6d-5d-4d reduction of BPS attractors in flat gauged supergravities

Via a series of Kaluza-Klein (KK) and Scherk-Schwarz (SS) compactifications we relate BPS attractors and their complete (in general non-BPS) flows to a Minkowski vacuum in gauged supergravities with vanishing scalar potential in 4, 5, and 6 dimensions. This way we can look at a class of extremal non-BPS black holes and strings from IIB string theory viewpoint, keeping 4 supercharges on the horizon. Our results imply the existence of a dual 2d N = (0,2) superconformal field theory (SCFT) that originates from a parent N=(4,4) theory living on a D1-D5 system. This is achieved starting from the BPS black string in 6d with an AdS_3xS^3 attractor and taking two different routes to arrive at a 1/2 BPS AdS_2xS^2 attractor of a non-BPS black hole in 4d N=2 flat gauged supergravity. The two inequivalent routes interchange the order of KK reduction on AdS_3 and SS reduction on S^3. We also find the commutator between the two operations after performing a duality transformation: on the level of the theory the result is the exchange of electric with magnetic gaugings; on the level of the solution we find a flip of the quartic invariant I_4 to -I_4.Comment: 20 pages, 2 flow charts; v2 improved discussion and added referenc

Universal consistent truncation for 6d/7d gauge/gravity duals

Recently, AdS_7 solutions of IIA supergravity have been classified; there are infinitely many of them, whose expression is known analytically, and with internal space of S^3 topology. Their field theory duals are six-dimensional (1,0) SCFT's. In this paper we show that for each of these AdS_7 solutions there exists a consistent truncation from massive IIA supergravity to minimal gauged supergravity in seven dimensions. This theory has an SU(2) gauge group, and a single scalar, whose value is related to a certain distortion of the internal S^3. This explains the universality observed in recent work on AdS_5 and AdS_4 solutions dual to compactifications of the (1,0) SCFT_6's. Thanks to previous work on the minimal gauged supergravity, the truncation also implies the existence of holographic RG-flows connecting those solutions to the AdS_7 vacuum, as well as new classes of IIA AdS_3 solutions.Comment: 23 pages; v2: references added, minor changes, additions and correction

Representations and concepts of professional ethos among Swiss religious education teacher trainers

Over the past two decades, the organisation of religious education classes in Switzerland has undergone profound reforms. Amid the increasing secularisation and pluralisation of the religious landscape, many cantons have introduced a compulsory course that falls under the responsibility of the state and is aimed at teaching basic knowledge about a variety of religions. These reforms have enabled a harmonisation of the syllabi for religious education across the country and have prompted the adaptation of teacher training programmes. Because of the many diverse social expectations surrounding these new courses and the diverse academic traditions in the field of religious education, however, a unified conception of these courses is still absent. In this article, we discuss the ongoing construction of religious education teachers’ professional ethos within this fluid context. In particular, we discuss the perspective of teacher trainers on pragmatic questions concerning religious plurality and the place of teachers’ and pupils’ personal (religious) experiences in the classroom, and pay attention to different representations of ‘religion’ and distinct ideas regarding the purpose of these courses as they have a major impact on the professional attitudes expected from teachers

Chromogranin A: From Laboratory to Clinical Aspects of Patients with Neuroendocrine Tumors

