'Schooled by the Inhuman Sea': Maritime Imagination and the Discourses of Emancipation in Herman Melville’s Clarel

The aim of this essay is to read Clarel (1876) as Melville’s most mature reflection on issues related to democracy and emancipation in the United States. Clarel’s situation at the end of the poem reflects that of the ex-slaves after emancipation. Most importantly, I argue that Melville significantly structured Clarel as a sailor’s narrative, adapting the popular devices of sea-writing to versification in order to bridge the gap between his early fiction and his later poetry. Finally, I propose to read Clarel as the author’s poetic pilgrimage to offset the excessive autobiographical impulse of his early fiction in order to gain artistic, as well as personal, emancipation

La "partita Hemingway": Hemingway e l'editoria italiana dal dopoguerra a oggi

During the Second World War, American literature in Italy became a cultural myth. Ernest Hemingway found himself at the core of such an ambivalent and contradictory myth: his books were a forbidden, subversive pleasure, something to be held secretly against the bans of the fascist regime. Hemingway’s works (and his own life) acquired a peculiar meaning for writers of the Left such as Elio Vittorini and Cesare Pavese, for politically engaged critics, as well as for the Italian publishing industry, which aimed at owning and controlling (and of course selling) his books. The history of the two most important Italian publishing houses of the period, Einaudi and Mondadori, is indissolubly intertwined with the reception of Hemingway’s works: it is not possible to trace the one without evoking the other. In the second half of the 1940s, Arnoldo Mondadori and Giulio Einaudi were opponents in what Einaudi himself defined the “Hemingway match”, a duel that neither of the two publishers was willing to lose for any reason. By using documentary sources, biographical works, as well as books tracing the history of the two publishing houses, this essay will recapitulate some salient steps of the critical reception of Hemingway’s works in Italy from the postwar period to the present day

Predicted rates of merging neutron stars in galaxies

In this work, we compute rates of merging neutron stars (MNS) in galaxies of different morphological type, as well as the cosmic MNS rate in a unitary volume of the Universe adopting different cosmological scenarios. Our aim is to provide predictions of kilonova rates for future observations both at low and high redshift. In the adopted galaxy models, we take into account the production of r-process elements either by MNS or core-collapse supernovae. In computing the MNS rates we adopt either a constant total time delay for merging (10 Myr) or a distribution function of such delays. Our main conclusions are: i) the observed present time MNS rate in our Galaxy is well reproduced either with a constant time delay or a distribution function $\propto t^{-1}$. The [Eu/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] relation in the Milky Way can be well reproduced with only MNS, if the time delay is short and constant. If the distribution function of delays is adopted, core-collapse supernovae as are also required. ii) The present time cosmic MNS rate can be well reproduced in any cosmological scenario, either pure luminosity evolution or a typical hierarchical one, and spirals are the main contributors to it. iii) The spirals are the major contributors to the cosmic MNS at all redshifts in hierarchical scenarios. In the pure luminosity evolution scenario, the spirals are the major contributors locally, whereas at high redshift ellipticals dominate. iv) The predicted cosmic MNS rate well agrees with the cosmic rate of short Gamma Ray Bursts if the distribution function of delays is adopted, in a cosmological hierarchical scenario observationally derived. v) Future observations of Kilonovae in ellipticals will allow to disentangle among constant or a distribution of time delays as well as among different cosmological scenarios

"Silence is the Only Voice": Le Lettere a Hawthorne di Herman Melville e la scoperta di una nuova voce femminile

The letters Herman Melville wrote to Nathaniel Hawthorne between January 1851 and December 1852 can help us reconstruct the beginning of a new stage in his writing: after the semi-autobiographical sea-novels of adventures, Melville’s imagination switched to a diff erent narrative structure, closer to the sentimental domestic settings of Hawthorne’s romances and more attentive to female characters. The influence Hawthorne and his wife Sophia Peabody had on Melville’s imagination during the period they corresponded, as well as the failed collaboration between the two writers on the “Agatha Letters”, brought Melville to the discovery of a new feminine voice and an original female character – the resilient woman – that will appear more frequently in the following part of his literary production

Local control of near-field diffusion of infected respiratory cloud in a room by air-blades

The respiratory cloud of an infective subject contains droplets of mucosalivary fluid carrying pathogens. As this cloud spreads at a certain distance from the emission point, the droplets accumulate and their volume concentration increases in the room unless dilution, adequate ventilation, or filtration reduce it. A susceptible subject, standing a short distance away can be exposed more easily to the infected respiratory cloud, thus inhaling a higher dose of pathogens than someone breathing the mixed air in the room. A local airflow pattern can be employed to reduce this short-distance risk of inhalation and potential contagion. We present experimental and numerical investigations of a novel device acting as a barrier to airborne pathogen diffusion at a short distance. This portable device generates V-shaped air blades in front of the subjects, shifting the respiratory clouds. The air blades are generated by 12 small fans, three on each side of the cube. The air is sucked into the small plenum inside the device body through the bases. By being positioned obliquely on a meeting table, the device acts as a direct barrier to virus-laden aerosols without any filtration. The experimental tests show that the system can reduce the local concentration of aerosol by 63 to 84% at the respiratory position of a subject sitting at a table in front of an infective person. CFD simulation outputs using the Multiphase Eulerian-Lagrangian model show a good agreement with the experimental results. The validated model will be used to extend the range of investigation to different settings and to perform a parametrical analysis of the main design conditions

