Global Social Science: Dislocation of the Abyssal Line and Post-Abyssal Epistemologies and Practices

The essay deals with the hypothesis of a global process of dislocation of the “abyssal line”, adopting the concept of “abyssal exclusions” by Boaventura de Sousa Santos. The Portuguese sociologist, inspired in particular by the postcolonial and the decolonial debate, defines abyssal exclusion as a specific type of socio-political “absence” linked to “colonial sociability”, the “invisibilization” of those excluded through a specific process that places subaltern social groups outside the social contract. This perspective proves useful today to frame the development of new forms of social exclusion that reproduce the South within the North. This exploitation is still legitimated by specific forms of “cultural violence”: inferiorization of the alterities and the disavowal of non-western declinations of social order or social justice. This refers in particular to some social experiences that we will analyze including forms of sociability emerging across Europe between those denied asylum, and situations where forms of exploitation due to the colonial sociability live side by side with forms of labor exploitation due to the weakening of social protection in European welfare. systems. But the essay explores how these abyssal absences could also be analyzed as “social emergences”: strategies of existence that manipulate the radical exclusion. Starting from the hypothesis that a dislocation of the abyssal line is underway, the essay proposes a type of research aimed at shedding light on these social experiences through “post-abyssal” epistemologies and research practices

L’università “situata”: un nuovo modello di insegnamento è possibile

Vorrei proporvi un viaggio dentro aule universitarie inaspettate, in cui persone senza tetto insegnano le politiche sociali, insegnano cosa succede di notte nelle città, quali sono le soglie della resistenza, cioè quei posti dove puoi stare senza ricevere violenza, dove sono le persone che rispondono quando suoni all’una di notte e quali sono quelle che non lo fanno assolutamente. Oppure aule in cui in un corso di politiche sociali i detenuti insegnano quale sia il senso della pena dentro la condanna all’ergastolo ostativo,1 come intendere la rieducazione, come intendere la riparazione. Oppure, ancora, vorrei proporvi un viaggio dentro un corso di sociologia della globalizzazione che ospita come docenti migranti che hanno appena attraversato il deserto e il Mediterraneo a piedi: ci insegnano che cos’è il debito in migrazione, come si contrae un debito di trentamila euro per arrivare dalla Nigeria all’Italia a piedi e soprattutto come lo si restituisce, o infine, lo stesso corso di globalizzazione in cui donne migranti insegnano un mondo post-coloniale in cui l’unico punto di arrivo non è la donna occidentale e la declinazione del concetto di emancipazione diviene plurale e più ricca

Qualitative interviews to support epidemiological study: statistical instruments for the interpretation

A qualitative research was developed to complement an extensive epidemiological study based on human biomonitoring (HBM) in 16 municipalitiesin campania Region, Italy, an area esperiencing a crisis for bad management of waste. 86 narrative interviews focused on environmental pollution perception, trust towards authorities, origins an solution of the present crisi

Parcours migratoires féminins à Parme (Italie du nord) selon différentes sources d’information : Étude de cas

Cette étude traite d’expériences migratoires actuelles et de leurs spécificités en fonction de facteurs tels que le pays d’origine et le sexe. Ce travail s’inscrit dans une réflexion méthodologique : il met en évidence le bénéfice acquis par l’utilisation concomitante de différentes sources d’information. Nous avons tiré parti d’informations provenant de registres administratifs (« Anagrafe », correspondant à l’état civil) et de celles récoltées au cours d’une enquête réalisée dans le Centre de Consultation pour Femmes Immigrées (CFI). Pour des raisons pratiques (effectifs importants), nous avons approfondi les parcours des femmes tunisiennes, philippines, nigérianes, moldaves et ukrainiennes. Nous avons pu mettre en évidence les spécificités de la migration liées aux caractéristiques biographiques comme l’âge, l’état civil, le rapport de parenté avec les membres du foyer, et aussi la séparation entre mères et enfants. Grâce à une méthode d’analyse multivariée (« cluster analysis »), nous avons mesuré la « distance » entre les différents parcours migratoires, et avons mis en évidence la grande variabilité interne du phénomène d’immigration.The present study concerns contemporary migration experiences characterized by different factors, such as the country of origin and the gender of migrants. The migration paths linking the city of Parma (northern Italy) with the various countries of origin have been analysed on the basis of information taken from the Population Register of the Town Council of Parma (1989-2000), as well as information obtained in the course of a survey (1999-2002) conducted by the Migrants Health Center of the Local Health Authorities. Thus our project has a methodological orientation: it underlines the utility of integrating different sources and survey methodologies when undertaking a study of migrations. We have explored in depth the most numerous women’s migration paths in our area of study (those of Tunisian, Filipina, Nigerian, Moldavian and Ukrainian women) and we have highlighted the particular features of these migration circuits, according to age, marital status, family relationships and the mother-daughter separation induced by the migration. Finally, the Cluster Analysis method has enabled us to “measure” the distance between the different migration profiles and we have underlined the high degree of variability existing within the phenomenon of immigration

