La proposta di legge in materia di libertà religiosa nei lavori del gruppo di studio Astrid. Le scelte operate nel campo della libertà collettiva

Nelle parti dedicate alla dimensione collettiva della libertà religiosa, la Proposta dà spazio a tre figure: due oggetto di espliciti riferimenti costituzionali, l’associazione con fine di religione o di culto e la confessione religiosa; una terza nuova, l’associazione filosofica e non confessionale, di chiara derivazione europea già nella denominazione. Inizio dalle associazioni con finalità di religione o di culto, che nella Proposta hanno un risalto senz’altro significativo. Esso però non è teso a oscurare o attenuare il rilievo di altre figure, in particolare della confessione religiosa, alla quale la Costituzione riserva un’attenzione tutta speciale e che nel progetto ha prerogative esclusive. Quel risalto ha altre ragioni, già esplicitate anche da chi ha parlato prima di me. Il progetto prova ad affrontare i problemi emersi in tempi recenti con lo sviluppo dell’associazionismo religioso, che ha interessato, in particolare, le comunità di nuova formazione o insediamento e che ha trovato un po’ tutti impreparati. (Continua

Mental rotation meets the motion aftereffect: the role of hV5/MT+ in visual mental imagery

A growing number of studies show that visual mental imagery recruits the same brain areas as visual perception. Although the necessity of hV5/MT+ for motion perception has been revealed by means of TMS, its relevance for motion imagery remains unclear. We induced a direction-selective adaptation in hV5/MT+ by means of an MAE while subjects performed a mental rotation task that elicits imagined motion. We concurrently measured behavioral performance and neural activity with fMRI, enabling us to directly assess the effect of a perturbation of hV5/MT+ on other cortical areas involved in the mental rotation task. The activity in hV5/MT+ increased as more mental rotation was required, and the perturbation of hV5/MT+ affected behavioral performance as well as the neural activity in this area. Moreover, several regions in the posterior parietal cortex were also affected by this perturbation. Our results show that hV5/MT+ is required for imagined visual motion and engages in an interaction with parietal cortex during this cognitive process

On invariance of plurigenera for foliations on surfaces

We show that if $(X_t,\mathcal{F}_t)_t$ is a family of foliations with reduced singularities on a smooth family of surfaces, then invariance of plurigenera holds for sufficiently large $m$. On the other hand, we provide examples on which the result fails, for small values of $m$

Synthesis and Biological Activity of Novel Platencin Derivatives

The biological mode of action of platencin, a potential lead molecule for a new class of antibiotics, is detailed. Furthermore, enantiopure syntheses of several platencin derivatives are described, of which the core structure can be accessed in two exceedingly simple steps from commercially available starting materials. Furthermore, the antibiotic properties of the derivatives was evaluated

The first solvent-free cyclotrimerization reaction of arylethynes catalyzed by rhodium porphyrins

Different rhodium(III) porphyrin chlorides have been used as catalysts for the cyclotrimerization of several arylethynes, giving in many cases high yields in substituted benzenes and selectivities based on the steric hindrance of the macrocycles and on the substitution of the substrates

Anisotropic Pauli spin blockade in hole quantum dots

We present measurements on gate-defined double quantum dots in Ge-Si core-shell nanowires, which we tune to a regime with visible shell filling in both dots. We observe a Pauli spin blockade and can assign the measured leakage current at low magnetic fields to spin-flip cotunneling, for which we measure a strong anisotropy related to an anisotropic g-factor. At higher magnetic fields we see signatures for leakage current caused by spin-orbit coupling between (1,1)-singlet and (2,0)-triplet states. Taking into account these anisotropic spin-flip mechanisms, we can choose the magnetic field direction with the longest spin lifetime for improved spin-orbit qubits

The thermal model on the verge of the ultimate test: particle production in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC

We investigate the production of hadrons in nuclear collisions within the framework of the thermal (or statistical hadronization) model. We discuss both the ligh-quark hadrons as well as charmonium and provide predictions for the LHC energy. Even as its exact magnitude is dependent on the charm production cross section, not yet measured in Pb-Pb collisions, we can confidently predict that at the LHC the nuclear modification factor of charmonium as a function of centrality is larger than that observed at RHIC and compare the experimental results to these predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; proceedings of QM201

Tailored functionalization of natural phenols to improve biological activity

Phenols are widespread in nature, being the major components of several plants and essential oils. Natural phenols' anti-microbial, anti-bacterial, anti-oxidant, pharmacological and nutritional properties are, nowadays, well established. Hence, given their peculiar biological role, numerous studies are currently ongoing to overcome their limitations, as well as to enhance their activity. In this review, the functionalization of selected natural phenols is critically examined, mainly highlighting their improved bioactivity after the proper chemical transformations. In particular, functionalization of the most abundant naturally occurring monophenols, diphenols, lipidic phenols, phenolic acids, polyphenols and curcumin derivatives is explored

Octopaminergic modulation of the visual flight speed regulator of Drosophila

Recent evidence suggests that flies' sensitivity to large-field optic flow is increased by the release of octopamine during flight. This increase in gain presumably enhances visually mediated behaviors such as the active regulation of forward speed, a process that involves the comparison of a vision-based estimate of velocity with an internal set point. To determine where in the neural circuit this comparison is made, we selectively silenced the octopamine neurons in the fruit fly Drosophila, and examined the effect on vision-based velocity regulation in free-flying flies. We found that flies with inactivated octopamine neurons accelerated more slowly in response to visual motion than control flies, but maintained nearly the same baseline flight speed. Our results are parsimonious with a circuit architecture in which the internal control signal is injected into the visual motion pathway upstream of the interneuron network that estimates groundspeed