Shakespeare's Romances

Si esaminiamo gli ultimi plays di Shakespeare nel contesto della opera dello scrittore elisabettiano, con riferimento specifico al ruolo del fool in Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. Non drammi di evasione fantastica e magica o di rinuncia, come a volte la critica ha suggerito, ma drammi della ricerca di una nuova forma per la modernità, secondo l'interpretazione di una critica più recente, questi plays si inseriscono implicitamente nel dibattito sulla revisione delle forme drammatiche canoniche sviluppatosi nella cultura italiana del Cinquecento. La ricerca di una nuova forma drammatica è sottolineata dalla difficoltà e incertezza sia per quanto riguarda la composizione del gruppo (problema peraltro collegato a quello della authorship) sia per quanto riguarda l'accordo su un'etichetta specifica che possa sintetizzarne le caratteristiche: si sottolinea così la discrepanza tra il Folio (che include Cymbeline e Timon of Athens nelle “Tragedies”, mentre The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale sono in “Comedies”), e il canone moderno, che include Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest; e che, etichette descrittive variano(con pro e contro), da “Tragicomedies” a “Romances”, da “Last comedies”, a “Last plays”. Il ruolo del fool nei Romances è da ricondurre in parte alle caratteritiche attoriali di R. Armin (che sostituisce W. Kempe); dall'altro mostra le differenze dal fool tragico di Lear, poiché il bersaglio della sua ironia non è il monarca quanto piuttosto la classe medio-bassa.This article examines the significance of the last plays in the context of Shakespeare's oeuvre, touching on the character of the fool in Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. Far from suggesting a retereat into fantasy and magic maintained by past criticism, it is argued that they engage instead in a search for a new form for modernity, implicitly inserted in a debate on the revision of the canonical dramatic forms that had already been going on in sixteenth century Italy. The search for a new dramatic form is also traced to the difficulty both of the definition of the of the plays in the group (a problem further related to that of authorship), and of an agreement on a common label to define their peculiar character: a difference in the canon is highlighted from the Folio (which includes Cymbeline and Timon of Athens, placed in the group of the “Tragedies”, while The Tempest and The Winter’s Tale are placed in the group of the “Comedies”,) and the generally accepted modern canon, which accepts Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest; Complementarily, grouping labels include “Tragicomedies”, “Romances”, “Last comedies”, “Last plays”. The role of the fool in these plays is, on the one side, tailored on the actorial talents of Robert Armin (who substitutes William Kempe); on the other, it signals a distance from the tragic fool (King Lear) in that the satiric target is not the monarch, but rather the popular/bourgeois folk

Countercyclical contingent capital (CCC): possible use and ideal design

Contingent capital – any debt instrument that converts into equity when a predefined event occurs – has received increasing attention as a viable tool for allowing banks to raise capital when needed at relatively more affordable prices than common equity. While the debate has focused on contingent capital for systemically important financial institutions, this paper concentrates on its possible use for covering capital needs arising from the implementation of countercyclical buffers. We propose the introduction of countercyclical contingent capital (CCC) based on a double trigger. The interaction of the two triggers would determine a quasi-default status. Conversion would be required when the financial system is simultaneously facing aggregate problems and the individual bank – while still in a going concern status – shows weaknesses. Building on this proposal, the paper tests how different double triggers would have worked in the past and discusses the optimal design of the conversion mechanism and prudential treatment.Basel 2, capital buffer, procyclicality, contingent capital, financial crisis, reforms

