Per la coscienza di luogo

This essay proposes a reflection on the dimension of human beings\u2019 allocation, which is considered as constitutive, and shows the fecundity of a way of being in the world capable of \u201cconsciousness of place.\u201d On the one hand, following up on the criticism of some interpretations of \u201cplace\u201d that understand it as a closed, defined, and consistent entity, the author pursues a different understanding within the phenomenological-hermeneutic play that relates limit and transgression. On the other hand, the author indicates how a consideration of the human being as \u201cdweller,\u201d that is, as the entity that has an essential familiarity with place, does not preclude the possibility of thinking the human ability for transcendence; such a consideration even enables authentically transgressive practices insofar as they are capable of standing within the bond from which they set out

Citt\ue0 e cittadinanza

Il testo si interroga su un tema classico della riflessione filosofico-politica: la citt\ue0, come forma di insediamento e modo di abitare dell'umano, oggi pi\uf9 che mai attuale in un contesto di crescente urbanizzazione della popolazione mondiale. Definendo la citt\ue0 uno lo 'stare insieme tra estranei' all'interno di configurazioni spaziali che assumono caratteri anche simbolici, si approfoniscono le ragioni di una critica al paradigma teorico dei diritti di cittadinanza, di cui pur si riconosce il passato emancipatorio.// The text examines a classic issue of political-philosophical thinking: the city as form of settlement and mode of human dwelling. Nowadays the theme has acquired an increasing relevance, in a context of growing urbanization of world population. By defining the city as a \u201ctogetherness among strangers\u201d within a spatial configuration that acquires also symbolic meanings, the text deepens the reasons for a criticism of the theoretical paradigm of citizenship rights, while recognizing its emancipative past

Politicization: autonomy for Social Work? An attempt to reconstruct the Latin American situation

This article discusses the relationship between politicization and professional autonomy, using as a starting point Bourdieu's notion of "field". Two key issues are analyzed: the first is that according to Bourdieu, the politicization of a discipline is not synonymous with autonomy, an affirmation based on which is analyzed the conditions for an "autonomy producing politicization". The second point is that in the history of Latin American Social Work conditions have been generated for greater autonomy, but they have still not been developed. It maintains that a persisting problem in Social Work is that the knowledge generated inserts the profession in the "social world" (to use Bourdieu's concept) but there is an immediate identification between the social laws and processes (in a broad sense: laws and political, cultural and economic processes) and professional ones. This objective, of a methodological and theoretical nature, must still be attempted

América Latina luego del mito del progreso neoliberal: las políticas sociales y el problema de la desigualdad.

The article develops three sections: the first focuses on the theoretical and political differences between equality and equity and also analyzes why equity replaced equality during period of Neoliberal hegemony. In the second section process of individuation and communitation into social policies are analyzed, especially at Neoliberal process of reform. Finally, a brief discussion on the need of rescue the citizenship into Public Education and Public Health is developed in the third section. In this last section the author also argues that a progressive new process requires new social and labor practices from public agents in order to ally to institutions clients. Key words: equality, equity, Neoliberalism, Social Policies Reform.El artículo tiene tres secciones: en la primera presenta las diferencias conceptuales y políticas entre la idea de igualdad y de equidad y analiza los argumentos y las razones por las cuales durante el ciclo de hegemonia neoliberal el concepto de equidad sustituyó a la igualdad como objetivo a alcanzar. En la segunda sección analiza los procesos de individualización y comunitarización de las políticas sociales que se forjaron durante el proceso de reforma de las políticas sociales y muestra sus consecuencias en relación con la igualdad y los derechos sociales. En la tercera discute brevemente la necesidad de recuperar el potencial ciudadanizador de las políticas públicas de educación y salud y la necesidad de generar cambios en las prácticas de los funcionarios y trabajadores del sector público, estableciendo una nueva alianza con los usuarios de los servicios. Palabras claves: igualdad, equidad, neoliberalismo, reforma de políticas sociales

América Latina luego del mito del progreso neoliberal: las políticas sociales y el problema de la desigualdad.

