168 research outputs found

    The Migrant Metaphor Within Radical Italian Thought

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    NoBorder activisms and Italian philosophies are highly complicit in the ongoing fortification of the EU and the West, and of the West’s subsequent global hegemonic spread through Eurocentric discourses and technologies. I will show that many radical Italian writings, through a metaphorisation of the ‘migrant’ or ‘refugee’, supplement the alter-globalisation movement in effectively reproducing the Eurocentric fantasy of the Enlightenment subject as the ultimate centre for social change, just as much as those despised EU policies do. I will do so by pointing out that this migrant metaphor functions primarily as a tool to make possible the claim for some sort of hegemonic ‘unification of struggles’ in ‘the new world order’ by these radical Italian thinkers. They will be shown to do so through a doubly romanticising move, leading to both the reproduction of the migrant or refugee as a heroic figure and the acting out of an unfinishable desire for communal self-identification with the migrant, through claims that s/he embodies the transcendental fantasy of the total subsumption of boundaries

    Parking Policy and Urban Mobility Level of Service – System Dynamics as a Modelling Tool for Decision Making

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    Parking policy is still the most directly available instrument for managing traffic demand in many cities. But policy design is subject to difficulties resulting from the complexity of the urban mobility system. This article presents a model framework, based on a system dynamics approach, aimed at assessing the effectiveness of parking policy and quantitatively identifying optimal design at an aggregate spatial level under a level of service maximization objective. An application to a city is developed and the results are discussed in view of their qualitative outcomes and quantitative validity and robustness. It is argued that system dynamics addresses several needs of modellers and decision makers regarding urban parking policy assessment, particularly if parking is used as a traffic management tool. The qualitative results of the model coincide with the prescriptions that would come from the economic theory, even with an objective function based on level of service instead of a broader indicator of efficiency. At the quantitative level, the validation testing of the model application with the available data provided positive indications and no case to reject that a quantitative accurateness useful for policy prescription could be attained provided that some data gaps are fulfilled. The necessary data for calibration seems to be possible to obtain by feasible local empirical observations

    Cross chain collaboration centres in practice

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    Modelling oxygen capillary supply to striated muscle tissues

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    The ability to characterise functional capillary supply (FCS) plays a key role in developing effective therapeutic interventions for numerous pathological conditions, such as chronic ischaemia in skeletal or cardiac muscle. Detailed tissue geometry, such as muscle fibre size, has been incorporated into indices of FCS by considering the distribution of Voronoi tessellations (‘capillary domains’) generated from vessel locations in a plane perpendicular to muscle fibre orientation, implicitly assuming that each Voronoi polygon represents the area of supply of its enclosed capillary. However, to assess the capacity of FCS in muscle, we are naturally led to use a modelling framework that can account for the local anatomic and metabolic heterogeneities of muscle fibres. Such a framework can be used to explore the validity of the Voronoi polygon representation of FCS regions while also providing a general platform for robust predictions of FCS

    Oxygen and Heterotrophy Affect Calcification of the Scleractinian Coral Galaxea fascicularis

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    Heterotrophy is known to stimulate calcification of scleractinian corals, possibly through enhanced organic matrix synthesis and photosynthesis, and increased supply of metabolic DIC. In contrast to the positive long-term effects of heterotrophy, inhibition of calcification has been observed during feeding, which may be explained by a temporal oxygen limitation in coral tissue. To test this hypothesis, we measured the short-term effects of zooplankton feeding on light and dark calcification rates of the scleractinian coral Galaxea fascicularis (n = 4) at oxygen saturation levels ranging from 13 to 280%. Significant main and interactive effects of oxygen, heterotrophy and light on calcification rates were found (three-way factorial repeated measures ANOVA,

    Mopeia Virus–related Arenavirus in Natal Multimammate Mice, Morogoro, Tanzania

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    A serosurvey involving 2,520 small mammals from Tanzania identified a hot spot of arenavirus circulation in Morogoro. Molecular screening detected a new arenavirus in Natal multimammate mice (Mastomys natalensis), Morogoro virus, related to Mopeia virus. Only a small percentage of mice carry Morogoro virus, although a large proportion shows specific antibodies

    Coupling between skeletal muscle fiber size and capillarization is maintained during healthy aging.

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    As muscle capillarization is related to the oxidative capacity of the muscle and the size of muscle fibres, capillary rarefaction may contribute to sarcopenia and functional impairment in older adults. Therefore, it is important to assess how ageing affects muscle capillarization and the interrelationship between fibre capillary supply with the oxidative capacity and size of the fibres.Muscle biopsies from healthy recreationally active young (22 years; 14 men and 5 women) and older (74 years; 22 men and 6 women) people were assessed for muscle capillarization and the distribution of capillaries with the method of capillary domains. Oxidative capacity of muscle fibres was assessed with quantitative histochemistry for succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity.There was no significant age-related reduction in muscle fibre oxidative capacity. Despite 18% type II fibre atrophy (P = 0.019) and 23% fewer capillaries per fibre (P < 0.002) in the old people, there was no significant difference in capillary distribution between young and old people, irrespective of sex. The capillary supply to a fibre was primarily determined by fibre size and only to a small extent by oxidative capacity, irrespective of age and sex. Based on SDH, the maximal oxygen consumption supported by a capillary did not differ significantly between young and old people.The similar quantitative and qualitative distribution of capillaries within muscle from healthy recreationally active older people and young adults indicates that the age-related capillary rarefaction, which does occur, nevertheless maintains the coupling between skeletal muscle fibre size and capillarization during healthy ageing
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