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

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

An introduction to the early Holocene eolian deposits of Grotta Romanelli, Apulia, Southern Italy

Due to its geographic position and geomorphological configuration, Grotta Romanelli acted as a sediment trap since at least MIS 5. The so-called 'terre brune' sequence is a deposit mainly of eolian origin bearing upper Palaeolithic artefacts and fossil re-mains of vertebrate fauna; it was deposited during the Glacial-Interglacial transition and the Holocene. Sedimentology and mineralogy of this deposit are investigated. The stratigraphic sequence provides a promising archive within which both human and climatic impacts can be studied

Caregiver burden on sexual intimacy and marital satisfaction

SUMMARY Objective: This study investigates affective and sexual dimensions in partners involved as caregivers of Alzheimer dementia (AD) subjects. A negative correlation between burden of the caregiver and sexual-affective quality of life was assumed. Design and methods: Hundred participants with AD partner (33 male, 67 female), aged between 55 and 85 years were recruited and data were collected from the Caregiver Burden Inventory scale and a semi-structured interview that included demographic information, medical history, relationship and sexual satisfaction, and current sexual function. AD group was compared with a control group (CG) (N ¼ 100) matched for age, sex, education and marital status on measures of the semi-structured interview. Data were analysed using frequency count, univariate analysis (chi-squared and ANOVA) and bivariate correlation. Results: The findings revealed that mean burden level was 31.59 (SD 19.51). A difference between experimental and CGs was found for sexual and affective marital satisfaction (p < 0.05). The same variables showed a rather negative correlation with total burden levels (r ¼ )0.374, p < 0.001; r ¼ )0.448, p < 0.001). What's known Alzheimer dementia and the global impairment of intellectual function, as well as its physiological correlates, have strong influence on the quality of life with the consequent need of assistance which could determine a high burden level in the caregiver. The attendant cognitive changes that occur in the Alzheimer patient present many, often conflicting, challenges to a couple's sexual functioning 2,

LPS-induced IL-8 activation in human intestinal epithelial cells is accompanied by specific histone H3 acetylation and methylation changes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The release of LPS by bacteria stimulates both immune and specific epithelial cell types to release inflammatory mediators. It is known that LPS induces the release of IL-8 by intestinal mucosal cells. Because it is now emerging that bacteria may induce alteration of epigenetic patterns in host cells, we have investigated whether LPS-induced IL-8 activation in human intestinal epithelial cells involves changes of histone modifications and/or DNA methylation at IL-8 gene regulatory region.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>RT-PCR analysis showed that IL-8 mRNA levels rapidly increase after exposure of HT-29 cells to LPS. DNA demethylating agents had no effects on IL-8 expression, suggesting that DNA methylation was not involved in IL-8 gene regulation. Consistently we found that 5 CpG sites located around IL-8 transcription start site (-83, -7, +73, +119, +191) were unmethylated on both lower and upper strand either in LPS treated or in untreated HT-29 cells, as well as in normal intestinal mucosa.</p> <p>Conversely, pretreatment of HT-29 cells with deacetylase inhibitors strengthened the LPS-mediated IL-8 activation. Inhibitors of histone deacetylases could induce IL-8 mRNA expression also in the absence of LPS, suggesting that chromatin modifications could be involved in IL-8 gene regulation. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analyses showed that, concurrently with IL-8 activation, transient specific changes in H3 acetylation and H3K4, H3K9 and H3K27 methylation occurred at IL-8 gene promoter during LPS stimulation. Changes of H3-acetyl, H3K4me2 and H3K9me2 levels occurred early, transiently and corresponded to transcriptional activity, while changes of H3K27me3 levels at IL-8 gene occurred later and were long lasting.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results showed that specific chromatin modifications occurring at IL-8 gene, including histone H3 acetylation and methylation, mark LPS-mediated IL-8 activation in intestinal epithelial cells while it is unlikely that DNA methylation of IL-8 promoter is directly involved in IL-8 gene regulation in these cells.</p

Palmitoylethanolamide modulates high-fat diet-shaped gut function and microbiota composition in obese mice

Introduction/Background & aims: Emerging data indicate a pivotal role for gut microbiota in the progression of obesity. Indeed, in the gut, high-fat diet (HFD) intake induces the loss of barrier integrity, causing the transfer of detrimental factors (i.e. lipopolysaccharide, LPS) into the systemic circulation, leading to metabolic dysfunctions and an overall state of low-grade inflammation, called “met- ainflammation” [1]. The metabolic and anti-inflammatory activities of palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), an endogenous lipid mediator, prompt us to evaluate its capability to improve intestinal homeostasis and shape gut microbiota composition altered in HFD-fed obese mice. Method/Summary of work: Male C57Bl/6 J mice received standard diet (STD) or HFD (n = 10 each group). After 12 weeks, a subgroup of HFD mice was treated with PEA (30 μg/kg/die per os) for 7 weeks. Body weight was monitored during the treatment and fat mass was evaluated at the end of experimental time. Systemic parameters and intestinal function were examined using ELISA assay, and Real-Time PCR analysis, respectively. Faecal microbiota was studied by per- forming 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing and linear discriminant analy- sis in order to obtain the operational taxonomic units (OTUs) defining the bacterial communities

TACC3 mediates the association of MBD2 with histone acetyltransferases and relieves transcriptional repression of methylated promoters

We have recently reported that a novel MBD2 interactor (MBDin) has the capacity to reactivate transcription from MBD2-repressed methylated promoters even in the absence of demethylation events. Here we show that another unrelated protein, TACC3, displays a similar activity on methylated genes. In addition the data reported here provide possible molecular mechanisms for the observed phenomenon. Immunoprecipitation experiments showed that MBD2/TACC3 form a complex in vivo with the histone acetyltransferase pCAF. MBD2 could also associate with HDAC2, a component of MeCP1 repression complex. However, we found that the complexes formed by MBD2 with TACC3/pCAF and with HDAC2 were mutually exclusive. Moreover, HAT enzymatic assays demonstrated that HAT activity associates with MBD2 in vivo and that such association significantly increased when TACC3 was over-expressed. Overall our findings suggest that TACC3 can be recruited by MBD2 on methylated promoters and is able to reactivate transcription possibly by favoring the formation of an HAT-containing MBD2 complex and, thus, switching the repression potential of MBD2 in activation even prior to eventual demethylation