How have cinema’s representations of loneliness changed over time, in keeping with the changing technological mediation of loneliness? What can these representations tell us about how the experience of loneliness is made sense of in everyday life? And, crucially, how has cinema’s own technicity remediated loneliness in the process of representing it? In order to unpack some of these complexities, this article narrows its focus to a mere two minutes of screen time: the opening of The Graduate (1967), with its iconic representation of a lone character traversing Los Angeles International Airport to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’. The Graduate opens an important window into a particular socio-historical moment when technologies, techniques, industry concerns, and social conditions placed the audio-visual aesthetics of loneliness at the core of American cinema. I interpret this moment as the symbolic beginning of what Robert Kolker has termed ‘a cinema of loneliness’, a body of films that frequently featured solo drifters at plot level and that were made by directors working in isolation due to the collapse of the old Hollywood studio system. Notably, The Graduate forces us to deal with a fundamental aspect of the ‘cinema of loneliness’ that Kolker intentionally sidesteps: the use of pre-existing popular music to offer a glimpse into a character’s state of mind. Moving beyond the confines of film and narrative theory, and situating the film in broader histories of listening, cinemagoing, and audio technologies, I argue that the soundtrack of The Graduate reflected new ways of listening ‘alone together’ that were developing both within and without the cinema theatre. I show that the film employs music in a manner consistent with how transistor radios were being used and discussed in 1960s America, and I explore how – in the very process of placing loneliness at the centre of its audio-visual aesthetics – it enabled heavily mediated experiences of shared loneliness. More specifically, I propose that ‘The Sound of Silence’ is central not only to how The Graduate conveys loneliness but also to how the film provides a provisional and non-political way out of it

use of non pathogenic biological agents as biological warfare simulants for the development of a stand off detection system

Development of new technologies for Biological Warfare Agents (BWA) stand-off detection implies several safeties, logistic and economic drawbacks that involve production of different highly virulent bacteria and viruses, their isolation and characterization under adequate bio-containment and sample preparation for each agent to evaluate the testing method. In order to overcome these difficulties most of the research activities and tests reported so far, are performed using simulants: Biological Agents (BA) which are phylogenetically or structurally related to BWA. The use of the simulants (BWA-S) show, however, some limitations: they can share some of the properties of the biological warfare agents but have different antigens, proteome and genome. In this work, different BWA-S was evaluated for the application in the development and training of stand-off detection systems. This study is the basis for the use of simulants in the development of an Ultraviolet Laser Induced Fluorescence (UV-LIF) based detection systems

Controlled Lactonization of o-Coumaric Esters Mediated by Supramolecular Gels

Fragrances are volatile organic compounds widely used in our daily life. Unfortunately, the high volatility required to reach human receptors reduces their persistency in the air. To contrast this effect, several strategies may be used. Among them, we present here the combination of two techniques: the microencapsulation in supramolecular gels and the use of profragrances. We report a study on the controlled lactonization of four esters derived from o-coumaric acid. The ester lactonization spontaneously occurs after exposure to solar light, releasing coumarin and the corresponding alcohol. To determine the rate of fragrance release, we compared the reaction in solution and in a supramolecular gel and we demonstrated that the lactonization reaction always occurs slower in the gel. We also studied the more suitable gel for this aim, by comparing the properties of two supramolecular gels obtained with the gelator Boc-L-DOPA(Bn)(2)-OH in a 1:1 ethanol/water mixture in different gelator concentration (0.2% and 1% w/v). The gel prepared with 1% w/v gelator concentration is stronger and less transparent than the other and was used for the profragrances encapsulation. In any case, we obtained a significative reduction of lactonization reaction in gel, compared with the same reaction in solution

Norms and interests in the Caspian region: bridging the division between ENP and EUCAS. Bruges Political Research Papers 58/2017

The present work is dedicated to the analysis of the nature and impact of EU’s engagement in the Caspian region. This territory is divided between two approaches performed by the EU: the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and the EU Central Asia Strategy for a New Partnership (EUCAS). The former has been characterized by a ‘transition paradigm’ inspired by the enlargement toolkit, while the EUCAS adopted a ‘pragmatic modernization paradigm’ aimed at supporting Central Asia countries in their modernization path. The study intends to analyse to what extent the EU’s action proved to have normative characteristics when dealing with oil-rich and authoritarian Caspian littoral states. The core assumption is that, due to the lack of leverage and influence, the EU’s action has not been purely normative, neither under the ENP nor under the EUCAS. The ENP declarations have not been followed by a coherent normative engagement, due the contrast between norms and economic interests experienced by the EU. In the EUCAS the approach is not normative either, but the ‘pragmatic modernization paradigm’ led to more interesting results due to the different approach deployed, based on neutral forms of cooperation that can lead to enhanced bilateral ties and the pursuit of both pragmatic interests and normative objectives. Two case studies have been chosen from the two sides of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan, which recently did not sign the Association Agreement under the ENP, and Kazakhstan, a successful example of cooperation within the EUCAS. A comparison between the two paradigms is of the utmost importance, and the result could offer food for thought in light of the ENP review launched in 2015

