Neutron stars with submillisecond periods: a population of high mass objects?

Fast spinning neutron stars, recycled in low mass binaries, may have accreted a substantial amount of mass. The available relativistic measurements of neutron star masses, all clustering around 1.4 M_sun, however refer mostly to slowly rotating neutron stars which accreted a tiny amount of mass during evolution in a massive binary system. We develop a semi-analytical model for studying the evolution of the spin period P of a magnetic neutron star as a function of the baryonic mass load M_{ac}; evolution is followed down to submillisecond periods and the magnetic field is allowed to decay significantly before the end of recycling. We use different equations of state and include rotational deformation effects, the presence of a strong gravitational field and of a magnetosphere. For the non-magnetic case, comparison with numerical relativistic codes shows the accuracy of our description. The minimum accreted mass requested to spin-up a magnetized 1.35M_sun-neutron star at a few millisecond is 0.05 M_sun, while this value doubles for an unmagnetized neutron star. Below 1 millisecond the request is of at least 0.25 M_sun. There may exist a yet undetected population of massive submillisecond neutron stars. The discovery of a submillisecond neutron star would imply a lower limit for its mass of about 1.7M_sun.Comment: To appear in the Astrophysical Journal, June 199

La Bibbia ceca del 1506. Sonda nella cultura del libro in Boemia a cavallo tra XV e XVI secolo

In 1506, the printer Liechtenstein published the “Biblij Cžeská w Benátkach tisšten” (Bohemian Bible printed in Venice). The Venetian Bible (as it is commonly called) was written in Czech and was commissioned by three Prague residents. This article aims to show the Czech Bible of 1506 as an interesting “object” that somehow connects two very distant cultural realities of the early sixteenth century: Venice, the most important center of European printing, especially humanist printing, and Prague, the center of Utrakism. This study will focus on three aspects: the situation of Bohemian printing art in the early sixteenth century, which has received the most attention; the reasons why the Bible is a “printed artifact”; and finally, the choice of Venice as the place of publication. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the legacy of the Venetian Bible – a hybrid of two book cultures

TRA TRADIZIONE EROTICA E SURREALISMO: «EROTICKÁ REVUE», UNA RIVISTA SUL LIMITARE

«Erotická revue» is a magazine created and published by Jindřich Štyrský (from 1931 to 1933). It is not a “traditional” erotic magazine, but it is not entirely an avant-garde project either. Štyrský’s magazine works with classical erotic tradition and surrealism, introducing both into the space of the Czech avant-garde. My aim is to propose the interpretation of «Erotická revue» as a response by the Czech surrealist to the necessary acquisition of “high” literature of desire, absent in the Czech literary tradition, to be able to implement an organic surrealistic reading of sexuality

La traduzione pedagogica: una risorsa motivazionale nell’insegnamento della LS/L2

The work focuses on pedagogical translation as motivational tool. In particular, as a tool that works on the motivation of the beginner L2 student. The specific working language is Czech, but we believe that what has been observed may also apply to other languages, whose teaching is characterized by a small number of students. The aim is to offer a theoretical and practical framework to better frame translation as a teaching tool even for beginners L2 at the University. After presenting what we mean with lower‑frequency language, pedagogical transla‑tion and beginner group, we move into the work with translation and how this activity fits into the investigation of motivations in the L

“…non aveva il sesso ricoperto dal muschio” La raccolta collettanea Ani labuť ani Lůna (1936) e la critica sul Diario del 1835 di K. H. Mácha come manifesto estetico, etico e filosofico dei surrealisti cechi

 Abstract – Il presente lavoro intende indagare la lettura surrealista della figura del poeta Karel Hynek Mácha (1810-1836) avanzata nel volume collettaneo Ani labuť ani Lůna (1936). Pubblicato con un chiaro intento polemico, esso contiene numerose critiche alle celebrazioni ufficiali del centenario della morte di Mácha, durante le quali viene promossa e canonizzata un’immagine mitizzata dell’autore come “il” poeta romantico ceco per eccellenza, poeta dell’amore nonché patriota. Al contrario, i surrealisti propongono una riflessione sulla sfera corporea e sessuale di Mácha basandosi sul suo Diario del 1835 e, in particolar modo, alla questione delle sue parti cifrate dall’autore. L’omissione di tali parti nella versione del Diario del 1835 apparsa postuma rappresenta in Ani labuť ani Lůna un bersaglio polemico nei confronti della moralità borghese in seno alla società cecoslovacca del tempo, nonché uno dei principali argomenti di critica alla strumentalizzazione statale operata nei confronti della figura di Mácha. Dopo una rassegna dei contenuti dei vari saggi della pubblicazione, la nostra attenzione si concentra sui contributi di V. Nezval, Z. Kalandra, K. Teige e B. Brouk e alla funzione di “testimonianza della verità” che in essi svolgono le parti cifrate del Diario del 1835. Abstract – The work aims to investigate the Surrealist interpretations of the poet Karel Hynek Mácha (1810-1836) proposed in the collective volume Ani labuť ani Lůna (Nor the Swan nor the Moon, 1936). Published with a clear polemical intention, it contains numerous criticisms of the official celebrations for the centenary of Mácha's death: a mythologized image of the author, canonized as "the" Czech romantic poet par excellence, poet of love as well as patriot. The Surrealists propose, instead, a reflection on the body and the sexual sphere inMácha based on his Diary of 1835 and on the parts encrypted by the author. In Ani labuť ani Lůna, the omission of these parts in the version published posthumously becams a tool for criticizing bourgeois morality within the Czechoslovak society of the time, as well shows the State's exploitation of the figure of Mácha. After presenting of the contents of the various essays in the publication, I will focuses on the contributions of V. Nezval, Z. Kalandra, K. Teige and B. Brouk and on the "witness-to-the-truth" function that the Surrealists ascribe to the encrypted parts of the Diary.

