Exploring the Emotional Experience of Same-sex Parents by Mixing Creatively Multiple Qualitative Methods

In this paper I address some of the main challenges and benefits of doing qualitative research with a specific type of 'informal carers': those who have been thus far excluded from the conceptual category of 'normal' carers and from 'normal' research on informal care: same-sex parents. The research presented in this paper is an example of a qualitative, inclusive approach to studying the felt and lived experience of 42 same-sex parents. It draws on a wider study on 80 informal caregivers, whose aim is to offer a more inclusive interpretation and a more reliable discourse on family care and parenthood. The research objective was gaining insights into the emotional mechanisms through which dynamics of inclusion or exclusion are interactionally and situationally constructed and/or challenged while doing care. In this paper I illustrate the mix of creative, qualitative methods I employed to explore the experiences of a group of same-sex parents living in Philadelphia (USA)

Unconventional relationships, positive marginalities and citizenship

Long distance relationships and caring at a distance may be connected with emotional and psychological exhaustion but also gratification, reward and empowerment; above all, they possess important implications in terms of social justice, equality and citizenship. The expression ‘world families’ (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2014) includes a heterogeneous and tension-filled set of social actors who have in common the potential to bridge traditional distinctions between public and private, centre and periphery, national and international, able-bodied and physically/cognitively impaired, heterosexual and homosexual, bypassing dichotomous ideas of inclusion/exclusion which typically characterise the concept of citizenship. These families represent a group of very different social actors, including couples of mixed cultures and ethnicities, low-paid migrant workers, skilled migrant workers, asylum seekers, refugees, distant families, etc. who challenge our culturally homogenous understanding of family and society and are defined therefore as ‘pioneers of cosmopolitanism’ and cultural diversity. Drawing on recent work on families, relationships, intimacies and caring for distant others and contextualising it within the specific and still unexplored context of Living Apart Together (LAT) same-sex couples, this article examines the moral, sociological and institutional geographies of these less visible chains of care and affection and their unequally entitled rights and visibility. The literature review is combined with auto-ethnographic work analysing and discussing the case of a married, same-sex, transnational, Living Apart Together (LAT) couple. This article suggests that by looking at what happens at the level of emotion-based, micro-situated interactions we can get some crucial insights into the changing nature of families, intimacies and relationships and their multiple implications in terms of social inclusion, entitlement to rights/citizenship and social change. It is a form of relational, emotion-based and micro-situated social inclusion and entitlement to rights/citizenship which is occurring, on a daily basis, in the interstices of people’s interactions even when such change still meets several obstacles at the structural, political and institutional level

Gli studi di Paleografia latina negli ultimi dieci anni

Il conttributo propone un bilancio dei più recenti studi di Paloegrafia latina

Gli studi di Paleografia latina negli ultimi dieci anni

Il conttributo propone un bilancio dei più recenti studi di Paloegrafia latina

SEM-EDX and SEM-CL to Characterize Lapis Lazuli from Different Provenances

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7–August 11, 2011

Highlights of New Strategies to Increase the Efficacy of Transition Metal Complexes for Cancer Treatments

Although important progress has been made, cancer still remains a complex disease to treat. Serious side effects, the insurgence of resistance and poor selectivity are some of the problems associated with the classical metal-based anti-cancer therapies currently in clinical use. New treatment approaches are still needed to increase cancer patient survival without cancer recurrence. Herein, we reviewed two promising-at least in our opinion-new strategies to increase the efficacy of transition metal-based complexes. First, we considered the possibility of assembling two biologically active fragments containing different metal centres into the same molecule, thus obtaining a heterobimetallic complex. A critical comparison with the monometallic counterparts was done. The reviewed literature has been divided into two groups: the case of platinum; the case of gold. Secondly, the conjugation of metal-based complexes to a targeting moiety was discussed. Particularly, we highlighted some interesting examples of compounds targeting cancer cell organelles according to a third-order targeting approach, and complexes targeting the whole cancer cell, according to a second-order targeting strategy

DOTA-Derivatives of Octreotide Dicarba-Analogs with High Affinity for Somatostatin sst2,5 Receptors

In vivo somatostatin receptor scintigraphy is a valuable method for the visualization of human endocrine tumors and their metastases. In fact, peptide ligands of somatostatin receptors (sst's) conjugated with chelating agents are in clinical use. We have recently developed octreotide dicarba-analogs, which show interesting binding profiles at sst's. In this context, it was mandatory to explore the possibility that our analogs could maintain their activity also upon conjugation with DOTA. In this paper, we report and discuss the synthesis, binding affinity and conformational preferences of three DOTA-conjugated dicarba-analogs of octreotide. Interestingly, two conjugated analogs exhibited nanomolar affinities on sst(2) and sst(5) somatostatin receptor subtypes