The Plot and The Archive: Curation, Provisional Histories, and Novels

The Plot and the Archive applies museum studies and curatorial techniques to post-1960s novels dealing with history and outlines the importance of a figure called the character-as-curator within such spaces. This figure exemplifies different strategies employed to interrogate, analyze and reconcile what presents itself as a deeply problematic historical record. In so doing, this novelistic figure performs what postmodernity has tasked of scholarship as such, and curation signifies capaciously the critical techniques of identification, separation, re-arrangement and re-collection which enable the possibility of discovery and new understanding. It is no longer a worthwhile endeavor simply to characterize history as a falsehood, disregarding its offerings as corrupt, misleading, or potentially dangerous. Instead, this dissertation explores how characters create archives and curate artifacts as strategies for reconciling the past. Each chapter in The Plot and the Archive deals with specific historical and archival challenges and uses museum studies as a lens to account for unempirical sources in historical records (e.g., memory and imagination). Chapter one situates readers in the historical and museological contexts this dissertation responds to and draws a relationship between novels and museum studies. Chapter two examines problems with relying on empirical modes for constructing histories in Don DeLillos Libra. Chapter three moves away from overarching master narratives to examine memory and familial archives in Junot Diazs The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Chapter four focuses on Daphne Marlatts Ana Historic to explore how curationcoupled with imagination and memorycan provide authors and readers a language for locating womens excluded histories. By relying on literary and curatorial techniques (including ekphrasis, synecdoche, show-and-tell, and displayed archeology), this dissertation argues that characters-as-curators encourage readers to question known historical records, using textually constructed exhibition spaces as sites for these reexaminations. The Plot and the Archive augments the character-as-curators adaptability by extending museum studies to literary studies, arguing for their importance in reading literatur

"I wanna die just like JFK / I wanna die in the USA": Libra and DeLillo’s Curation of the Kennedy Archive

Don DeLillo reimagines and revisions the Kennedy assassination in Libra.  Nicholas Branch, a retired senior analyst for the CIA, has been hired on contract to write a definitive account of the events at Dealey Plaza on November 22nd, 1963.  In the process, Branch subsumes the role of the museum curator; he meticulously combs through the received records in order to challenge accepted versions of “history”.  As the novel’s character-as-curator, Branch examines, positions, interprets, and displays the artifacts at hand to outline the numerous plots swirling around the assassination.  This paper will demonstrate how DeLillo, through Branch, reimagines the space of the novel, transforming it into a museum display that challenges the Warren Commission’s “Single-Bullet Theory” and its “Lone-Gunman Theory”, to instead suggest the possible presence of multiple shooters.  As the novel’s character-as-curator, Branch meticulously places the objects on display and leaves it to the reader to decide which view to adopt or accept

Quantum Field Theory and its Anomalies for Topological Matter

Topology enters in quantum field theory (qft) in multiple forms: one of the most important, in non-abelian gauge theories, being in the identification of the $\theta$ vacuum in QCD. A very relevant aspect of this connection is through the phenomenon of chiral and conformal qft anomalies. It has been realized that a class of materials, comprising topological insulators and Weyl semimetals, also exhibit the phenomenon of anomalies, which are responsible for several exotic phenomena, such as the presence of edge currents, resilient under perturbations and scattering by impurities. Another example comes from the response functions of these materials under thermal and mechanical stresses, that may be performed using correlation functions of stress energy tensors in General Relativity. In this case the conformal anomaly plays an important role. We briefly illustrate some salient features of this correspondence, and the effective action describing the long-range interactions that may account for such topological effects.Comment: 6 pages, contributed to QCD at work Lecce, 27-30 June 202

Sviluppo e sperimentazione di un sistema di ibridizzazione e del relativo sistema di controllo per veicoli convenzionali

