The runaway black hole GRO J1655-40

We have used the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the motion in the sky and compute the galactocentric orbit of the black hole X-ray binary GRO J1655-40. The system moves with a runaway space velocity of $112\pm 18$ km s$^{-1}$ in a highly eccentric ($e = 0.34\pm 0.05$) orbit. The black hole was formed in the disk at a distance greater than 3 kpc from the Galactic centre and must have been shot to such an eccentric orbit by the explosion of the progenitor star. The runaway linear momentum and kinetic energy of this black hole binary are comparable to those of solitary neutron stars and millisecond pulsars. GRO J1655-40 is the first black hole for which there is evidence for a runaway motion imparted by a natal kick in a supernova explosion.Comment: Published in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 5 pages, 2 color figures. Color figure and animation can be found at http://www.iafe.uba.ar/astronomia/mirabel/mirabel.html or ftp://ftp.cea.fr/incoming/y2k01/mirabe

Un’esegesi incontentabile

The paper presents a review of the exegetical literature in the Carolingian Age, with special attention to the different literary shapes, aims and methods this wide production shows. Although some caracteristic features can be (and currently are) attributed to every generation within the relevant century, a deeper insight reveals a multiplicity and crossing of \u2018sub-genres\u2019 and methods through the entire period. This becomes particularly evident when considering not only the better-known authors, but also the wide field of anonymous and less circulating texts: the increasing knowledge of them allows now a more articulate assessment of the Carolingian exegetical practice as a whole. What most strikingly emerges, after this overview, is a common attitude not to fix and use a corpus of reference commentaries, but to model each one his own expositio, adapting, manipulating, re-writing the instruments already provided by other commentators

Il commento Vox ecclesie al Cantico dei Cantici : il contributo delle fonti al riconoscimento della versione originale

Il commento anonimo al Cantico dall'incipit Vox Ecclesiae, pubblicato dall'A. nel 2004 (Alcuino Commento al Cantico dei Cantici con i commenti anonimi \uabVox Ecclesie\ubb \uabVox antique Ecclesie\ubb Firenze; cfr. MEL XXIX 179), \ue8 conservato nei manoscritti Paris, BNF, lat. 2822 e London, BL, Harley 213, entrambi di area francese, ed \ue8 fonte di un ulteriore commento dall'incipit Vox antiquae Ecclesiae, di et\ue0 carolingia. Esso trae il materiale da una collezione di trattati esegetici di tradizione iberica, cio\ue8 il commento di Gregorio di Elvira, quello di Giusto di Urgell e gli excerpta gregoriani di Taione di Saragozza, forse gi\ue0 passata a nord dei Pirenei al momento dell'elaborazione del commento. Il confronto con le fonti permette in questo caso di illuminare i rapporti stemmatici della tradizione, dimostrando che il commento Vox antiquae Ecclesiae e il codice parigino sono fra loro imparentati contro il londinese. La trasmissione, per quanto limitata a pochissimi esemplari, si presenta metodologicamente interessante, perch\ue9 soggetta a successive interpolazioni e correzioni che vengono recepite in modo non uniforme dai testimoni superstiti. In appendice sono presentati e discussi alcuni emendamenti al testo pubblicato nel 2004

Una vita latina di santa Irene : versioni o redazioni plurime?

Irene, venerata a Lecce gi\ue0 dal XII sec. e divenutane patrona dopo la peste del 1466, deve il suo culto locale a fonti di et\ue0 moserna. Per ricostruire la vicenda dell'importazione di questo culto in Italia si devono quindi seguire vie diverse dall'influenza bizantina nelle zone di sua giurisdizione. Tre sono le traduzioni dal greco venute alla luce dopo il censimento fatto dai Bollandisti nella BHL. La prima \ue8 tradita dal ms. Napoli, Bibl. Nazionale, ex. Vind. lat. 15 (a. 1174), ff. 203v e 179r-184r \ue8 una versione dovuta a Giovanni Amalfitano. La seconda in Padova, Bibl. Univ. 611 (prima met\ue0 del XIV sec.), ff. 306r-307r \ue8 una copia della Legenda aurea. La terza \ue8 quella presa in esame da questo articolo ed \ue8 tradita dai mss.: Milano (M), Bibl. Naz. Braidense, Gerli 26 (XIV sec.), ff. 326r-331v, Pisa (P), Archivio Capitolare C. 181 (XIV sec.), ff. 29v-33r e Firenze (F), BNCF, Conv. Soppr. J.II.37 (XII sec.), ff. 8r-25r. Di questa traduzione si ricostruiscono l'A. conduce un'analisi macro- e microtestuale, individuandone due redazioni, una \uabveneziana\ubb, testimoniata dal codice braidense, l'altra \uabtoscana\ubb, testimoniata dal codice fiorentino e da quello pisano. L'A., anche grazie a due riscontri esterni, vale a dire con l'epitome fatta da Pietro Cal\uf2 e con la parte volgare del dossier agiografico di Irene, propone una ricostruzione dell'albero stemmatico (p. 82) che vede scaturire dall'originale greco una prima versione latina, di cui \ue8 stata fatta una copia, recante varie corruttele, dalla quale parte una tradizione triplice con M, Pietro Cal\uf2 e l'antigrafo dei mss. P e F. Nel complesso si pu\uf2 notare come ogni parte della tradizione agiografica relativa ad Irene non si limita a tradurre - dal greco al latino o dal latino al volgare -, con intenti conservativi, ma rielabora liberamente adattando al contesto storico e sociale il tessuto agiografico di partenza

