Mapping Italian Women\u27s Filmmaking: Urban Space In The Cinema Of The New Millennium

My dissertation lies at the intersection of Italian studies, film studies, women\u27s studies, and urban studies. Applying gender studies and feminist theoretical perspectives, I trace a thematic map of contemporary Italian women\u27s cinema (2000-2012) that investigates female subjectivity in urban contexts. Examining the works of the filmmakers Marina Spada, Francesca Comencini, Wilma Labate, Roberta Torre, and Alice Rohrwacher, I identify a common tendency to treat locations like characters, apply similar modalities of incorporating city-views into the narration, and recurrently construct parallels between physical journeys through cities and inner journeys of the self. As a prism through which to look at contemporary Italian society, the city articulates themes such as women\u27s alienation and social invisibility, the challenge of reconciling motherhood and paid work, the debasement of the female body, and the role of institutions such as the Church and the family. The most prominent visual leitmotif in this cinematic production is that of the wandering woman contemplating the cityscape. What does walking signify in these works? During the women\u27s liberation movement of the late sixties and seventies, the appropriation of public space was a form of resistance to patriarchal confinement of women to domestic spaces. The act of female `streetwalking,\u27 typically associated with prostitution, was re-configured as an act of self-liberation. Through a close reading of the films, I argue that female flânerie, in all the articulations it takes in each film, represents an act of emancipation, an act of introspection, and a search for position in society. Furthermore, the image of the woman contemplating the city signifies, for filmmakers who struggle to appropriate the medium of film and carve a space in a male-dominated industry, an assertion of authorship. By identifying these female authorial voices and a common aesthetic project, my dissertation aims to address the knowledge gap about women\u27s artistic expression while leading to a more complex understanding of Italian contemporary cinema

Secondary metabolites with ecologic and medicinal implications in Anthemis cretica subsp. petraea from Majella National Park

Anthemis cretica subsp. petraea (Ten.) Greuter is a plant belonging to the Asteraceae family and endemic of central Italy. In this paper, the first analysisof the ethanolic fraction of samples collected in the Majella National Park is reported. Seven compounds were isolated and identified namely parthenolide (1), 9α-acetoxyparthenolide (2), tamarixetin (3), 7-hydroxycoumarin (4), 4'-hydroxyacetophenone (5), leucanthemitol (conduritol F) (6),and proto-quercitol (7). Isolation of the compounds was achieved by means ofcolumn chromatography (CC), while their identification was achieved through spectroscopic and spectrometric techniques. The presence of these compounds is of great relevance. Compounds 1 and 2 are chemosystematic markers of the family, thus confirming the correct botanical classification of the species. Conversely, compounds 3, 5,and 7 were identified for the first time in the species and, instead, confirm the tendency of endemic entities to develop characteristic metabolite patterns in respect to cosmopolite species. Moreover, the presence of compounds 6 and 7 has ecologic implications and may be linked to this taxon’s adaption to dry environments. The production of these osmolytes may, in fact, represent the reason why this species is able to survive in extreme conditions of aridity. Lastly, from a medicinal standpoint, the isolated compounds are endowed with interesting biological activities and may justify, on a molecular base, the widespread traditional uses of the Anthemis species, as well as a basis for the use ofthe subspecies petraea

Effects of physical exercise on adiponectin, leptin, and inflammatory markers in childhood obesity: systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: New findings on adipose tissue physiology and obesity-Associated inflammation status suggest that modification of the adipokine level can be relevant for the long-Term prevention of obesity-Associated chronic disease. Objectives: The scope of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of physical exercise in reducing the systemic inflammation related to obesity in children. Methods: We conducted a systematic review with meta-Analysis of controlled randomized trials, identified through electronic database search, which investigated the effect of physical exercise, without concomitant dietary intervention, on adiponectin, leptin, and/or other inflammatory markers in children up to age 18 years with a body mass index greater than the 95th percentile for age and sex. Results: Seven trials were included in the meta-Analysis, with a total of 250 participants. Compared with the control group without any lifestyle modification, the physical exercise resulted in a reduction in leptin [standardized mean difference (SMD)-1.13; 95% confidence interval (95%CI):-1.89 to-0.37; I2 = 79.9%] and interleukin-6 (SMD-0.84; 95%CI:-1.45 to-0.23, I2 = 0.9%) and an increase in adiponectin plasma concentration (SMD 0.69; 95%CI: 0.02-1.35; I2 = 74.3%). Conclusions: These results indicate that physical exercise improved the inflammatory state in children with obesity. It is unclear whether this effect can reduce the risk of cardiovascular and metabolic disease in adulthood. Clinical trials with a uniform intervention protocol and outcome measurements are required to put our knowledge on adipose tissue biology into a clinical perspective

Isoflavones and other compounds from the roots of Iris marsica I. Ricci E Colas. Collected from Majella National Park, Italy

In this study, a phytochemical analysis was performed, for the first time, on Iris marsica I. Ricci e Colas. In particular, the attention was focused on the constituents of the roots. Twenty-one compounds were isolated by column chromatography and were analyzed/identified by NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. They all own chemotaxonomic, ethno-pharmacological and nutraceutical relevance which allowed us to provide a phytochemical rationale, for the correct botanical classification of this species, for the employment of its roots in folk medicine like for all the other species belonging to the Iris genus and, lastly, for their further uses as food with important healthy benefits. All of these parts were broadly discussed about within the text