2014 - 2015Recently, the possibility of upgrading conventional vehicles to Hybrid Electric Vehicles is gaining interest. Among the different options for hybridization, researchers are focusing on electrification of rear wheels in front‐driven vehicles, transforming the vehicle in a Through‐The‐Road (TTR) parallel HEV. This thesis deals with the development of an automotive hybridization kit (equipment, along with associated techniques and methodologies), aimed at converting conventional cars into hybrid solar vehicles (Mild‐Solar‐Hybrid). The main aspect of the projects consists into the integration of state‐of‐the‐art components (in‐wheel motors, photovoltaic panels, batteries), and into the development of an optimal controller for the power management. A prototype of the hybridizing equipment – patented by the University of Salerno (Italy)‐ is installed on a FIAT Grande Punto. A mild parallel hybrid structure is obtained by substituting/integrating the rear wheels with 7kW in‐wheel motors and adding a lithium battery to manage on‐board energy. Thus, the vehicle can operate in electric mode (when ICE is switched off or disconnected by the front wheels) or in hybrid mode (when the ICE drives the front wheels and the rear in‐wheel motors operate in traction mode or in generation mode, corresponding to a positive or negative torque). The battery can be recharged both by rear wheels, when operating in generation mode, and by photovoltaic panels. The vehicle is also equipped with an EOBD gate (On Board Diagnostics protocol), which allows accessing data such as pedal position, vehicle speed, engine speed, manifold pressure and other variables. The Vehicle Management Unit (VMU), which is part of the invention and implements control logics compatible with typical drive styles of conventional‐car users, receives the data from OBD gate, from battery (SOC estimation) and drives in‐wheel motors by properly acting on the electric node. In order to develop an effective and safe control strategy for wheel‐motors, a precise real‐time knowledge of the Driver Intention is required. In particular, the detection of the active gear is needed. The thesis, focused on the main aspects of prototype design and realization, also provides insights on control issues related to the integration of the above‐mentioned components, drivability and safety. [edited by author]XIV n.s

ParPEST: a pipeline for EST data analysis based on parallel computing

BACKGROUND: Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) are short and error-prone DNA sequences generated from the 5' and 3' ends of randomly selected cDNA clones. They provide an important resource for comparative and functional genomic studies and, moreover, represent a reliable information for the annotation of genomic sequences. Because of the advances in biotechnologies, ESTs are daily determined in the form of large datasets. Therefore, suitable and efficient bioinformatic approaches are necessary to organize data related information content for further investigations. RESULTS: We implemented ParPEST (Parallel Processing of ESTs), a pipeline based on parallel computing for EST analysis. The results are organized in a suitable data warehouse to provide a starting point to mine expressed sequence datasets. The collected information is useful for investigations on data quality and on data information content, enriched also by a preliminary functional annotation. CONCLUSION: The pipeline presented here has been developed to perform an exhaustive and reliable analysis on EST data and to provide a curated set of information based on a relational database. Moreover, it is designed to reduce execution time of the specific steps required for a complete analysis using distributed processes and parallelized software. It is conceived to run on low requiring hardware components, to fulfill increasing demand, typical of the data used, and scalability at affordable costs

Molecular biology meets Logic : context-sensitiveness in focus

Some real life processes, including molecular ones, are context-sensitive, in the sense that their outcome depends on side conditions that are most of the times difficult, or impossible, to express fully in advance. In this paper, we survey and discuss a logical account of context-sensitiveness in molecular processes, based on a kind of non-classical logic. This account also allows us to revisit the relationship between logic and philosophy of science (and philosophy of biology, in particular)

Eco-innovazione dei processi produttivi: analisi e azioni di intervento per l'efficentamento energetico

