Are-nati: ampliamento dei pubblici all'Arena dello Sferisterio. Come avvicinare i bambini e le bambine al mondo dell'opera lirica attraverso la narrazione

Quando pensiamo al pubblico dell'opera lirica, immediatamente lo associamo a un pubblico di adulti poich\ue9 gli argomenti trattati nelle storie dell'opera sono molto complessi e le tematiche affrontate spesso delicate. L'opera lirica \ue8 famosa in tutto il mondo ed \ue8 una delle arti performative pi\uf9 articolate: contiene simultaneamente codici linguistici diversi come musica, teatro e testo. Affronta nelle sue trame problematiche connaturate all'esistenza dell'uomo come l'amore, l'odio, la gelosia, il tradimento, ma anche il coraggio, la libert\ue0 o il senso di giustizia. Nel nostro progetto di ricerca discuteremo la possibilit\ue0 di introdurre bambini dai 5 agli 11 anni all'opera lirica attraverso lo storytelling e un approccio ludico. Il nostro obiettivo \ue8 coinvolgere un numero sempre crescente di bambini che guardino all'opera lirica con naturalezza e familiarit\ue0. I bambini possono giocare con i personaggi delle storie, discutere della musica e della trama, disegnare immagini e drammatizzare la storia attraverso attivit\ue0 specifiche del laboratorio. La ricerca si basa sull'interesse per la teoria del "pensiero narrativo " di Bruner in quanto la narrazione \ue8 definita dallo stesso autore come una delle pi\uf9 antiche attivit\ue0 umane, in grado di facilitare la costruzione di significati, un comportamento universale che \ue8 la base delle interazioni umane, ancor prima di avere un'espressione linguistica. Unitamente a questa, la nostra ricerca si concentra sulla teoria delle intelligenze multiple di H. Gardner proprio perch\ue9 i centri di apprendimento creati di volta in volta sono pensati al fine di sostenere tutte le intelligenze del bambino facilitando lo scambio di relazioni e competenze con gli altri coetanei. Le storie dell'opera che abbiamo deciso di raccontare in questi anni sono state: Otello, Norma e Il trovatore nel 2016, Madama Butterfly, Aida e Turandot, nel 2017 e Il Flauto magico, La Traviata e l'Elisir d'Amore nel 2018. Le trame delle opere raccontate, cos\uec come tutte le storie per bambini pi\uf9 famose, hanno dimostrato di avere la classica struttura che presenta: un inizio, uno svolgimento e una fine, come indicato dallo studioso delle fiabe V. Propp e che iniziano sempre con la formula: "C'era una volta" proiettandoci immediatamente in un mondo parallelo, non reale ma verosimile. Questa ricerca nasce da un dottorato Eureka sviluppato in collaborazione con l'azienda Esserci Comunicazione di Macerata che dal 2012 segue la promozione della stagione lirica dello Sferisterio. Intitolato "Are-Nati: Ampliamento dei Pubblici all'Arena dello Sferisterio" questo progetto di ricerca ha l'obiettivo di produrre libri accessibili per bambini ma anche workshop e attivit\ue0 esplorative per coinvolgere e motivare un pubblico nuovo, di giovani e futuri spettatori di questa tradizione italiana. Le storie sono fondamentali per lo sviluppo di bambine e bambini e le trame dell'opera lirica possono trasformarsi anch' essere in storie per far sognare e crescere i pi\uf9 piccoli

An exploration in the Apulian human-plants relations: uncovering wild flora knowledge for educational ways forward

The thesis aims to inform personal and collective awareness of the wild edible flora to account for the reported fragmentation in knowledge hindering the preservation of cultural heritage. It envisions the latter being advocated by schools joining the cause and contributing to the thesis’ aim. It uses ethnobotany and its study of human-plant interrelations to locate research and inspire its methodology. The latter employs a phenomenological lens that asks about the scenery of human-plant interrelations in Apulia and the knowledge present within. I ask so to discover the knowledge, understand relations and develop connections. The discovery happens by meeting twelve prime Apulian local realities. Further, I find ways to explore the relations uncovered to unleash insights that re-imagine ethnobotanical encounters. These are co-created through a workshop with seven experts and proposed to schools for fostering wild flora knowledge with an additional ‘Memory of the Apulian Flora Storybook’. I affiliate these solutions to elementary schools for hopeful implementation. Through the process, the thesis intends to show what is possible away from systematised knowledge of ethnobotany and reveals ways in which locality can be lived, learned and uncovered

Fast Session Resumption in DTLS for Mobile Communications

DTLS is a protocol that provides security guarantees to Internet communications. It can operate on top of both TCP and UDP transport protocols. Thus, it is particularly suited for peer-to-peer and distributed multimedia applications. The same holds if the endpoints are mobile devices. In this scenario, mechanisms are needed to surmount possible network disconnections, often arising due to the mobility or the scarce resources of devices, that can jeopardize the quality of the communications. Session resumption is thus a main issue to deal with. To this aim, we propose a fast reconnection scheme that employs non-connected sockets to quickly resume DTLS communication sessions. The proposed scheme is assessed in a performance evaluation that confirms its viability.Comment: Proceedings of the IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference 2020 (CCNC 2020