Riconoscimento delle linee verticali della tradizione in presenza di contaminazioni sistematiche : l’esperienza del Policraticus di Giovanni di Salisbury

Lo studio del Policraticus permette di esaminare una tradizione \uabin caduta\ubb nella quale si individua una catena di codices descripti pi\uf9 volte corretti con controlli su altri manoscritti. Tali correzioni - da ricondursi in larga misura all'ambiente stesso dell'autore - sono in parte riconoscibili in quanto si sono conservati i manoscritti sui quali sono state effettuate, in parte deducibili dagli esiti della tradizione. L'esame di questo caso-campione, per il quale la documentazione \ue8 sufficientemente ben conservata da permettere la ricostruzione della vicenda, \ue8 occasione per riflettere sulla nozione di errore separativo e sui possibili metodi per dipanare la situazione in caso di tradizioni contaminate. I mss. considerati sono i seguenti: London, BL, Royal 13.D.IV, Royal 13.E.V, Royal 12.F.VIII, Add. 26849, Add. 21999; Oxford, Balliol College, 300B, Bodl. Lib., lat. misc. c. 16, Barlow 48, Barlow 6, Bodl. 315, Auct. F.I.8, Laud. lat. 4; Merton College, 290; Brugge, Stadsbibl., 159; Cambridge, CCC, 46; Universitu Libr., Ii.II.31; Firenze, Riccardiana, 800 (L.I.7); Charleville-M\ue9zi\ue8res, BM, 151; Montpellier, Bibl. Interuniv., Section de M\ue9decine 60; Paris, Bibl. Mazarine, 3474; BNF, lat. 6416, lat. 6417, lat. 6418, lat. 6419, lat. 6420, lat. 6421, lat. 6422, lat. 6423, lat. 6424, lat. 6425; Soissons, BM, 24; Troyes, BM, 787; Vat. Chig. A.VII.219; Vat. Reg. lat. 114

Il divertimento al di là delle intenzioni : copisti e lettori della Navigatio sancti Brendani

Althought its monastic genesis and features, the text known as Navigatio sancti Brendani tells such a marvelous adventure that medieval readers seem often look at it more as an enterteinement-oriented novel than as a pious hagiography. We can detect several symptoms of such an approach, when exploring its transmission. In almost a half of the manuscripts, we find near the Navigatio other works defined by a strongly phantastic and supernatural shape, as well as by exotic locations (\u2018epic\u2019 passiones, apocrypha, visiones, Vitae Patrum, voyage tales, poems on Alexander\u2026). Critical voices, e.g. Bartholomy of Trento and an anonymous satyrical text, indirectly show how much a naive and enthusiastic audience could be influenced by the Brendan legend and its less \u2018orthodox\u2019 contents. A tast for enjoying the plaisantness of the text produces some rewritings oriented to increase its realistic and dramatic features. Therefore, the most impressive proof of an amused reading of Navigatio are some marginal sketches by scribes and readers: animals, devils and other marvels have been drown in several manuscripts, both isolated and in serial sets

L’editore di esegesi altomedievale tra fonti sommerse e tradizioni creative

When preparing editions of exegetical texts from Early Middle Ages, scholars are always concerned by several methodological problems. Their first issue is the recognition of the real sources the medieval commentator knew and exploited: beside of main auctoritates, a great deal of epitomes, short versions, sets of excerpts were available, that only in part we are aware of or can read in reliable editions. Furthermore, the way these texts were composed engendered \u2018authorial errors\u2019 difficult to deal with, such mistakes reproduced from manuscripts of their sources and inaccuracies in reassembling selected pieces. Their very lively and creative transmission adds more difficulties: scribes and readers used to alter the texts in order to correct them (even by collations with their sources) or to adapt them to different aims, by additions, abbreviations, reworkings; therefore it is not always easy to distinguish between the original and the revised shape of a commentary. The editor has to face such a mass of problems and perturbations, and try to find a proper and efficacious way of setting a critical text and displaying it to the readers, along with its complicated transmission. The paper analyse all these questions by investigating a large patrimony of studies and editions with their various issues and solutions

