Dal giornale Agos alla riscoperta del patrimonio culturale armeno in Turchia

This article aims to investigate the role of the Armenian newspaper <em>Agos</em>, and consequently of the foundation Hrant Dink Vakfı, in rediscovering the Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey. One of their main priorities is the reconstruction of the Armenian presence in Anatolia before the Genocide of 1915, through a series of projects and research activities. Furthermore, this contribution aims specifically to understand the necessity for the Armenian community to rediscover the religious architectural heritage since ruins of churches are the only physical trace left of the Armenian presence in Anatolia. By means of an interdisciplinary (architectural heritage and memory studies) approach the case study of Kayseri, a central Anatolian city, is presented with specific references to the contributions by Agos and Hrant Dink Vakfı

Armenian religious architecture in the late 19th early 20th century Kayseri: spatial and cultural cleansing

This thesis is a study of the Ottoman Armenian religious architectural heritage in Kayseri and surrounding villages, with a particular focus on the destruction process that interested the Armenian churches and monasteries in the region. This study attempts to reconstruct the Armenian presence in the city center and the villages from midnineteenth century until 1915, through demographic make-up and main changes in the Armenian population of Kayseri. An investigation of the Armenian churches and monasteries built/rebuilt after the 1835 earthquake and the current conditions have been conducted through the creation of a catalogue. The thesis argues that the Armenian religious architecture of Kayseri and surroundings was targeted of spatial and cultural cleansing, as the removal or neglect process led to the vanishing/transformation of the majority of the analyzed architectural examples, including space-change and the end of the local Armenian culture

Cilende: the mask dance at the Luvale Culture Festival (Angola)

Este artigo apresenta um material etnográfico e visual inédito sobre a performance dos makixi, ancestrais manifestados na forma de bailarinos mascarados, originais dos rituais de circuncisão (mukanda) praticados por povos bantu da grande área de confluência entre Angola, Zâmbia e República Democrática do Congo, entre eles, os Luvale. Proclamados Patrimônio Oral e Imaterial da Humanidade pela UNESCO em 2005, o lócus principal de sua performance é hoje o grande festival da “cultura” luvale, realizado desde os anos 1950 na Zâmbia e, mais recentemente, em Angola. Com base numa etnografia da versão angolana do festival, realizada entre 2012 e 2013, a autora focaliza os bailes de makixi que constituem a atração principal do festival, mostrando a estreita relação entre a morfologia das máscaras e seus estilos de dança, e contribuindo para reduzir a enorme lacuna aberta pelos quase quarenta anos sem nenhuma pesquisa realizada na área em decorrência da guerra.This article presents new ethnographic and visual material on the dance of the makixi, the ancestors manifested in the form of masked dancers, originally found in the circumcision rituals (mukanda) practiced by Bantu peoples from the large area of confluence between Angola, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the Luvale. Proclaimed Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005, the main locus of their performance today is the large Luvale ‘culture’ festival, held since the 1950s in Zambia and more recently in Angola. Based on an ethnography of the Angolan version of the festival, researched between 2013 and 2013, the author focuses on the makixi dances, which comprise the event’s main attraction, showing the close relationship between the morphology of the masks and the dance styles, helping to narrow the enormous gap opened up by the lapse of almost forty years without any research being carried out in the area due to warfare

Excited state dynamics of bis-dehydroxycurcumin tert-butyl ester, a diketo-shifted derivative of the photosensitizer curcumin

Bis-dehydroxycurcumin tert-butyl ester (K2T23) is a derivative of the natural spice curcumin. Curcumin is widely studied for its multiple therapeutic properties, including photosensitized cytotoxicity. However, the full exploitation of curcumin phototoxic potential is hindered by the extreme instability of its excited state, caused by very efficient non radiative decay by means of transfer of the enolic proton to the nearby keto oxygen. K2T23 is designed to exhibit a tautomeric equilibrium shifted toward the diketo conformers with respect to natural curcumin. This property should endow K2T23 with superior excited-state stability when excited in the UVB band, i.e., in correspondence of the diketo conformers absorption peaks, making this compound an interesting candidate for topical photodynamic therapy of, e.g., skin tumors or oral infections. In this work, the tautomeric equilibrium of K2T23 between the keto-enolic and diketo conformers is assessed in the ground state in several organic solvents by UV-visible absorption and by nuclear magnetic resonance. The same tautomeric equilibrium is also probed in the excited-state in the same environments by means of steady-state fluorescence and time-correlated single-photon counting measurements. These techniques are also exploited to elucidate the excited state dynamics and excited-state deactivation pathways of K2T23, which are compared to those determined for several other curcuminoids characterized in previous works of ours. The ability of K2T23 in photosensitizing the production of singlet oxygen is compared with that of curcumin

Synthesis, Characterization, Fluorescence Properties, and DFT Modeling of Difluoroboron Biindolediketonates

We report a simple and efficient strategy to enhance the fluorescence of biocompatible biindole diketonates (bdks) in the visible spectrum through difluoroboronation (BF2bdks complexes). Emission spectroscopy testifies an increase in the fluorescence quantum yields from a few percent to as much as >0.7. This massive increment is essentially independent of substitutions at the indole (-H, -Cl, and -OCH3) and corresponds to a significant stabilization of the excited state with respect to non-radiative decay mechanisms: the non-radiative decay rates are reduced by as much as an order of magnitude, from 109 s−1 to 108 s−1, upon difluoroboronation. The stabilization of the excited state is large enough to enable sizeable 1O2 photosensitized production. Different time-dependent (TD) density functional theory (DFT) methods were assessed in their ability to model the electronic properties of the compounds, with TD-B3LYP-D3 providing the most accurate excitation energies. The calculations associate the first active optical transition in both the bdks and BF2bdks electronic spectra to the S0 → S1 transition, corresponding to a shift in the electronic density from the indoles to the oxygens or the O-BF2-O unit, respectively