Analysis of Dust Fires and Explosions in the Food Processing Industry

Nearly all solid granular foods and powdered ingredients, such as sugar, flour, grain, spices, starch, and powdered flavors, have the capacity to sustain a combustion. This may result often in dust fires, originating from dust layers and heaps, and sometimes also in violent explosions, when the dust is suspended and a cloud is formed. Many factors affect the explosion violence or the ignition sensitivity of a dust cloud: these can be related to physical properties of the solid material (particle size, moisture content, minimum ignition temperature, etc.) and to the geometry of the system involved in the explosion (closed vessels, long pipes, degree of turbulence, etc.). While the conditions to have an explosion occur rarely in processing buildings, hazardous dust clouds regularly form during bin filling, powder conveying, or dust collection. The scope of this paper is to review a selection of incidents occurred in the past involving solid food materials and analyze them against the current best industrial practices regarding explosion prevention and protection. Particular attention will be given to the analysis of potential ignition sources and their effectiveness in igniting the flammable dust atmosphere. A selection of “lessons learnt” will also be derived from the analysis of the incidents. Lastly, the paper shall discuss the most recent trends of combustible dust fires and explosions among other industry sectors (pharmaceutical, wood processing, chemical, energy production), to gain insights about potential areas of improvement to advance in people and plant safety

PABS: An online platform to assist BAC-by-BAC sequencing projects

Genome sequencing projects are either based on whole genome shotgun (WGS) or on a BAC-by-BAC strategy. Although WGS is in most cases the preferred choice, sometimes the BAC-by-BAC approach may be better because it requires a much simpler assembly process. Furthermore, when the study is limited to specific regions of the genome, the WGS would require an unjustified effort, making the BAC-by-BAC the only feasible strategy. In this paper we describe an informatics pipeline called PABS (Platform Assisted BAC-by-BAC Sequencing) that we developed to provide a tool to optimize the BAC-by-BAC sequencing strategy. PABS has two main functions: (i) PABS-Select, to choose suitable overlapping clones; and (ii) PABS-Validate, to verify whether a BAC under analysis is actually overlapping the neighboring BAC

Butyrylcholinesterase and Acetylcholinesterase polymorphisms in Multiple Sclerosis patients: Implication in peripheral inflammation

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease, having not fully understood aetiology, and both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the pathogenesis of the disease. The cholinergic system has been indicated as a mediator of neuro-immune interactions, as well as an internal regulator of immune responses. The aim of the present research was to assess the associations between BChE and AChE genetic variations and serum cholinergic and inflammatory profiles in 102 Relapsing Remitting-MS patients and 117 healthy controls. An increased frequency of the BChE K-allele in MS patients as compared to controls was found. In addition, data showed that patients had higher BChE enzymatic activity, which is increased by the presence of the polymorphic allele and reduced amounts of circulating ACh. AChE polymorphism was significantly associated to reduced activity in both patients and controls. We propose that serum BChE and AChE activity may be used as a secondary markers to assess the role of non-neuronal cholinergic system in regulating peripheral inflammation via ACh regulation. This pilot study shed light on the role of the non-neuronal cholinergic system in immune cells to better understand MS pathogenesis. The cross-talk between the periphery and the CNS could have a new undescribed crucial role for MS, regarded as a systemic disease

Filtering "genic" open reading frames from genomic DNA samples for advanced annotation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In order to carry out experimental gene annotation, DNA encoding open reading frames (ORFs) derived from real genes (termed "genic") in the correct frame is required. When genes are correctly assigned, isolation of genic DNA for functional annotation can be carried out by PCR. However, not all genes are correctly assigned, and even when correctly assigned, gene products are often incorrectly folded when expressed in heterologous hosts. This is a problem that can sometimes be overcome by the expression of protein fragments encoding domains, rather than full-length proteins. One possible method to isolate DNA encoding such domains would to "filter" complex DNA (cDNA libraries, genomic and metagenomic DNA) for gene fragments that confer a selectable phenotype relying on correct folding, with all such domains present in a complex DNA sample, termed the “domainome”.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper we discuss the preparation of diverse genic ORF libraries from randomly fragmented genomic DNA using ß-lactamase to filter out the open reading frames. By cloning DNA fragments between leader sequences and the mature ß-lactamase gene, colonies can be selected for resistance to ampicillin, conferred by correct folding of the lactamase gene. Our experiments demonstrate that the majority of surviving colonies contain genic open reading frames, suggesting that ß-lactamase is acting as a selectable folding reporter. Furthermore, different leaders (Sec, TAT and SRP), normally translocating different protein classes, filter different genic fragment subsets, indicating that their use increases the fraction of the “domainone” that is accessible.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The availability of ORF libraries, obtained with the filtering method described here, combined with screening methods such as phage display and protein-protein interaction studies, or with protein structure determination projects, can lead to the identification and structural determination of functional genic ORFs. ORF libraries represent, moreover, a useful tool to proceed towards high-throughput functional annotation of newly sequenced genomes.</p

