«Wunder æfter wundre»: Recounting the Marvellous in "Beowulf"

L’epica in inglese antico del Beowulf è caratterizzata da diversi eventi sovrannaturali in cui l’eroe compie delle gesta straordinarie. L’attività più notevole del Principe dei Geati è quella di essere in grado di combattere degli esseri orrendi come i mostri marini, Grendel e sua madre, e un drago. Tali contesti prodigiosi originano alcune delle maggiori manifestazioni del meraviglioso nel poema. Questo studio vuole analizzare la ricorrenza a livello lessicale di alcune parole chiave quali “wundor” (‘prodigio’), “wrætlic” (‘mirabile’, ‘meraviglioso’), and “sellic” (‘fantastico’, ‘strano’). Il lavoro si prefigge inoltre di supportare la lettura di Beowulf unicamente in termini di un eroe dotato di forza inusuale, invece che un mostro buono fra quelli cattivi.The Old English epic of Beowulf is characterised by several supernatural events in which the hero performs wondrous deeds. The most outstanding ability of the Prince of the Geats is to be able to fight dreadful beings such as sea-monsters, Grendel and its mother, and a dragon. Those prodigious contests give form to some of the main manifestations of the marvellous throughout the poem. The present study analyses the lexical incidence of recurring key-words such as “wundor” (‘astonishing thing’), “wrætlic” (‘splendid’, ‘wonder-inspiring’), and “sellic” (‘wonderful’, ‘strange’). It also aims at providing support to reading Beowulf merely as a hero with unusual strength, not as a good monster amid bad monsters

Device specialization in heterogeneous multi-GPU environments

In the last few years there have been many activities towards coupling CPUs and GPUs in order to get the most from CPU-GPU heterogeneous systems. One of the main problems that prevent these systems to be exploited in a device-aware manner is the CPU-GPU communication bottleneck, which often doesn\u27t allow to produce code more efficient than the GPU-only and the CPU-only counterparts. As a consequence, most of the heterogeneous scheduling systems treat CPUs and GPUs as homogeneous nodes, electing map-like data partitioning to employ both these processing resources. We propose to study how the radical change in the connection between GPU, CPU and memory characterizing the APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) affect the architecture of a compiler and if it is possible to use all these computing resources in a device-aware manner. We investigate on a methodology to analyze the devices that populate heterogeneous multi-GPU systems and to classify general purpose algorithms in order to perform near-optimal control flow and data partitioning

FSCL: Homogeneous programming, scheduling and execution on heterogeneous platforms

The last few years has seen activity towards programming models, languages and frameworks to address the increasingly wide range and broad availability of heterogeneous computing resources through raised programming abstraction and portability across different platforms. The effort spent in simplifying parallel programming across heterogeneous platforms is often outweighed by the need for low-level control over computation setup and execution and by performance opportunities that are missed due to the overhead introduced by the additional abstraction. Moreover, despite the ability to port parallel code across devices, each device is generally characterised by a restricted set of computations that it can execute outperforming the other devices in the system. The problem is therefore to schedule computations on increasingly popular multi-device heterogeneous platforms, helping to choose the best device among the available ones each time a computation has to execute. Our Ph.D. research investigates the possibilities to address the problem of programming and execution abstraction on heterogeneous platforms while helping to dynamically and transparently exploit the computing power of such platforms in a device-aware fashion

Response of the Cardiac Autonomic Control to Exposure to Nanoparticles and Noise: A Cross-Sectional Study of Airport Ground Staff

Airport activity causes the emission of particulate matter and noise, two environmental contaminants and potential health hazards, particularly for the personnel operating nearby taxiways. We explored the association between exposure to fine/ultrafine particles (UFPs) and noise with heart rate variability (HRV), an early indicator of cardiovascular autonomic response, among a sample of airport ground staff. Between May and June 2018, thirty-four male operators (mean age = 43 years and SD = 6.7) underwent personal monitoring of exposure to nanoparticles and noise, and HRV during their work activity. We conducted univariate and multivariate analysis to test the effect of UFP and noise exposure HRV. Total Lung Deposition Surface Area (LDSA) was significantly associated with a decrease in HRV Total Power and Triangular index (beta = -0.038 p = 0.016 and beta = -7.8 x 10(-5), p = 0.042, respectively). Noise peak level showed an opposite effect, which was significant for Total Power (beta = 153.03, p = 0.027), and for Triangular index (beta = 0.362, p = 0.035). Further investigation is warranted to clarify the effect of the concurrent exposure to UFPs and noise on early changes of cardiac autonomic regulation

Mantonico and Pecorello Grape Seed Extracts: Chemical Characterization and Evaluation of In Vitro Wound-Healing and Anti-Inflammatory Activities