Smart Retailing: a model to assess the economic sustainability of smart shelf-enabled dynamic pricing

Smart Retailing, a new approach to retail management that leverages digital technologies, is gaining much attention, as it enables innovation and improvements in consumers’ quality of life. However, the potentialities stemming from the application of such technologies are still not fully explored. Investment analyses addressing specific technologies could be useful to fill the academic gaps and guide retailers in their digital transition. This paper aims thus at evaluating the economic sustainability of investment in smart shelves, which are employed to perform dynamic pricing in presence of perishable goods. A model simulating the pricing variation in different scenarios was built and economic and financial analyses were performed to evaluate the sustainability of the investment. Data to feed the model were collected through semi-structured interviews with a smart shelf technology provider and three grocery retailers. The results show that the employment of smart shelves allows retailers to increase their profits. First, they are always able to assign to the product the price which most accurately reflects the customers’ willingness to pay. Second, the costs related to misplacement issues are reduced. This study contributes to the knowledge in this unexplored field by providing a model that simulates the dynamic pricing policy after the introduction of smart shelf technology and evaluates its economical sustainability. It also provides retailers who want to join the digital transformation of the stores with a useful tool to guide their investments

Impact of a multistrain probiotic formulation with high bifidobacterial content on the fecal bacterial community and short-chain fatty acid levels of healthy adults

The consumption of probiotic products is continually increasing, supported by growing scientific evidence of their efficacy. Considering that probiotics may primarily affect health (either positively or negatively) through gut microbiota modulation, the first aspect that should be evaluated is their impact on the intestinal microbial ecosystem. In this study, we longitudinally analyzed the bacterial taxonomic composition and organic acid levels in four fecal samples collected over the course of four weeks from 19 healthy adults who ingested one capsule a day for two weeks of a formulation containing at least 70 billion colony-forming units, consisting of 25% lactobacilli and 75% Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis. We found that 16S rRNA gene profiling showed that probiotic intake only induced an increase in a single operational taxonomic unit ascribed to B. animalis, plausibly corresponding to the ingested bifidobacterial strain. Furthermore, liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry revealed a significant increase in the lactate and acetate/butyrate ratio and a trend toward a decrease in succinate following probiotic administration. The presented results indicate that the investigated probiotic formulation did not alter the intestinal bacterial ecosystem of healthy adults and suggest its potential ability to promote colonization resistance in the gut through a transient increase in fecal bifidobacteria, lactic acid, and the acetate/butyrate ratio

Quantitative recovery of viable Lactobacillus paracasei CNCM I-1572 (L. casei DG®) after gastrointestinal passage in healthy adults

Probiotics are live microorganisms, and viability after transit through the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) is considered an inherent property of the health benefits of probiotics. The aim of the present study was to quantify the viable and total loads of Lactobacillus paracasei DG cells after passage through the GIT following the consumption of the probiotic product Enterolactis (L. casei DG\uae; L. paracasei CNCM I-1572; L. paracasei DG) from drinkable vials by healthy adults. We developed a novel method for discriminating and enumerating culturable L. paracasei DG cells based on the unique sticky, filamentous phenotype of this strain on MRS agar containing vancomycin and kanamycin. The identity of DG was also confirmed with strain-specific primers by colony PCR. This method was used for a recovery study of the DG strain to quantify viable cells in the fecal samples of 20 volunteers during a 1-week probiotic consumption period and a 1-week follow-up. We isolated L. paracasei DG from at least one fecal sample from all the volunteers. The highest concentration of viable DG cells [ranging from 3.6 to 6.7 log10colony-forming unit (CFU) per gram of feces] in the feces was observed between 4 and 8 days from the beginning of Enterolactis intake and for up to 5 days after cessation of intake. As expected, the total DG count determined by real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) was mostly higher than the viable DG cells recovered. Viable count experiments, carried out by combining ad hoc culture-based discriminative conditions and strain-specific molecular biological protocols, unambiguously demonstrated that L. paracasei DG can survive gastrointestinal transit in healthy adults when ingested as Enterolactis in drinkable vials containing no less than one billion CFU at the end of shelf life