Italo mancini e il "Dio dei filosofi". parole e tempi di salvezza

L'autore, da un puno di vista laico, propone una lettura dell'opera postuma di Italo Mancini, "Frammento su Dio" (2000),. Il saggio mostra come Mancini rifiuti l'assorbimento della questione Dio nei concetti limite in cui la filosofia contemporanea ha cercato di sussumere la dimensione religiosa: la dialettica hegeliana dell'Assoluto, anche nella versione ionteramente ricondotta allo storico e al sociale che ne ha dato il marxismo, e l'ontologia antimetafisica di Heidegger. Inoltre mette in luce come Mancini rifiuti qualsiasi ipotesi di ritorno alla teologia razionale. Dio non è oggetto di conoscenza, ma soggetto di un messaggio di salvezza che ha l'uomo come necessario destinatario e interlocutore. la filosofia può orientarsi a lui come prospettiva di senso mai esaurita e mai "dimostrata", grazie a un pensiero necessariamente incompiuto, aperto al simbolo e all'ossimoro (la dialettica dei "doppi pensieri") che trova il momento culminante nell'invocazione della preghiera

I presupposti magico-metafisici del computer

Il saggio propone una visione epistemologica anticonvenzionale, che considera la nozione di "scienza" come una categorizzazione storico-culturale soggetta a continue variazioni. Non esiste quindi una necessaria contrapposizione tra scienza e forme "prescientifiche" di sapere, ma esiste al contrario una continuità all'interno di uno stesso processo di mutamento storico. L'informatica e la computer science, in particolare, rappresentano lo sviluppo di forme di sapere che, dall'antichità al Rinascimento e ancora oltre, erano classificate come "magia", come l'"ars memorativa" o "combinatoria" o come il tentativo di correggere la natura umana mediante la creazione di un'"anima artificialis". Un uomo del Rinascimento posto di fronte a un computer sarebbe perfettamente in grado di "comprenderlo", rapportandolo beninteso alle proprie categorie culturali

Il lavoro tra conflittualità e creatività. Un punto di vista filosofico

Il saggio ripercorre le tappe salienti del discorso filosofico sul lavoro, dal legame tra lavoro e necessità proprio dei Greci a quello tra lavoro, dignità morale e libertà proprio dell'età moderna. Riguardo alla contemporaneità, si insiste sulla compresenza nel lavoro di aspetti di conflittualità sociale e produzione creativa di nuove realtà

Il destino del sopravvissuto

Il potere in Canetti si esprime con tre sinonimi: sopravvivenza, antimutamento, paranoia. Il caso clinico del presidente Schreber li sintetizza perfettamente, ed è dunque per Canetti un caso politico, che consente di smascherare il potere in quanto strutturalmente patologico.Power in Canetti’s thought is expressed by three terms: Survival, Anti-change, and Paranoia. The President Schreber clinical case perfectly summarizes these terms, and then according to Canetti is a political case, that allows unmasking the power as pathological by essence

Lo Stato, fra negativismo e dialettica

Among the intelligent and original, even if sparse, scientific work by Enrico Moroni, the monograph [De]costruzioni dello Stato ([De]constructing the State) deserves to be re-evaluated. Common thread between the chapters of this book, is the comparison between two centuries that look alike, in a disturbing way: Seventeenth and Twentieth. From the decentralization of truth in respect to power in Hobbes to the centrality of pure decision in Schmitt, there is a passage mediated by negation of the values in Nietzsche. However Moroni, following his master Italo Mancini, recovers Negativity to Dialectics, identifying it as a possible moment of transition towards horizons of liberation

