Introduction

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Il libro e il caos. La casa editrice "Vsemirnaja Literatura" (1918-1924) tra le luci e le ombre di Pietrogrado

My thesis is a monographic work on Vsemirnaja Literatura (World literature), a publishing house active in Petrograd between 1918 and 1924. The history of this institution – which was established right after the October Revolution and based on Maxim Gorky's idea to provide the Soviet reader with new annotated editions of the classics of world literature – represents an interesting look-out from which we can observe the transition years that followed the Bolshevik takeover and preceded Lenin's death, through the Civil War, “the first wave of migration” of not aligned intellectuals, the NEP and the gradual consolidation of the Soviet state around its new centralizing institutions. Although on Vsemirnaja Literatura much has already been written, most contributions are scattered and difficult to find; moreover, studies published in the Soviet era are obviously affected by an ideological approach that makes it very difficult to conduct a historical reconstruction with the necessary objectivity, taking into account the faceted “micro-histories” intertwined within this legendary publishing house. Using the formalist terminology in which, already in the '20s, scholars took into account the phenomena that constitute the background of the creative literary process, one could say that in the history of Vsemirnaja Literatura several “series” are intertwined: literary, but also political, social and economic. The first part of this work is thus a reconstruction of the history of Vsemirnaja Literatura in the context of the first steps of Soviet publishing in general. The analysis is focused on the way the publishing house fulfilled the fundamental instances of the Bolshevik cultural policy (mass edition of classics to ensure the success of the literacy process) and also responded to Gorky's aesthetic principles promoting a sort of “revolutionary humanism” based on a socialist and internationalist version of Goethe's Weltliteratur; the analysis dwells on the composition of catalogs (which reflect Gorky's utopian plans in relation with the actually printed works) trying to highlight the excellent level of the contributors, who were all members of the Petersburg literary and academic elite (from Alexandr Blok, Nikolai Gumilyov, Mikhail Lozinsky, Korney Chukovsky, to orientalists like Sergey Ol'denburg, Ignaty Kračkovsky, Vasily Alekseev). I finally outlined the events that led Vsemirnaja Literatura from its early independent stage to the annexation to the State publisher, the Gosizdat. The second part takes into account an aspect of Vsemirnaja Literatura that goes beyond the simple publishing activity, and that involves its role as a cultural circle. Indeed, through salaries paid by Vsemirnaja Literatura two generations of scholars were able to survive and continue to do their job, despite the dire economic conditions besetting Petrograd during the Civil War and the hostile attitude of the Bolshevik authorities against them. Vsemirnaja Literatura turned soon to be a meeting point where literary evenings, conferences and banquets were organized, in which somehow survived the lively spirit of modernist cafes and cabarets. Evidence of this vivacity are both the seminars on translation and literary history that were held in Vsemirnaja Literatura’s offices, and the large body of “domestic” literature characterized by a satirical tone full of black humor, written by the staff and circulating in manuscript form during meetings and parties. I also considered in detail the journals published within Vsemirnaja Literatura between 1922 and 1924, Vostok and Sovremennyj Zapad, respectively dedicated to the “scientific” study of eastern literature and art, and to the latest news of European literature after World War I. Finally, in the third part, I considered the theoretical endeavors involving the difficult process of literary translation, as opposed to the quite free approach that was typical of the nineteenth century. Korney Chukovsky and Nikolai Gumilyov sought to develop standards that would support to the idea of unconditional fidelity to the original text, whose reproduction required a perfect knowledge of both the original and the translated language, as much as of stylistics and literary history. According to Gumilyov, a translator should have been at the same time also a writer and a critic. This system of values remained valid even later, when the Soviet Union witnessed a remarkable flowering of the so-called “translation literature” (despite the limitations set by censorship authorities). Even the experiments of collective translation conceived by Gumilyov and Mikhail Lozinsky at Vsemirnaja Literatura had a considerable following in the Soviet pedagogical institutes. Throughout the work I tried to highlight the hybrid nature of an institution that existed in a spurious period, in which the old and the new coexisted, while the boundaries between the former and the latter weren't yet clear. Indeed, in Vsemirnaja Literatura can be identified instances that were typical of pre-revolutionary Petersburg’s literary life together with the seeds of many elements that marked the Soviet “cultural field” (such as the elaboration of huge centralized plans with popular function or the experiments of collective translation and literary creation). The dissertation was carried out on the basis of several materials of the time (especially newspapers and magazines, as well as diaries and memoirs) and archive documents (administrative papers, educational programs of the affiliated workshop, translation drafts), which were found in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Part of these materials constitute the appendices at the end of the work, relative to each of the three parts: the list of volumes published under the brand of Vsemirnaja Literatura, put together on the basis of the catalogs found in the Moscow State library and in the National library of St. Petersburg; a short biographical sketch of the contributors, that allows to further emphasize their heterogeneity in age, training, ideological and aesthetic positions; the complete indexes of Sovremennyj Zapad and Vostok; a talk held by a very young Lev Lunts at the translation workshop; unpublished examples of satirical literature circulating in manuscript form among the staff of the publishing house; a small body of unpublished translations of French, German and English poetry by Nikolai Gumilyov, David Vygodsky and students of the workshop. As a whole, this work is part of the set of studies on the cultural history of the kul'turnye instituty (publishing houses, magazines, writers unions, literary criticism) in the Soviet Union. Set out by Anglo-Saxon scholars in the 70s, these kind of researches have recently witnessed a remarkable flowering in Russia, providing interesting insights for the reasoned discussion of a time that for way too long has been held hostage by ideological distortion

DO JURORS HOLD AUDITORS TO A DIFFERENT NEGLIGENCE STANDARD UNDER U.S. GAAP AND IFRS?

