Napoli volontaria e involontaria: Suggestioni letterarie per Anna Maria Ortese

A.M. Ortese (1914-1998) was not born in Naples and left the city for good as early as 1954. However, she came to be regarded as the 20th Century Neapolitan writer par excellence. This article explores how Ortese first creates and then reshapes a mythical aura around Naples in her novels. A close reading of some of Ortese’s remote and contemporary ‘sources’ (the Neapolitan writers Serao, Bernari, Rea, La Capria) sheds new light on the literary context of her works and the realism that is Ortese’s stylistic trademark.Keywords: Naples – Realism – Folk Traditio

Fuzzy clustering with spatial-temporal information

Clustering geographical units based on a set of quantitative features observed at several time occasions requires to deal with the complexity of both space and time information. In particular, one should consider (1) the spatial nature of the units to be clustered, (2) the characteristics of the space of multivariate time trajectories, and (3) the uncertainty related to the assignment of a geographical unit to a given cluster on the basis of the above com- plex features. This paper discusses a novel spatially constrained multivariate time series clustering for units characterised by different levels of spatial proximity. In particular, the Fuzzy Partitioning Around Medoids algorithm with Dynamic Time Warping dissimilarity measure and spatial penalization terms is applied to classify multivariate Spatial-Temporal series. The clustering method has been theoretically presented and discussed using both simulated and real data, highlighting its main features. In particular, the capability of embedding different levels of proximity among units, and the ability of considering time series with different length

Copula-based fuzzy clustering of spatial time series

This paper contributes to the existing literature on the analysis of spatial time series presenting a new clustering algorithm called COFUST, i.e. COpula-based FUzzy clustering algorithm for Spatial Time series. The underlying idea of this algorithm is to perform a fuzzy Partitioning Around Medoids (PAM) clustering using copula-based approach to interpret comovements of time series. This generalisation allows both to extend usual clustering methods for time series based on Pearson’s correlation and to capture the uncertainty that arises assigning units to clusters. Furthermore, its flexibility permits to include directly in the algorithm the spatial information. Our approach is presented and discussed using both simulated and real data, highlighting its main advantages

New records of Auchenorrhyncha (Insecta : Hemiptera) from the Maltese archipelago with an updated checklist

Twenty-four new records of Auchenorrhyncha are reported from the Maltese Islands. Up to now 71 species are known from the territory. Among the new recorded species, 1 belongs to Cixiidae, 5 to Delphacidae, 2 to Tettigometridae, 1 to Issidae and 15 to Cicadellidae.peer-reviewe

Successful role of adjuvant radiotherapy in a rare case of tracheal inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor: a case report

BACKGROUND:: Inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor (IMT) is a rare benign cancer that can express a more aggressive phenotype related to the genetic mutation of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase receptor (ALK). Involvement of trachea is extremely rare and due to the clinical and radiologic nonspecificity, the definitive diagnosis is based on the histologic evaluation of tissue specimens. Total surgical excision is curative and chemotherapy or radiotherapy has been employed in the treatment of unresectable tumors or as adjuvant therapies. CASE PRESENTATION:: The case described here is being reported because of the rare tracheal location and the atypical treatment approach used for an ALK-positive IMT. A 7-week pregnant woman voluntary interrupted pregnancy and underwent total surgical excision that resulted to have close margins. Although ALK-positive expression indicated the use of ALK inhibitors, she refused any type of adjuvant therapy that could affect ovarian function. Thus, 3D conformational external beam radiotherapy was performed with a daily dose of 180 cGy, 5 times per week, up to 45 Gy at the level of trachea. A total of 62 months of follow-up showed and no signs of disease recurrence or late radiation therapy-related toxicity. CONCLUSIONS: This report describes an extremely rare case of a tracheal IMT, underlying the key role of radiotherapy as adjuvant treatment able to definitively cure IMT, limiting systemic chemotherapy-related toxicity

Probing the sensitivity of orientational ordering as a way towards absolute enantiorecognition: Helical-particle solutes in helical-particle nematic solvents

To inquire into whether two enantiomers can be absolutely distinguished on the sole basis of their different degrees of orientational ordering when dissolved in a chiral nematic liquid crystal, several enantiomeric pairs of hard helical particles are dissolved in a cholesteric (nematic) liquid crystal made of slender hard helical particles as well as in a screwlike nematic liquid crystal made of tortuous hard helical particles. While in the former ordinary chiral nematic solvent their nematic order parameters are (almost) coincident, in the latter new chiral nematic solvent the two enantiomeric solutes not only usually have more appreciably different nematic order parameters, but also always have significantly different screwlike order parameters. If also the latter orientational order parameter could be measurable in real experiments, it would constitute an additional decisive piece of information on the way to absolutely distinguishing two enantiomers on the sole basis of their different degrees of orientational order when dissolved in a chiral nematic liquid crystal that is in the apter screwlike nematic phase. Even in that event, however, the general absence of regularity and systematicity in the trend of the orientational order parameters, already manifest in these elementary hard helical-particle binary systems, would make this coveted achievement experimentally arduous without the assistance of very accurate and precise theoretical calculations.Support from the Università della Calabria and that from the Government of Spain under Grants No. FIS2013-47350-C5-1-R, No. MDM-2014-0377, and No. FIS2017-86007-C3-1-P is acknowledge

Gérald Bloncourt et Michael Löwy, Messagers de la tempête. André Breton et la révolution de janvier 1946 en Haïti

Le récent livre de Gérald Bloncourt et Michael Löwy porte sur les événements des Cinq Glorieuses, les journées haïtiennes du 7 au 11 janvier 1946 qui entraînèrent la chute du dictateur Élie Lescot, et sur « cette fusion explosive entre poésie et insurrection, surréalisme et révolte sociale, [qui] est un cas peut-être unique dans l’histoire des révolutions modernes » (p. 10). Dans l’intention déclarée de « combler cette étrange lacune » après soixante ans (p. 11), ce livre présente le témoigna..

3,3′-Diethylthiatricarbocyanine Iodide: A Highly Sensitive Chiroptical Reporter of DNA Helicity and Sequence

Using UV-vis absorption and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopies, we explored the binding interactions of 3,3′-diethylthiatricarbocyanine iodide (Cy7) with polynucleotides of different sequences and helicity. CD showed to be a very diagnostic tool giving different spectroscopic chiroptical signatures for all explored DNA sequences upon Cy7 binding. Cy7 was able to spectroscopically discriminate between the right handed B-DNA of poly(dG-dC)2 and its left handed Z-DNA counterpart induced by spermine or Co(III)hexamine via nearly opposite induced circular dichroic signal