Parea non servin: strategies of exploitation and resistance in the caporalato discourse

In this article, we analyse the ideological content of the discursive strategies used by a group of migrant workers subjected to ‘caporalato’, a form of illegal hiring and exploitation of farm day workers through an intermediary. Starting from a series of collective open interviews with farm workers, we examine the way in which the dynamics of both exploitation and resistance are reproduced through linguistic and discursive practices. What emerges from the analysis is a complex set of ambivalent experiences and representations. Despite its inherent exploitative and controlling nature, the workers tend to justify, legitimise and deny the negative aspects of caporalato. Nonetheless, they also use linguistic devices of resistance to reconfigure the meanings of, and their role in, caporalato. Interestingly, the analyses show that caporalato is also perceived as a mechanism of social mobility. Only limited attempts at explicitly challenging its criminal nature are strategically expressed. In questo articolo, analizziamo il contenuto ideologico delle strategie discorsive usate da un gruppo di lavoratori migranti soggetti a ‘caporalato’, una forma illegale di reclutamento e di sfruttamento del lavoro dei braccianti agricoli mediante l’operato di un intermediario. Partendo da una serie di interviste aperte di tipo collettivo con un alcuni braccianti, si esamina il modo con il quale le dinamiche di sfruttamento e resistenza siano riprodotte attraverso pratiche linguistiche e discorsive. Ciò che emerge, è un complesso ed ambivalente sistema di esperienze e rappresentazioni. Nonostante l’intrinseca natura di sfruttamento e controllo, i lavoratori sembrano giustificare, legittimare e perfino negare gli aspetti più critici del caporalato. Pur tuttavia, i braccianti si servono anche di strumenti linguistici di resistenza con l’obiettivo di riconfigurare i significati ed i ruoli del caporalato stesso. Tra questi, si evince come tale fenomeno possa essere altresì percepito come un meccanismo di mobilità sociale. In ultima analisi, l’analisi riflette su come solo esigui tentativi siano strategicamente messi in atto dai braccianti per denunciare la nature criminale del caporalato

Association of kidney disease measures with risk of renal function worsening in patients with type 1 diabetes

Background: Albuminuria has been classically considered a marker of kidney damage progression in diabetic patients and it is routinely assessed to monitor kidney function. However, the role of a mild GFR reduction on the development of stage 653 CKD has been less explored in type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) patients. Aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic role of kidney disease measures, namely albuminuria and reduced GFR, on the development of stage 653 CKD in a large cohort of patients affected by T1DM. Methods: A total of 4284 patients affected by T1DM followed-up at 76 diabetes centers participating to the Italian Association of Clinical Diabetologists (Associazione Medici Diabetologi, AMD) initiative constitutes the study population. Urinary albumin excretion (ACR) and estimated GFR (eGFR) were retrieved and analyzed. The incidence of stage 653 CKD (eGFR < 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) or eGFR reduction > 30% from baseline was evaluated. Results: The mean estimated GFR was 98 \ub1 17 mL/min/1.73m2 and the proportion of patients with albuminuria was 15.3% (n = 654) at baseline. About 8% (n = 337) of patients developed one of the two renal endpoints during the 4-year follow-up period. Age, albuminuria (micro or macro) and baseline eGFR < 90 ml/min/m2 were independent risk factors for stage 653 CKD and renal function worsening. When compared to patients with eGFR > 90 ml/min/1.73m2 and normoalbuminuria, those with albuminuria at baseline had a 1.69 greater risk of reaching stage 3 CKD, while patients with mild eGFR reduction (i.e. eGFR between 90 and 60 mL/min/1.73 m2) show a 3.81 greater risk that rose to 8.24 for those patients with albuminuria and mild eGFR reduction at baseline. Conclusions: Albuminuria and eGFR reduction represent independent risk factors for incident stage 653 CKD in T1DM patients. The simultaneous occurrence of reduced eGFR and albuminuria have a synergistic effect on renal function worsening

Mobility and Migrations in the Rural Areas of Mediterranean EU Countries

AbstractThis chapter focuses on the ambivalent nature of contemporary migrations in European rural areas. The growing presence of immigrants in these areas is a direct result of the restructuring of agriculture and global agri-food chains. Evidence indicates that while agricultural work and rural settings are decreasingly attractive to local populations, they represent a favourable environment to international newcomers, due to the higher chances to access livelihood resources. The non-visibility and informality that characterise rural settings and agricultural work arrangements provide on the one side opportunities for employment, while also fostering illegal labour practices and situations of harsh exploitation

