Tuberculosis in Siena: Evolution of the Disease and its Treatment, from the Unification of Italy to the 1930s

Between the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the city of Siena experienced elevated tuberculosis-related morbidity and mortality, to the point that on January 1, 1929 the newspaper La Nazione wrote that “Siena ranks second in the official TB incidence rate”. The author presents statistical data relating to a time span ranging from 1898 to 1935, interpreting them in light of social and sanitary conditions found in the city.  The result is an exhaustive picture of the most important actions implemented at city level to prevent tuberculosis and to assist and treat the sick, such as: the creation of seaside hospices conceived by Carlo Livi for children suffering from scrofula, as well as centers committed to the prevention of childhood poverty and malnutrition; the realization of activities in the green areas of the ramparts of the Fortress, upon recommendation by great hygienist Achille Sclavo; the establishment of a Preventorium on the premises of the Monastery of Santa Maria Maddalena to accommodate children from families that included pulmonary tuberculosis patients, and countless activities carried out by the Anti-TB Dispensary. Of particular interest is the identification of the main cause of high TB incidence in the unsanitary homes located in some sections of Siena’s district, which, in 1930 engendered a lively debate hinging upon the notion of building restoration

Life in the Nuclear Archipelago: Cold War Technopolitics and U.S. Nuclear Submarines in Italy.

Life in the Nuclear Archipelago is the first study of expert and public understandings of nuclear risk to analyze Italy’s geopolitical place in the global Cold War and after it. The study adopts a trans-regional perspective to examine the political, ecological, and public health controversies surrounding the installation of a U.S. Navy base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena (Sardinia) between 1972 and 2008. Using ethnographic and historical methods, the dissertation documents how local residents, journalists, and administrators navigated and challenged the rapidly evolving legal apparatuses designed to regulate the new threats and possibilities introduced through nuclear, and allied, technologies in the context of the global Cold War. By unpacking the sociotechnical processes through which La Maddalena became actively incorporated into the network of U.S. military bases overseas, Life in the Nuclear Archipelago explains how material and legal infrastructures, technologies, institutions, ecosystems, and epistemic traditions converged to co-construct a system of environmental monitoring that embodied a compromise between public safety and military security. By focusing on radiological risk this study examines the mutual effects and interactions of international and national nuclear regulatory regimes and scientific protocols, the contributions of technology in embodying and enacting political goals, and in shaping power relations between Italy and the United States, and (within Italy) between center and periphery. The dissertation is divided in three parts—two chapters each—that focus on specific arguments and themes. Part 1 addresses the military legacy of the archipelago to explain local attitudes towards the U.S. Navy and examines the technopolitical debates about the nuclear status of the archipelago due to the submarines’ presence. Part 2 focuses on the political economy of knowledge production and examines how both military secrecy and bureaucratic and epistemological limits of Italian regulatory agencies produced knowledge gaps about the environmental monitoring system of La Maddalena. Part 3 advances a semiotic approach to risk for analyzing how both experts and non-experts make invisible risks of nuclear contamination visible. Further, it looks at nuclear accidents as processes rather than events.PhDAnthropology and HistoryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116691/1/dorsini_1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116691/2/dorsini_3.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116691/3/dorsini_2.pd

Long Run Growth and Income Distribution in an OLG Model with Strategic Job-Seeking and Credit Rationing

In the human capital literature, it is usually assumed that human capital is paid according to its marginal productivity. Nevertheless, in the real world labor compensation is linked to a fixed hierarchy due to the division and organization of labor. Access to privileged positions in the hierarchy depends on schooling credentials, which in turn are a function of individual learning abilities and of individual spending in education. People compete in education in order to achieve the best job positions: positional competition is like a rent-seeking activity, based on the different levels of credentials. In this paper, a simple OLG economy with two agents and two kinds of jobs is modeled, and the strategic solutions are analyzed. The model shows different outcomes depending on the hypotheses regarding the type of strategic interaction (sequential or simultaneous) and the characteristics of the capital market. In the sequential equilibrium, the presence of credit market imperfections and risk-aversion makes the asympthotic wealth distribution dependent on initial conditions (non ergodicity). In the simultaneous equilibrium, a non monotonic relationship between income inequality and long run growth is shown; in the long run, job allocation is mainly determined by the innate learning abilities and it is unrelated to the initial wealth distribution (ergodicity)

The insidious return of Cholera in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, Lebanon and Syria: a worrying signal! Past, present, and future forthcoming

Introduction War, hunger, and disease continue to decimate the populations of many countries in the world. Owing to conflicts, environmental instability and natural disasters, many people, especially the poorest, fall victim to epidemic diseases. One such disease, cholera, began to spread again in 2022, striking Lebanon and Syria, countries that have experienced serious social troubles for years. The return of cholera immediately alarmed the scientific community, which is now making every effort, most notably by implementing a major vaccination campaign, to prevent this disease from becoming endemic in these two countries, thus making them a reservoir for its potential spread in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. Discussion Cholera is a disease that draws its strength from poor hygiene, primitive sanitation and the consumption of contaminated water and food. From the 19th century onwards, its spread was facilitated by overcrowded housing and lack of hygiene, which became commonplace features of urban life.  Method In outlining the spread of cholera in Lebanon and Syria, the authors raise the question of the possible resurgence of epidemic cholera, especially in the light of the consequences of the devastating earthquake that hit the border area between Turkey and Syria last February.  Conclusion These events have had a devastating effect on the population, destroying, among other things, the few existing health facilities and aggravating the already difficult living conditions of millions of people who, owing to the ongoing war, have been living for years in makeshift settlements, bereft of water, sanitation and any form of health care

