In ricordo di Alfredo De Paz

Nel corso di una lunga attività critica orientata allo studio e alla comprensione dell’arte contemporanea e delle sue dinamiche, lo studioso Alfredo De Paz ha saputo adoperare e coniugare metodologie che vanno dalla sociologia alla culturologia, dal purovisibilismo alla massmediologia, applicandole a un raggio di argomenti amplissimo che va dal Romanticismo alle Avanguardie storiche. Si è quindi avvertita la necessità di ricordare, sintetizzare e rimeditare le sue riflessioni e i suoi contributi, senza trascurare tuttavia la qualità umana della sua persona. Negli interventi dei suoi ex-colleghi, qui riuniti, riaffiorano grandi figure della cultura del nostro tempo: il Loos di Ornamento e delitto, il Wölfflin dei Concetti fondamentali della storia dell’arte, l’Hauser della Storia sociale dell’arte, il McLuhan de Gli strumenti del comunicare. Si tratta solo di alcuni tra i principali autori assorbiti e sapientemente rielaborati da Alfredo De Paz lungo oltre quarant’anni di studi e ricerche, per cogliere al meglio la natura profonda e molteplice dell’arte del nostro tempo

The GENETPIG database: a tool for comparative mapping in pig (Sus scrofa)

The GENETPIG database has been established for storing and disseminating the results of the European project: ‘GENETPIG: identification of genes controlling economic traits in pig'. The partners of this project have mapped about 630 porcine and human ESTs onto the pig genome. The database collects the mapping results and links them to other sources of mapping data; this includes pig maps as well as available comparative mapping information. Functional annotation of the mapped ESTs is also given when a significant similarity to cognate genes was established. The database is accessible for consultation via the Internet at http://www.infobiogen.fr/services/Genetpi

The reference site collaborative network of the european innovation partnership on active and healthy ageing

Seventy four Reference Sites of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP on AHA) have been recognised by the European Commission in 2016 for their commitment to excellence in investing and scaling up innovative solutions for active and healthy ageing. The Reference Site Collaborative Network (RSCN) brings together the EIP on AHA Reference Sites awarded by the European Commission, and Candidate Reference Sites into a single forum. The overarching goals are to promote cooperation, share and transfer good practice and solutions in the development and scaling up of health and care strategies, policies and service delivery models, while at the same time supporting the action groups in their work. The RSCN aspires to be recognized by the EU Commission as the principal forum and authority representing all EIP on AHA Reference Sites. The RSCN will contribute to achieve the goals of the EIP on AHA by improving health and care outcomes for citizens across Europe, and the development of sustainable economic growth and the creation of jobs

La teoria di Super Yang-Mills N=4 nella fase di Higgs: urti di particelle massive e teoria con difetto

