Intertwined Histories and Ecologies: Early architectural and hydraulic treatises and practices in the Venetian Region.

Looking critically at ecology, contemporary thinkers such as Bruno Latour, Philippe Descola, and Maria Puig de la Bellacasa make a case that the idea of nature has changed throughout history. This requires a new perspective that overcomes established divisions between humans and non-humans, moving beyond the dualism of nature and culture. Their contributions emphasise a new philosophical framework for an ecological vision that suggests alternate ways of working through them. To define an imaginary narrative for cities and their territories, the thesis adopts the lens of the Arcadian discourse, meant as a narrative, historical and conceptual tool for unearthing ecological concepts in history according to three dimensions: the physical, the political, and the symbolic. Coined by Donald Worster through reading Gilbert White’s works, and rooted in Virgil’s works, this definition embodies a sympathetic approach towards nature, posing an alternative to imperialist approaches that assert dominion over nature. This research focuses on the historical period between the 15th and 17th centuries, corresponding to rhetorical Arcadian naturalism in architecture, just before what Manfredo Tafuri defined as Enlightenment naturalism, and to the revival of the Arcadian genre in Italian literary works. Among these, Theogenius by Leon Battista Alberti explores a conception of nature that echoes Arcadian components in terms of their implications for architectural theory. Subsequent comparison with Daniele Barbaro’s Commentary provides an opportunity to move from the world of abstract ideas to the concrete matter of fact of Venice and its surrounding territory, which had always experienced the negative impacts of human beings on their environment. Situating these discourses and their effects in the reading of early hydraulic theories, projects, visual and graphic representations, laws, and human and non-human stories related to Venice’s practices of land and water management, the re-articulation of contemporary ecological concerns has been prompted through a historical lens

Differential targeting of immune-cells by Pixantrone in experimental myasthenia gravis

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Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: Beyond Risk Factors

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is defined as "the sudden death of an infant under 1 year of age which remains unexplained after thorough investigation including a complete autopsy, death scene investigation, and detailed clinical and pathological review". A significant decrease of SIDS deaths occurred in the last decades in most countries after the beginning of national campaigns, mainly as a consequence of the implementation of risk reduction action mostly concentrating on the improvement of sleep conditions. Nevertheless, infant mortality from SIDS still remains unacceptably high. There is an urgent need to get insight into previously unexplored aspects of the brain system with a special focus on high-risk groups. SIDS pathogenesis is associated with a multifactorial condition that comprehends genetic, environmental and sociocultural factors. Effective prevention of SIDS requires multiple interventions from different fields. Developing brain susceptibility, intrinsic vulnerability and early identification of infants with high risk of SIDS represents a challenge. Progress in SIDS research appears to be fundamental to the ultimate aim of eradicating SIDS deaths. A complex model that combines different risk factor data from biomarkers and omic analysis may represent a tool to identify a SIDS risk profile in newborn settings. If high risk is detected, the infant may be referred for further investigations and follow ups. This review aims to illustrate the most recent discoveries from different fields, analyzing the neuroanatomical, genetic, metabolic, proteomic, environmental and sociocultural aspects related to SIDS

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

L’invariante architettonica del poché

The poché architectural invariant - This paper attempts to summarise the Poché architectural invariant by means of a few crucial steps, focusing particularly on its use in Le Corbusier’s composition poetics. Although short, this discussion offers the chance to rediscover some of the properties that the Poché invariant activates in architectural composition such as interference, hybridation and deformation. They are properties which thanks to the later theoretical support of Venturi and Rowe, should be of interest for an analytical and critical reading of some contemporary design projects, the most structured of which would seem to a theoretical revisiting of Eisenman