DOPO HEGEL. TOTALITÀ E SOCIETÀ

The present article addresses the question of the relationship between the Constitution of the State and the freedom of the individual in the light of the recent book by professor Giuseppe Duso Libertà e Costituzione in Hegel, an essay regarding Hegel’s political think-ing and particularly on his Philosophy of Right. By trying to sum up Hegel’s complex ar-gument about sovereignty and government, this article aims to highlight an historical and theoretical problem: with the end of the Jus Publicum Europaeum something has changed in the conceiving of the relation between State and civil society. It seems nowadays very hard to figure out government without sovereignty because of the difficult to imagine a po-litical functioning within the “totality” brought about by the age of globalization and by the crisis of the national States

Wittgenstein. Playing on the Edges of Language

This article aims to show the development of Wittgenstein’s conception of language from a pictorial model to a musical model. At first language is considered as a “means of representation” but in the second phase of Wittgenstein’s work the problem of understanding a proposition and the different shades of meaning supports an analogy with the musical dimension. In this perspective, Wittgenstein approaches the idea of language-game

Il concetto corporale De Sanctis e la “concezione” dantesca

The present essay focuses on De Sanctis’ Lectures on Dante, held during his exile in Turin and Zürich, in order to show how aesthetics, politics and religion converge in his works. De Sanctis reads Dante’s journey throughout Hell, Purgatory and Paradise both as a diary and a drama, which reintroduces action, passions and a multitude of feelings in the peace and stillness that rule the kingdom of God after the final Judgment. De Sanctis tries to illustrate how Dante unifies body and concept, moving from allegories and personifications towards figures and real people, such as Beatrice, Francesca, Vanni Fucci and Ugolino. Dante’s conception of the relationship between history and eternity plays a leading role in De Sanctis’ reworking of Hegel’s Aesthetics

Menopausal Status Dependence of the Timing of Breast Cancer Recurrence after Surgical Removal of the Primary Tumour

Introduction: Information on the metastasis process in breast cancer patients undergoing primary tumour removal may be extracted from an analysis of the timing of clinical recurrence. Methods: The hazard rate for local-regional and/or distant recurrence as the first event during the first 4 years after surgery was studied in 1173 patients undergoing mastectomy alone as primary treatment for operable breast cancer. Subset analyses were performed according to tumour size, axillary nodal status and menopausal status. Results: A sharp two-peaked hazard function was observed for node-positive pre-menopausal patients, whereas results from node-positive post-menopausal women always displayed a single broad peak. The first narrow peak among pre-menopausal women showed a very steep rise to a maximum about 8–10 months after mastectomy. The second peak was considerably broader, reaching its maximum at 28–30 months. Post-menopausal patients displayed a wide, nearly symmetrical peak with maximum risk at about 18–20 months. Peaks displayed increasing height with increasing axillary lymph node involvement. No multi-peaked pattern was evident for either pre-menopausal or post-menopausal node-negative patients; however, this finding should be considered cautiously because of the limited number of events. Tumour size influenced recurrence risk but not its timing. Findings resulting from the different subsets of patients were remarkably coherent and each observed peak maintained the same position on the time axis in all analysed subsets. Conclusions: The risk of early recurrence for node positive patients is dependent on menopausal status. The amount of axillary nodal involvement and the tumour size modulate the risk value at any given time. For pre-menopausal node-positive patients, the abrupt increase of the first narrow peak of the recurrence risk suggests a triggering event that synchronises early risk. We suggest that this event is the surgical removal of the primary tumour. The later, broader, more symmetrical risk peaks indicate that some features of the corresponding metastatic development may present stochastic traits. A metastasis development model incorporating tumour dormancy in specific micro-metastatic phases, stochastic transitions between them and sudden acceleration of the metastatic process by surgery can explain these risk dynamics

A morphometric methodology to assess planktonic foraminiferal response to environmental perturbations: the case study of Oceanic Anoxic Event 2, Late Cretaceous

