Making and Collecting Instruments in Fair Verona: The Case of the Italian Amateur Scientist Gaetano Spandri (1796–1859)

Gaetano Spandri (1796–1859) was a “diligent scholar of the physical sciences,” a private collector and maker of scientific instruments who worked in Verona in the first half of the nineteenth century. Born in Verona, the city famous as the setting of Shakespeare’s iconic masterpiece Romeo and Juliet Spandri was primarily a physicist and astronomer, but he was also interested in meteorology and natural sciences. The main sources of information about his scientific work are handwritten papers, parts of his private correspondence, and scientific reports kept at the Verona Academy of Agriculture. For most of his life, he collaborated with the physicist Giuseppe Zamboni and was in contact with important physicists and astronomers of his time. His private apartment was equipped with a rich library, an astronomical and meteorological observatory, and a large room where he gathered a rich and important collection of scientific instruments

Physics, neo-thomism and mosaic cosmogony at the roman college: The case of the jesuit Giambattista Pianciani

none1noPreliminary the figure of Abbot Feliciano Scarpellini and the scientific environment in Rome in the first half of the XIX century are introduced. It is then analysed the life and work of the physicist and philosopher Giambattista Pianciani (1784-1862) of the Society of Jesus. Pianciani was in Rome among the most peculiar representatives of that cultural program aimed at countering the theses of Enlightenment materialism through a process of conciliation and justification of scientific discoveries with Catholic doctrine. This apologetic and concordist program started under Pius VII, also continued during the pontificate of Leo XVI. In the wake of this peculiar apologetic program, the controversy that, around the mid-nineteenth century, arose in the Roman College between neotomists and some scientists of the order, for example, Angelo Secchi, is also discussed. Finally, the specific concordist program developed by Pianciani is discussed. This program aimed to reconcile the biblical account of the world's creation with the scientific results that came from the studies of natural cosmogony.openMantovani, RobertoMantovani, Robert

Mechanisms of transcriptional repression of cell-cycle G(2)/M promoters by p63

p63 is a developmentally regulated transcription factor related to p53, which activates and represses specific genes. The human AEC (Ankyloblepharon–Ectodermal dysplasia-Clefting) and EEC (Ectrodactyly–Ectodermal dysplasia–Cleft lip/palate) syndromes are caused by missense mutations of p63, within the DNA-binding domain (EEC) or in the C-terminal sterile alpha motif domain (AEC). We show here that p63 represses transcription of cell-cycle G(2)/M genes by binding to multiple CCAAT core promoters in immortalized and primary keratinocytes. The CCAAT-activator NF-Y and ΔNp63α are associated in vivo and a conserved α-helix of the NF-YC histone fold is required. p63 AEC mutants, but not an EEC mutant, are incapable to bind NF-Y. ΔNp63α, but not the AEC mutants repress CCAAT-dependent transcription of G(2)/M genes. Chromatin immunoprecipitation recruitment assays establish that the AEC mutants are not recruited to G(2)/M promoters, while normally present on 14-3-3σ, which contains a sequence-specific binding site. Surprisingly, the EEC C306R mutant activates transcription. Upon keratinocytes differentiation, NF-Y and p63 remain bound to G(2)/M promoters, while HDACs are recruited, histones deacetylated, Pol II displaced and transcription repressed. Our data indicate that NF-Y is a molecular target of p63 and that inhibition of growth activating genes upon differentiation is compromised by AEC missense mutations

Accelerator Memory Reuse in the Dark Silicon Era

Accelerators integrated on-die with General-Purpose CPUs (GP-CPUs) can yield significant performance and power improvements. Their extensive use, however, is ultimately limited by their area overhead; due to their high degree of specialization, the opportunity cost of investing die real estate on accelerators can become prohibitive, especially for general-purpose architectures. In this paper we present a novel technique aimed at mitigating this opportunity cost by allowing GP-CPU cores to reuse accelerator memory as a non-uniform cache architecture (NUCA) substrate. On a system with a last level-2 cache of 128kB, our technique achieves on average a 25% performance improvement when reusing four 512 kB accelerator memory blocks to form a level-3 cache. Making these blocks reusable as NUCA slices incurs on average in a 1.89% area overhead with respect to equally-sized ad hoc cache slice

Source of Variation of Linear Type Traits Evaluated on Italian Heavy Draught Horse Breed

The aim of this study was to analyze the non-genetic fixed effects affecting 14 linear type traits and an overall score recorded on 4,385 Italian Heavy Draught Horse adults (IHDH; 3,772 females and 613 males) scored by 29 classifiers in 20 years of evaluation (i.e. 1992-2011). Animals were scored with a 9 point scale system (1-5 including half points) at about 3 years of age. Data were analyzed by ANOVA to evaluate the magnitude of three non-genetic fixed effects: stud-year of evaluation-classifier (SYC; 1,325 levels), sex (2 levels), age at evaluation (AC; 5 classes, i.e., ≤27, 28, 29-32, 33-47, and ≥48 months of age). The R-square of model for all analyzed traits ranged from 0.38 to 0.57, with lower values for fore feet and greater values for frame size. The SYC resulted the effect of greater magnitude and in all traits adsorbed a significant amount of variation. Sex differentiated mainly frame size, fleshiness, bone incidence, fore diameters and upper line direction, indicating a significant aspects between males and females as regard the meat production characteristics of the breed. The AC influenced significantly frame size, fleshiness, thorax depth, fore diameters, rear diameters and the overall score. It is concluded that all potential source of variation need to be taken into account in the analysis of data from linear type evaluation of adult IHDH

