Sarda female lambs bred at pasture: growth rate from weaning to reproductive activity

The traditional dairy sheep system in Sardinia presents 2 lambing seasons: in November-December for mature ewes and in February-March for primiparous. Replacement (20-25% of female lambs) usually came from mature ewes whereas all lambs born in January-February are slaughtered when their market price is low. These lambs could represent part of flock replacement that can integrate the traditional lamb breeding system, and also a flock replacement of ewes that are planned to lamb in late winter to have a continuous milk production all over the year. The aim of the present work, that represent an aspect of a wider trial, was to determine the suitability to breed this lambs under grazing condition monitoring their growth rate from weaning to the beginning of reproductive activity. At the “Bonassai” research farm an experiment was carried out from March 2004 to May 2005. 51 female Sarda lambs born from 19/01/2004 to 07/02/2004 (live weight 3.24±0.51 kg; mean±standard deviation) were weaned on average of 45 days (live weight 12.02±1.52 kg) and weighted monthly. After weaning feeding regimen was based on grazed forage crops (Lolium multiflorum Lam., Hedysarum coronarium L. and Cichorium intybus L.) and on natural pasture with an average stocking rate of 5.5 head/ha. The supplementation ranged between 0 - 1200 g/head/d of Lucerne and Italian ryegrass hay and 0 - 400 g/head/d of commercial concentrate, depending on herbage on offer. The amount of hay and concentrate offered during the trial represented 51% of total energetic requirements of lambs. Average lamb daily gain (ADG) during the experimental period resulted 74±11 g head/day. The ADG pattern showed a maximum value 30 days after weaning (139±33 g head/day) and a minimum value in January when herbage availability was low. At the beginning of reproductive activity lambs weighed on average 40.5±3.5 kg and their average body condition score was 3.03±0.12. The trial showed that is possible to breed lambs born in late winter at pasture. However an economic and technical evaluation of differences of these lambs compared to those bred in the traditional system is under evaluation

La Tutela giuridica della minoranza catalana di Alghero

L'obiettivo preminente dell’Autore è quello di esporre i risultati effettivamente ottenuti, ad Alghero, sul piano della tutela della minoranza catalana insediata in Sardegna. Del tutto insufficienti appaiono gli interventi legislativi ed amministrativi finora adottati nei riguardi di questo gruppo minoritario, né sembra imminente, in questo ambito, una netta inversione di tendenza. Proprio una tale situazione indica però, d'altro lato, come assai difficile si riveli soffermarsi adeguatamente sia sui principi cui dovrebbe ispirarsi un'azione capace di tutelare adeguatamente la minoranza catalana di Alghero, sia sulle cause che una simile tutela hanno finora precluso. Nell'accennata assenza di risultati concreti, è comunque su questi principi ispiratori e sugli ostacoli oggi esistenti che conviene porre anzitutto l'accento. Ad essi l’Autore guarderà con l'occhio dell'internazionalista: è fermamente convinto che la questione della tutela delle minoranze - ivi inclusa la protezione di quella catalana di Alghero - possa essere impostata correttamente soltanto tenendo presente la natura ed il contenuto degli obblighi di cui gli Stati sono destinatari sul piano internazionale

Infantile spasms: review of the literature and personal experience

This epileptic disorder has become a classic topic for neuropediatricians and the interest is documented by the large number of publications on this subject

Traduzione audiovisiva: teoria e pratica dell'adattamento

Audiovisual translation is a relatively new  and yet quite unexplored branch of translation studies. Despite being the main means for the enjoinment of big screen and television products, adaptation still arouses suspicion in scholars and critics, who do not even agree on its definition. After presenting the different kinds of audiovisual translation, the article focuses on the steps of the adaptation process: linguistic challenges, technical solutions which often pass unnoticed in an analysis, constraints, the professionals involved, and, last but not least, the norms which rule and conform the field. The choice for the case study has fallen on South Park, an excellent example of challenge on multiple levels which gives the chance to analyse the actual problems every frame or line presents, and to verify victories and losses of the job.La traduzione audiovisiva è un settore ancora relativamente giovane ed inesplorato dei Translation Studies. Pur essendo lo strumento di fruizione principale di prodotti audiovisivi sul grande e piccolo schermo, l'adattamento viene guardato con sospetto da critici e studiosi, che non concordano nemmeno sulla definizione scientifica. Dopo aver presentato le diverse tipologie di traduzione audiovisiva, l'articolo si concentra sulle tappe del processo di adattamento: le sfide linguistiche, gli accorgimenti tecnici spesso non considerati nell'analisi dell'attività, le constraints, le figure coinvolte, e non ultime le regolamentazioni uniformizzanti del settore. La scelta del case study cade su South Park come ottimo esempio di sfida traduttiva che si snoda su molteplici livelli, per analizzare quali sono i problemi concreti che si presentano ad ogni battuta e ad ogni frame, e verificare le vittorie e le sconfitte del mestier

Simonetta Falchi – Greta Perletti – Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz (eds.), Victorianomania. Reimagining, Refashioning and Rewriting Victorian Literature and Culture

