Ceramic traditions and ceramic landscapes of the Indus Civilisation: investigating the technologies and socio-economic complexity of rural pottery production in Bronze Age northwest India.

This thesis explores the technological choices made by rural communities of the Indus Civilisation (c.2600-1900BC) by analysing ceramic materials from three villages in north-west India. The Indus Civilisation has typically been characterised as a society that underwent a broadly homogeneous development, and continuity and transformations of ceramic industries have previously been studied through the use of relatively simplified models of diffusion. The small number of large-scale settlements that are referred to as cities have typically been used to characterise the technological, social and cultural behaviours across the vast zone occupied by Indus Civilisation populations. Within this region, the processes of urbanisation and deurbanisation are much debated, and it has been suggested that climate change played a role in socio-cultural transformations. However, rural dynamics, including lifestyles, craft production and knowledge-scapes are often perceived as being marginal. The rural settlements that have been studied are located at varying distances from large-scale sites, each showing a range of phases of occupation chronologically spanning from the early phases of Indus urban development, to the late urban and post-urban phases. The diversity of settlements has made it possible to explore the impact of societal and climatic changes on ceramic industries, and to assess how communities interacted with variable environments, as well as their technological transformations over time. Through the use of macroscopic and archaeometric analyses of pottery, integrated with ethno-archaeological observations, Indus ceramic traditions have been identified within the rural context. Here craft traditions are presented as a medium for understanding the functional variability of ceramics, as well as the variability of associated socio-cultural groups characterising each site. This approach has made it possible to reconstruct more diverse industries than previously thought, and offered a glimpse into synchronic Indus social networks among villages, as well as their diachronic transformations. The resulting picture suggests that rural social complexity and interactions facilitated the reproduction of a resilient, adaptable, yet mutating system of ceramic traditions. These traditions partially transformed during the Indus Civilisation’s phases of urbanisation and deurbanisation. Rural ceramic landscapes adapted to, and were enriched by broader variable social and physical environments, yet maintained their own characteristics and identities.ERC TwoRains projec

Is family farming educational? The Australian experience

The Australian rural landscape has been changing throughout history since the first European settlement. The progressive expansion of agriculture in the past centuries is responsible for its modification and diversification. Family farming has a relevant role in the Australian agriculture and food production, however in the last decades it has been facing a consistent decline, primarily because of economic and climatic reasons. This paper aims to retrace the historical development of agriculture in Australia and to analyse the current situation of family farming, by reporting the tendencies and the changed features, the educational and social aspects, and the interaction with the rural landscape. According to our research it emerged that family farming has been one of the major keys of the agricultural sector development in Australia and was deeply affected through history by internal and external factors such as globalization, neoliberalism, immigration and climatic conditions. Nowadays family farming is pivotal in the interface connection between modern societies and rural environment. In fact it is also becoming an important component of national tourism, with the birth and development of agrotourisms and holiday farms which in the past years have accounted for a considerable percentage of visits both from international and national people

Contesto e concetto. Alcune riflessioni sulla microstoria

In questo articolo viene formulato un bilancio provvisorio sulle questioni di metodo legate alla microstoria (una delle correnti maggiori della storia sociale italiana, formatasi a partire dalla seconda metà degli anni ’70 attorno alla rivista Quaderni Storici). Questa pratica storiografica si presenta come una critica radicale del linguaggio storiografico convenzionale – i cui termini e concetti designerebbero realtà omogenee e autoevidenti (Stato, mercato, élite ecc.) – ma il suo contributo epistemico va compreso tendendo conto della revisione delle categorie di «continuità» e «normalità» che essa opera. Della prima si constata il carattere derivato e aposteriori (essenziale è il postulato della discontinuità tra le «scale» di rappresentazione); della seconda viene ugualmente contestato il carattere apriori (ciò che è vissuto come normale da un dato attore diviene visibile per lo storico in virtù della sua eccezionalità, in quanto interrompe o scarta la riproduzione delle norme sociali e riconfigura l’assetto delle fonti). L’articolo conclude che in entrambi i casi la microstoria ha dato un impulso imprescindibile alla razionalità del discorso storiografico, mostrando al contempo i propri limiti immanenti in quanto opzione metodologica che reagisce ad una determinata congiuntura culturale

Cultural Evolutionary Paradigms and Technological Transformations from the Neolithic up to the Indus Urban Period in South Asia