Governing agricultural migrant workers as an ‘emergency’: converging approaches in Northern and Southern Italian rural towns

Rosarno and Sermide are two small towns in Southern and Northern Italy, which are both part of a manual-labour circuit of agricultural work. The article presents an analysis of governance structures in these towns and, by bringing together the literature on migrants’ agricultural labour and local policy-making, explores how public actors address migrant seasonal agricultural workers’ needs to investigate outcomes of inclusion and exclusion. The article builds on qualitative research, conducted between 2012 and 2015, to propose a North-South intracountry comparison of local policy-making. The findings show the emergency nature of local administrations’ approaches and the critical role of civil society. They highlight the extent to which responses diverge or converge in means and scale, while stressing their convergence in scope to limit migrants’ visibility

A Novel Nanobody Scaffold Optimized for Bacterial Expression and Suitable for the Construction of Ribosome Display Libraries

Single-domain antigen-binding fragments of camelid antibodies, known as VHHs or nanobodies, are widely used affinity reagents. However, their production involving animal immunization is time- and resource-intensive. Starting from a sequence dataset of llama VHHs, we designed a novel scaffold, based on conserved framework sequences, suitable for bacterial nanobody expression and synthetic library construction. The consensus scaffold was validated by grafting the CDRs from two known nanobodies. While maintaining their binding properties, the two chimeric nanobodies showed higher levels of expression and solubility in E. coli when compared to the corresponding wild types. A proof-of-concept synthetic combinatorial library, suitable for ribosome display (RD) selection, was obtained by encoding three randomized complementarity determining regions within the consensus framework. The library, made of linear DNA fragments, has an estimated complexity of > 1012 that is three orders of magnitude higher than common phage display libraries. The bacterial expression of several library clones showed a high production of soluble recombinant proteins. The high complexity of the library, confirmed by sequencing of a subset of clones, as well as a preliminary RD selection of a maltose binding protein binder, indicated this approach as a starting point in the construction of synthetic combinatorial libraries to be used as animal-free tools for the low-cost selection of target-specific nanobodies

Functional Role of Aspergillus carbonariusAcOTAbZIP Gene, a bZIP Transcription Factor within the OTA Gene Cluster

Aspergillus carbonarius is the principal fungal species responsible for ochratoxin A (OTA) contamination of grapes and derived products in the main viticultural regions worldwide. In recent years, co-expressed genes representing a putative-OTA gene cluster were identified, and the deletion of a few of them allowed the partial elucidation of the biosynthetic pathway in the fungus. In the putative OTA-gene cluster is additionally present a bZIP transcription factor (AcOTAbZIP), and with this work, A. carbonarius ΔAcOTAbZIP strains were generated to study its functional role. According to phylogenetic analysis, the gene is conserved in the OTA-producing fungi. A Saccharomyces cerevisiae transcription factor binding motif (TFBM) homolog, associated with bZIP transcription factors was present in the A. carbonarius OTA-gene cluster no-coding regions. AcOTAbZIP deletion results in the loss of OTA and the intermediates OTB and OTβ. Additionally, in ΔAcOTAbZIP strains, a down-regulation of AcOTApks, AcOTAnrps, AcOTAp450, and AcOTAhal genes was observed compared to wild type (WT). These results provide evidence of the direct involvement of the AcOTAbZIP gene in the OTA biosynthetic pathway by regulating the involved genes. The loss of OTA biosynthesis ability does not affect fungal development as demonstrated by the comparison of ΔAcOTAbZIP strains and WT strains in terms of vegetative growth and asexual sporulation on three different media. Finally, no statistically significant differences in virulence were observed among ΔAcOTAbZIP strains and WT strains on artificially inoculated grape berries, demonstrating that OTA is not required by A. carbonarius for the pathogenicity process

High vowel processing in deaf Italian children with unilateral cochlear implants: A neurophysiologic and behavioral study

Cochlear implants partially restore auditory sensation in individuals affected by severe to profound hearing loss. We investigated vowel detection, identification, and discrimination in a group of congenitally-deafened, unilaterally-implanted, Italian children and in a group of age-matched controls, by combining behavioral and neurophysiologic measures. Comparable vowel identification and discrimination performance emerged for cochlear-implant and normal- hearing ch ildren at the behavioral level. At the neurophysiologic level, on the other hand, cochlear-implant children appeared to lag behind their age-matched normal- hearing peers for vowel detection and identification, but not for vowel discrimination. Length of cochlear implant use sign ificantly affected vowel processing at the neurophysiologic level, although not systematically