The culture of restoration. A new point of view for an international framework

The ratification of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1972 opened up to a debate on the discipline in the academic and professional field. The paper wants to look at the issue from a different point of view, outlining the perception of Heritage and its acknowledged values in the different contexts the students following the MSc in Architecture-Conservation (Sapienza University of Rome) come from. A questionnaire was submitted at the end of the Conservation Design Studio module. The answers outline some homogeneous problems that need to be deeply understood to face the future of the Cultural and Architectural Heritage all over the World

Th.o.m.a.s.: An exploratory assessment of Theory of Mind in schizophrenic subjects

A large body of literature agrees that persons with schizophrenia suffer from a Theory of Mind (ToM) deficit. However, most empirical studies have focused on third-person, egocentric ToM, underestimating other facets of this complex cognitive skill. Aim of this research is to examine the ToM of schizophrenic persons considering its various aspects (first vs. second order, first vs. third person, egocentric vs. allocentric, beliefs vs. desires vs. positive emotions vs. negative emotions and how each of these mental state types may be dealt with), to determine whether some components are more impaired than others. We developed a Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.) and administered it to 22 persons with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and a matching control group. Th.o.m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview which allows a multi-component measurement of ToM. Both groups were also administered a few existing ToM tasks and the schizophrenic subjects were administered the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the WAIS-R. The schizophrenic persons performed worse than control at all the ToM measurements; however, these deficits appeared to be differently distributed among different components of ToM. Our conclusion is that ToM deficits are not unitary in schizophrenia, which also testifies to the importance of a complete and articulated investigation of ToM

Let Young People Join The Legislative Process. A Twitter Based Experiment On Internships

The aim of this research is to examine the possible effects of labour market institutional characteristics on young people's perceptions of their internship experiences as expressed on Twitter. By looking at these opinions (satisfaction versus dissatisfaction) in relation to certain features of internships as well as to the more general labour market regulatory framework, this project aims to give a voice to young people, enabling them (indirectly) to provide policy suggestions to law-makers. Furthermore, we propose a preview of a possible empirical model for data collection based on the manual coding of Tweets. By employing a Probit regression and Blinder-Oaxaca and Fairlie decompositions, we have tried to establish a link between the perceived evaluation of internships and the country where the internship is based, the latter being used as a proxy for the legal system. In all our tests we found that the country in which the internship is placed is the main factor in the positive or negative perception. Ultimately we shall propose the use of Twitter not only as a relevant research tool, but also as an instrument for bringing young people's needs to the attention of law-makers

Tempo, identità e antico nel XIII e XIV secolo

Il contributo si propone quale spunto di riflessione sugli atteggiamenti di particolare attenzione nei confronti dell’antico, a seguito del cambiamento di percezione del concetto di tempo nella Roma comunale tra XIII e XIV secolo. I mutamenti socio-politici connessi all’affermazione dell’autonomia comunale, unitamente ad un progressivo ed incisivo rinnovamento culturale, contribuiscono alla nascita di una nuova identità in seno agli strati medio-alti della popolazione. Obiettivo ultimo dell’analisi è, quindi, ricostruire, seppure parzialmente, il modo di intendere, nella Roma bassomedievale, la presenza dell’antico e come, ai diversi livelli sociali, ci si rapportasse con essa, cercando di tratteggiare, sulla base dei documenti e di resti materiali, le motivazioni che hanno determinato il riuso, la conservazione o la distruzione del costruito antico.The purpose of the essay is to depict the relationship between the medieval Roman society and the antiquity, as well as the modified concept of time, in the age of the communal experience, between XIIIth and XIVth century. The socio-political changes and the cultural renewal, deeply connected to a sense of political autonomy, contributed to give birth to a new identity within the higher social class. Thus, the aim is to reconstruct, even if partially, the way of evaluate ancient materials, analysing both documents and architectures, to understand the hidden meaning behind reuse, conservation and destruction of ancient buildings

Serra moresca di Villa Torlonia a Roma, memoria mutilata

La riapertura della serra moresca a Villa Torlonia s’inserisce in una serie d’interventi ad opera della Soprintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali volti a valorizzare e recuperare gli edifici e la vegetazione della storica villa romana. Si tratta dell’ultimo passo verso la riqualificazione di un giardino per lungo tempo abbandonato all’incuria e al degrado, a motivo del forte richiamo per ciò che essa ha simboleggiato durante il ventennio fascista e, in particolare, da quando Benito Mussolini ne fece la sua residenza privata, tra il 1925 e il 1943