Phenotyping spontaneous locomotor activity in inbred and outbred mouse strains by using Digital Ventilated Cages

Mouse strains differ markedly in all behaviors, independently of their genetic background. We undertook this study to disentangle the diurnal activity and feature key aspects of three non-genetically altered mouse strains widely used in research, C57BL/6NCrl (inbred), BALB/cAnNCrl (inbred) and CRL:CD1(ICR) (outbred). With this aim, we conducted a longitudinal analysis of the spontaneous locomotor activity of the mice during a 24-h period for 2 months, in two different periods of the year to reduce the seasonality effect. Mice (males and females) were group-housed in Digital Ventilated Cages (Tecniplast), mimicking standard housing conditions in research settings and avoiding the potential bias provided in terms of locomotor activity by single housing. The recorded locomotor activity was analyzed by relying on different and commonly used circadian metrics (i.e., day and night activity, diurnal activity, responses to lights-on and lights-off phases, acrophase and activity onset and regularity disruption index) to capture key behavioral responses for each strain. Our results clearly demonstrate significant differences in the circadian activity of the three selected strains, when comparing inbred versus outbred as well as inbred strains (C57BL/6NCrl versus BALB/cAnNCrl). Conversely, males and females of the same strain displayed similar motor phenotypes; significant differences were recorded only for C57BL/6NCrl and CRL:CD1(ICR) females, which displayed higher average locomotor activity from prepuberty to adulthood. All strain-specific differences were further confirmed by an unsupervised machine learning approach. Altogether, our data corroborate the concept that each strain behaves under characteristic patterns, which needs to be taken into consideration in the study design to ensure experimental reproducibility and comply with essential animal welfare principles

Constant rate infusion of diazepam or propofol for the management of canine cluster seizures or status epilepticus

INTRODUCTION: Cluster seizures (CS) and status epilepticus (SE) in dogs are severe neurological emergencies that require immediate treatment. Practical guidelines call for constant rate infusion (CRI) of benzodiazepines or propofol (PPF) in patients with seizures not responding to first-line treatment, but to date only few studies have investigated the use of CRI in dogs with epilepsy. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective clinical study. METHODS: Dogs that received CRI of diazepam (DZP) or PPF for antiepileptic treatment during hospitalization at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of the University of Turin for CS or SE between September 2016 and December 2019 were eligible for inclusion. Favorable outcome was defined as cessation of clinically visible seizure activity within few minutes from the initiation of the CRI, no seizure recurrence within 24 h after discontinuation of CRI through to hospital discharge, and clinical recovery. Poor outcome was defined as recurrence of seizure activity despite treatment or death in hospital because of recurrent seizures, catastrophic consequences of prolonged seizures or no return to an acceptable neurological and clinical baseline, despite apparent control of seizure activity. Comparisons between the number of patients with favorable outcome and those with poor outcome in relation to type of CRI, seizure etiology, reason for presentation (CS or SE), sex, previous AED therapy and dose of PPF CRI were carried out. RESULTS: A total of 37 dogs, with 50 instances of hospitalization and CRI administered for CS or SE were included in the study. CRI of diazepam (DZP) or PPF was administered in 29/50 (58%) and in 21/50 (42%) instances of hospitalization, respectively. Idiopathic epilepsy was diagnosed in 21/37 (57%), (13/21 tier I and 8/21 tier II); structural epilepsy was diagnosed in 6/37 (16%) of which 4/6 confirmed and 2/6 suspected. A metabolic or toxic cause of seizure activity was recorded in 7/37 (19%). A total of 38/50 (76%) hospitalizations were noted for CS and 12/50 (24%) for SE. In 30/50 (60%) instances of hospitalization, the patient responded well to CRI with cessation of seizure activity, no recurrence in the 24 h after discontinuation of CRI through to hospital discharge, whereas a poor outcome was recorded for 20/50 (40%) cases (DZP CRI in 12/50 and PPF CRI in 8/50). Comparison between the number of patients with favorable outcome and those with poor outcome in relation to type of CRI, seizure etiology, reason for presentation (CS or SE), sex and previous AED therapy was carried out but no statistically significant differences were found. CONCLUSIONS: The present study is the first to document administration of CRI of DZP or PPF in a large sample of dogs with epilepsy. The medications appeared to be tolerated without major side effects and helped control seizure activity in most patients regardless of seizure etiology. Further studies are needed to evaluate the effects of CRI duration on outcome and complications