Augustae, le donne dei principi. Riflessioni su Augustae. Machtbewusste Frauen am römischen Kaiserhof?

La critica più avvertita ha di recente riconosciuto l’importanza delle Augustae nella vita politica, nei processi economici, nelle dinamiche sociali dell’età imperiale. Nella dimostrazione dell’assunto ha svolto un ruolo decisivo il volume edito da A. Kolb Augustae. Machtbewusste Frauen am römischen Kaiserhof?, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2010, esito del Convegno svoltosi a Zurigo nel 2008. Nell’ambito delle eterogenee problematiche connesse al tema, che impone un approccio interdisciplinare, particolare rilievo rivestono questioni quali la definizione del concetto di Augusta, la valutazione dell’effettiva influenza delle ‘imperatrici’ sui principi al potere, il ruolo di queste matrone nell’impostazione e nella gestione di relazioni con gli esponenti della classe dirigente, l’esercizio del matronage, mediante un’attenta gestione dei beni personali in iniziative evergetiche, la capacità di coagulare consensi sul principe e di legittimare quest’ultimo (figlio, marito, fratello, padre) e la dinastia alla guida dello stato

How Are ‘Barack Obama’ and ‘President Elect’ Differentially Stored in the Brain? An ERP Investigation on the Processing of Proper and Common Noun Pairs

BACKGROUND:One of the most debated issues in the cognitive neuroscience of language is whether distinct semantic domains are differentially represented in the brain. Clinical studies described several anomic dissociations with no clear neuroanatomical correlate. Neuroimaging studies have shown that memory retrieval is more demanding for proper than common nouns in that the former are purely arbitrary referential expressions. In this study a semantic relatedness paradigm was devised to investigate neural processing of proper and common nouns. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:780 words (arranged in pairs of Italian nouns/adjectives and the first/last names of well known persons) were presented. Half pairs were semantically related ("Woody Allen" or "social security"), while the others were not ("Sigmund Parodi" or "judicial cream"). All items were balanced for length, frequency, familiarity and semantic relatedness. Participants were to decide about the semantic relatedness of the two items in a pair. RTs and N400 data suggest that the task was more demanding for common nouns. The LORETA neural generators for the related-unrelated contrast (for proper names) included the left fusiform gyrus, right medial temporal gyrus, limbic and parahippocampal regions, inferior parietal and inferior frontal areas, which are thought to be involved in the conjoined processing a familiar face with the relevant episodic information. Person name was more emotional and sensory vivid than common noun semantic access. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:When memory retrieval is not required, proper name access (conspecifics knowledge) is not more demanding. The neural generators of N400 to unrelated items (unknown persons and things) did not differ as a function of lexical class, thus suggesting that proper and common nouns are not treated differently as belonging to different grammatical classes

Effects of amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant, on smooth muscle reactivity in isolated rat trachea.

PURPOSE: This study was designed to investigate the action of amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant, on airway smooth muscle reactivity and its underlying mechanisms. METHODS: In isolated rat trachea, isometric force was recorded to examine the effects of amitriptyline on the contractile response to acetylcholine (ACh), electrical field stimulation (EFS), calyculin A (a myosin light chain phosphatase inhibitor), and sphingosylphosphorylcholine (SPC; a Rhokinase activator). In addition, inositol monophosphate (IP1) accumulation was measured to examine its effects on inositol 1, 4, 5-trisphosphate (IP(3)) production during stimulation with ACh. RESULTS: Amitriptyline inhibited the contractile responses to ACh, EFS, calyculin A, and SPC, with the concentrations of amitriptyline (mean +/- SD) required to exert 50% inhibition (IC(50)) being 4.3 +/- 1.3 microM, 3.2 +/- 1.6 microM, 256.4 +/- 106.4 microM, and 98.2 +/- 21.8 microM, respectively. In addition, amitriptyline (10 microM) eliminated the ACh (10 microM)-induced IP(1) accumulation. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that amitriptyline does not influence tracheal smooth muscle reactivity at clinical concentrations ( or =1 microM). The attenuated response to ACh brought about by amitriptyline is presumably due, at least in part, to the inhibition of phosphatidylinositol (PI) metabolism. The ability of amitriptyline to inhibit the calyculin Ainduced contraction suggests that amitriptyline also inhibits the Ca(2+)-calmodulin-myosin light chain pathway independently of the inhibition of PI metabolism. Finally, the difference between the IC(50) values for SPC-induced contraction and those for calyculin A-induced contraction suggests that amitriptyline may also inhibit the Rho-kinase pathway

