The blues as black female redemption. A literary analysis of Gayl Jones' Corregidora, Toni Cade Bambara's “Witchbird” and Alice Walker's “Nineteen Fifty-Five”

openThis BA thesis examines the figure of the female blues singer through the analysis of three different literary works: the novel Corregidora by Gayl Jones and two short stories, “Witchbird” by Toni Cade Bambara and “Nineteen Fifty-Five” by Alice Walker. The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the importance of the blues as creative manifestation of African American cultural identity and as a tool of emancipation and redemption especially for African American women, through the analysis of blues women in their literary representations. After lingering on how the abolition of slavery affected the black community and how its consequences and impacts were reflected on the blues as expression of the black collective consciousness, I will focus on the fictional representation of the black female experience. I will explore in the aforementioned works how blues women challenged the mainstream notion of black female identity and sexuality, broke taboos, preserved memory, dealt with psychologic traumas and searched for freedom and independence.This BA thesis examines the figure of the female blues singer through the analysis of three different literary works: the novel Corregidora by Gayl Jones and two short stories, “Witchbird” by Toni Cade Bambara and “Nineteen Fifty-Five” by Alice Walker. The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the importance of the blues as creative manifestation of African American cultural identity and as a tool of emancipation and redemption especially for African American women, through the analysis of blues women in their literary representations. After lingering on how the abolition of slavery affected the black community and how its consequences and impacts were reflected on the blues as expression of the black collective consciousness, I will focus on the fictional representation of the black female experience. I will explore in the aforementioned works how blues women challenged the mainstream notion of black female identity and sexuality, broke taboos, preserved memory, dealt with psychologic traumas and searched for freedom and independence

Data analysis and navigation in high-dimensional chemical and biological spaces

The goal of this master thesis is to develop and validate a visual data-mining approach suitable for the screening of chemicals in the context of REACH [Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals]. The proposed approach will facilitate the development and validation of non-testing methods via the exploration of environmental endpoints and their relationship with the chemical structure and physicochemical properties of chemicals. The use of an interactive chemical space data exploration tool using 3D visualization and navigation will enrich the information available with additional variables like size, texture and color of the objects of the scene (compounds). The features that distinguish this approach and make it unique are (i) the integration of multiple data sources allowing the recovery in real time of complementary information of the studied compounds, (ii) the integration of several algorithms for the data analysis (dimensional reduction, generation of composite variables and clustering) and (iii) direct user interaction with the data through the virtual navigation mechanism. All this is achieved without the need for specialized hardware or the use of specific devices and high-cost virtual reality and mixed reality

Mesoscopic approach to progressive breakdown in ultrathin SiO2 layers

The opening of a breakdown path across the ultrathin oxide layer in a metal-oxide-semiconductor structure caused by the application of electrical stress can be analyzed within the framework of the physics of mesoscopic conductors. Using the Landauer formula for a quantum point contact, the author is able to show that the saturation of the gate leakage current is linked to the progressive evolution of the constriction's conductance toward the ballistic transport regime. The possible physical mechanisms responsible for energy dissipation inside the breakdown path as well as the limitations of the proposed approach are discussed

Heavy Quarkonia - A Review of the Experimental Status

A review of the present status of the spectroscopy of heavy quarkonia (b-bbar, c-cbar) is presented.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Presented at the 11th International Conference In Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD 04), Montpellier, France, 5-9 July 200

Prospects for detecting an ηc′\eta_c' in two photon processes

We argue that an experimental search for an $\eta_c'$, the first radial excitation of the $\eta_c(2980)$, may be carried out using the two photon process e^+e^- \to e^+e^- \gamma \gamma \ra e^+e^-\eta_c'. We estimate the partial width $\Gamma_{\gamma \gamma}(\eta_c')$ and the branching fraction $B(\eta_c' \to h)$, where $h$ is an exclusive hadronic channel, and find that for $h = K^o_s K^\pm \pi^\mp$ it may be possible to observe this state in two photon collisions at CLEO-II.Comment: 9 pages, LATEX forma

I licenziamenti nel Jobs Act = Layoffs in the Jobs Act. WP C.S.D.L.E. “Massimo D’Antona”.IT – 273/2015

The paper analyzes in details the latest regulation about the sanctions provided in case of wrongful or unfair dismissal. These rules are included in the Restatement (“Legge Delega”) No. 183 of 2014 and in the subsequent legislative decree No. 23 of 2015, which implemented the reform. This work is part of the Labour Law Treatise edited by Mattia Persiani and Franco Carinci. The Author analyzes the most important Reform’s profiles, that will be applied to the employees hired after the law will be in force. In particular, the Author considers the limited cases under which the reinstatement is guaranteed, that’s to say only for discriminatory and null dismissals and for few cases of unfair disciplinary dismissals, not in case of redundancy for economic reasons. When the reinstatement is not provided, the law assigns to the employee only an economic indemnity, calculated in reason of seniority. In this latter case, the employment relationship will be held as definitely terminated. With regards to this rule, the Author wonders if the latest national regulation could be considered contrasting with the European legislation

Time-of-flight imaging at 10 ps resolution with an ICCD camera

ICCD cameras can record low light events with extreme temporal resolution. Thus, they are used in a variety of bio-medical applications for single photon time of flight measurements and LIDAR measurements. In this paper, we present a method which allows improvement of the temporal resolution of ICCD cameras down to 10 ps (from the native 200 ps of our model), thus placing ICCD cameras at a better temporal resolution than SPAD cameras and in direct competition with streak cameras. The higher temporal resolution can serve for better tracking and visualization of the information carried in time-of-flight measurements