Multistage Switching Architectures for Software Routers

Software routers based on personal computer (PC) architectures are becoming an important alternative to proprietary and expensive network devices. However, software routers suffer from many limitations of the PC architecture, including, among others, limited bus and central processing unit (CPU) bandwidth, high memory access latency, limited scalability in terms of number of network interface cards, and lack of resilience mechanisms. Multistage PC-based architectures can be an interesting alternative since they permit us to i) increase the performance of single software routers, ii) scale router size, iii) distribute packet manipulation and control functionality, iv) recover from single-component failures, and v) incrementally upgrade router performance. We propose a specific multistage architecture, exploiting PC-based routers as switching elements, to build a high-speed, largesize,scalable, and reliable software router. A small-scale prototype of the multistage router is currently up and running in our labs, and performance evaluation is under wa

Deficit irrigation and maturation stage influence quality and flavonoid composition of ‘Valencia’ orange fruit

BACKGROUND:Effects of continuous deficit irrigation (DI) and partial rootzone drying (PRD) treatments (50%ETc) in comparison with full irrigation (CI, 100% ETc) were investigated during ‘Valencia’ orange fruit maturation. Ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography/high-resolutionmass spectrometry was used to quantify hesperidin, narirutin, tangeritin, nobiletin, didymin and neoeriocitrin in the fruit juice and peel. RESULTS: No significant effect of irrigation was found on yield, juice soluble solids or acidity. Juice color was not influenced by irrigation or harvest date, whereas peel color increased during maturation and was more pronounced in CI and PRD fruits. Juice acidity reached a peak in May, while soluble solids increased linearly throughout maturation. Hesperidin was the major flavanone detected during maturation, with concentrations 200-fold higher in the fruit peel than in the juice. In the peel, narirutin, didymin and neoeriocitrin decreased while hesperidin, nobiletin and tangeritin increased with maturation. Narirutin synthesis in the orange fruit was insensitive to irrigation strategy. In fruit peels, PRD and DI induced the decline of hesperidin, nobiletin and tangeritin only in June, whereas in the juice, deficit irrigation treatments induced an increase in hesperidin and didymin. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that deficit irrigation, in particular the conditions imposed with PRD, may cause a significant accumulation shift of total flavonoids from the fruit peel into the juice, with a positive impact on juice quality and nutritional value. Fruit compositional changes during maturation also suggest that late harvest can improve fruit palatability and nutritional quality under the cultural and environmental conditions of this study

experimental validation of a tool for the numerical simulation of a commercial hot water storage tank

Abstract This work focuses on the experimental validation of a numerical tool realized to simulate a commercial hot water storage tank. The tool implements unsteady 1D models to simulate the temporal evolution of the temperature field inside the hot water storage tank, and the one relative to the heat transfer fluid flowing through the immersed coil heat exchanger. It has been implemented by means of the Simulink tool of Matlab. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the description of the indoor experimental facility used to realize the experimental test. Successively, the analytical models, and the numerical schemes and algorithms used to perform the numerical simulations are described. Finally, the results of the experimental validation of the tool, accomplished by comparing the experimental temperature profiles inside the tank, and the measured temperatures at the coil heat exchanger exit section over the entire experimental test duration, with the numerical results obtained from simulations performed using different correlations for the evaluation of the heat transfer rate between the tank water and the heat transfer fluid through the coil, are reported and discussed

On the benefits of domain adaptation techniques for quality of transmission estimation in optical networks

Machine learning (ML) is increasingly applied in optical network management, especially in cross-layer frameworks where physical layer characteristics may trigger changes at the network layer due to transmission performance measurements (quality of transmission, QoT) monitored by optical equipment. Leveraging ML-based QoT estimation approaches has proven to be a promising alternative to exploiting classical mathematical methods or transmission simulation tools. However, supervised ML models rely on large representative training sets, which are often unavailable, due to the lack of the necessary telemetry equipment or of historical data. In such cases, it can be useful to use training data collected from a different network. Unfortunately, the resulting models may be uneffective when applied to the current network, if the training data (the source domain) is not well representative of the network under study (the target domain). Domain adaptation (DA) techniques aim at tackling this issue, to make possible the transfer of knowledge among different networks. This paper compares several DA approaches applied to the problem of estimating the QoT of an optical lightpath using a supervised ML approach. Results show that, when the number of samples from the target domain is limited to a few dozen, DA approaches consistently outperform standard supervised ML techniques

Protons Interaction with Nomex Target: Secondary Radiation from a Monte Carlo Simulation with Geant4

The study of suitable materials to shield astronauts from Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) is a topic of fundamental importance. The choice of the material must take into account both the secondary radiation produced by the interaction between primary radiation and material and its shielding ability. The physics case presented here deals with the interaction of a proton beam with a Nomex shield, namely, a target material with a mass thickness of 20 g cm−2. The study was conducted with the simulation code DOSE based on the well-known simulation package Geant4. This article shows the properties of secondary radiations produced in the target by the interaction of a proton beam in an energy range characterizing the GCR spectrum. We observed the production of ions of masses and charges lower than the chemical elements that make up Nomex, and also a significant production of neutrons, protons, and particles