Interpreting Article 17 TFEU: New Openings towards a European Law and Religion System

SUMMARY: 1. Introduction: From the Traditional Interpretation towards New Openings - 2. Some interpretative difficulties - 3. The Necessary Balance with Other European Interests - 4. Conclusions. Interpreting Article 17 TFEU: New Openings towards a European Law and Religion System ABSTRACT: Article 17 TFEU has been mainly interpreted as a “safeguard clause” aimed at preventing the EU from affecting (even indirectly) national disciplines religiously connoted. Although this traditional interpretation seems to find confirmation in the letter of the provision, in the systematic reading with Article 4 TEU, second paragraph, as well as in the original will of the parties, some scholars started giving credit to a different interpretation: the Article could allow the development of a European Law and Religion System. This article aims to investigate the current possibility for the aforementioned change of prospective. It focuses on three key factors: the interpretative difficulties concerning the Article, the recent jurisprudential evolution of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the growing axiological-systematic relevance of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This work argues that Article 17 TFEU does not recognize a national competence ex ante in all religious matters; it only requires the EU to refrain from regulating cases that are concretely characterized by a high rate of denominational specificity

ReActive: Exploring Hybrid Interactive Materials in Craftsmanship

This paper presents ReActive, a design exploration aimed at embedding interactivity in traditional materials by artisanal processes. In the attempt to reconciling technology with human experience and tradition, we experimented with artisans to understand how craftsmanship can embrace technological innovations while at the same time maintaining its nature and value. We built samples of hybrid materials, where electronics and smart materials are embedded in traditional ones, in order to make them reactive and interactive. We discuss implications and new possibilities offered by these new hybrid materials both for artisans and users and new perspectives for interaction design

L’intesa tra la Repubblica italiana e la Chiesa d’Inghilterra. Un’analisi genealogica

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. Il profilo soggettivo: la confessione Chiesa d’Inghilterra - 3. I contenuti: un’analisi genealogica - 4. (segue) la carenza di specificità - 5. Spunti conclusivi. The Agreement between the Italian State and the Church of England. A Genealogy ABSTRACT: On 30 July 2019, the Church of England signed an Agreement with the Italian State pursuant to art. 8, last paragraph, of the Italian Constitution. The Agreement is the first following Sentence no. 52 of 2016 by the Italian Constitutional Court, a judgement which was highly criticized by the doctrine as it gave too few attentions to concrete problems which affect minority denominations. As expected, the Agreement presents the same flaws of the previous ones to which is actually similar. More precisely, it seems to borrow entire articles from them, simply making systematic adjustments of the provisions. For these reasons, it seems possible to make ‘a genealogy’ of it in order to detect the juridical roots of its content and, therefore, a sort of evolution in the process of standardization. The operation seems to reveal a progressive loss of relevance of the negotiations on content, as the sole purpose of the Agreements seems to be to grant to denominational parties the set of privileges consolidated over time

Innovative approach for the treatment and the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis exploiting polymeric biodegradable nanoparticles targeting synovial endothelium

