Writing Games

As in the United States and in many countries across Europe, the quiz show was a founding genre for Italian television as far back as the 1950s: because of their broad appeal, such game shows as Lascia o raddoppia and Il musichiere contributed strongly to television's burgeoning popularity during the subsequent decades. Since then, the quiz show has traversed different eras of television history, with partial and gradual changes to its textual features, aesthetics and narratives, as well as its production routines. Since the 1980s, with deregulation and the advent of commercial television, the Italian game-show market has become more international and more reliant on formats. In the genre's long history, the "hidden profession" of writing TV games exhibits elements of both continuity and change. The needs of format-adaptation have highlighted two main areas of "localization": question-writing and casting. This essay explores the profession of game-show writer in Italy and how the role has evolved. It adopts a historical framework to illuminate the continuity and change in the profession, in relation to a broader history of both the genre and the television medium, while also seeking to outline both the specificity of the Italian TV context and its connections with an international environment

Abrasive waterjet intensifier model for machine diagnostics

This paper investigates the dynamics of a waterjet plant with multiple phased single-acting plungers. An object oriented dynamic model is proposed and discussed. The simulator may be tuned to generate signals under different health conditions to train multi-fault diagnosis tools. In fact, due to the challenging pressure conditions and the aggressiveness of abrasive materials, the reliability of machine tool components is a major concern. The information throughput provided by the model is validated with respect to real-industrial data, acquired in reference cutting scenarios

Virus on the screen: consumption habits of the television audience in Spain and Italy (2019-2022)

Los efectos de la pandemia afectan a múltiples facetas de nuestra vida incluidas aquellos relativos a los medios de comunicación. En el ámbito televisivo la pandemia llegó en un momento de gran transformación del sector. Tras más de dos años desde su inicio en esta investigación se presenta un estudio diacrónico, que cubre cuatro años, y comparativo entre Italia y España. Partir de una perspectiva temporal mayor constituye el valor diferencial de esta investigación ya que se propone evaluar qué dinámicas subsistieron o cambiaron tras el confinamiento una vez iniciado el proceso de vuelta a la normalidad. Esta investigación pretende conocer mediante una metodología exploratoria descriptiva de corte cuantitativa el consumo lineal de la televisión por parte de la población de ambos países tratando de identificar los hábitos de la audiencia y las variaciones en los comportamientos de la población respecto al medio televisivo. El análisis realizado nos permite confirmar que el consumo mediático durante la primera fase de la pandemia supuso una excepcionalidad en la evolución de la televisión en ambos países pero no introdujo dinámicas nuevas en los años posteriores sino que potenció tendencias ya existentes.The effects of the pandemic affect multiple areas of our lives, including those related to the media. In the television field, the pandemic came at a time of great transformation in the sector. After more than two years since its inception, this research addresses a diachronic study that covers four years, and comparative between Italy and Spain. Starting from a longer time perspective constitutes the differential value of this study since it aims to assess what dynamics subsisted or changed after confinement once the process of returning to normality began. This research intends to know, through a quantitative descriptive exploratory methodology, the linear consumption of television by the population of both countries, trying to identify the habits of the audience and the variations in the behavior of the population with respect to the television medium. Analysis carried out allows us to confirm that media consumption during the first phase of the pandemic was exceptional in the evolution of television in both countries, but it did not introduce new dynamics but instead strengthened existing trends

Short-term multidisciplinary non-pharmacological intervention is effective in reducing liver fat content assessed non-invasively in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

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Stabilization of c-KIT G-Quadruplex DNA structures by the RNA polymerase I inhibitors BMH-21 and BA-41

The stabilization of G-quadruplex DNA structures by small molecules with affinity to oncogene promoters has emerged as a promising anticancer strategy, due to a potential role in gene expression regulation. We explored the ability of BMH-21 (1) and its analogue BA-41 (2) to bind the G-quadruplex structure present in the c-KIT promoter by biophysical methods and molecular modeling. We provide evidence that both compounds interact with the c-KIT 21-mer sequence. The stable monomeric intramolecular parallel G-quadruplex obtained by the mutation of positions 12 and 21 allowed the precise determination of the binding mode by NMR and molecular dynamics studies. Both compounds form a complex characterized by one ligand molecule positioned over the tetrad at the 30-end, stabilized by an extensive network of pi-pi interactions. The binding constants (Kb) obtained with fluorescence are similar for both complexes (around 10^6 M-1). Compound BA-41 (2) showed significant antiproliferative activity against a human lymphoma cell line, SU-DHL4, known to express substantial levels of c-KIT. However, the partial inhibition of c-KIT expression by Western blot analysis suggested that the interaction of compound 2 with the c-KIT promoter is not the primary event and that multiple e ects provide a contribution as determinants of biological activity