The Relationship between Compulsive Behaviour and Internet Addiction

A variety of behavioural and emotional problems among university students is due to Internet Addiction (Alavi et al. 2012, Rusconi et al. 2012). In 2013 a survey is conducted on a sample of 532 students of University of L’Aquila. The purpose is to investigate Internet use patterns and the correlation between Internet Addiction disorder and compulsive behaviour. Two self-administered questionnaires are used: the Internet Addiction Test and the Cognitive Behavioural Assessment 2.0. 517 students show signs of Internet Addiction, which is moderate for 31% of respondents and severe for 1% of them. 5% shows intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. The symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder are statistically associated with Internet Addiction (chi² test=23.53, p=0.000). Among young people there is a relationship between compulsive behaviour and Internet Addiction. This relationship has significant effects on treatment of Internet Addiction

The problem of programming language concurrency semantics

Despite decades of research, we do not have a satisfactory concurrency semantics for any general-purpose programming language that aims to support concurrent systems code. The Java Memory Model has been shown to be unsound with respect to standard compiler optimisations, while the C/C++11 model is too weak, admitting undesirable thin-air executions. Our goal in this paper is to articulate this major open problem as clearly as is currently possible, showing how it arises from the combination of multiprocessor relaxed-memory behaviour and the desire to accommodate current compiler optimisations. We make several novel contributions that each shed some light on the problem, constraining the possible solutions and identifying new difficulties. First we give a positive result, proving in HOL4 that the existing axiomatic model for C/C++11 guarantees sequentially consistent semantics for simple race-free programs that do not use low-level atomics (DRF-SC, one of the core design goals). We then describe the thin-air problem and show that it cannot be solved, without restricting current compiler optimisations, using any per-candidate-execution condition in the style of the C/C++11 model. Thin-air executions were thought to be confined to programs using relaxed atomics, but we further show that they recur when one attempts to integrate the concurrency model with more of C, mixing atomic and nonatomic accesses, and that also breaks the DRF-SC result. We then describe a semantics based on an explicit operational construction of out-of-order execution, giving the desired behaviour for thin-air examples but exposing further difficulties with accommodating existing compiler optimisations. Finally, we show that there are major difficulties integrating concurrency semantics with the C/C++ notion of undefined behaviour. We hope thereby to stimulate and enable research on this key issue

Potential of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for cancer therapy

The primary purpose of ADCs is to increase the efficacy of anticancer medications by minimizing systemic drug distribution and targeting specific cells. Antibody conjugates (ADCs) have changed the way cancer is treated. However, because only a tiny fraction of patients experienced long-term advantages, current cancer preclinical and clinical research has been focused on combination trials. The complex interaction of ADCs with the tumor and its microenvironment appear to be reliant on the efficacy of a certain ADC, all of which have significant therapeutic consequences. Several clinical trials in various tumor types are now underway to examine the potential ADC therapy, based on encouraging preclinical results. This review tackles the potential use of ADCs in cancer therapy, emphasizing the essential processes underlying their positive therapeutic impacts on solid and hematological malignancies. Additionally, opportunities are explored to understand the mechanisms of ADCs action, the mechanism of resistance against ADCs, and how to overcome potential resistance following ADCs administration. Recent clinical findings have aroused interest, leading to a large increase in the number of ADCs in clinical trials. The rationale behind ADCs, as well as their primary features and recent research breakthroughs, will be discussed. We then offer an approach for maximizing the potential value that ADCs can bring to cancer patients by highlighting key ideas and distinct strategies.All images are designed and developed by Biorender.Scopu

Medication-related visits in a pediatric emergency department: an 8-years retrospective analysis

There are limited data on the characterization of medication-related visits (MRVs) to the emergency department (ED) in pediatric patients in Italy. We have estimated the frequency, severity, and classification of MRVs to the ED in pediatric patients