<i>Gobius ater</i> Bellotti (<i>Pisces, Perciformes</i>): specie valida ed inclusa nella fauna italiana

Gobius ater Bellotti (1888), hitherto known from Nice and Balearic Island, is also inc1uded in the Italian ichthyofauna. It was found on Posidonia beads near Alghero (Sardinia). The study of its morphological characters confirms that this is a good species well different from G. niger L

Il duello con sé stessi: Il cavaliere doppio di Théophile Gautier

In a story entitled “Le chevalier double” and published in 1840, Théophile Gautier stages the duel between a medieval knight and his double, who represents a part of himself, a diabolical part whose origin lies in a mysterious adultery. Hovwring between the fairy tale and the fantastic, this story is contemporary to Poe’s “William Wilson”, and echoes some earlier works, by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Washington Irving in particular, but also draws on a more distant tradition which dates back to seventeenth-century Spain. Poe and Gautier gave different results and meanings to the duels of their characters: this paper proposes a reflection on this difference, and more generally on the theme of the duel with the double

Contradictions du fantastique

Le livre de Francesco Orlando, Il soprannaturale letterario : storia, logica e forme, publié à titre posthume en 2017, propose de nouvelles catégories pour définir les manières qu’a eu la littérature de mettre en scène des événements invraisemblables, en conflit avec les lois connues de l’univers. La catégorie du fantastique en est ainsi réduite à des dimensions moindres par rapport à la tradition critique inaugurée jadis par Roger Caillois. Elle est côtoyée, dans les deux derniers siècles, par d’autres modalités. Mais elle représente néanmoins la forme de conflit la plus violente entre croyance et critique. C’est là que nous trouvons le climax de la lutte entre l’instance rationnelle répressive et l’instance irrationnelle enfantine. De ce point de vue, le fantastique représente éminemment la remise en cause du rationalisme par la culture romantique, dans un monde littéraire où le système des genres cédait sa place à l’usage des genres.Francesco Orlando’s posthumous book, Il soprannaturale letterario : storia, logica e forme (2017), introduces new categories to define the ways in which literature has staged implausible events in conflict with the known laws of the universe. The category of the fantastic is thus reduced to smaller dimensions compared to the critical tradition once inaugurated by Roger Caillois. In the last two centuries, it has been surrounded by other modalities. But it nevertheless represents the most violent form of conflict between belief and criticism. There we find the climax of the struggle between the repressive rational agent and the childish irrational agent. From this point of view, the fantastic eminently represents the questioning of rationalism by the romantic culture, in a literary world where the system of genres gave way to the use of genres

Il secolo della continuità

L’equilibrio tra l’approccio qualitativo, che tende a separare i fenomeni secondo la loro appartenenza a categorie distinte, e l’approccio quantitativo, che tende a concepire i fenomeni come differenze di grado o di intensità, è fortemente alterato nell’Ottocento, a favore di un senso della continuità che si generalizza. Questo riguarda soprattutto le frontiere tra il corpo e la mente, e quelle tra il normale e il patologico, e si manifesta in forme e strategie nuove del romanzo.The balance between a qualitative approach, which tends to separate phenomena according to their belonging to distinct categories, and a quantitative approach, which tends to conceive the diversity of phenomena as a difference of degree or intensity, is greatly altered in the nineteenth century, in favour of a sense of continuity which becomes general. This affects essentially the question of the boundaries between the body and the soul, as well as the normal and the pathological, and appears in new forms and strategies of the novel

Battery-Operated Atomic Force Microscope

The design of a battery-operated atomic force microscope (AFM) using a piezoresistive cantilever is described. The AFM is designed so that all power to drive the scanning tube and detection electronics comes from a self-contained battery. The prototype AFM uses a 6 V, Ni–Cd, camcorder battery, however, any battery that supplies between 6 and 12 V may be used. Scanner control and data acquisition are implemented using commercially available software running on an external computer. The prototype AFM achieves a scan area of 53 by 53 μm, consumes 1.8 W of power, and can scan continuously for about 7 h on a single battery charge

Mechanisms regulating angiogenesis underlie seasonal control of pituitary function

Seasonal changes in mammalian physiology, such as those affecting reproduction, hibernation and metabolism, are controlled by pituitary hormones released in response to annual environmental changes. In temperate zones, the primary environmental cue driving seasonal reproductive cycles is the change in daylength (photoperiod), encoded by the pattern of melatonin secretion from the pineal gland. However, although reproduction relies on hypothalamic gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH) output, and most cells producing reproductive hormones are in the pars distalis (PD) of the pituitary, melatonin receptors are localized in the pars tuberalis (PT), a physically and functionally separate part of the gland. How melatonin in the PT controls the PD is not understood. Here we show that melatonin time-dependently acts on its receptors in the PT to alter splicing of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Outside the breeding season, angiogenic VEGF-A stimulates vessel growth in the infundibulum, aiding vascular communication between the PT, PD and brain. This also acts on VEGFR2 expressed in PD prolactin-producing cells known to impair gonadotrophin secretion. In contrast, in the breeding season, melatonin releases anti-angiogenic VEGF-Axxxb from the PT, inhibiting infundibular angiogenesis and diminishing lactotroph VEGFR2 expression, lifting reproductive axis repression in response to shorter day lengths. The time-dependent, melatonin-induced differential expression of VEGF-A isoforms culminates in alterations in gonadotroph function opposite to those of lactotrophs, with up-regulation and down-regulation of gonadotropin gene expression during the breeding and non-breeding season, respectively. These results provide a novel mechanism by which melatonin can control pituitary function in a seasonal manner

Comparison between Conduction and Convection Effects on Self-Heating in Doped Microcantilevers

The present study investigates the effects of thermal conduction and convection on self-heating temperatures and bimetallic deflections produced in doped microcantilever sensors. These cantilevers are commonly used as sensors and actuators in microsystems. The cantilever is a monolith, multi-layer structure with a thin U-shaped element inside. The cantilever substrate is made of silicon and silicon dioxide, respectively, and the element is p-doped silicon. A numerical analysis package (ANSYS) is used to study the effect of cantilever substrate material, element width, applied voltage and the operating environments on cantilever characteristics. The numerical results for temperature are compared against their analytical models. Results indicate the numerical results are accurate within 6% of analytical, and Si/Si cantilevers are more suitable for biosensors and AFM, whereas, Si/SiO2 are for hotplates and actuators applications