Rigid and Compact Binuclear Bis-hydrated Gd-complexes as High Relaxivity MRI Agents

The first binuclear Gd-complex of the 12-membered pyridine-based polyaminocarboxylate macrocyclic ligand PCTA was synthesized by C−C connection of the pyridine units through two different synthetic procedures. A dimeric AAZTA-ligand was also synthesized with the aim to compare the relaxometric results or the two ditopic Gd-complexes. Thus, the 1H relaxometric study on [Gd2PCTA2(H2O)4] and on [Gd2AAZTA2(H2O)4]2− highlighted the remarkable rigidity and compactness of the two binuclear complexes, which results in molar relaxivities (per Gd), at 1.5 T and 298 K of ca. 12–12.6 mM−1 s−1 with an increase of ca. 80 % at 1.5 T and 298 K (+70 % at 310 K) with respect to the corresponding mononuclear complexes

In Situ Electrochemical Investigations of Inherently Chiral 2,2′-Biindole Architectures with Oligothiophene Terminals

AbstractThe synthesis and characterization of three new inherently chiral N,N′‐dipropyl‐3,3′‐diheteroaryl‐2,2′‐biindole monomers, nicknamed Ind2T4, Ind2T6 and Ind2Ph2T4, which differ in the number of thiophenes as terminals, are reported. In addition to a full monomer characterization, stable electroactive oligomeric films were obtained by electro‐oxidation upon cycling to potentials which activate the thiophene terminals. Cyclic voltammetry, UV‐Vis‐NIR spectroelectrochemistry and in situ conductance measurements show that oligomeric films of Ind2T6 present the best stability and electrochromic switching performance. Enantioselective tests with a chiral ferrocene amine clearly show the potential as chiral selectors for analytical and sensing purposes

Highly enantioselective “inherently chiral” electroactive materials based on a 2,2' -biindole atropisomeric scaffold

Chiral oligothiophene monomers with C2 symmetry, based on 3,30 -bithiophene atropisomeric cores with high racemization barriers, have recently been shown to provide excellent chiral starting materials with high electroactivity for the easy preparation of enantiopure electroactive films endowed with powerful chirality manifestations. We now introduce an inherently chiral monomer based on a 2,20 -biindole core, as the prototype of a new inherently chiral monomer family, whose properties could be modulable through functionalization of the pyrrolic N atoms. By fast, regular electrooligomerization the new monomer yields inherently chiral films with high, reversible electroactivity and, above all, impressive enantioselectivity towards very different chiral probes, some of pharmaceutical interest, as generalscope electrode surfaces. Such results, while opening the way to a new, attractive inherently chiral selector class, nicely confirm the general validity of the inherent chirality strategy for chiral electrochemistry. Furthermore, the enantioselectivity of the new selectors not only holds with electroactive chiral probes, but also with circularly polarized light components as well as electron spins, resulting in good chiroptical and spin filter performances, which suggests fascinating correlations between the three contexts

Efeito agudo dos métodos de alongamento estático e dinâmico sobre a forca dinâmica

O Objetivo deste estudo foi analisar o efeito dos métodos de alongamento estático e dinâmico sobre o desempenho da força dinâmica no aparelho de supino reto. Foram selecionados 15 voluntários, com idade entre 20 e 30 anos. Os voluntários foram divididos em três grupos (G1, G2 e G3) e realizaram o teste de carga máxima. Para a programação das séries no supino, foram determinados 90% da carga máxima. Para a coleta de dados, seguiu-se o seguinte procedimento: G1 - alongamento estático e série de exercícios no aparelho supino reto; G2 - alongamento balístico e série de exercícios no aparelho supino reto; G3 - alongamento estático e dinâmico e série de exercícios no supino reto. Concluiu-se que os estímulos alongamento estático, balístico e combinado não provocaram influência aguda sobre a força dinâmica no exercício supino reto

Esporte e Acessibilidade: uma investigação sobre as condições de treinamento de atletas e praticantes de exercícios físicos com nanismo

O termo nanismo é utilizado para referir-se a baixa estatura. Dos quatro tipos mais comuns de nanismo, a acondroplasia é o tipo não fatal de maior ocorrência. No Brasil, questões referentes à população com nanismo são desconhecidas, de modo que, até o presente momento, não há registro oficial de quantos indivíduos possuem esse tipo de deficiência física no país. Os jogos mundiais de nanismo é um dos eventos destinados a pessoas com nanismo, sendo adaptado para acomodar as deficiências presentes nesta população. Assim, o objetivo central deste estudo foi identificar quais as dificuldades encontradas por esses indivíduos em ambientes de treinamento das modalidades esportivas. A amostra foi composta por 10 voluntários, sendo 8 do sexo masculino e 2 do sexo feminino.  Os participantes responderam a um questionário estruturado elaborado na plataforma Google Forms, sendo o link de acesso encaminhado aos mesmos via e-mail. Com o resultado, observou-se que, grande parte dos voluntários realizam treinamento em salas de musculação e fazem uso de pesos livres e máquinas. Além disso, as adaptações aos aparelhos ocorrem com a utilização de steps ou a substituição por outro exercício que trabalhe o mesmo grupo muscular. Apenas 1 indivíduo relatou conhecer um centro de treinamento adaptado para pessoas com nanismo, e, todos relataram encontrar problemas como, falta de investimento, infraestrutura, patrocínio e falta de oportunidade. No entanto, no que diz respeito a relações sociais, destacaram a importância do esporte na interação e criação de relações de respeito, amizade e admiração, sendo naquele momento, um lugar de igualdade