Il poeta e i suoi fantasmi: W. H. Auden in Four Quartets

Il saggio mostra la presenza di un palinsesto audeniano nei Four Quartets di T.S. Eliot facendo riferimento a uno specifico passo di Little Gidding e alla poesia “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”. La contiguità temporale che rende plausibile il rapporto tra i due testi - scritti rispettivamente nel 1941-42 e nel Febbraio del 1939, a seguito delatore di Yeats in Gennaio del 1939 - si associa al comune oggetto tematico: il recentemente scomparso Yeats. Il poeta irlandese offre lo spunto per una riflessione sulla poesia e sulla funzione dell'arte e dell'intellettuale, condotta attraverso l'opposizione tra thought and theory da un lato e il gift poetico dall'altro. Yeats è infatti il dead master, il “compound ghost” con cui tanto Eliot quanto Auden articolano i problemi del rapporto ideologia-poesia; è la figura che consente, seppure elusivamente, di precisare i contorni ideologici eliotiani rispetto ai quali la poesia si offre come riscatto.The essay argues for the presence of an Audenean palimpsest in Eliot’s Four Quartets, by referring to a specific passage in “Little Gidding” and to the poem “In Memory of W. B. Yeats”. The temporal proximity suggesting the connection between the two texts – written, respectively, in 1941-42 and in February 1939, following Yeates’ death in January of that year – is substantiated by their common thematic object: the recently departed Yeats. The Irish poet, now among the dead, provides the occasion for a critical reflection on poetry as well as on artistic and intellectual practice. Transitively referred to Yeats, both Auden’s and Eliot’s concerns center around the opposition between thought and theory, on the one hand, and the poetic “gift”, on the other; between the limitations and distortions of politico-ideological militancy and the exercise of a poetry as a way to redeem them. Yeats is thus the “dead master” in whom both Eliot and Auden can see mirrored their own intellectual trajectory, detecting in the purgatorial words of the “compound ghost”, no matter how elusive, traces of moral-religious and aesthetic, but also ideological and political meanings, otherwise undetectable

Comparison of magnetic resonance spectroscopy, proton density fat fraction and histological analysis in the quantification of liver steatosis in children and adolescents

AIM: To establish a threshold value for liver fat content between healthy children and those with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), with liver biopsy serving as a reference standard. METHODS: The study was approved by the local ethics committee, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants and their legal guardians before the study began. Twenty-seven children with NAFLD underwent liver biopsy to assess the presence of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. The assessment of liver fat fraction was performed using MRI, with a high field magnet and 2D gradient-echo and multiple-echo T1-weighted sequence with low flip angle and single-voxel point-resolved ¹H MR-Spectroscopy (¹H-MRS), corrected for T1 and T2* decays. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to determine the best cut-off value. Lin coefficient test was used to evaluate the correlation between histology, MRS and MRI-PDFF. A Mann-Whitney U-test and multivariate analysis were performed to analyze the continuous variables. RESULTS: According to MRS, the threshold value between healthy children and those with NAFLD is 6%; using MRI-PDFF, a cut-off value of 3.5% is suggested. The Lin analysis revealed a good fit between the histology and MRS as well as MRI-PDFF. CONCLUSION: MRS is an accurate and precise method for detecting NAFLD in children

Biochemical data from the characterization of a new pathogenic mutation of human pyridoxine-5'-phosphate oxidase (PNPO)

PNPO deficiency is responsible of severe neonatal encephalopathy, responsive to pyridoxal-5’-phosphate (PLP) or pyridoxine. Recent studies widened the phenotype of this condition and detected new genetic variants on PNPO gene, whose pathogenetic role and clinical expression remain to be established. One of these mutations, Arg116Gln, is of particular interest because of its later onset of symptoms (beyond the first months of life) and its peculiar epileptic manifestations in patients. This protein variant was expressed as recombinant protein in E coli, purified to homogeneity, and characterized with respect to structural and kinetic properties, stability, binding constants of cofactor flavin mononucleotide (FMN) and product (PLP) in order to define the molecular and structural bases of its pathogenicity. For interpretation and discussion of reported data, together with the description of clinical studies, refer to the article [7][1] (doi: 10.1016/j.ymgme.2017.08.003)

