Multidirectional Sites of Memory in Italian Holocaust Documentaries

This article investigates the ways in which film can use the act of witnessing and the exploration of significant locations in order to exhume memories of the deportation of Italian Jews to Auschwitz in 1943-1944. It aims at doing so by focusing on the neglected area of study provided by Italian documentaries about the Holocaust. In particular the article addresses two documentary films where testimonial performances and topographical investigation will be analysed by means of the conceptualisations of site of memory and multidirectional memory

Hypoceruloplasminemia: an unusual biochemical finding in a girl with Hashimoto's thyroiditis and severe hypothyroidism

Clinical picture of Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT) may significantly vary in pediatric age, ranging from euthyroidism to subclinical hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism; only rarely HT presentation may be characterized by a severe hypothyroidism also in pediatric age. Here we describe a 3-year-old Caucasian girl who was admitted to our Clinic due to pericardial effusion, muscle weakness and weight gain. At clinical examination, she presented with bradycardia, pale and round face, pseudohypertrophy of calf muscles and no pitting edema of the limbs. Routine blood investigations showed high serum aspartate and alanine aminotransferase levels, low serum ceruloplasmin without clinical signs of Wilson's disease, dyslipidemia. Thyroid function tests revealed a picture of severe hypothyroidism associated with HT. After the replacement treatment with L-T4, thyroid-stimulating hormone serum levels gradually decreased, with concomitant resolution of pericardial effusion and normalization of ceruloplasmin levels

Effects of atorvastatin treatment on sICAM-1 and plasma nitric oxide levels in hypercholesterolemic subjects.

This study investigated the behavior of soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) and serum nitric oxide (NO) products, nitrite/nitrate (NO 2-NO,-), in subjects with primary hypercholesterolemia (HCh) without other risk factors and atherosclerosis. The effect of a short-term cholesterol-lowering treatment with atorvastatin, an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor, on the levels of sICAM-1 and NO2-/NO3 were also investigated. After 4 weeks of placebo administration, 40 HCh (15 males and 25 females) were randomized in 2 groups: 20 subjects (atorvastatin group) received 10 mg/day of atorvastatin and the remaining 20 (placebo group) continued to take placebo. At baseline and after 4 and 12 weeks of atorvastatin or placebo administration, serum sICAM-1 and NO2-/NO3-levels were evaluated. The basal levels of these parameters were compared with those of 20 healthy subjects (C), matched for sex and age. Hypercholesterolemic subjects showed sICAM-1 and NO2-/NO3-basal values that were higher (331.7 ± 60.3 ng/mL vs. 202.3 ± 32.3 ng/mL, p<0.001) and lower (10.4 ± 2.5 μmol/L vs. 20.7 ± 4.4 μmol/L, p<0.01) than controls. No correlation between sICAM-1 or NO products and plasma cholesterol values was found, whereas there was an inverse correlation between sICAM-1 and NO2-/NO3-levels. Atorvastatin administration significantly decreased sICAM-1 and increased NO2-/NO3-levels, however these changes were not correlated with the reduction of plasma cholesterol. These data support the hypothesize that patients with HCh with no signs of arterial lesions, may have latent atherosclerosis, expressed as an increase of sICAM-1 and decrease in NO product levels. An improvement in the levels of these parameters after a short-time treatment with atorvastatin was also demonstrated

Twelve Variants Polygenic Score for Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Distribution in a Large Cohort of Patients With Clinically Diagnosed Familial Hypercholesterolemia With or Without Causative Mutations