Review of th book Victorianomania. Reimagining, Refashioning and Rewriting Victorian Literature and Culture by Simonetta Falchi, Greta Perletti, Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz (eds.)As Lotman stated, cultures do not live in complete isolation: the exchange between past and present, which overcomes even geographical barriers, is inevitable, and its outcomes unpredictable. Our contemporary culture makes no exception. We are drawn to the rediscovery of a past which does not want to be forgotten: Victorianomania. Reimagining, Refashioning and Rewriting Victorian Literature and Culture intends to prove it by examining the varied ramifications of Neo-Victorianism in literature and popular culture

Shamanic spiritual activism:Alternative development in the Brazilian Itamboatá valley

Drawing upon critiques that claim a lack of interest in spirituality in development studies, this paper aims to show how alternative ethical forms of development can be enacted when adopting shamanic spiritual worldviews. The paper draws upon ethnographic research conducted in Terra Mirim, an intentional shamanic community, located in the Itamboatá valley, Bahia, Brazil. Drawing upon contributions from Chicano scholars, this research engages with the concept of ‘spiritual activism’ to understand how alternative ontologies of development are shaped around the idea of interconnectedness and relational consciousness

Enacting experimental alternative spaces

This paper analyses the experimental nature of alternative spaces and the affective, emotional and embodied experience their enactment generates. In so doing, it grounds the analysis on the intentional community of Damanhur (Italy), as an example of experimental spaces. Scholarship concerning intentional communities draws on utopian studies that consider them as utopian laboratories. More recently, non‐representational approaches have emphasised the processual nature of utopias, yet studies have overlooked the experimental nature of these alternative spaces. Drawing upon in‐depth ethnographic data, this paper engages with community experimentations that took place in Damanhur for residents and visitors. It illustrates how utopian enactment is experimental and thus, disordering, unsettling and creative. Moreover, I argue that experimentations are not limited to unsettling the social structure of the community and, when studying the enactment of alternative spaces, emphasis should also be on their capacity to affect the individual

News translation and national image in the time of Covid-19

The press, as a culturally structured system, contributes to the formation of audience self-images – defining one’s domestic identity – and hetero images – defining the Other. Using journalistic translation and journalism studies, this contribution explores the national image provided by the Italian press in news translated into English by the Ansa news agency website during the current COVID-19 pandemic. The few studies on news translations including the English-Italian language pair studied the linguistic characteristics of translated language (i.e. universals), thus making the analysis of national image in news translation an unexplored area. The methodological framework will be based on Critical Discourse Analysis’ qualitative approach as well as two essential concepts from Journalism Studies. To begin with, the concept of gatekeeping can be used to explain the various flows of information and news provided in translated articles. Second, understanding the framework of news manipulation and rewriting will be made possible by understanding the concept of frame. The goal is to disclose how the Italian national image is communicated

'A king of infinite space’: Shakespearean spaces between stage and comics

As one of the pillars of the Western canon, Shakespeare has been a source of inspiration for many forms of popular culture: comics make no exception, having often used Shakespearean plays as a base for adaptations whose degree of fidelity to the source text may vary considerably (Kill Shakespeare is a recent example). The trans-medial operation which turns Shakespeare’s plays into comics is complicated by the form of the plays themselves, by the theatrical tradition embedded in and shaping the source text: the textual and spatial norms of comics are certainly challenged by the three-dimensionality of the theatrical performance and by the use of dramatic words, essential to evoke the spaces of the plot but excessively abundant for a comic balloon. Space, however, can also play an important role in shaping a comic narrative which interprets Shakespeare’s plays in innovative ways, devising unexpected approaches to the target medium. Analyzing versions from Classics Illustrated, Topolino, as well as Zarate’s and DeLuca’s adaptations of Shakespearean plays, this contribution aims at disclosing the way comics combine the space of the page and the space of the stage, embracing the theatrical nature of Shakespeare’s plays without forgetting the requirement of the target medium

Bioengineering bacterial outer membrane vesicles as delivery system for RNA therapeutics targeted to lung epithelial cytosols

Intact epithelia lining the airways and alveoli in the lung are essential to maintain lung function. Structural or functional damage of epithelial cells leads in severe diseases, including COPD/emphysema, ibrosis or ALI/ARDS. This central role of epithelia in pulmonary diseases identifies these cells as primary candidates for targeted therapy. With the exception of surface-expressed molecules, however, targeting intracellular components is severely restricted due to poor delivery. We aim to overcome this obstacle using topically administered, bioengineered, biocompatible bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) as recombinant drug delivery systems for novel biopharmaceuticals. Engineering recombinant surface expression of eukaryotic receptor ligands in ClearColi®, a commercial E.coli BL21 (DE3) strain deficient in lipopolysaccharide production, we have used red fluorescent protein reporters to track OMV loading, transgene expression, and eukaryotic cell trafficking. We demonstrate statistically significant differences in the levels of over 700 proteins between differentially engineered and purified OMV preps with additional differences in transcriptome and lipidome consistency. We also characterised visual and particle size differences observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA). Here we report early bioadhesion and culture of re-differentiated lung epithelia. This project aims to bridge the biotechnological gap in the intracellular biopharmaceutics drug delivery challenge for respiratory epithelia through highly controlled, and scalable bio-nanotechnology process. If successful, our work will unlock intracellular imaging and therapeutics research for respiratory diseases with a significant epithelial component, paving the way for other targeting ligands and potentially non-respiratory indications. cellular uptake results in A549 culture as well as air-liquid interface