The article develops three sections: the first focuses on the theoretical and political differences between equality and equity and also analyzes why equity replaced equality during period of Neoliberal hegemony. In the second section process of individuation and communitation into social policies are analyzed, especially at Neoliberal process of reform. Finally, a brief discussion on the need of rescue the citizenship into Public Education and Public Health is developed in the third section. In this last section the author also argues that a progressive new process requires new social and labor practices from public agents in order to ally to institutions clients. Key words: equality, equity, Neoliberalism, Social Policies Reform.El artículo tiene tres secciones: en la primera presenta las diferencias conceptuales y políticas entre la idea de igualdad y de equidad y analiza los argumentos y las razones por las cuales durante el ciclo de hegemonia neoliberal el concepto de equidad sustituyó a la igualdad como objetivo a alcanzar. En la segunda sección analiza los procesos de individualización y comunitarización de las políticas sociales que se forjaron durante el proceso de reforma de las políticas sociales y muestra sus consecuencias en relación con la igualdad y los derechos sociales. En la tercera discute brevemente la necesidad de recuperar el potencial ciudadanizador de las políticas públicas de educación y salud y la necesidad de generar cambios en las prácticas de los funcionarios y trabajadores del sector público, estableciendo una nueva alianza con los usuarios de los servicios. Palabras claves: igualdad, equidad, neoliberalismo, reforma de políticas sociales

Stem cells and physical energies: can we really drive stem cell fate?

Adult stem cells are undifferentiated elements able to self-renew or differentiate to maintain tissue integrity. Within this context, stem cells are able to divide in a symmetric fashion, feature characterising all the somatic cells, or in an asymmetric way, which leads daughter cells to different fates. It is worth highlighting that cell polarity have a critical role in regulating stem cell asymmetric division and the proper control of cell division depends on different proteins involved in cell development, differentiation and maintenance of tissue homeostasis. Moreover, the interaction between cells and the extracellular matrix are crucial in influencing cell behavior, included in terms of mechanical properties as cytoskeleton plasticity and remodelling, and membrane tension. Finally, the activation of specific transcriptional program and epigenetic modifications contributes to cell fate determination, through modulation of cellular signalling cascades. It is well known that physical and mechanical stimuli are able to influence biological systems, and in this context, the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) have already shown a considerable role, even though there is a lack of knowledge and much remains to be done around this topic. In this review, we summarize the historical background of EMFs applications and the main molecular mechanism involved in cellular remodelling, with particular attention to cytoskeleton elasticity and cell polarity, required for driving stem cell behavior

Solution of the tunneling-percolation problem in the nanocomposite regime

We noted that the tunneling-percolation framework is quite well understood at the extreme cases of percolation-like and hopping-like behaviors but that the intermediate regime has not been previously discussed, in spite of its relevance to the intensively studied electrical properties of nanocomposites. Following that we study here the conductivity of dispersions of particle fillers inside an insulating matrix by taking into account explicitly the filler particle shapes and the inter-particle electron tunneling process. We show that the main features of the filler dependencies of the nanocomposite conductivity can be reproduced without introducing any \textit{a priori} imposed cut-off in the inter-particle conductances, as usually done in the percolation-like interpretation of these systems. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our numerical results are fully reproduced by the critical path method, which is generalized here in order to include the particle filler shapes. By exploiting this method, we provide simple analytical formulas for the composite conductivity valid for many regimes of interest. The validity of our formulation is assessed by reinterpreting existing experimental results on nanotube, nanofiber, nanosheet and nanosphere composites and by extracting the characteristic tunneling decay length, which is found to be within the expected range of its values. These results are concluded then to be not only useful for the understanding of the intermediate regime but also for tailoring the electrical properties of nanocomposites.Comment: 13 pages with 8 figures + 10 pages with 9 figures of supplementary material (Appendix B

The synergistic effect of chlorotoxin-mApoE in boosting drug-loaded liposomes across the BBB

We designed liposomes dually functionalized with ApoE-derived peptide (mApoE) and chlorotoxin (ClTx) to improve their blood-brain barrier (BBB) crossing. Our results demonstrated the synergistic activity of ClTx-mApoE in boosting doxorubicin-loaded liposomes across the BBB, keeping the anti-tumour activity of the drug loaded: mApoE acts promoting cellular uptake, while ClTx promotes exocytosis of liposomes