Il Dio "Ragione" e la Dea "Natura": la censura romana del De admirandis naturae, […] di Giulio Cesare Vanini

EnThe article analyzes the morphology of Giulio Cesare Vanini's De admirandis naturae, the context in which the Roman censorship took place and the role of the censors. Vanini's thought takes place in a European cultural landscape, where free thinkers gradually abandoned the usual techniques of dissimulation and simulation. In particular, the essay focuses on the documentation kept in the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office) to understand the strategies adopted by Rome to repress the various libertine currents present in Seventeenth-century Europe.ItL'articolo analizza la morfologia del De admirandis naturae di Giulio Cesare Vanini, il contesto in cui avvenne la censura romana e il ruolo dei censori. Il pensiero di Vanini si colloca infatti in un panorama culturale europeo, dove i liberi pensatori iniziarono gradualmente a venire allo scoperto, abbandonando le consuete tecniche di dissimulazione e simulazione. In particolare, il saggio si focalizza sulla documentazione custodita nell'Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede (ex Sant'Uffizio) per comprendere quali furono le strategie adottate da Roma per reprimere le diverse correnti libertine presenti nell'Europa del Seicento

Velocity-dependent quantum phase slips in 1D atomic superfluids

Quantum phase slips are the primary excitations in one-dimensional superfluids and superconductors at low temperatures but their existence in ultracold quantum gases has not been demonstrated yet. We now study experimentally the nucleation rate of phase slips in one-dimensional superfluids realized with ultracold quantum gases, owing along a periodic potential. We observe a crossover between a regime of temperature-dependent dissipation at small velocity and interaction and a second regime of velocity-dependent dissipation at larger velocity and interaction. This behavior is consistent with the predicted crossover from thermally-assisted quantum phase slips to purely quantum phase slips.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Remote light source for silicon photonic transceivers in mobile fronthaul applications

The design and experimental characterisation of a depolarised light source for feeding a remote transceiver based on silicon photonics are presented. Since the transceiver only works in TE mode, the source is designed to deliver, over up to 10 km standard single-mode fibre links, a continuous-wave light with almost constant power along this polarisation direction, whatever be the random polarisation rotation because of the fibre link. The depolarised light source is realised by combining the output of two independent distributed feedback lasers, having orthogonal polarisation and controlled frequency difference. The transmission performance and stability of the remote light source are successfully tested

Observation of a disordered bosonic insulator from weak to strong interactions

We employ ultracold atoms with controllable disorder and interaction to study the paradigmatic problem of disordered bosons in the full disorder-interaction plane. Combining measurements of coherence, transport and excitation spectra, we get evidence of an insulating regime extending from weak to strong interaction and surrounding a superfluid-like regime, in general agreement with the theory. For strong interaction, we reveal the presence of a strongly-correlated Bose glass coexisting with a Mott insulator

Looking at the immigrants’ faces. The study of audience’s emotions and attitude toward immigrants through a documentary film

In line with the refugee agency recommendations (UNHCR, 2010) the present research recruited citizens in the general population with the aim of understanding whether positive media messages may foster acceptance towards refugee immigrants. The study has specifically considered the case of unaccompanied refugee minors verifying if and how specific affective and cognitive dimensions implicated in individual moral functioning were related to empathic or hostile emotions experienced while watching a documentary realized by refugee minors in a hosting centre in Italy. In addition, the relationship between different emotional responses and attitudes toward immigrations were examined. Fifty student were invited to complete pre-assessment questionnaire containing measures on empathic tendencies (e.g. perspective taking, Davis, 1990) personal values (self-enhancement values, Schwartz, 1992) and moral regulation (e.g. moral efficacy; Bandura, 1991). Then, voluntary participants were invited to watch the documentary film produced in the a European Project. After the presentation of the film, the students have to indicate their current emotional states and attitude toward immigration as spectators. Overall, the results showed that self-transcendence values, empathic concern and moral self-efficacy were positively related to sympathy, and negatively related to hostile emotions. Differently, moral disengagement was positively related to negative affect. Moreover, the presence of empathic affect during the film was associated with positive attitudes toward immigrations; on the contrary, the presence of hostile emotions was strongly related  to negative attitudes toward hosting. Overall, results suggest the importance of considering citizens’ moral sensitivity, motivation and moral regulative capabilities together audio-visual contents to better understand people’s emotions in relation to immigration and hosting

L’Inquisizione tra narrativa e ricerche. A proposito di un seminario organizzato da Marina Caffiero e Andrea Del Col

La discussione qui pubblicata riporta la cronaca del seminario dal titolo «L'Inquisizione tra narrativa e ricerche», organizzato da Marina Caffiero e Andrea Del Col e che si è svolto nei giorni 16 e 17 novembre 2017 presso La Sapienza-Università di Roma