genetic parameters of two methods of scoring cow fighting ability

In this study, two different methods of scoring were implemented and compared in reason to assign a correct phenotypic value to cow fighting ability, and the variance components of the trait were estimated. Moreover, it was investigated the correlation of the estimated breeding values (EBVs) for fighting with the EBVs for the linear type traits muscularity. A scoring method mainly based on position (PS) and a method considering opponents' performances (CPS) were compared and used in genetic analyses. A correlation of 0.75 between EBVs associated to PS and CPS was obtained, and ANOVAs considering alternatively PS and CPS indicated almost the same magnitude of the different sources of variation included (R2=0.50 and 0.52 for PS and CPS, respectively). Heritability estimates with the REML method were 0.099 (S.E.=0.005) for PS and 0.034 (S.E.=0.007) for CPS. Pearson and Spearman correlations between both indexes and ranks were no significant. Finally, an evaluation of the fitness of the two models revealed that PS is the better system for scoring, although CPS was designed to account also for the opponents

Methodological factors affecting gas and methane production during in vitro rumen fermentation evaluated by meta-analysis approach

Effects of some methodological factors on in vitro measures of gas production (GP, mL/g DM), CH4 production (mL/g DM) and proportion (% CH4 on total GP) were investigated by meta-analysis. These factors were considered: pressure in the GP equipment (0 = constant; 1 = increasing), incubation time (0 = 24; 1 = 65 48 h), time of rumen fluid collection (0 = before feeding; 1 = after feeding of donor animals), donor species of rumen fluid (0 = sheep; 1 = bovine), presence of N in the buffer solution (0 = presence; 1 = absence), and ratio between amount of buffered rumen fluid and feed sample (BRF/FS; 0 = 64 130 mL/g DM; 1 = 130\u2013140 mL/g DM; 2 = 65 140 mL/g DM). The NDF content of feed sample incubated (NDF) was considered as a continuous variable. From an initial database of 105 papers, 58 were discarded because one of the above-mentioned factors was not stated. After discarding 17 papers, the final dataset comprised 30 papers (339 observations). A preliminary mixed model analysis was carried out on experimental data considering the study as random factor. Variables adjusted for study effect were analyzed using a backward stepwise analysis including the above-mentioned variables. The analysis showed that the extension of incubation time and reduction of NDF increased GP and CH4 values. Values of GP and CH4 also increased when rumen fluid was collected after feeding compared to before feeding (+26.4 and +9.0 mL/g DM, for GP and CH4), from bovine compared to sheep (+32.8 and +5.2 mL/g DM, for GP and CH4), and when the buffer solution did not contain N (+24.7 and +6.7 mL/g DM for GP and CH4). The increase of BRF/FS ratio enhanced GP and CH4 production (+7.7 and +3.3 mL/g DM per each class of increase, respectively). In vitro techniques for measuring GP and CH4 production are mostly used as screening methods, thus a full standardization of such techniques is not feasible. However, a greater harmonization of analytical procedures (i.e., a reduction in the number of available protocols) would be useful to facilitate comparison between results of different experiments

Persuasive Advertising in Oligopoly: A Linear State Differential Game

We investigate a linear state differential oligopoly game with advertising, under either Cournot or Bertrand competition. We show that a unique saddlepoint equilibrium exists in both cases if the marginal cost of advertising is sufficiently low. Then, we prove that Bertrand competition entails more intense advertising than Cournot competition. This is due to the fact that enhancing reservation prices is more relevant to firms when market competition is tougher. Ultimately, this may entail that Cournot outperforms Bertrand when it comes to social welfare

Genetic correlations of fighting ability with somatic cells and longevity in cattle.

The success in competitions may be stressful for animals and costly in terms of immune functions and longevity. Focusing on Aosta Chestnut and Aosta Black Pied cattle, selected for their fighting ability in traditional competitions, this study investigated the genetic relationships of fighting ability with udder health traits (somatic cell score and two threshold traits for somatic cells), longevity (length of productive life and number of calvings) and test-day milk, fat and protein yield. Herdbook information and phenotypic records that have been routinely collected for breeding programs in 16 years were used for the abovementioned traits. Data belonged to 9328 cows and 19 283 animals in pedigree. Single-trait animal model analyses were run using a Gibbs sampling algorithm to estimate the variance components of traits, and bivariate analyses were then performed to estimate the genetic correlations. Moderate positive genetic correlations (ra) were found for fighting ability with somatic cell score (ra=0.255), suggesting that greater fighting ability is genetically related to a detriment in udder health, in agreement with the theory. The high positive genetic correlation between fighting ability and longevity (average ra=0.669) suggests that the economic importance of fighting ability (the winning cows get an higher price at selling) had probably masked the true genetic covariances. The genetic correlation between milk yield traits and fighting ability showed large intervals, but the negative values (average ra=-0.121) agreed with previous research. This study is one of the few empirical studies on genetic correlations for the competitive success v. immune functions and longevity traits. The knowledge of the genetic correlations among productive and functional traits of interest, including fighting ability, is important in animal breeding for a sustainable genetic improvement