Life-writing / narrarsi corpi migranti e pratiche discorsive: Frammenti di una dissonante colonna Sonora

In this narrative account the author, an Italian PhD candidate at the University of Sydney studying Italian migration to Australia, reflects on some of the discourses on body, sexuality and love that, as a dissonant sound track, have accompanied his life and his research in Australia. The focus is on the relevance of this kind of discourse in the process of elaboration of migrant identity

Prato: The Social Construction of an Industrial City Facing Processes of Cultural Hybridization

This chapter deals with a widely studied case, that is, Prato, a middle-sized city with rooted industrial traditions, in the Centre of Italy. Prato is a textile industrial district embedded in the so-called Third Italy—an area characterized by the presence of small firms spread throughout the territory, linked together in supply and subcontracting relationships—which, in the last twenty years, has undergone a profound transformation as a consequence of the crisis of textile and immigration, leading to the formation of a large Chinese community. The related changes brought with them problems of social cohesion and sustainable development. The authors address these issues by analyzing both academic and public discourses on Prato. Their basic idea is that common stereotypes act as drivers of a public discourse that prevents the city to re-negotiate its identity. The analysis concludes that different forms of hybridization—particularly cultural hybridization—are occurring, which would need further investigations

NA50 final results on charmonia suppression

NA50The last results from the NA50 experiment on charmonia production in Pb-Pb interactions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon are presented. A strong J/$\psi$ suppression is observed, which increases with the centrality of the collisions. The J/$\psi$ production is seen to be anomalously suppressed starting at mid-centralities, when compared to a reference taken from proton-induced collisions. The most recent developments on the determination of this normal absorption curve are explained. It is also shown that for sulphur-induced reactions there is full agreement with the extrapolated normal p-A behaviour. The suppression of $\psi'$ production in heavy ion collisions (Pb-Pb and S-U) is also presented. It is seen to increase with the centrality of the collisions, and to be significantly stronger than the one measured in proton-induced reactions

Introduction: Italy and the Emotions

No abstract available

A prospective evaluation of taste in Parkinson's disease

It is well known that Parkinson's disease is characterized by a variety of non-motor symptoms. A gustatory deficit is hypothesized to be one of them although few and only cross-sectional studies are available. The aim of our pilot study was to prospectively investigate the taste function in Parkinson's disease patients after some years from the first evaluation (mean follow-up 4.35\ua0\ub1\ua00.49\ua0years; time range 3.5-5.6\ua0years). A group of 26 patients was re-examined (16 males and 10 females; mean age 70.9\ua0\ub1\ua08.4\ua0years, range 54-88\ua0years). Taste function was assessed in one session, by means of the Whole Mouth Test (WMT) and Taste Strips Test (TST). Olfaction was also evaluated with the Sniffin' Sticks Identification Test (SST). All these tests are commercially available (Burghart Company, Germany). All patients were able to understand and complete the procedure. Although scores decreased over time, no significant difference was found between global taste scores of first and second evaluation, neither comparing every single taste quality (WMT: p\ua0=\ua00.234, Mann-Whitney U test; TST: p\ua0=\ua00.747, Mann-Whitney U test; McNemar chi-square in the range of 0-1.455). These results confirm a persistent but slight and stable taste impairment, in patients with Parkinson's disease. Future studies on a much larger sample of patients are certainly required