Mario Luzi E L’arte: Da Simone Ai Contemporanei

This contribution deals with Luzi’s career as a connoisseur and critic of figurative arts: starting from Luzi’s precocious piece of criticism on Raffaello, the author investigates other works by the Italian writer dealing with art history, theatre and poetry. The works of great artists like Simone Martini, Jacopo Carracci (alias Pontormo) and Giorgio De Chirico were a source of inspiration for Luzi’s Viaggio celeste e terrestre di Simone Martini, Felicità turbate and Avvento notturno. The paper ends with a critical reassessment of Luzi’s friendship with the contemporary painter, Pietro Paolo Tarasco, whose drawings and engravings accompanied Luzi’s final books

Mechanical properties of woven natural fiber reinforced composites

Epoxy matrix composites reinforced with woven natural fiber were studied. Composites having fiber volume fraction greater than 55% were prepared by hand lay-up technique. For reinforcement, three different natural fibers were used, jute, flax and silk. The tensile and flexural properties were investigated and the influence of the orientation of fibers on the stiffness were analyzed. It was observed that the tensile and flexural strength of silk composites is almost equal to that of flax composite and 1.98 times that of jute composite. Moreover the stiffness of the silk composites isn't influenced by orientation of fibers. Morphological examinations were carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). All specimens were coated with a thin layer gold alloy prior to SEM observations. A high voltage of 20 kV was used for making the micrographs. The SEM investigation was used to study the fracture surface of the tensile specimens of the composites samples. The results of this study indicate that using silk fiber as reinforcement could successfully develop a composite material in terms of high strength and stiffness to produce a bio-composites for light applications compared to conventional composites

Realization of quantum walks with negligible decoherence in waveguide lattices

Quantum random walks are the quantum counterpart of classical random walks, and were recently studied in the context of quantum computation. Physical implementations of quantum walks have only been made in very small scale systems severely limited by decoherence. Here we show that the propagation of photons in waveguide lattices, which have been studied extensively in recent years, are essentially an implementation of quantum walks. Since waveguide lattices are easily constructed at large scales and display negligible decoherence, they can serve as an ideal and versatile experimental playground for the study of quantum walks and quantum algorithms. We experimentally observe quantum walks in large systems (similar to 100 sites) and confirm quantum walks effects which were studied theoretically, including ballistic propagation, disorder, and boundary related effects

The dust content of QSO hosts at high redshift

Infrared observations of high-z quasar (QSO) hosts indicate the presence of large masses of dust in the early universe. When combined with other observables, such as neutral gas masses and star formation rates, the dust content of z~6 QSO hosts may help constraining their star formation history. We have collected a database of 58 sources from the literature discovered by various surveys and observed in the FIR. We have interpreted the available data by means of chemical evolution models for forming proto-spheroids, investigating the role of the major parameters regulating star formation and dust production. For a few systems, given the derived small dynamical masses, the observed dust content can be explained only assuming a top-heavy initial mass function, an enhanced star formation efficiency and an increased rate of dust accretion. However, the possibility that, for some systems, the dynamical mass has been underestimated cannot be excluded. If this were the case, the dust mass can be accounted for by standard model assumptions. We provide predictions regarding the abundance of the descendants of QSO hosts; albeit rare, such systems should be present and detectable by future deep surveys such as Euclid already at z>4.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, MNRAS, accepte

Effect of Nonlinearity on Adiabatic Evolution of Light

We investigate the effect of nonlinearity in a system described by an adiabatically evolving Hamiltonian. Experiments are conducted in a three-core waveguide structure that is adiabatically varying with distance, in analogy to the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage process in atomic physics. In the linear regime, the system exhibits an adiabatic power transfer between two waveguides which are not directly coupled, with negligible power recorded in the intermediate coupling waveguide. In the presence of nonlinearity the adiabatic light passage is found to critically depend on the excitation power. We show how this effect is related to the destruction of the dark state formed in this configuration

Comparative radiosensitivity of Medfly cells and embryos.

This research is dealing with the effect of 6O Co gamma radiation on cultured "In vitro" cells and on embryos at different developmental stages, of Ceratitis capitata Wiedemann. The parameters ana1yzed for both the cells and the embryos were growrh, survival and mortality rates. The immediate and late effects of irradiation were also studied at the level of egg hatching, larval life cycle, emergence of adults and their fertility. A particular result that became evident in the cormparison of the radiosensitivity was that the ceIls "in vitro" had a greater radioresistance than the very young embryos by a factor of 3, but the ceIls had less resistance by a factor of 8.5 when compared with the developed embryos. In general, with an increase in dose there was an increase in damage; even at 1200 rad a prolonged arrest was found in the growth of the cell population, and with 2400 rad it was found in the developmenr of 24 h old embryos. Confronting embryos of different ages, it was noted that the same quantitative effect was obtained with doses proportional to the age of the embryos: the same mortality effect in 30 min old embryos irradiated with 300 rad as in those 24 h old treated with 4800 rad was observed. The results obtained are presented and discussed.Peer reviewe

The M_BH-M_star relation of obscured AGNs at high redshift

We report the detection of broad Halpha emission in three X-ray selected obscured AGNs at z=1-2. By exploiting the Halpha width and the intrinsic X-ray luminosity, we estimate their black hole masses, which are in the range 0.1-3x10^9 Msun. By means of multi-band photometric data, we measure the stellar mass of their host galaxy and, therefore, infer their M_BH/M_star ratio. These are the first obscured AGNs at high-z, selected based on their black hole accretion (i.e. on the basis of their X-ray luminosity), that can be located on the M_BH-M_star relation at high-z. All of these obscured high-z AGNs are fully consistent with the local M_BH-M_star relation. This result conflicts with those for other samples of AGNs in the same redshift range, whose M_BH/M_star ratio departs significantly from the value observed in local galaxies. We suggest that the obscured AGNs in our sample are in an advanced evolutionary stage, have already settled onto the local M_BH-M_star relation, and whose nuclear activity has been temporarily revived by recent galaxy interactions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in A&A Letters, slightly revised discussion on SMG

Vulnerability and housing policies through the lens of Anthropology. An introduction

The Dossier «Vulnerability and Housing Policies. Anthropological insights across Europe» is the result of a panel organized by the editors at the 15th EASA Biennial Conference hosted by Stockholm University in August 2018. In this context, we proposed to explore ethnographically housing policies as peculiar and paradigmatic forms of contemporary «regimes of mobility». Coherently to the panel target, the main theme of this Dossier is the anthropological analysis of the production of social and political vulnerability in Europe through housing policies. In particular, the ethnographies hosted in this Dossier explore the dense intersection between different configurations of social and political action, such as housing rights, residents’ responses to public policies, vulnerability, real estate politics, migration, forced evictions, infrastructures. It is impossible to understand contemporary Europe, we argue, without understanding what is going on with housing policies. Anthropology may give a fundamental contribution in this sense.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio