The hidden aspects of signification. Semiotics of practices and sensory science

[Abstract] Studying practices implies to cope with hidden aspects of signification. This is particularly true when an interaction does not take place at a verbal level. Considering food and wine tasting as a case study, this paper aims at discussing the problems this peculiar object presents to a semiotic gaze. The richness of these meaningful practices and the need to make the tasters’ experiences attestable and analysable requires different methodologies, such as interviews, videos and participant observation. How do these typically ethnographical tools integrate in the semiotic perspective? Moreover, may the sensory sciences’ methodology help to develop a semiotic analytical model which allow to discover the hidden aspects of signification? Any attempt to build a semiotics of practices has to answer this questio

Cuestión de estilo. Práctica de resemantización, entre medios y política: el caso Beppe Grillo

This article investigates the close relationship linking the style of a political subject with the mediatisation of public space; the style, on one hand, shows traces of the mediatisation, but, on the other hand, can succeed in restructuring the public space. Moreover, the creation of a style and of credibility, one of the main problems for any political subject, cannot be understood without considering the mediatic background where it takes place and where it finds its roots. The article starts from a general introduction to these issues and then it focuses on a specific Italian case: the building of a political identity by the comedian Beppe Grillo. He has built a distinctive style through the uninterrupted interaction and hybridization between different discursive sphere related to the public space: the traditional mediatic sphere, the virtual sphere of the blog and the appropriation of the public square.Este ensayo indaga sobre la estrecha relación que une la construcción del estilo de una figura política con el fenómeno de la mediatización del espacio público, donde tanto el estilo como la mediatización pueden influírse mutuamente reestructurando el espacio público. Por otra parte, el problema de la construcción de un estilo y de una credibilidad, central para todo actor político, no puede tratarse fuera del escenario mediático en el que ocurre y en el que está profundamente arraigado. A partir de una reflexión general, el artículo se concentra en el análisis de un caso específico en medio de la escena italiana, la construcción de la identidad política del cómico Beppe Grillo, quien ha construído un estilo peculiar a partir de la continua interacción e hibridación entre diversas esferas discursivas relacionadas con el espacio público, como son la de los medios tradicionales, la virtual del blog, hasta reapropiarse del mismo foro político.Questo saggio indaga la stretta relazione che lega la costruzione dello stile di un soggetto politico al fenomeno della mediatizzazione dello spazio pubblico; se da un lato risente della mediatizzazione, lo stile nondimeno può giungere a ristrutturare lo spazio pubblico. D’altra parte, il problema della costruzione di uno stile e di una credibilità, centrale per ogni soggetto politico, non può essere trattato al di fuori dello scenario mediatico in cui avviene e su cui è profondamente fondato. A partire da una riflessione più generale, l’articolo si concentra sull’analisi di un caso specifico al centro della scena italiana, la costruzione dell’identità politica del comico Beppe Grillo, il quale ha costruito uno stile peculiare proprio a partire dalla continua interazione e ibridazione tra diverse sfere discorsive attinenti allo spazio pubblico: quella dei media tradizionali, quella virtuale del blog, fino alla riappropriazione Della piazza

The spatio-temporal distribution patterns of biting midges of the genus Culicoides in Salta province, Argentina

The goal of this survey was to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution patterns of Culicoides Latreille species (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) and their relationship with environmental variables in Salta, northwestern Argentina. Culicoides were collected monthly from January 2003 through December 2005. The influence of the climatic variables on population abundance was analyzed with a multilevel Poisson regression. A total of 918 specimens belonging to five species were collected. The most abundant species was Culicoides paraensis Goeldi (65.5%), followed by Culicoides lahillei Iches (14.6%) and Culicoides debilipalpis Lutz (7.6%). The highest seasonal abundance for C. paraensis, C. debilipalpis and C. lahillei occurred during the spring and summer. A Poisson regression analysis showed that the mean maximum and minimum temperature and the mean maximum and minimum humidity were the variables with the greatest influence on the population abundance of Culicoides species.Fil: Veggiani Aybar, Cecilia Adriana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto Superior de Entomología; ArgentinaFil: Dantur Juri, Maria Julia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto Superior de Entomología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Chilecito; ArgentinaFil: Santana, Mirta Sara. Universidad Nacional de Tucuman. Facultad de Medicina. Departamento de Investigación. Area de Bioestadística; ArgentinaFil: Lizarralde, Mercedes Sara. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales e Instituto Miguel Lillo. Instituto Superior de Entomología; ArgentinaFil: Spinelli, Gustavo Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Limnología "Dr. Raúl A. Ringuelet". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. Instituto de Limnología; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Entomología; Argentin

Children’s selection of emojis to express food-elicited emotions in varied eating contexts