TELEVISIONE RESILIENTE. Il broadcasting 70 anni dopo. Annuario 2023

A settant’anni dalla sua nascita la televisione ha ridefinito i propri confini riaffermando, al contempo, la sua centralità all’interno del sistema nazionale dei media. Nel contesto del nuovo ecosistema caratterizzato dalla convivenza di broadcasting e streaming, la televisione innova sé stessa e acquisisce lo status di una “TV resiliente”, capace di incorporare il cambiamento che viene dai social media e dalle piattaforme di streaming. Seguendo l’Annuario 2021 della Televisione intitolato La televisione nella pandemia e il successivo Total TV (2022), l’Annuario 2023 interpreta le principali linee di trasformazione che hanno caratterizzato l’offerta, la produzione e il consumo della TV e del più ampio sistema degli audiovisivi lungo il corso dell’annualità 2023. L’Annuario è realizzato dal CeRTA (Centro di Ricerca sulla Televisione e gli Audiovisivi dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) in collaborazione con Auditel, APA (Associazione Produttori Audiovisivi), Sensemakers, Comscore, Nielsen, UPA (Utenti Pubblicità Associati), Confindustria Radio Televisioni, eMedia e vanta il patrocinio dell’Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM)

Made in Italy. La circolazione internazionale dell’audiovisivo e il ruolo dell’Italia fra cinema e “serialità premium”

The international circulation of audiovisuals, films and TV series constitutes an important field of research, especially in the European context, historically characterized by a limited ability of cultural and media products to cross national borders and obtain success in other non-national markets. Italy suffers from a traditional difficulty in exporting its media content, with the exception of films that manage to earn a kind of “prestige value” thanks particularly to festivals and awards (such as the Oscars), and a few other exceptions. During the 2000s, however, and in particular in the last decade, there were signs of change, that affectedparticularly series production more than films: titles such as Romanzo criminale – La serie, Gomorrah – La serie, The Young Pope/The New Pope, Suburra – La serie, My brilliant friend, Devils, to name the most notable, seem to radically change the attitude of the national television system to create fictional content intended only for local audiences. At the origin of this mutation, several factors have contributed to restoring the centrality of the audiovisual “made in Italy”. One of the important factors is undoubtedly the emergence, starting in 2008, of an unprecedented production model built by the pay or subscription based TV. This essayanalyzes what can be defined as a “Renaissance” of Italian TV fiction and presents an original research dedicated to the role of Italian “premium seriality”.La circolazione internazionale dell’audiovisivo, del cinema e del prodotto seriale, costituisce un terreno rilevante di ricerca, specie nel contesto europeo, caratterizzato storicamente da una limitata capacità dei prodotti culturali e mediali di varcare i confini nazionali e/o ottenere successo presso altri mercati del Continente. L’Italia sconta una tradizionale difficoltà a esportare i propri contenuti mediali, con l’eccezione dei film che riescono a guadagnarsi un valore “di prestigio” grazie a Festival e premi, e a poche altre eccezioni. Nel corso degli anni Duemila, però, e in particolare nell’ultimo decennio, si sono avvertiti segnali di cambiamento, che riguardano in particolare il prodotto televisivo seriale, più di quello cinematografico. All’origine di questa mutazione, diversi fattori hanno contribuito a ridare centralità al “made in Italy” audiovisivo. Uno dei fattori importanti è senz’altro l’emergere, a cominciare dal 2008, di un inedito modello produttivo pay per la serialità scripted. Questo saggio, inquadra quello che si può definire un “Rinascimento” della fiction pay italiana, illustra il contesto degli studi che hanno posto al centro della loro attenzione il tema della circolazione internazionale dell’audiovisivo e presenta una ricerca originale dedicata al ruolo della serialità premium, focalizzando l’attenzione in particolare sul caso, e il modello, italiano