Living-floors and Structures from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age in Italy

Summary report of the research carried out on the Living floors of the Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods in many prehistoric sites of northern Ital

Tear fluid biomarkers in ocular and systemic disease: potential use for predictive, preventive and personalised medicine

In the field of predictive, preventive and personalised medicine, researchers are keen to identify novel and reliable ways to predict and diagnose disease, as well as to monitor patient response to therapeutic agents. In the last decade alone, the sensitivity of profiling technologies has undergone huge improvements in detection sensitivity, thus allowing quantification of minute samples, for example body fluids that were previously difficult to assay. As a consequence, there has been a huge increase in tear fluid investigation, predominantly in the field of ocular surface disease. As tears are a more accessible and less complex body fluid (than serum or plasma) and sampling is much less invasive, research is starting to focus on how disease processes affect the proteomic, lipidomic and metabolomic composition of the tear film. By determining compositional changes to tear profiles, crucial pathways in disease progression may be identified, allowing for more predictive and personalised therapy of the individual. This article will provide an overview of the various putative tear fluid biomarkers that have been identified to date, ranging from ocular surface disease and retinopathies to cancer and multiple sclerosis. Putative tear fluid biomarkers of ocular disorders, as well as the more recent field of systemic disease biomarkers, will be shown

Engravings or natural marks? The case of the pebbles from the Epigravettian layers of Grotta del Mezzogiorno (Positano, Campania, South-Western Italy)

A taphonomical analysis has been carried out, using stereomicroscope and SEM, on 7 pebbles, coming from the levels of the lowermost unit, that bear a sequence of quadrangular low relief (a sort of grid) only on one side of the stone (usually the flat one). These pebbles are made of light grey and grey-brownish limestone, with smoothed surfaces. These analyses were aimed at discriminating a possible anthropic activity vs. natural origin

Circolazione e uso dell’avorio come materia prima per la realizzazione di manufatti in materia dura animale: il caso di Lovara di Villa Bartolomea (VR).

Le attuali conoscenze sulla circolazione e l’impiego dell’avorio come materia prima durante l’età del Bronzo in Italia, sono ancora molto scarse. Il caso isolato di Frattesina (RO) ha rappresentato fino ad oggi l’unica evidenza nel territorio italiano per quanto riguarda la lavorazione locale di questa materia prima durante il Bronzo Finale. Il difficile riconoscimento di questo materiale, in assenza di adeguate analisi e strumentazioni, costituisce la principale causa della scarsa conoscenza sulla reale diffusione ed utilizzo dell’avorio nel corso dell’età del Bronzo in Italia. Una recente analisi, svolta sui manufatti in materia dura animale provenienti dal sito del Bronzo Recente di Lovara di Villa Bartolomea (VR), esposti presso il Centro Ambientale Archeologico di Legnago (VR), ha permesso il riconoscimento di un manufatto in avorio, che rappresenta una testimonianza molto importante per quanto riguarda la circolazione e l’uso di questo materiale nel territorio italiano. In questo lavoro verranno presentati i risultati ottenuti dalle analisi tracceologica e funzionale svolte sul manufatto, che hanno permesso di individuare alcuni passaggi della catena operativa

The Question of Ownership in a Sharing Economy

The sharing of durable goods in a dynamic ownership economy is attractive, since it has the potential to realize gains from trade via short-term transfers of usage rights. We develop a model in which a set of agents, who are heterogeneous in their likely need of a durable good, make purchase decisions and then have the option to participate in a sharing market contingent on a realized need. The agents' purchase decisions are compared to a situation where ex-post sharing is impossible. The impact of sharing on product sales is ambiguous: for low-price products sales may drop, while for high-price products the number of consumers who decide to become owners may actually increase. Our analysis extends to a sharing market in which prices are negotiated bilaterally in a Nash-bargaining framework. The resulting negotiated-sharing equilibrium allows for a realistic supply-demand imbalance in the sharing market

Experimental bone fracturing for marrow extraction

The results of the experimental research carried out on intentional bone breakage for marrow extraction are here discussed