Background. Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are characterized by having behavior and prognosis that depend upon tumor histology, primary site, staging, and proliferative index. The symptoms associated with carcinoid syndrome and vasoactive intestinal peptide tumors are treated with octreotide acetate. The PROMID trial assesses the effect of octreotide LAR on the tumor growth in patients with well-differentiated metastatic midgut NETs. The CLARINET trial evaluates the effects of lanreotide in patients with nonfunctional, well-, or moderately differentiated metastatic enteropancreatic NETs. Everolimus has been approved for the treatment of advanced pancreatic NETs (pNETs) based on positive PFS effects, obtained in the treated group. Sunitinib is approved for the treatment of patients with progressive gastrointestinal stromal tumor or intolerance to imatinib, because a randomized study demonstrated that it improves PFS and overall survival in patients with advanced well-differentiated pNETs. In a phase II trial, pasireotide shows efficacy and tolerability in the treatment of patients with advanced NETs, whose symptoms of carcinoid syndrome were resistant to octreotide LAR. An open-label, phase II trial assesses the clinical activity of long-acting repeatable pasireotide in treatment-naive patients with metastatic grade 1 or 2 NETs. Even if the growth of the neoplasm was significantly inhibited, it is still unclear whether its antiproliferative action is greater than that of octreotide and lanreotide. Because new therapeutic options are needed to counter the natural behavior of neuroendocrine tumors, it would also be useful to have a biochemical marker that can be addressed better in the management of these patients. Chromogranin A is currently the most useful biomarker to establish diagnosis and has some utility in predicting disease recurrence, outcome, and efficacy of therapy

Lesebühne Ost. Szene-Literatur zwischen DDR-Vergangenheit und wiedervereinigter Gegenwart

Against the informal backdrop of Berlin public-reading events (Berliner Lesebühnen) self-organised groups of German authors are participating in a literary (sub)culture, which es­pecially since the second half of the 1990s has been flourishing in the booming East of the city, but still deserves to be properly explored. Focussing on Berlin public-reading events, this contribution aims to sketch out an underground literary-scene, in which writers grown up in the former GDR provide an unofficial view on and from (East) Germany

The complete mitogenome of the European mantis, Mantis religiosa, from Italy: implications for the origin of North American mantis population

3openInternationalItalian coauthor/editorThe European mantis, Mantis religiosa L. (Mantodea Mantidae), is distributed all over Southern Europe, Africa and Asia, and has been reported as alien species in North America. Here we present the mitogenome sequence of an Italian individual and compare it with previously sequenced Chinese and Canadian samples. The assembled mitogenome has a length of 15,530 nucleotides and includes 13 protein coding genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, 23 tRNA genes (including the additional Arginine tRNA already observed in other M. religiosa mitogenomes), and the control region. Based on the inferred phylogenetic relationships, the Canadian sample is more closely related to the Italian than to the Chinese one, in line with the putative European origin of the North American invasive population. Time-calibrated phylogeny dated the divergence among extant European Mantis lineages at 2.33 million years ago, consistent with the first appearance of M. religiosa fossils. Our results support a European origin of the North American M. religiosa population and suggest that selective processes acting on mitogenome may have contributed to its adaptation in the new area.openLuchetti, A; Ometto, L; Rota Stabelli, O.Luchetti, A.; Ometto, L.; Rota Stabelli, O

Hacking the web 2.0: user agency and the role of hackers as computational mediators

This thesis studies the contested reconfigurations of computational agency within the domain of practices and affordances involved in the use of the Internet in everyday life (here labelled lifeworld Internet), through the transition of the Internet to a much deeper reliance on computation than at any previous stage. Computational agency is here considered not only in terms of capacity to act enabled (or restrained) by the computational layer but also as the recursive capacity to reconfigure the computational layer itself, therefore in turn affecting one’s own and others’ computational agency. My research is based on multisited and diachronic ethnographic fieldwork: an initial (2005–2007) autoethnographic case study focused on the negotiations of computational agency within the development of a Web 2.0 application, later (2010–2011) fieldwork interviews focused on processes through which users make sense of the increasing pervasiveness of the Internet and of computation in everyday life, and a review (2010–2015) of hacker discourses focused on tracing the processes through which hackers constitute themselves as a recursive public able to inscribe counter–narratives in the development of technical form and to reproduce itself as a public of computational mediators with capacity to operate at the intersection of the technical and the social. By grounding my enquiry in the specific context of the lifeworlds of individual end users but by following computational agency through global hacker discourses, my research explores the role of computation, computational capacity and computational mediators in the processes through which users ‘hack’ their everyday Internet environments for practical utility, or develop independent alternatives to centralized Internet services as part of their contestation of values inscribed in the materiality of mainstream Internet