La crisi congiunturale ha notevolmente appesantito la situazione del Settore della Pesca già strutturalmente difficile. Nel “Rapporto Annuale sulla Pesca e sull’Acquacoltura in Sicilia”, redatto dall’Osservatorio della Pesca, si afferma che “in un contesto prospettico così difficile la quantità di energia specifica, ossia energia consumata per kg di prodotto (kWh/kg di prodotto), necessaria a fornire il prodotto ittico sul mercato deve diventare un indicatore guida per le politiche di ammodernamento ed innovazione. Pertanto è necessaria un’opportuna conoscenza di tutti i consumi energetici necessari per la produzione che, grazie all’utilizzo di pochi e significativi indicatori (quali l’energia per unità di prodotto, la quantità d’acqua per unità di prodotto e le emissioni ed i rilasci inquinanti per unità di prodotto), consenta di descrivere dinamicamente lo stato e la tendenza della filiera ittica”. In tale quadro, è evidente che il fattore energetico rappresenta una componente che ha una rilevante incidenza sulla competitività della Filiera e che, spesso, i vari anelli produttivi “pagano” costi di gestione elevati a causa dell’inefficienza energetica. In un contesto di consumatori sempre più attenti al rispetto ambientale e alla sostenibilità dei prodotti, l’impatto che i sistemi produttivi non efficienti hanno sull’ambiente ha un ritorno negativo anche rispetto all’immagine complessiva della Filiera e dei prodotti: in tal senso, la mancanza di sistemi di gestione ambientale efficaci ed adeguati può risultare, nel lungo periodo, un elemento di penalizzazione sui mercati. Nel progetto “Centro di certificazione e prova del Distretto”, Piani di sviluppo di filiera, linea di intervento: 5.1.1.1 – piano integrato dei servizi comuni, l’attività svolta da questo laboratorio, ECO-INNOVAZIONE DEI PROCESSI PRODUTTIVI, ha lo scopo di calcolare i consumi energetici delle aziende del distretto, prese in esame come campione di studio, e studiare le possibili azioni per ottimizzare, mitigare i consumi e/o l’impatto ambientale come minore emissione di CO2 in atmosfera. Tali attività consentiranno al Distretto, alle sue aziende e tutte le altre aziende del settore di poter conoscere l'energia consumata e quella potenzialmente risparmiata dalle eventuali azioni di efficientamento che saranno proposte da questo gruppo di lavoro

TomatEST database: in silico exploitation of EST data to explore expression patterns in tomato species

TomatEST is a secondary database integrating expressed sequence tag (EST)/cDNA sequence information from different libraries of multiple tomato species. Redundant EST collections from each species are organized into clusters (gene indices). A cluster consists of one or multiple contigs. Multiple contigs in a cluster represent alternatively transcribed forms of a gene. The set of stand-alone EST sequences (singletons) and contigs, representing all the computationally defined ‘Transcript Indices’, are annotated according to similarity versus protein and RNA family databases. Sequence function description is integrated with the Gene Ontologies and the Enzyme Commission identifiers for a standard classification of gene products and for the mapping of the expressed sequences onto metabolic pathways. Information on the origin of the ESTs, on their structural features, on clusters and contigs, as well as on functional annotations are accessible via a user-friendly web interface. Specific facilities in the database allow Transcript Indices from a query be automatically classified in Enzyme classes and in metabolic pathways. The ‘on the fly’ mapping onto the metabolic maps is integrated in the analytical tools. The TomatEST database website is freely available at

Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Questionnaire-Nonsuicidal (SITBQ-NS): Development and validation of a revised version of the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Interview (SITBI) for the self-assessment of nonsuicidal self-injury

Objective: Despite the fact that nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has become an important issue among clinicians and researchers all over the world, in Italy there is still a lack of instruments able to assess it. The objective of this study is to develop and validate the Self-Injurious Thoughts and Behaviors Questionnaire-Nonsuicidal (SITBQ-NS), a self-report measuring the whole NSSI spectrum, that is, from ideation to act. Method: SITBQ-NS was administered to 51 adult patients recruited from public mental health services together with the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI-III), the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS), the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory (DSHI), and the Nepean Dysphoria Scale (NDS-I). Results: SITBQ-NS demonstrated excellent internal consistency (α=0.983). NSSI thoughts were present in 56.9% of participants, and NSSI behaviors were present in 49% of participants. Similar NSSI functions were found among participants, except for “To end suicidal ideation,” which was more common among those having NSSI thoughts (34.1%) than those exhibiting NSSI behaviors (21.6%). There were strong positive correlations between the scores of SITBQ-NS and the scores of BHS, DSHI and NDS-I. Also, there were weak to strong positive correlations between the scores of SITBQ-NS and some MCMI-III scales. Conclusions: The SITBQ-NS shows very good psychometric properties, being a useful and easy-to-handle instrument for measuring the whole NSSI spectrum. Further research in clinical samples is neede