La storia nelle storie. La resistenza degli ultimi nelle <em>Autobiografie della leggera</em> di Danilo Montaldi

Through a rereading of Danilo Montaldi’s Autobiografie della leggera, the text aims at illustrating its originality and relevance for education researches. The work of Montaldi is analyzed not only as a qualitative research based on the life stories, but as production of literary texts in which the protagonists, with a first-person narrative, compose a narrative of the time and a material document about the living conditions in the land on the river Po. In this sense, the autobiographical narrative becomes a «bottom up» mode of listening the subjects, a privileged space for interpreting the complex relationship between the lived individual experience and the transformations of the society

Da bambini intorno al Millenovecento. Frammenti d’infanzia nelle riflessioni di Walter Benjamin

The text aims at analyzing the complex and refined anthropology of childhood that takes shape in the pages of Walter Benjamin. This anthropology of childhood is deeply rooted in his memories of child “around 1900” and is patiently reconstructed from the picture books, from the games and the vintage toys, from the images and the characters that fill fantastic stories and fairy tales, from domestic and family rituals, from the world of objects and atmospheres of the bourgeois intérieur, Above all, this anthropology brings to light images. These images have a peculiar feature, a distinctive sign: they seem brought together by the idea and the experience of the threshold, a crucial figure in the epistemology of Benjamin

MSCs and inflammation: not only a guardian role

  The literature on the relation between mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and inflammation is continuing to expand at a rapid rate with over 600 entries in PubMed under “MSCs and inflammation” starting from 2002. Inflammation is an essential part of the malignant microenvironment. Chemokines, leukocyte infiltration and cytokines are crucial elements, which contribute to cancer-related inflammation. Attracted by chemokines, MSCs are recruited at injury sites. After exposure to inflammatory factors in the local microenvironment, MSCs secrete several cytokines and vascular endothelial growth factor, which promote immunosuppression, angiogenesis and tumor growth. Here we compare by RT-PCR the expression of selected genes, related to inflammation, on MSCs derived from control (C-MSCs) and inflamed tissues (I-MSCs). First of all, an immunohistochemistry using anti-CD43 antibody was performed to better test the status of inflammation at the moment of tissues’ collection. CD43 is known as marker of inflammation, since it is expressed by most T cells, activated B cells, basophils, macrophages, monocytes and NK cells. Its expression was absent in “control” tissues, while it was strong in the “inflamed”. Subsequently, RNA was extracted, retro-transcribed and used for quantitative PCR. The genes were selected according to their role in inflammation: IL6 and IL8 (known as pro-inflammatory interleukins), TNFα (involved in systemic inflammation), CXCL2 (secreted by monocytes and macrophages and is chemotactic for polymorphonuclear leukocytes), CCL20 (strongly chemotactic for lymphocytes, its expression is induced by inflammatory cytokines), IFNγ (an important activator of macrophages) and TGFβ1 (promoting immunosuppression). Quantification of mRNA expression was calculated with the 2−ΔΔCt method, where ΔCt = Ct (gene of interest) − Ct (control gene) and Δ(ΔCt) = ΔCt (I-MSCs) − ΔCt (C-MSCs). The results revealed that the expression of all tested genes was higher in MSCs derived from inflamed tissues than in MSCs from control tissues (expressed as 1). This study underlines how MSCs are not inert guardians on inflammation, but as they play an active role

Prossimi Passi

Documento conclusivo e programmatico del Primo convegno nazionale del gruppo di lavoro Openscience della Consulta dei presidenti degli enti pubblici di ricerca. https://agenda.infn.it/e/ConvegnoOpenscienceCoPER202

Small worlds and board interlocking in Brazil: a longitudinal study of corporate networks, 1997-2007

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is an emerging research field in finance, above all in Brazil. This work is pioneering in that it is supported by reference to different areas of knowledge: social network analysis and corporate governance, for dealing with a similarly emerging topic in finance; interlocking boards, the purpose being to check the validity of the small-world model in the Brazilian capital market, and the existence of associations between the positioning of the firm in the network of corporate relationships and its worth. To do so official data relating to more than 400 companies listed in Brazil between 1997 and 2007 were used. The main results obtained suggest that the configuration of the networks of relationships between board members and companies reflects the small-world model. Furthermore, there seems to be a significant relationship between the firm’s centrality and its worth, described according to an “inverted U” curve, which suggests the existence of optimum values of social prominence in the corporate network

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M&gt;70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0&lt;e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level