: Background A significant proportion of individuals clinically diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), but without any disease-causing mutation, are likely to have polygenic hypercholesterolemia. We evaluated the distribution of a polygenic risk score, consisting of 12 low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)-raising variants (polygenic LDL-C risk score), in subjects with a clinical diagnosis of FH. Methods and Results Within the Lipid Transport Disorders Italian Genetic Network (LIPIGEN) study, 875 patients who were FH-mutation positive (women, 54.75%; mean age, 42.47±15.00 years) and 644 patients who were FH-mutation negative (women, 54.21%; mean age, 49.73±13.54 years) were evaluated. Patients who were FH-mutation negative had lower mean levels of pretreatment LDL-C than patients who were FH-mutation positive (217.14±55.49 versus 270.52±68.59 mg/dL, P<0.0001). The mean value (±SD) of the polygenic LDL-C risk score was 1.00 (±0.18) in patients who were FH-mutation negative and 0.94 (±0.20) in patients who were FH-mutation positive (P<0.0001). In the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the area under the curve for recognizing subjects characterized by polygenic hypercholesterolemia was 0.59 (95% CI, 0.56-0.62), with sensitivity and specificity being 78% and 36%, respectively, at 0.905 as a cutoff value. Higher mean polygenic LDL-C risk score levels were observed among patients who were FH-mutation negative having pretreatment LDL-C levels in the range of 150 to 350 mg/dL (150-249 mg/dL: 1.01 versus 0.91, P<0.0001; 250-349 mg/dL: 1.02 versus 0.95, P=0.0001). A positive correlation between polygenic LDL-C risk score and pretreatment LDL-C levels was observed among patients with FH independently of the presence of causative mutations. Conclusions This analysis confirms the role of polymorphisms in modulating LDL-C levels, even in patients with genetically confirmed FH. More data are needed to support the use of the polygenic score in routine clinical practice

Agnafit

Agnafit – the historical location where Stockholm was founded – is here only a faint echo, and yet its essence quietly permeates this visit to the Swedish capital. Film locations that have become ingrained within a fictitious city coexist here with the mundane reality of the background. Images and roads fleetingly merge into each other, only to pave the way for the emergence of a new spatial experience

Aran Diary

A video installation part of the exhibition The Poetry of Place (Studio 3, 19 February - 5 April 2024) I have filmed Aran Diary in the spring of 2023 while exploring the Aran Islands of Inishmore (Inis Mór) and Inishmaan (Inis Meáin). During a previous stay in Inishmore in the summer of 2022 I began writing a script combining my own experience of the islands (which started in 1998 during an Interrail trip across Europe), the stories from the Arans I have read or seen in film, and a fictional framework based on a character who would have eventually been named Aloysius (from one of James Joyce’s middle names). Aran Diary is the result of this process and is inspired by the essayistic practices of filmmakers like Chris Marker, Chantal Akerman, and Patrick Keiller. The script is reflection on my time in the Aran Islands and the words of various writers who have visited the islands. The list includes James Joyce (The Dead), John Millington Synge (Riders to the Sea and The Aran Islands), Martin McDonagh (The Cripple of Inishmaan), Tim Robinson (Stones of Aran), Seamus Heaney (Lovers on Aran), Liam O’Flaherty, Arthur Symon, and Máirtín Ó Direáin. My film also looks back at Robert Flaherty’s docudramas Man of Aran and A Night of Storytelling, and it uses these films to reflect on the relationship between fiction, myth and reality in the extraordinary landscape of the Aran Islands. Aran Diary was filmed at multiple locations in Inishmore and Inishmaan, including Dun Aengus, the Wormhole, Dun Conor, the Seven Churches, Dun Doocaher, and Kilmurvey Beach. I have used a hand-held camera and avoided any kind of camera movement. These choices are dictated by the fictional framework of the film, a story which sees Aloysius visiting the islands in the process of scouting for locations in view of a fictitious film which will never be completed. My footage is juxtaposed to a voice-over narration read by actor and former Film student at Kent, Felix A. Morgan; I have also created a soundscape based on waves, wind, birds, dolphins, steps, and other sounds I associate with my experience of the islands. The seven segments of the film are introduced by the sound of knitting combined with individual images of the seven knots associated with the Aran textile tradition. The result is a film ultimately concerned with the meaning of place and space, with memory and with the passing of time; these themes emerge from an essayistic engagement with landscape and with the ruins, the stones, and the cliffs of the Aran Islands