The impact of cue-elicited multisensory imagery on alcohol craving: A randomized controlled trial

Introduction: Elaborated intrusion theory suggests that imagery is central to craving; however, the possibility that cue-elicited multisensory imagery produces such urges has not been studied enough in the literature. Thus, we investigated the role of cue-elicited multisensory imagery on alcohol craving in individuals who are hazardous and social drinkers compared to mental and neutral imagery conditions. Methods: In an online experiment, hazardous and social drinkers (N = 348) between 18 and 45 years old were randomised to multisensory, mental, and neutral imagery exposure. The level of craving intensity was measured before and after imagery exposure. Also, participants rated vividness and sensory features scales after the exposure. Results: The level of craving was significantly higher in multisensory imagery condition compared to neutral condition (b = 1.94, p < 0.001, SE = 0.30, t(344) = 6.52, standardised mean difference [SMD] = 0.89) and in mental imagery condition compared to neutral condition (b = 1.82, SE = 0.30, t(344) = 6.52, p < 0.001, SMD = 0.83). The difference between the level of craving intensity between the multisensory and mental was not significant (b = 0.12, SE = 0.22, t(344) = 0.53, p = 0.594, SMD = 0.06). Moreover, craving intensity in response to multisensory versus neutral imagery was significantly stronger among hazardous drinkers (b = −2.90, SE = 0.83, t(341) = −3.50, p < 0.001). The level of vividness was not significantly different between any conditions. The difference between levels of sensory features was higher in multisensory imagery condition compared to neutral (b = 0.95, SE = 0.30, t(345) = 3.17, p = 0.002, SMD = 0.49) and mental imagery condition (b = 0.67, SE = 0.23, t(345) = 2.36, p = 0.004, SMD = 0.35). Conclusion: Results suggest that cue-elicited multisensory imagery may be a useful tool for eliciting alcohol craving responses and provide an additional means for better understanding the multi-layered mechanism of craving

Book Reviews

n/

On the delay times of merging double neutron stars

The merging rate of double neutron stars (DNS) has a great impact on many astrophysical issues, including the interpretation of gravitational waves signals, of the short Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), and of the chemical properties of stars in galaxies. Such rate depends on the distribution of the delay times (DDT) of the merging events. In this paper we derive a theoretical DDT of merging DNS following from the characteristics of the clock controlling their evolution. We show that the shape of the DDT is governed by a few key parameters, primarily the lower limit and the slope of the distribution of the separation of the DNS systems at birth. With a parametric approach we investigate on the observational constraints on the DDT from the cosmic rate of short GRBs and the Europium to Iron ratio in Milky Way stars, taken as tracer of the products of the explosion. We find that the local rate of DNS merging requires that about 1 percent of neutron stars progenitors live in binary systems which end their evolution as merging DNS within a Hubble time. The redshift distribution of short GRBs does not yet provide a strong constraint on the shape of the DDT, although the best fitting models have a shallow DDT. The chemical pattern in Milky Way stars requires an additional source of Europium besides the products from merging DNS, which weakens the related requirement on the DDT. At present both constraints can be matched with the same DDT for merging DNS

Binary neutron stars and production of heavy elements

We show how merging neutron stars can be responsible for the production of heavy elements in the solar vicinity, in particular we study the evolution of the abundance of europium (Eu) relative to iron (Fe), as derived by stellar abundances measured in the Milky Way halo and disk stars. To do that, we adopt a detailed galactic chemical evolution model able to follow the evolution of the abundances of several chemical elements in the gas in our Galaxy. Merging of neutron stars after emission of gravitational waves has been observed for the first time in the event GW170817, which has represented the very first kilonova ever observed in the local universe. The production of heavy elements such as Eu (a typical r-process element) is discussed critically, pointing out that supernovae core collapse can produce some r-process elements but not enough to explain the solar abundance of Eu. On the other hand, the merging of compact objects can provide an amount of Eu much higher per single event than a single supernova. We discuss the various parameters involved, such as the merging timescales, the fraction of neutron star binaries and the present time rate of kilonova explosions. We compare model results with stellar data and conclude that merging of compact objects can be responsible for the bulk of Eu production in the Galaxy under some assumptions: (i) the merging binaries should have progenitors in the mass range 9-50M⊙, (ii) the merging timescales should be as short as 1 Myr and iii) each event should produce ∼2 ×10-6M⊙ . We also conclude that the Ligo/Virgo merging neutron star rate is consistent with our chemical evolution model and that if GW170817 is a representative event, then the merging neutron stars can be considered as the main r-process production sites...