La violenza di massa in Elias Canetti e René Girard

This essay proposes a comparison between the representations and interpretations of mass violence in Elias Canetti and in René Girard. Girard in part depends on Canetti, and some pages of the two authors are surprisingly similar. In the substance, however, this similarity is misleading. According to Canetti, the collective violence characteristic of the «sicked mass» achieves a momentary liberating non-discrimination between the individuals, but the disintegration of mass in front of the terror aroused in it by its own deadly work in a very short time vanifies its purposes. In Girard’s opinion, collective violence takes essentially the form of sacrifice, and, just on the contrary that in Canetti’s one, overcomes non-discrimination and effectively restores the peaceful order of differences, at the price of death of an always innocent victim. According to Canetti, the role of sacrifice is absolutely marginal, and consists of the offer or the dereliction, wanted or casual, of a member or a part of the social group to a menacing external violence, of which the group is not responsible. The collective violence internal to the group, in the form of the «sicked mass», has rather a penal function and is perceived as an act of justice against an alleged guilty who could be a real guilty. The innocence of the victim is not taken for granted and, unlike that in Girard’s opinion, it is not an essential part of the mechanism. According to both the authors, collective violence plays a very important role in the process of human evolution, because it determines the border between animal and human sociability. Within the violence and thanks to the violence the first structures of properly human order are established. According to Girard, however, the sacrifice is once more the origin and the model of every next cultural creation: therefore, violence pertains to the very nature of human being and may be exceeded only by a metaphysical or religious way. In Canetti’s opinion, violence is consequential to human fragility, originates from the continuous unbearable exposure of man to death, but, like the death self, it is not inescapable and makes room for effective chances of a symbolic overcoming. Two partially overlapping anthropological perspectives which are, in substance, really opposing and scientifically important to be distinguished

Presentazione

Da alcuni anni la complessiva visione della storia diffusa nella cultura di massa si è invertita; si è soliti parlare di "chiusura del futuro". Sembra sparita la prospettiva del futuro migliore. Tuttavia, da indagini sociologiche mirate emergono dati alquanto in controtendenza con questta visione, che mostrano come tra gli studenti universitari siano ancora presente, nonostante difficili condizioni, aspettative non rinunciatarie e depressive e capacità di impegno

Energy use efficiency of livestock farms in a mountain area of Sicily

The research aimed to evaluate the performance (in terms of energy) of livestock farms located in a Mediterranean mountain area and characterized by different stocking rates. Farm data were collected from in-person interviews of farmers of 58 farms representative of the livestock farms of the Madonie and Nebrodi mountains area (Sicily, Italy), including several parameters related to farm characteristics, animal, crop and pasture management. The farm parameters were used to calculate input and output energy values from which agroecosystem performance indicators were derived. Increasing stocking rate corresponded to a more than proportional increase in total inputs per unit area because of a greater farm dependence on external energy sources derived from agriculture (mainly for concentrate feed) and to a lower energy use efficiency. The indicator of dependence on non-renewable energy sources was, on average, very low irrespective of stocking rate. As stocking rate increased the farm autonomy indicator fell and the immediate removal indicator increased. Overall, the best agroecosystem performance in terms of energy was found on farms with lower stocking rates, higher proportions of permanent pastures to total farm area, and longer periods of exclusive grazing

A deep-learning model to continuously predict severe acute kidney injury based on urine output changes in critically ill patients

BACKGROUND: Acute Kidney Injury (AKI), a frequentcomplication of pateints in theIntensive Care Unit (ICU), is associated with a high mortality rate. Early prediction of AKI is essential in order to trigger the use of preventive careactions.METHODS: The aim of this study was to ascertain the accuracy of two mathematical analysis models in obtaining a predictive score for AKI development. A deep learning model based on a urine output trends was compared with a logistic regression analysis for AKI prediction in stages 2 and 3 (defined as the simultaneous increase of serum creatinine and decrease of urine output, according to the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) guidelines). Two retrospective datasets including 35,573 ICU patients were analyzed. Urine output data were used to train and test the logistic regression and the deep learning model.RESULTS: The deep learning model definedan area under the curve (AUC) of 0.89 (±0.01), sensitivity=0.8 and specificity=0.84, which was higher than the logistic regression analysis. The deep learning model was able to predict 88% of AKI cases more than 12h before their onset: for every 6 patients identified as being at risk of AKI by the deep learning model, 5 experienced the event. On the contrary, for every 12 patients not considered to be at risk by the model, 2 developed AKI.CONCLUSION: In conclusion, by using urine output trends, deep learning analysis was able to predict AKI episodes more than 12h in advance, and with a higher accuracy than the classical urine output thresholds. We suggest that this algorithm could be integrated inthe ICU setting to better manage, and potentially prevent, AKI episodes

Investigations into the assembly behaviour of a 'rigidified': P-carboxylatocalix[4]arene

The p-carboxylatocalix[4]arenes have been shown to be versatile supramolecular building blocks capable of forming a range of bi-layers, capsules and nanoscale tubules in the solid state. Here we report the synthesis of a new 'rigidified' analogue, as well as investigations into its self-assembly and related coordination chemistry. These behaviours are reminiscent of other p-carboxylatocalix[4]arenes despite the presence of rigidifying groups at the lower-rim, suggesting that this building block may be further exploited in the assembly of a range of new metal-organic cages and coordination polymers