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease affecting joints due to the persistent inflammation of the synovial tissue. It affects 1% of the worldwide population with high socioeconomic costs. Patients usually require lifetime treatments in order to prevent late stage of the disease, which leads to a condition of disability and pain. Despite the introduction of biological drugs, Methotrexate (MTX) is still the gold standard. However, it shows some weakness such as inefficacy or adverse events after long term usage. For this reason, there is the need to develop drugs with an improved safety profile and higher therapeutic efficacy. Moreover, it is of primary importance to develop diagnostics with enhanced sensitivity and tissue specificity. In order to meet these needs, the purpose of this work is to develop a nanotechnological agent capable to delivery its content, such as drugs or diagnostic tracers, specifically into pathological joints, avoiding healthy tissues. These aims have been achieved exploiting peculiar features of biodegradable nanoparticles (BNPs), such as improved pharmacokinetic and bioavailability, associated to a peptide specific for the inflamed synovia. Recently, the heterogeneity of the molecules present in the endothelium has allowed to develop peptides capable to target vessels of specific tissues. In this project, a cyclic peptide able to target the microvasculature of the inflamed synovia has been exploited to drive BNPs only into inflamed joints. BNPs have been characterized for their physicochemical features, polymers\u2019 toxicity and drug release. Targeted polymeric nanoparticles (tBNPs) demonstrated, both in vitro and in vivo, to preferentially bind inflamed synovial tissue, and their accumulation depends from the degree of inflammation. Targeted BNPs loaded with MTX showed higher efficacy compared to free MTX in two different animal models of RA. In addition, reduced dose of tBNPs-MTX demonstrated to maintain its efficacy, showing fewer side effects compared with systemic administration of free MTX. This new therapeutic approach provided a new mechanism of action from approved therapy and suggest potential application in non-responding patients. All these evidences highlight the potential use of tBNPs as biocompatible and adaptable tool for the diagnosis and the treatment of RA showing important efficacy, reduced side effects and with the potential to enhance the sensitivity of several imaging technologies

A decoy set for the thermostable subdomain from chicken villin headpiece, comparison of different free energy estimators

BACKGROUND: Estimators of free energies are routinely used to judge the quality of protein structural models. As these estimators still present inaccuracies, they are frequently evaluated by discriminating native or native-like conformations from large ensembles of so-called decoy structures. RESULTS: A decoy set is obtained from snapshots taken from 5 long (100 ns) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of the thermostable subdomain from chicken villin headpiece. An evaluation of the energy of the decoys is given using: i) a residue based contact potential supplemented by a term for the quality of dihedral angles; ii) a recently introduced combination of four statistical scoring functions for model quality estimation (FRST); iii) molecular mechanics with solvation energy estimated either according to the generalized Born surface area (GBSA) or iv) the Poisson-Boltzmann surface area (PBSA) method. CONCLUSION: The decoy set presented here has the following features which make it attractive for testing energy scoring functions: 1) it covers a broad range of RMSD values (from less than 2.0 Å to more than 12 Å); 2) it has been obtained from molecular dynamics trajectories, starting from different non-native-like conformations which have diverse behaviour, with secondary structure elements correctly or incorrectly formed, and in one case folding to a native-like structure. This allows not only for scoring of static structures, but also for studying, using free energy estimators, the kinetics of folding; 3) all structures have been obtained from accurate MD simulations in explicit solvent and after molecular mechanics (MM) energy minimization using an implicit solvent method. The quality of the covalent structure therefore does not suffer from steric or covalent problems. The statistical and physical effective energy functions tested on the set behave differently when native simulation snapshots are included or not in the set and when averaging over the trajectory is performed

Oltre il pluralismo religioso. Il veganismo come convincimento di coscienza

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa - 2. Il caso Casamitjana Costa v. The League Against Cruel Sports - 3. Il veganismo nella giurisprudenza italiana - 4. Pari dignità delle coscienze … - 5. (segue) e specificità del fenomeno confessionale - 6. Definire le convinzioni personali tra libertà del singolo e necessità di accertamento - 7. Spunti conclusivi. Beyond religious pluralism. Veganism as an expression of freedom of conscience ABSTRACT: A recent judgement of the Employment Tribunals and a following one of the Tribunal of Bologna recognized veganism as a belief worth of protection. The two judges went beyond the bounds of the religious sphere, exploring the horizon of cultural pluralism, which the Italian Republic, as a secular state, should guarantee. The sentences therefore represent a starting point for addressing the complex issue of the relationship between law and conscience, which recently acquired major importance. As a matter of fact, according to an authoritative doctrine, there is a tendency in all Western legal systems to leave moral or ethical matters to individual self-determination, in accordance with the personalist and pluralist principle. This contribution will then start from the examination of the sentences and then it will deal with some of the main problems concerning freedom of conscience and its protection