The subject of this thesis is the study of N=4 Super Yang-Mills (SYM), which is the maximally super-conformal field theory in four dimensions, in presence of spontaneous symmetry breaking. When the scalar fields of the theory have a non-trivial vacuum expectation value (vev), the infrared regime is regularized, while preserving a very important property of scattering amplitudes, the dual conformal invariance. It is also possible to partially preserve, in particular cases, the space-time conformal invariance. Interestingly, the prescriptions of the AdS/CFT correspondence can be used and the behavior of the theory at strong coupling is examined by considering a weakly coupled supergravity theory. In particular, two different kinds of symmetry breaking have been studied here. First, it has been analyzed the case of a constant vev, extending some known results for scattering amplitudes by giving different vevs to all the possible scalar directions. In this setting, we considered the four scalars scattering amplitude up to three loops to extract the generalized cusp anomalous dimension. This quantity, describing the ultraviolet divergencies of Wilson loop operators, has been discovered to characterize also the infrared divergencies of scattering amplitudes. We then utilized the cusp anomalous dimension to study the behavior of the spectrum of the bound states of Higgsed N=4 SYM, by considering the amplitudes in their Regge limit. Moreover, we studied the string dual of N=4 SYM through the AdS/CFT correspondence: in this case, the dual of the Wilson Loop operator turns out to be the minimal area swept by the string whose boundary lives on the Wilson loop contour located on the border of AdS. Thus, the cusp anomalous dimension at strong coupling can be determined by a classical string calculation. In particular, the results obtained in literature have been exploited to obtain the spectrum of N=4 SYM also at strong coupling. The second case considered in this thesis concerns conformal defect theories (dCFT). In the usual four-dimensional space-time, a defect is introduced as an hyperplane placed, let's say, at x=0. From one side of the defect, we have the standard N=4 SYM theory with gauge group SU(N), while, on the other side, we have an Higgsed version of N=4 SYM with gauge group SU(N-k). In particular, only three scalars of the theory have a non-trivial vev, that depends on the coordinate x. The theory still preserves a three-dimensional conformal symmetry and we can refer to it as a conformal defect theory. From the string theory point of view, an AdS/dCFT conjecture can be applied. In particular, the string dual geometry corresponds to a stack of D3-branes intersected by an orthogonal D5-brane, that accounts for the defect in the dCFT. In this framework, a circular Wilson loop parallel to the defect has been considered from both sides of the conjecture. The quantum expectation value of the Wilson loop has been firstly derived in the dCFT, considering two different kind of parametrization for the scalar couplings. One case corresponds to the Maldacena-Wilson loop, while the other one is a realization of the Zarembo-Wilson loop in a defect theory. The results obtained from the dCFT calculation have been compared with the solutions obtained in the dual string theory. In the first case, we achieved a general solution of the string action minimization problem, extending previous investigations considered in literature.L'argomento di questa tesi è lo studio di N = 4 Super Yang-Mills (SYM), la teoria di campo massimamente super-simmetrica in quattro dimensioni, in presenza di una rottura spontanea di simmetria. Quando i campi scalari della teoria ricevono un valore di aspettazione del vuoto (vev) non banale, il regime infrarosso viene regolarizzato mantenendo una proprietà molto importante delle ampiezze di scattering, la dual conformal invariance. È anche possibile conservare parzialmente, in casi particolari, l’invarianza conforme dello spazio-tempo. È interessante notare come si possano utilizzare le prescrizioni della corrispondenza AdS / CFT e determinare così il comportamento della teoria di campo a strong coupling considerando una teoria di super-gravità a weak coupling. In particolare, sono stati studiati due diversi tipi di rottura di simmetria. In primo luogo, è stato analizzato il caso di un vev costante e si sono estesi alcuni risultati noti per le ampiezze di scattering accendendo diversi vev in tutte le possibili direzioni scalari. In questo caso, abbiamo considerato l’ampiezza a quattro scalari fino a tre loop per estrarre la cusp anomalous dimension generalizzata. Questa quantità, originalmente definita per descrivere le divergenze ultraviolette degli Wilson loop, caratterizza anche le divergenze infrarosse delle ampiezze di scattering. Abbiamo quindi utilizzato la cusp anomalous dimension per studiare il comportamento dello spettro degli stati legati di N = 4 SYM con rottura di simmetria, considerando le ampiezze nel limite di Regge. Inoltre, abbiamo studiato la teoria duale di stringa di N = 4 SYM attraverso la corrispondenza AdS/ CFT: in questo caso, il corrispettivo dello Wilson Loop risulta essere l'area minimale spazzata dalla stringa il cui bordo si posa sul contorno dello Wilson loop situato sul bordo di AdS. Pertanto, la cusp anomalous dimension a strong coupling può essere determinata da un conto classico in teoria delle stringhe. In particolare, i risultati ottenuti in letteratura sono stati sfruttati per ottenere lo spettro di N = 4 SYM anche a strong coupling. Il secondo argomento considerato in questa tesi riguarda le teorie conformi con difetto (dCFT). Nello spazio-tempo quadri-dimensionale si introduce un difetto come un iper-piano posto, per esempio, ad x = 0. Da un lato del difetto, abbiamo una teoria N = 4 SYM standard con gruppo di gauge SU (N), mentre dall’altro lato abbiamo una versione rotta di N = 4 SYM, con gruppo di gauge SU (N-k). In particolare, solo tre scalari della teoria ricevono un vev non banale che dipende dalla coordinata x. La teoria conserva ancora una simmetria conforme in tre dimensioni e possiamo far riferimento ad essa come una teoria conforme con difetto. Dal punto di vista della teoria duale di stringa, è ancora possibile applicare una congettura AdS/dCFT. In particolare, la geometria della stringa corrisponde ad una serie di D3-brane intersecate da una D5-brana ad esse ortogonale, che rappresenta il difetto nella dCFT. In entrambe le teorie, di campo e di stringa, si è considerato uno Wilson loop circolare parallelo al difetto. Il valore di aspettazione dello Wilson loop è stato calcolato in primis nella dCFT, considerando due differenti tipi di parametrizzazione per gli accoppiamenti scalari. Un caso corrisponde allo Wilson loop di Maldacena, mentre l'altro è una realizzazione dello Wilson loop di Zarembo in una teoria con difetto. I risultati ottenuti dal calcolo in dCFT sono stati confrontati con le soluzioni ottenute nella teoria duale di stringa. Nel primo caso, abbiamo ricavato una soluzione generale del problema di minimizzazione dell'azione di stringa, estendendo i precedenti risultati ottenuti in letteratura

BRIEFINGS IN FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS AND PROTEOMICS. VOL 6. NO 4. 313^321

doi:10.1093/bfgp/elm036 Molecular approaches in pig breeding to improve meat qualit

Psychosocial combined with agonist maintenance treatments versus agonist maintenance treatments alone for treatment of opioid dependence.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of any psychosocial plus any agonist maintenance treatment versus standard agonist treatment for opiate dependence in respect of retention in treatment, use of substances, health and social status. The abuse of opioid drugs and drug dependency are major health and social issues. Maintenance treatments with pharmacological agents can help to reduce the risks associated with the use of street drugs for drug addicts who are unable to abstain from drug use. Methadone is effective in retaining patients in treatment and reducing heroin use but re-addiction remains as a substantial challenge. Opiate addicts often have psychiatric problems such as anxiety and depression and may not be able to cope with stress. Psychosocial interventions including psychiatric care, psychotherapy, counselling, and social work services are commonly offered as part of the maintenance programs. Psychological support varies from structured psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy and supportive-expressive therapy to behavioural interventions and contingency management. This review addressed whether a specific psychosocial intervention provides any additional benefit to pharmacological maintenance treatment. The control intervention was a maintenance program, which routinely offers counselling sessions in addition to pharmacological treatment. Present evidence suggests that adding psychosocial support does not change the effectiveness of retention in treatment and opiate use during treatment. Findings on retention in treatment were for 12 different psychosocial interventions including contingency management. These conclusions are based on 34 randomised trials involving 3777 opiate addicts, some 73% of whom were male. All but three studies were conducted in the USA. The previous version of this review showed a reduction in opiate use during treatment that was no longer the case with the addition of new studies and the same is for the number of participants abstinent at the end of follow up. The psychosocial interventions are likely to require rigorous assessment of any changes in emotional, interpersonal, vocational and physical health areas of life functioning that may indirectly reduce drug use over longer periods of time