Studies of Indus ceramics, especially considerations of raw materials, manufacturing tools and techniques, have tended to argue for a) local technological developments within South Asia and b) linear evolutionary trajectories that played out across thousands of years. The concept of a linear evolution of ceramic technologies in particular has had a significant impact on research at several levels, and in a previous paper we addressed issues concerning the theoretical frameworks adopted for the interpretation of archaeological data in South Asia.1 We noted that culture historic paradigms remain prevalent, and that there has been a tendency to focus on certain styles and types of artefacts to build seriations and identify archaeological ‘cultures’, which are often equated to ethnic groups or major phases of socio-political transformation. This paper aims to take the theoretical debate one step further, by looking at studies of technological transmission and transformation and considering the underlying tendency among researchers to adopt demic diffusion-based interpretations. The first part of this paper reviews the development of ceramic technologies from the Ceramic Neolithic up to the Indus urban period to understand how certain themes have developed. It will particularly discuss how more ‘evolved’ technologies are typically seen to have been adopted, homogenously replacing older and less sophisticated manufacturing methods, mostly in view of possible functional or economic gains. The second part will focus on ceramics from northwest India, and will explore evidence for variable regional technologies and resistance to innovation. Our broader aim is to strengthen theoretical mindfulness in this field of research and thus to stimulate dialogue, rather than provide solutions

Aroma of peaches and nectarines: interaction between maturity at harvest, postharvest conditions and fresh-cut processing

Peach is one of the most appreciated temperate fruit worldwide with high potential value on the market. However, consumers are not satisfied with the quality attributes of peach and nectarine at consumption and are not stimulated in repurchasing the fruit. This induced a strong decrease in sales in both local and export markets with the consequent drop of revenues for producers. In addition to fresh consumption, the offer of fresh-cut peaches and nectarines is increasing and represent a valid alternative for stone fruit commercialization to match the increasing demand of ready-to-eat product on the market. The aim of this work was to explore the interaction between the maturity at harvest and the development of the fruit flavour during postharvest, including the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) responsible for the aroma. Different peach and nectarine cultivars were used as well as different technologies such as SPME-GC-MS and PTR-ToF-MS to characterize the aroma profile of the fruit. Diverse cold storage lengths were applied to simulate short and long-distance export in which fruit are generally submitted to fulfil market demands. Furthermore, VOCs were also investigated on different cultivars of nectarines submitted to fresh-cut processing. When fruit were submitted to cold storage the volatile profile of the fruit was generally enhanced, weakening the differences present at harvest between maturity classes. Fresh-cut processing, induced a major variation in the volatile profile of the fruit such as the immediate release of VOCs associated with positive sensations, and the production of off-flavour volatiles over time in cold storage. A quality-oriented storage, processing and packaging should include the aroma volatiles to ensure the success of the peach and nectarine industry

Grandi eventi e rilancio della città: il caso di torino

Urban transformations are always accelerated in the cities, which had hosted a ‘big event’. There are a lot of examples inside and outside Europe: Turin is possibly the most important Italian city regeneration case after a big event. Our text is concerning about the impact of the 2006 Olympic Games on the urban renewal processes in Turin, and analyses how the happening plays, in a time when urban marketing is increasing its importance. The opportunity to distinguish between ‘fleeting’ transformations from structures remaining when the Olympic days will be over is a premise to value the role of the happening in social and economical development of Turin

Thermal phase shifters for femtosecond laser written photonic integrated circuits

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are today acknowledged as an effective solution to fulfill the demanding requirements of many practical applications in both classical and quantum optics. Phase shifters integrated in the photonic circuit offer the possibility to dynamically reconfigure its properties in order to fine tune its operation or to produce adaptive circuits, thus greatly extending the quality and the applicability of these devices. In this paper, we provide a thorough discussion of the main problems that one can encounter when using thermal shifters to reconfigure photonic circuits. We then show how all these issues can be solved by a careful design of the thermal shifters and by choosing the most appropriate way to drive them. Such performance improvement is demonstrated by manufacturing thermal phase shifters in femtosecond laser written PICs (FLW-PICs), and by characterizing their operation in detail. The unprecedented results in terms of power dissipation, miniaturization and stability, enable the scalable implementation of reconfigurable FLW-PICs that can be easily calibrated and exploited in the applications

The Optimal Permeation of Cyclic Boronates to Cross the Outer Membrane via the Porin Pathway

We investigated the diffusion of three cyclic boronates formulated as beta-lactamase inhibitors through the porin OmpF to evaluate their potential to cross OM via the porin pathway. The three nonbeta-lactam molecules diffuse through the porin eyelet region with the same mechanism observed for beta-lactam molecules and diazobicyclooctan derivatives, with the electric dipole moment aligned with the transversal electric field. In particular, the BOH group can interact with both the basic ladder and the acidic loop L3, which is characteristic of the size-constricted region of this class of porins. On one hand, we confirm that the transport of small molecules through enterobacter porins has a common general mechanism; on the other, the class of cyclic boronate molecules does not seem to have particular difficulties in diffusing through enterobacter porins, thus representing a good scaffold for new anti-infectives targeting Gram-negative bacteria research