Pondera exacta ad Castoris

Tra gli instrumenta inscripta i pesi romani che recano l’iscrizione exactum ad Castoris costituiscono un gruppo non trascurabile per numero di esemplari e interesse storico. La formula epigrafica garantiva la conformità rispetto ai campioni ufficiali conservati presso il tempio dei Dioscuri a Roma. La presenza di tale iscrizione si riscontra prevalentemente su pesi in bronzo di due tipologie: a sfera decalottata e a ciotola impilabili. Lo studio della diffusione di questa particolare categoria di pondera, i contesti di ritrovamento e le loro stesse caratteristiche suggeriscono che essi siano stati concepiti per essere usati sia in Italia sia nelle province europee di frontiera da funzionari, mercatores o medici per pesare quantità medio-piccole di merci o sostanze, verosimilmente nel corso del II secolo d.C

Degenerative amnesia for past public events: an attempt to measure storage and retrieval.

A still unsettled issue of amnesia concerns the differential contributions to recall impairment of the underlying retrieval and storage abilities. The aim of the present study was to disentangle and to measure such roles in the recall of past public events comparing patients with degenerative amnesia and healthy elderly. The experiment included 44 healthy elderly and two groups of participants with degenerative amnesia, namely 17 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and 22 mild Alzheimer's disease patients. Recall of famous past public events was assessed by means of a 52-item questionnaire standardized for the Italian population. A latent-variable approach was adopted in order to infer the contributions of retrieval and storage to the recall performances. A stochastic model was adopted, which in a previous study of recall of recent and remote past public events in healthy elderly succeeded to prove reduced retrieval efficiency for more recent events. The results of the present study suggest that retrieval is more fragile than storage in all three experimental groups. A storage impairment turned out only in the Alzheimer's disease group, where it was limited to more recent memories. In view of the combined roles of the hippocampus and cortex in past memory processing, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the degenerative process primarily impairs the strategic memory search. However, the sufficiency criterion of the adopted Markov model fell short of significance. Due to this statistical shortcoming, our conclusions, though consistent with the clinical predictions, are to be taken as provisional

La ricchezza delle matrone: Ortensia nella dialettica politica al tramonto della repubblica.

Il contributo ha per oggetto un noto episodio di età triumvirale, datato al 42 a.C.: la protesta delle matrone romane animata da Ortensia, figlia di Quinto Ortensio Ortalo, e intesa a inibire un provvedimento di esaIl contributo ha per oggetto un noto episodio di età triumvirale, datato al 42 a.C.: la protesta delle matrone romane animata da Ortensia, figlia di Quinto Ortensio Ortalo, e intesa a inibire un provvedimento di esaazione attuato da Antonio, Ottaviano e Lepido, al fine di finanziare l’imminente campagna orientale contro i cesaricidi. La vicenda è testimoniata da Valerio Massimo, Quintiliano e Appiano. La prospettiva di indagine è duplice: si indagano da un lato le natura e gli obiettivi specifici dell’intervento triumvirale; dall’altro le modalità e le ragioni della reazione matronale. Il contributo nella sua seconda parte indaga il provvedimento nei contesto della politica fiscale dei triumviri negli anni 44-42 a.C. in un periodo in cui tali provvedimenti erano funzionali a raccogliere il denaro necessario per la guerra civile ma anche ad annientare la parte antagonista, filorepubblicana