La complessit? della comunicazione scientifica in ambito epidemiologico: il caso Sebiorec

noViene presentata l\u27esperienza in corso nella Regione Campania per accomp agnare la trasmissione dei risultati dell\u27indagine epidemiologica Sebiorec, svolta tramite campionamento di sangue e latte materno. Si ? ritenuto cruciale dedicare particolare attenzione alle problematiche della comunicazione, grazie alla costituzione di un gruppo multidisciplinare, che ha contribuito alla realizzazione di una indagine qualitativa basata su interviste in profondit? e che fornir? strumenti utili alla comunicazione dei risultati. L\u27esperienza si inscrive nell\u27obiettivo di far evolvere l\u27approccio epidemiologico classico verso una eco-epidemiologia basata sull\u27integrazione di conoscenze sull\u27individuo e sulla comunit?, attraverso lo studio dei fattori di rischio, di esposizione e suscettibilit? individuale e di contesto sociale

BPM Tools for Asset Management in Renewable Energy Power Plants

Business Process Management (BPM) is an accepted discipline and its importance in increasing automation inside industrial environment is today recognized by all players. The complexity of modern management process will lead to chaos without a well-designed and effective BPM. Several BPM Suites were compared and BPM approach was applied to the case study of process management in a renewable energy power plant. Results both in process reduction and simplification and flow optimization obtained in the real case are discussed to state efficacy and efficiency of the adopted approach

Copper-Triggered Aggregation of Ubiquitin

Neurodegenerative disorders share common features comprising aggregation of misfolded proteins, failure of the ubiquitin-proteasome system, and increased levels of metal ions in the brain. Protein aggregates within affected cells often contain ubiquitin, however no report has focused on the aggregation propensity of this protein. Recently it was shown that copper, differently from zinc, nickel, aluminum, or cadmium, compromises ubiquitin stability and binds to the N-terminus with 0.1 micromolar affinity. This paper addresses the role of copper upon ubiquitin aggregation. In water, incubation with Cu(II) leads to formation of spherical particles that can progress from dimers to larger conglomerates. These spherical oligomers are SDS-resistant and are destroyed upon Cu(II) chelation or reduction to Cu(I). In water/trifluoroethanol (80∶20, v/v), a mimic of the local decrease in dielectric constant experienced in proximity to a membrane surface, ubiquitin incubation with Cu(II) causes time-dependent changes in circular dichroism and Fourier-transform infrared spectra, indicative of increasing β-sheet content. Analysis by atomic force and transmission electron microscopy reveals, in the given order, formation of spherical particles consistent with the size of early oligomers detected by gel electrophoresis, clustering of these particles in straight and curved chains, formation of ring structures, growth of trigonal branches from the rings, coalescence of the trigonal branched structures in a network. Notably, none of these ubiquitin aggregates was positive to tests for amyloid and Cu(II) chelation or reduction produced aggregate disassembly. The early formed Cu(II)-stabilized spherical oligomers, when reconstituted in 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) liposomes and in POPC planar bilayers, form annular and pore-like structures, respectively, which are common to several neurodegenerative disorders including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and prion diseases, and have been proposed to be the primary toxic species. Susceptibility to aggregation of ubiquitin, as it emerges from the present study, may represent a potential risk factor for disease onset or progression while cells attempt to tag and process toxic substrates

Publicness and teaching: public knowledge as collective process of repoliticization of daily life

Starting from the categories proposed by Burawoy, this paper presents a particular type of public sociology, which I call “teaching-as-research”: a sociological work which is both “professional” - to return to the American sociologist - since it is carried out by teachers in the classrooms of public universities, and “critical”, since it is carried out through a cognitive process that involves both students and social groups, aimed at critically reviewing sociological categories in the light of the direct experience of subordination. What characterises the paper is therefore the critique of the epistemological and operational division between sociological research and teaching in Academia, and the proposal to rethink the division between the “first” (teaching), “second” (research) and “third” (knowledge positioning) university “missions” in the area of social sciences