Physiological differences between twin and single-born lambs and kids during the first month of life

Abstract. The effects of time after birth and of twinning on rectal temperature (RT), heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR) and body weight (BW) values were evaluated in five singleton Comisana lambs (three males and two females), five singleton Maltese Kids (three males and two females), four couples of twin Comisana lambs (four males and four females) and four couples of twin Maltese kids (four males and four females) during the first month of life. For all kids and lambs, RT, HR, RR and BW were recorded after 1 and 24 h from birth and every 2 days until the 30th day of life. The application of two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a statistically significant effect of time (P  0.05) on all studied parameters was found in lambs, whereas statistically significant differences in BW, RT and HR values (P < 0.01) were found between twin and singleton kids throughout the first month of life. The results obtained in this study make a contribution to the knowledge of homeostatic, cardiorespiratory and thermoregulatory adaptations occurring in singleton lambs and kids and in twin lambs and kids during the first 30 days of life. Our findings indicate that the BW, RT, HR and RR values, whose homeostasis is still evolving in newborn, should be interpreted dynamically as a function of the period of postnatal adaptation and also of twinning

Impact of interleukin-27 on replication of hepatitis C virus

Recently, different interleukins have been associated with responses to PEGylated interferon and ribavirin and spontaneous clearance of acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection (interleukin (IL)-28B) or with the development of a novel immunotherapeutic strategy for HCV infection (IL-27). IL-27 is a helical cytokine belonging to the IL-6/IL-12 cytokine family with a broad range of anti-inflammatory properties. Some studies demonstrated that IL-27 stimulates hepatoma cells and hepatocytes by inducing a sustained signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT1 and STAT3) activation. Moreover, IL-27 induces interferon-α-like responses including the induction of antiviral genes (ribonucleic acid-dependent protein kinase), oligoadenylate synthetase, and myxovirus protein. In this review we examine the research on IL-27 and its potential role in therapy for HCV, including the capability to inhibit replication of HCV

Sensitive methods for estimating the anchoring strength of nematic liquid crystals on Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers of fatty acids

The anchoring of the nematic liquid crystal N-(p-methoxybenzylidene)-p-butylaniline (MBBA) on Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers of fatty acids (COOHC$_{n}$H$_{2n+1}$) was studied as a function of the length of the fatty acid alkyl chains, $n$ ($n = 15, 17, 19, 21$). The monolayers were deposited onto ITO-coated glass plates which were used to assemble sandwich cells of various thickness that were filled with MBBA in the nematic phase. The mechanism of relaxation from the flow-induced quasi-planar to the surface-induced homeotropic alignment was studied for the four decreases linearly with increasing the length of the alkyl chains $n$ which suggests that the Langmuir-Blodgett film plays a role in the phenomenon. This fact was confirmed by a sensitive estimation of the anchoring strength of MBBA on the fatty acid monolayers after anchoring breaking which takes place at the transition between two electric-field--induced turbulent states, denoted as DSM1 and DSM2. It was found that the threshold electric field for the anchoring breaking, which can be considered as a measure of the anchoring strength, also decreases linearly as $n$ increases. Both methods thus possess a high sensitivity in resolving small differences in anchoring strength. In cells coated with mixed Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers of two fatty acids ($n=15$ and $n=17$) a maximum of the relaxation speed was observed when the two acids were present in equal amount. This observation homeotropic cells by changing the ratio between the components of the surfactant film.Comment: LaTeX article, 20 pages, 15 figures, 17 EPS files. 1 figure added, references moved. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Novel Model Based on Artificial Neural Networks to Predict Short-Term Temperature Evolution in Museum Environment

The environmental microclimatic characteristics are often subject to fluctuations of considerable importance, which can cause irreparable damage to art works. We explored the applicability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to the Cultural Heritage area, with the aim of predicting short-term microclimatic values based on data collected at Rosenborg Castle (Copenhagen), housing the Royal Danish Collection. Specifically, this study applied the NAR (Nonlinear Autoregressive) and NARX (Nonlinear Autoregressive with Exogenous) models to the Rosenborg microclimate time series. Even if the two models were applied to small datasets, they have shown a good adaptive capacity predicting short-time future values. This work explores the use of AI in very short forecasting of microclimate variables in museums as a potential tool for decision-support systems to limit the climate-induced damages of artworks within the scope of their preventive conservation. The proposed model could be a useful support tool for the management of the museums