Emojis were suggested for children to be used to measure food-elicited emotions. The present study was aimed to explore the appropriateness of emojis to describe pre-adolescents’ emotions elicited by foods recalled in relation to different evoked eating contexts and to explore related age- and gender differences. Fifty-five boys and forty-one girls aged 9–13 participated to the study. First, subjects were asked to recall, by means of an open-ended question, the foods they had in specific eating contexts: “Most liked food” and “Most disliked food”, “Breakfast”, “Dinner”, “Snack”, “Birthday” and “Novel food”. Then, they were asked to select the emojis appropriate to describe their feelings for the context-related foods by selecting from a list of 92 facial emojis (CATA method). Emojis selected by more than 20% of children in at least one eating context qualified as food-related. In total, 46 emojis resulted as appropriate to describe emotions in different eating contexts. Pre-adolescents used mainly positive emojis, except for the context “Most disliked food”, where mainly negative emojis were used. Most food-related emojis resulted from “Most liked food” and “Most disliked food”, but the context “Birthday” also added some context-specific emojis. The number of selected emojis varied across evoked eating contexts eliciting different foods. Age and gender significantly affected emoji selection across and within foods elicited by varied eating contexts, with girls and 9–11-year-old subjects selecting some emojis more frequently across all contexts, but also within contexts. The approach used in the present study has the potential to be used for the development of a food-related emotion measurement tool for pre-adolescents. Future research aimed at interpreting the meaning of facial emojis is needed and should consider age- and gender differences.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 764985. The study was conducted as part of the project "Edulia - Bringing down barriers to children's healthy eating" (see https://edulia.eu/

The Meaning of Emoji to Describe Food Experiences in Pre-adolescents

Ongoing research has shown that emoji can be used by children to discriminate food products, but it is unclear if they express emotions and how they are linked to emotional words. Little is known about how children interpret emoji in terms of their emotional meaning in the context of food. This study aimed at investigating the emotional meaning of emoji used to describe food experiences in 9–13-year-old pre-adolescents and to measure related age and gender differences. The meaning of 46 emoji used to describe food experience was explored by: mapping emoji according to similarities and differences in their emotional meaning using the projective mapping technique, and linking emoji with emotion words using a check-all-that-apply (CATA) format. The two tasks gave consistent results and showed that emoji were discriminated along the valence (positive vs. negative) and power (dominant vs. submissive) dimension, and to a lower extent along the arousal dimension (high vs. low activation). In general, negative emoji had more distinct meanings than positive emoji in both studies, but differences in nuances of meaning were found also among positive emoji. Girls and older pre-adolescents (12–13 years old (y.o.)) discriminated positive emoji slightly better than boys and younger pre-adolescents (9–11 y.o.). This suggests that girls and older pre-adolescents may be higher in emotional granularity (the ability to experience and discriminate emotions), particularly of positive emotions. The results of the present work can be used for the development of an emoji-based tool to measure emotions elicited by foods in pre-adolescents.This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 764985. The study was conducted as part of the project "Edulia - Bringing down barriers to children's healthy eating" (see https://edulia.eu/)

Does Responsiveness to Basic Tastes Influence Preadolescents’ Food Liking? Investigating Taste Responsiveness Segment on Bitter-Sour-Sweet and Salty-Umami Model Food Samples

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationships between taste responsiveness and food liking in preadolescents. Model food samples of grapefruit juice (GF) and vegetable broth (VB) modified with four additions of sucrose and sodium chloride, respectively, were employed. Intensity perception for sweetness, sourness, and bitterness were measured in GF while saltiness and umami were measured in VB. The children (N = 148) also completed food choice, familiarity, stated liking and neophobia questionnaires. The test was conducted at school, with instructions provided remotely via video call. Four segments were defined differing in basic taste responsiveness. Segments and sucrose concentrations significantly affected liking for GF, while no significant effect of segments and sodium chloride concentrations occurred on liking for VB. An increasing sucrose concentration was positively associated with liking for GF only in the segment with low responsiveness to bitter and sour tastes. No significant differences across segments were found for food choice, familiarity, stated liking, and neophobia. Conclusively, relationships between taste responsiveness and liking are product and basic taste-dependent in addition to being subject-dependent. Strategies to improve acceptance by using sucrose as a suppressor for warning sensations of bitterness and sourness can be more or less effective depending on individual responsiveness to the basic tastes.publishedVersio

Glutamate/GABA co-release selectively influences postsynaptic glutamate receptors in mouse cortical neurons.

Abstract Cultured rat cortical neurons co-expressing VGLUT1 and VGAT (mixed synapses) co-release Glu and GABA. Here, mixed synapses were studied in cultured mouse cortical neurons to verify whether in mice mixed synapses co-release Glu and GABA, and to gain insight into how they may influence excitation/inhibition balance. Results showed the existence of synapses and autapses that co-release Glu and GABA in cultured mouse cortical neurons, and the ability of both neurotransmitters to evoke postsynaptic responses mediated by ionotropic receptors. We studied the short-term plasticity of glutamatergic, GABAergic, and mixed responses and we found that the kinetics of mixPSC amplitude depression was similar to that observed in EPSCs, but it was different from that of IPSCs. We found similar presynaptic release characteristics in glutamatergic and mixed synapses. Analysis of postsynaptic features, obtained by measuring AMPAR- and NMDAR-mediated currents, showed that AMPAR-mediated currents were significantly higher in pure glutamatergic than in mixed synapses, whereas NMDAR-mediated currents were not significantly different from those measured in mixed synapses. Overall, our findings demonstrate that glutamatergic and mixed synapses share similar electrophysiological properties. However, co-release of GABA and Glu influences postsynaptic ionotropic glutamatergic receptor subtypes, thus selectively influencing AMPAR-mediated currents. These findings strengthen the view that mixed neurons can play a key role in CNS development and in maintaining the excitation-inhibition balance