Temporary Workers Are Not Free-Riders: An Experimental Investigation

We conduct an artefactual field experiment to study whether the individual preferences and propensity to cooperate of temporary workers differ from permanent contract workers. We find that temporary and permanent contract workers have different other-regarding preferences, but display similar contribution patterns in an anonymous Public Good Game. Students, instead, are more selfish and contribute less than temporary and permanent workers

Students, Temporary Workers and Co-Op Workers: An Experimental Investigation on Social Preferences

International audienceWe conduct an artefactual field experiment to compare the individual preferences and propensity to cooperate of three pools of subjects: Undergraduate students, temporary workers and permanent workers. We find that students are more selfish and contribute less than workers. Temporary and permanent contract workers have similar other-regarding preferences and display analogous contribution patterns in an anonymous Public Good Game

Non-Monetary Feedback Induces more Cooperation: Students and Workers in a Voluntary Contribution Mechanism

We conduct an artefactual field experiment to study and compare the behavior of workers and students in a linear voluntary contribution mechanism in which subjects can assign immaterial sanctions or rewards to the other group members. We find that both students and workers sanction group members who contribute less than the group average, and reward those who contribute more. In both subject samples, the use of non-monetary sanctions and rewards induces more cooperation. The magnitude of the effect, however, is heterogeneous, as feedback has more impact among students who, contrary to workers, respond positively to sanctions. Students also tend to use sanctions more than workers. We discuss the implications of these findings for social cohesion, cooperative spirit and organizational efficiency in the workplace

IL SEGNALAMENTO DEL DELINQUENTE BY SALVATORE OTTOLENGHI

I dermatoglifi, essendo completamente diversi da un essere umano all’altro, segnalano la diversità umana. Per questo motivo, e per le loro caratteristiche di unicità, classificazione e inalterabilità, le creste papillari sulla punta delle dita rappresentano elementi di una sicura differenziazione tra una persona e l’altra. Di conseguenza, le impronte digitali sono molto utili nell’identificazione di un essere umano.Salvatore Ottolenghi fu il primo ad utilizzare il sistema di impronte digitali per identificare gli individui e introdusse questo sistema nel suo “Cartellino di riconoscimento” nel 1902. Essendo sicuro della validità scientifica di questo metodo, lo considerava libero da potenziale interpretazione personale. Secondo lui “le impronte digitali, per loro natura, formano disegni speciali dalla nascita; questi non cambieranno per tutta la vita e saranno assolutamente diversi da un essere umano a un altro”. Questo metodo di identificazione delle impronte digitali fu immediatamente perfezionato da Giovanni Gasti, scelto da Salvatore Ottolenghi come suo assistente personale presso la Scuola di Polizia Scientifica. Per questo motivo, il metodo è stato chiamato “Sistema Gasti (Sistema Gasti)”. Fu usato per tutto il Novecento.The dermatoglyphics are signs of the human variety, as they are absolutely different from one human being to another. For this reason, and for their characteristics of uniqueness, classification, and inalterability, the papillary ridges on the fingertips represent elements of a sure differentiation between one person and another. Fingerprints are, therefore, very helpful in identifying a human being. Salvatore Ottolenghi was the first to utilize the fingerprinting system to identify individuals, and he introduced this system in his “Cartellino di riconoscimento (identification card)” in 1902. He was sure about the scientific validity of this method, which he considered to be free from potential personal interpretation. According to his definition, “fingerprints, by their nature, form special drawings from birth; these will not change throughout life and will be absolutely different from one human being to another”. This fingerprint identification method was immediately refined by Giovanni Gasti, whom Salvatore Ottolenghi had chosen as his personal assistant at the Scuola di Polizia Scientifica (School of Forensic Science). Gasti, adapting the classification method of Francis Galton and Edward Henry, developed the “Sistema Gasti (Gasti System)”, which was in use throughout the 1900

From hospital “knife” to cultural museum artefact. Da “ferro” ospedaliero a bene culturale musealizzato

The University of Siena for almost thirty years has chosen to safeguard and preserve its scientific equipment no longer in use, to study it and to make it available to the public. This choice, at the time considered a “rescue operation” in a context of abandonment, was a fixed point in the process of changing mentality and the beginning of a non-occasional recovery of historical scientific assets. There was also the creation of an organized depository, in conjunction with the establishment of a Siena University Museums System (SIMUS). Over the years, the instruments recovered and cataloged have been valued through temporary exhibitions, but especially have become a fundamental tool for teaching and scientific dissemination to school students, as well as for career counseling. Today, SIMUS has a new great cultural opportunity: to become an actor in local development and to transform its cultural heritage into an effective means of communication with the outside. A new Medical Instrumentation Museum is the latest result of the research work carried out by the staff of the Center for the Protection and Valorization of the Ancient Scientific Heritage (CUTVAP)