Television and the transnational memory of undemocratic pasts: a comparison between Spain and the Czech Republic

The starting point for the present work is the conviction that we can study the memory of undemocratic pasts from both a transnational and comparative perspective. Television series offer viewers an account of the passage of official history, through the prism of both the fictional characters and viewers’ personal (emotional) relationships. In light of this, some elements are going to be investigated common to two television products, the first set during the Francoism (Cuéntame cómo pasó) and the second during Socialism (Vyprávěj), whose patent purpose is to depict how everyday life was under these repressive regimes. From a transnational point of view, the two TV series demonstrate the presence of at least one common narrative mode of undemocratic pasts, which goes beyond specific national features and characteristics. The specific elements mentioned in this work (the narrator as re-affirmation of the guide-values, the family as a synecdoche for the community that remembers, the television as the ‘memory medium’, and the emotional recognition between audience and character as the mediation space with a ‘problematic’ past) can be interpreted as a possible first mapping of the different narrative modes that tend to be connected with the representation of undemocratic pasts in Europe

La storia e la serialità: il case study České století e Češi

Il testo intende indagare quale tipo di storia e quale tipo di serialità vengono proposti nel ciclo televisivo České století e in quello a fumetti Češi. La peculiarità di queste due realtà culturali consiste nel fatto che entrambi prendono piede dalla stessa sceneggiatura, di Pavel Kosatík, e la loro realizzazione è parallela e simultanea, ma indipendente. La strutturazione della narrazione storica procede in base all’evento specifico e questo influenza l’idea di serialità proposta sia per la televisione che per il fumetto. Obiettivo del lavoro è quello di indagare le forme della storia e della serialità nei due ambiti, quello televisivo e quello fumettistico sempre più in prima linea nella produzione di prodotti di genere storico

Probabilistic seismic hazard assessment in the Mt. Etna region (Italy): application to local volcano-tectonic earthquakes

Earthquakes are, by far, the most relevant source of hazard for the densely urbanised areas of Mt. Etna region. Local communities living in the eastern and southern flanks of the volcano continuously suffer social and economic losses due to the very high occurrence of damaging earthquakes, which produce intensities up to degree X EMS despite of low energy (M < 5.0). Seismic hazard in the Mt. Etna region is controlled by two distinct types of earthquakes, namely regional and local events, which have different magnitudes and frequencies (Azzaro et al., 2008). In particular, hazard deriving from local volcano-tectonic events can be relevant if short exposure times (30 years) are considered, since the reference intensity (Iref) calculated at the exceeding probability of 10% reaches, in some localities, the IX degree (Azzaro et al., 2008; Azzaro et al., 2013). In the framework of the UPStrat-MAFA project, the seismic hazard was performed following the probabilistic approach (PSHA) based on historical macroseismic data, by using the SASHA code (D'Amico and Albarello, 2008; Albarello and D’Amico, 2013) which has been implemented in the project itself. This approach uses intensity site observations to compute the seismic history for each investigated locality; results are obtained in terms of maximum expected intensity with an exceedance probability ≥ 10% for a given exposure time. In this study we produced PSHA maps referred to local volcano-tectonic seismicity

Monopolistic professional closure, family credentials and examination procedures in the Venetian College of Accountants (16th-17th century)

Peer reviewedPostprin

I Paesi dell'Europa orientale e sud orientale Storia degli insegnamenti linguistico-culturali a Ca’ Foscari

The present work aims to investigate the academic life-span of courses in Eastern and South-Eastern European languages and literatures at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, currently taught in the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Comparative Studies. It presents a historical reconstruction of the teaching of Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian languages and literatures from their emergence as academic disciplines to the present day when they continue to be taught at the undergraduate and the graduate level (except for Bulgarian). The section on Russian language and literature is further enriched with a biography of Evel Gasparini. As the article shows, each language has followed a different path, but, with the important exception of Russian language and literature, what they have in common is the long-term attempt and the strong will to maintain their presence in the academic curricula in spite of the continuous fluctuation of conditions that has shaped their history at Ca’ Foscari