Computation of a possible Tunguska's strewn field

On June 30, 1908 at about 0h 14.5m UTC what is known today as the Tunguska Event (TE) occurred, most likely caused by the fall of a small rocky asteroid of about 50-60 meters in diameter over the basin of the Tunguska River (Central Siberia). Unfortunately the first expedition was made by Kulik 19 years after the event and macroscopic meteorites have never been found in epicenter site. After considering the Chelyabinsk event as a guide, because it is the most energetic impact event observed after TE, we estimated the strewn field of possible macroscopic fragments of the asteroid responsible of the TE: we have reason to believe that there might be fragments with enough strength to survive the airburst and reach the ground. The strewn field, which is located about 16 to 19 km North-West from the epicenter, should be considered for the search of macroscopic bodies, even if the mud and vegetation could have made any trace disappear. Cheko Lake, which by some authors is considered an impact crater, falls several km outside these areas and, based on our results, it is unlikely that it could be a real impact crater: only if the cosmic body's trajectory had an azimuth of about $150^\circ - 180^\circ$ would be in the strewn field area, but it is not consistent with the most likely trajectory.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, draft of a work in progres

Continuous sign recognition of brazilian sign language in a healthcare setting

Communication is the basis of human society. The majority of people communicate using spoken language in oral or written form. However, sign language is the primary mode of communication for deaf people. In general, understanding spoken information is a major challenge for the deaf and hard of hearing. Access to basic information and essential services is challenging for these individuals. For example, without translation support, carrying out simple tasks in a healthcare center such as asking for guidance or consulting with a doctor, can be hopelessly difficult. Computer-based sign language recognition technologies offer an alternative to mitigate the communication barrier faced by the deaf and hard of hearing. Despite much effort, research in this field is still in its infancy and automatic recognition of continuous signing remains a major challenge. This paper presents an ongoing research project designed to recognize continuous signing of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) in healthcare settings. Health emergency situations and dialogues inspire the vocabulary of the signs and sentences we are using to contribute to the field301Vision-based human activity recognition8289COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESnão te

AWESoME: Big Data for Automatic Web Service Management in SDN

Software Defined Network (SDN) has enabled consistent and programmable management in computer networks. However, the explosion of cloud services and Content Delivery Networks (CDN) – coupled with the momentum of encryption – challenges the simple per-flow management and calls for a more comprehensive approach for managing web traffic. We propose a new approach based on a “per service” management concept, which allows to identify and prioritize all traffic of important web services, while segregating others, even if they are running on the same cloud platform, or served by the same CDN. We design and evaluate AWESoME, Automatic WEb Service Manager, a novel SDN application to address the above problem. On the one hand, it leverages big data algorithms to automatically build models describing the traffic of thousands of web services. On the other hand, it uses the models to install rules in SDN switches to steer all flows related to the originating services. Using traffic traces from volunteers and operational networks, we provide extensive experimental results to show that AWESoME associates flows to the corresponding web service in real-time and with high accuracy. AWESoME introduces a negligible load on the SDN controller and installs a limited number of rules on switches, hence scaling well in realistic deployments. Finally, for easy reproducibility, we release ground truth traces and scripts implementing AWESoME core components

Umbilical vein blood flow: State-of-the-art

Placental blood supply to the fetus can be measured by evaluating the umbilical vein blood flow. Despite its potential application in healthcare, the umbilical vein blood flow volume is still used only in research setting. One of the reasons is a concern regarding its reproducibility, partly due to technology issues. Nowadays, technology improvements make this evaluation accurate and reproducible. The aim of this review is to refresh basic elements of the physiology of umbilical vein blood flow and its analysis. Its evaluation in normal and abnormal fetal growth is also discussed

The Hijacking of the Bioeconomy

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Georgescu-Roegen used the term bioeconomy to refer to a radical ecological perspective on economics he developed in the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, it has also become a buzzword used by public institutions to announce and describe a supposed current economic and ecological transition. We see in this use an attempt of semantic hijacking of the original term. To support this claim we analyze three different interpretations of the term bioeconomy, presenting each of them as narratives combining distinct visions of future economic development, technical trajectories and imaginaries associated with a particular relationship to nature. Finally, we discuss these narratives in relation to the endorsement they receive by different stakeholders