The winemaking process produces a huge number of pomaces that generally are used for energy purposes. Further valuable applications such as health-promoting properties are still under investigation. The seeds of the white berries of Mantonico and Pecorello cv. were extracted in a Soxhlet apparatus, using n-hexane and chloroform as solvents. Extracts were characterized by NMR and GC-MS analyses. They were assayed in vitro as wound healing and anti-inflammatory agents in HaCaT and RAW 264.7 cell lines, respectively. n-hexane Mantonico extract resulted in the most interesting wound healing sample, while n-hexane Pecorello, containing a good number of carotenoids, resulted in a good anti-inflammatory candidate. These preliminary findings underlined the benefit of grape seed extracts valorization due to their health-promoting propertie

Sangiovese cv Pomace seeds extract-fortified Kefir exerts anti-inflammatory activity in an in vitro model of intestinal epithelium using Caco-2 cells

Inflammatory bowel disease and food allergies are a growing topic in the field of nutrition science. Polyphenols, which are the most important secondary metabolites of plants, demonstrated to modulate the expression and/or production of numerous proteins, but also to regulate the intestinal ecosystem. In this context, our aim was the investigation of protective effects against the gastrointestinal mucosa of fortified milk kefir obtained by adding seeds extract from Sangiovese cv. Pomace. Methods: An ultrasound-assisted method was used to obtain the extracts. All the extracts were assayed for the antioxidant activity. The best extract was used as an additive of fermented milk kefir to obtain a fortified final product. Kefir samples were analyzed by NMR spectroscopy. The efficiency of the barrier functions was evaluated by measuring trans-epithelial electric resistance (TEER) using a voltmeter. Results: the enriched kefir (Ksgn) possesses higher antioxidant performances compared to the unfortified sample (Kwht). Kwht and Ksgn did not alter Caco-2 TEER in basal condition

Cross-sectional analysis of the humoral response after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in Sardinian multiple sclerosis patients, a follow-up study

Monitoring immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and its clinical efficacy over time in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients treated with disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) help to establish the optimal strategies to ensure adequate COVID-19 protection without compromising disease control offered by DMTs. Following our previous observations on the humoral response one month after two doses of BNT162b2 vaccine (T1) in MS patients differently treated, here we present a cross-sectional and longitudinal follow-up analysis six months following vaccination (T2, n=662) and one month following the first booster (T3, n=185). Consistent with results at T1, humoral responses were decreased in MS patients treated with fingolimod and anti-CD20 therapies compared with untreated patients also at the time points considered here (T2 and T3). Interestingly, a strong upregulation one month after the booster was observed in patients under every DMTs analyzed, including those treated with fingolimod and anti-CD20 therapies. Although patients taking these latter therapies had a higher rate of COVID-19 infection five months after the first booster, only mild symptoms that did not require hospitalization were reported for all the DMTs analyzed here. Based on these findings we anticipate that additional vaccine booster shots will likely further improve immune responses and COVID-19 protection in MS patients treated with any DMT

Results from the first use of low radioactivity argon in a dark matter search

Liquid argon is a bright scintillator with potent particle identification properties, making it an attractive target for direct-detection dark matter searches. The DarkSide-50 dark matter search here reports the first WIMP search results obtained using a target of low-radioactivity argon. DarkSide-50 is a dark matter detector, using two-phase liquid argon time projection chamber, located at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. The underground argon is shown to contain Ar-39 at a level reduced by a factor (1.4 +- 0.2) x 10^3 relative to atmospheric argon. We report a background-free null result from (2616 +- 43) kg d of data, accumulated over 70.9 live-days. When combined with our previous search using an atmospheric argon, the 90 % C.L. upper limit on the WIMP-nucleon spin-independent cross section based on zero events found in the WIMP search regions, is 2.0 x 10^-44 cm^2 (8.6 x 10^-44 cm^2, 8.0 x 10^-43 cm^2) for a WIMP mass of 100 GeV/c^2 (1 TeV/c^2 , 10 TeV/c^2).Comment: Accepted by Phys. Rev.

Active elderly and health-can moderate exercise improve health and wellbeing in older adults? Protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Abstract Background: Aging is marked by a progressive rise in chronic diseases with an impact on social and healthcare costs. Physical activity (PA) may soothe the inconveniences related to chronic diseases, has positive effects on the quality of life and biological rhythms, and can prevent the decline in motor functions and the consequent falls, which are associated with early death and disability in older adults. Methods: We randomized 120 over-65 males and females into groups of similar size and timing and will give each either moderate physical activity or cultural and recreational activities. Being younger than 65 years, inability to participate in physical activity for any medical reason, and involvement in a massive program of physical exercise are the exclusion criteria. The primary outcome measures are quality of life, walking speed, and postural sway. Participants are tested at baseline, post-treatment, and 6-month (24 weeks) and 12-month (48 weeks) follow-ups. Discussion: This study aims at improving the quality of life, wellness, and cognitive functioning in the elderly through a low-cost affordable program of moderate physical activity. Given the growing aging of the world population and the social and economic burden of disability in the elderly, our results might have a major impact on future practices

Notulae to the Italian alien vascular flora: 12

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of vascular flora alien to Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes for Italy or for Italian administrative regions. Nomenclatural and distribution updates published elsewhere are provided as Suppl. material 1