In order to fulfill the requirements of East Carolina University’s Honors College, I created the research study described in this paper to examine the effects on auditor liability under United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles compared to the International Financial Reporting Standards. The Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board have been working towards convergence between U.S. GAAP, a rules-based system, and IFRS, a principles-based system. This research study examines whether potential jurors would hold auditors to a different negligence standard between rules-based and principles-based accounting. This study also explores how juror assessments of auditor responsibility differ when auditor liability is limited, as opposed to, unlimited. An experiment was conducted with students at a large state university representing jurors. I found evidence that auditor liability was held to a higher dollar value under unlimited liability and when relevant accounting standards were rules-based

Stage-variations of anandamide hydrolase activity in the mouse uterus during the natural oestrus cycle

Recent studies have demonstrated that the endogenous cannabinoids are important modulators of fertility in mammals. In particular, a role of the endocannabinoid system in early stages of embryo development, oviductal transport of embryos, pregnancy maintenance and labour has been demonstrated in rodents and/or in humans. In the present paper, we report the analysis of FAAH activity and protein content in the mouse uterus as a function of the natural oestrus cycle stages. Variations of FAAH activity are discussed in relationship to changes in sex steroid levels and to the possible action of AEA on remodelling of uterine tissues

Rationale and design of an independent randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of aripiprazole or haloperidol in combination with clozapine for treatment-resistant schizophrenia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>One third to two thirds of people with schizophrenia have persistent psychotic symptoms despite clozapine treatment. Under real-world circumstances, the need to provide effective therapeutic interventions to patients who do not have an optimal response to clozapine has been cited as the most common reason for simultaneously prescribing a second antipsychotic drug in combination treatment strategies. In a clinical area where the pressing need of providing therapeutic answers has progressively increased the occurrence of antipsychotic polypharmacy, despite the lack of robust evidence of its efficacy, we sought to implement a pre-planned protocol where two alternative therapeutic answers are systematically provided and evaluated within the context of a pragmatic, multicentre, independent randomised study.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The principal clinical question to be answered by the present project is the relative efficacy and tolerability of combination treatment with clozapine plus aripiprazole compared with combination treatment with clozapine plus haloperidol in patients with an incomplete response to treatment with clozapine over an appropriate period of time. This project is a prospective, multicentre, randomized, parallel-group, superiority trial that follow patients over a period of 12 months. Withdrawal from allocated treatment within 3 months is the primary outcome.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The implementation of the protocol presented here shows that it is possible to create a network of community psychiatric services that accept the idea of using their everyday clinical practice to produce randomised knowledge. The employed pragmatic attitude allowed to randomly allocate more than 100 individuals, which means that this study is the largest antipsychotic combination trial conducted so far in Western countries. We expect that the current project, by generating evidence on whether it is clinically useful to combine clozapine with aripiprazole rather than with haloperidol, provides physicians with a solid evidence base to be directly applied in the routine care of patients with schizophrenia.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p><b>Clincaltrials.gov Identifier</b>: NCT00395915</p

Evaluation of the prognostic value of impaired renal function on clinical progression in a large cohort of HIV-infected people seen for care in Italy

Whilst renal dysfunction, especially mild impairment (60 die;ve (Icona) Foundation Study collected between January 2000 and February 2014 with at least two creatinine values available. eGFR (CKD-epi) and renal dysfunction defined using a priori cut-offs of 60 (severely impaired) and 90 ml/min/1.73m2 (mildly impaired). Characteristics of patients were described after stratification in these groups and compared using chi-square test (categorical variables) or Kruskal Wallis test comparing median values. Follow-up accrued from baseline up to the date of the CCVD or AIDS related events or death or last available visit. Kaplan Meier curves were used to estimate the cumulative probability of occurrence of the events over time. Adjusted analysis was performed using a proportional hazards Cox regression model. We included 7,385 patients, observed for a median follow-up of 43 months (interquartile range [IQR]: 21-93 months). Over this time, 130 cerebro-cardiovascular events (including 11 deaths due to CCVD) and 311 AIDS-related events (including 45 deaths) were observed. The rate of CCVD events among patients with eGFR &gt;90, 60-89, &lt;60 ml/min, was 2.91 (95% CI 2.30-3.67), 4.63 (95% CI 3.51-6.11) and 11.9 (95% CI 6.19-22.85) per 1,000 PYFU respectively, with an unadjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 4.14 (95%CI 2.07-8.29) for patients with eGFR &lt;60 ml/min and 1.58 (95%CI 1.10-2.27) for eGFR 60-89 compared to those with eGFR ≥90. Of note, these estimates are adjusted for traditional cardiovascular risk factors (e.g. smoking, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia). Incidence of AIDS-related events was 9.51 (95%CI 8.35-10.83), 6.04 (95%CI 4.74-7.71) and 25.0 (95% CI 15.96-39.22) per 1,000 PYFU, among patients with eGFR &gt;90, 60-89, &lt;60 ml/min, respectively, with an unadjusted HR of 2.49 (95%CI 1.56-3.97) for patients with eGFR &lt;60 ml/min and 0.68 (95%CI 0.52-0.90) for eGFR 60-89. The risk of AIDS events was significantly lower in mild renal dysfunction group even after adjustment for HIV-related characteristics. Our data confirm that impaired renal function is an important risk marker for CCVD events in the HIV-population; importantly, even those with mild renal impairment (90&lt;60)&gt

A multi-element psychosocial intervention for early psychosis (GET UP PIANO TRIAL) conducted in a catchment area of 10 million inhabitants: study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial

Multi-element interventions for first-episode psychosis (FEP) are promising, but have mostly been conducted in non-epidemiologically representative samples, thereby raising the risk of underestimating the complexities involved in treating FEP in 'real-world' services