Orientamenti religiosi della poesia dell'India dalle origini vediche alla "Scuola delle ombre" della letteratura hindî

The paper outlines the religious trend of Indian literature and, particularly, of Indian poetry (kâvya) from its Vedic origins to the hindî Châyâvâd literary movement of the XXth century. It is mostly a kind of poetry that reveals a strong speculative character and involves a deep research of truth through the contemplation of the Unknown. In this perspective poetry becomes a means of spiritual realization. Human love is obviously a preferential theme of kâvya, but it matches an equally deep love for wisdom and renunciation of worldly pleasures and, in any case, appears to be sublimated in the fervent expressions of bhakti or devotional attitude towards the Divine Beloved. At last Mahâdevî Varmâ’s lines express the idea that it is possible to reach release through poetry, that is within an aesthetic experience; in other words, there is a particular mokïa for the poet, as speech becomes to him a chance to attain the supreme and final goal of life

An ecological survey of the invertebrate community at the epigean/hypogean interface

We studied the ecological continuum between caves and the associated network of fissures – Milieu Souterrain Superficiel (MSS) – in an hypogean site in the Graian Alps, Italy. Over one year, we surveyed the faunal assemblages by means of pitfall traps placed in the caves and specific subterranean sampling devices (SSD) buried in the MSS. We used generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) and generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to compare the spatial and temporal dynamics of the subterranean invertebrates inhabiting the two environments. As expected, arthropod communities occurring near the surface were characterized by minor level of subterranean adaptations, and conversely, subterranean species were more abundant and diversified at higher depths, both in the caves and in the MSS. Diversity and abundance of external elements in the superficial layers were found to be highly seasonal dependent, with minor values in winter compared to the other seasons. We provided information about the faunal assemblages dwelling in the two hypogean compartments, and we characterized the microclimatic conditions therein. We discussed the existence of an ecological gradient of specialization extending from the surface to the deep hypogean layers, which can be interpreted in light of the microclimatic changes occurring at increasing depths and the parallel decrease in available organic matter

Measuring the influence of non-scientific features on citations

Citations remain a prime, yet controversial, measure of academic performance. Ideally, how often a paper is cited should solely depend on the quality of the science reported therein. However, non-scientific factors, including structural elements (e.g., length of abstract, number of references) or attributes of authors (e.g., prestige and gender), may all influence citation outcomes. Knowing the predicted effect of these features on citations might make it possible to 'game the system' of citation counts when writing a paper. We conducted a meta-analysis to build a quantitative understanding of the effect of similar non-scientific features on the impact of scientific articles in terms of citations. We showed that article length, number of authors, author experience and their collaboration network, Impact Factors, availability as open access, online sharing, different referencing practice, and number of figures all exerted a positive influence on citations. These patterns were consistent across most disciplines. We also documented temporal trends towards a recent increase in the effect of journal Impact Factor and number of authors on citations. We suggest that our approach can be used as a benchmark to monitor the influence of these effects over time, minimising the influence of non-scientific features as a means to game the system of citation counts, and thus enhancing their usefulness as a measure of scientific quality.Peer reviewe