Dwarfism of planktonic foraminiferal specimens is recognised across several intervals subject to globally extended environmental disturbances such as the Cretaceous/Palaeogene boundary and the latest Cenomanian-earliest Turonian Oceanic Anoxic Event 2 (OAE 2) in the Late Cretaceous. However, the occurrence of dwarfed specimens is generally based on the observation of a decrease in the size of specimens at the stereomicroscope without acquiring morphometric data. This approach prevents from assessing the inter-sample morphometric variation of species, reconstructing species-specific trends, and comparing data from different localities to extrapolate global from local signals. We present herein a first step toward the development of a morphometry-based methodology to assess planktonic foraminiferal response to past environmental perturbations. To perform this study, we selected OAE 2 as a target event and we focused on two species, Rotalipora cushmani (Morrow, 1934) and Whiteinella brittonensis (Loeblich & Tappan, 1961), commonly occurring in the assemblages and likely having different palaeoecological preferences. Specimens analysed are from Eastbourne (England), Clot Chevalier (SE France), and Tarfaya (core S57, Morocco). For both species, we measured selected shell parameters (i.e., the number of chambers in the last whorl, the maximum diameter and the height of the test). Our study suggests that the maximum diameter across the first chamber of the inner whorl visible in spiral view is the simplest and most objective methodology to estimate shell size variation in trochospiral planktonic foraminifera, and that this morphometric parameter is likely the most sensitive to the Cenomanian-Turonian environmental disturbances, and thus its variability through time appears worth investigating across other key-stratigraphic intervals. Moreover, this study indicates that the acquisition of morphometric data is required to accurately reconstruct planktonic foraminiferal response to environmental perturbations, because specimen dimensions show high inter-sample variability and based on the data collected in this study they do not experience the predicted size reduction

Co-composted biochar improves barley yield, manure use efficiency and offsets chemical fertilizer demand in organic agriculture under low rainfall conditions

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Identification of metabolites from type III F2-isoprostane diastereoisomers by mass spectrometry.

F 2 -isoprostanes (F 2 -iPs) are prostaglandin (PG)-like products of non-enzymatic free radical-catalyzed peroxida- tion of arachidonic acid that are now widely used as indices of lipid peroxidation in vivo. Knowledge of the metabolic fate of F 2 -iPs in vivo is still scant, despite its importance for defining their overall formation and biological effects in vivo. Type III F 2 -iPs, which are diastereoisomers of cyclo- oxygenase-derived PGF 2 a , may be metabolized through the pathways of PG metabolism. We therefore studied the in vitro metabolism of eight synthetic Type III F 2 -iP diastereo- isomers in comparison with PGF 2 a . We used gas chroma- tography-mass spectrometry and high performance liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry for structural identification of metabolites formed after in- cubation of the various compounds with isolated rat hepato- cytes. PGF 2 a was metabolized to several known products, resulting from a combination of b -oxidation, reduction of D 5 and/or D 13 double bonds, and 15-OH oxidation, plus other novel products deriving from conjugation with tau- rine of PGF 2 a and its metabolites. Of the eight F 2 -iP diaste- reoisomers, some were processed similarly to PGF 2 a , whereas others showed peculiar metabolic profiles according to spe- cific stereochemical configurations. These data represent the first evidence of biodegradation of selected Type III F 2 -iP isomers other than 8- epi- PGF 2 a , through known and novel pathways of PGF 2 a metabolism. The analytical characterization of these products may serve as a basis for identifying the most significant products formed in vivo. — Chiabrando, C., C. Rivalta, R. Bagnati, A. Valagussa, T. Durand, A. Guy, P. Villa, J-C. Rossi, and R. Fanelli. Identifi- cation of metabolites from Type III F 2 -isoprostane diastereo- isomers by mass spectrometry. J. Lipid Res. 2002. 43: 495-509