In Search of Order: Portrayal of Communists in Cold War Italy

This article analyzes the battle between Italian Communists and anti-Communists during the early Cold War. Without denying the critical role of high politics or the rivalry between Washington and Moscow, the article places the home front at the center of its analysis, using a bottom-up perspective. Drawing on the rhetoric, remembrances, and visual propaganda produced by Communists and anti-Communists alike, the article shifts the focus of attention away from governments and diplomacy and toward imagination and culture as agents of historical change. Looking beyond the institutional-administrative sphere of politics, the article explores the aspirations, emotions, expectations, and hopes formulated by Italians under conditions of existential uncertainty. The article concludes that the Cold War in Italy was, above all else, an internal contest between two parties over what the recent past meant and what would ensure a just and stable order for society

Vision based strategies for implementing Sense and Avoid capabilities onboard Unmanned Aerial Systems

Current research activities are worked out to develop fully autonomous unmanned platform systems, provided with Sense and Avoid technologies in order to achieve the access to the National Airspace System (NAS), flying with manned airplanes. The TECVOl project is set in this framework, aiming at developing an autonomous prototypal Unmanned Aerial Vehicle which performs Detect Sense and Avoid functionalities, by means of an integrated sensors package, composed by a pulsed radar and four electro-optical cameras, two visible and two Infra-Red. This project is carried out by the Italian Aerospace Research Center in collaboration with the Department of Aerospace Engineering of the University of Naples “Federico II”, which has been involved in the developing of the Obstacle Detection and IDentification system. Thus, this thesis concerns the image processing technique customized for the Sense and Avoid applications in the TECVOL project, where the EO system has an auxiliary role to radar, which is the main sensor. In particular, the panchromatic camera performs the aiding function of object detection, in order to increase accuracy and data rate performance of radar system. Therefore, the thesis describes the implemented steps to evaluate the most suitable panchromatic camera image processing technique for our applications, the test strategies adopted to study its performance and the analysis conducted to optimize it in terms of false alarms, missed detections and detection range. Finally, results from the tests will be explained, and they will demonstrate that the Electro-Optical sensor is beneficial to the overall Detect Sense and Avoid system; in fact it is able to improve upon it, in terms of object detection and tracking performance

Relationship Between Psychological Stress & Oxidative Stress in victims of Motor Vehicle Accidents

Current biobehavioral models of cancer focus primarily on stress-induced failures of immune surveillance as a principle mechanism of cancer progression. However, efforts to identify specific immune mechanisms altered by stress and underlying or affecting cancer course have met with limited success. Although there is clear evidence that stress alters fundamental immune processes, it is not clear whether stress-related changes in immune system activity are of sufficient type or magnitude for cancer to develop or progress (Cohen & Rabin, 1998). Therefore, new innovative approaches are needed to determine if stress is mechanistically linked to cancer. Measuring associations between stress and intermediate endpoints mechanistically linked to carcinogenesis may further understanding of the cancer process and provide insight for intervention. These endpoints include stress-induced alterations in DNA damage and repair (Forlenza & Baum, 2001). The present research measured the urinary concentration of the mutagenic oxidative lesion 8-hydroxy-2ʹ-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) in adult victims of motor vehicle accidents (MVA) and controls. Overnight urine samples (approximately 15 hours) were collected within 1 month of the MVA and again 3 months after the accident. The primary hypothesis is that victims of MVAs will have higher concentration of urinary 8-OHdG compared to controls. Further, reported stress experience will be significantly related to urinary concentration of oxidative DNA damage products. Results showed that people in the MVA group had significantly more distressing somatic symptoms, poorer concentration, significantly more fear and significantly more intrusive thoughts than people in the control group at month 1. Further, these intrusions were related to an objective rating of their injury severity at month 1. Additionally, people in the MVA group had significantly more intrusive thoughts than people in the control group at month 3. There were no group differences in the urinary concentration of 8-OHdG 1 month or 3 months following the MVA and self-reported measures of distress were unrelated to urinary levels of 8-OHdG. Reasons for the lack of association are discussed

Cyber Buddy is Better than No Buddy: A Test of the Köhler Motivation Effect in Exergames.

Objective: Although exergames are popular, few people take advantage of the potential of group dynamics to motivate play (and achieve associated health bene?ts). One motivation gain phenomenon has shown promise for motivating greater effort in partnered exergames: The Koehler effect (working at a task with a more capable partner where one’s performance is indispensable to the group). This article examines whether a Koehler effect can be demonstrated in an exergame by exercising with a moderately superior humanoid, software-generated partner. Materials and Methods: Male and female (n = 120; mean age, 19.41 years) college students completed a series of plank exercises using ‘‘CyBuddy Exercise,’’ a program developed speci?cally for this study. In a lab in an academic building, participants completed the exercises individually and, after a rest, were randomly assigned to complete the same exercises again, but with a ‘‘live’’ human partner (HP) presented virtually, a nearlyhuman-like, humanoid partner (NHP), a hardly human-like, software-generated partner (HHP), or a no-partner control condition (IC), with equal numbers in each group (i.e., n = 30). Exercise persistence, perceived exertion, self-ef?cacy beliefs, enjoyment, and intentions to exercise were recorded and analyzed. Results: A 4X2 analysis of variance on the (Block 2 – Block 1) difference scores showed that a signi?cant Koehler motivation gain was observed in all partner conditions (compared with IC), but persistence was signi?cantly greater with HPs than with either NHP or HHP humanoid partners (P < 0.05). By the conclusion of the study, there were no signi?cant differences among the partnered conditions in perceived exertion, self-ef?cacy, enjoyment, or future intentions to exercise. Conclusions: These results suggest that a software-generated partner can elicit the Koehler motivation gain in exergames, but not as strongly as a partner who is thought to be human

Christianity and Political Thought:Augusto Del Noce and the Ideology of Christian Democracy in Post-War Italy

This article engages with the thought of Augusto Del Noce (1910\u2013 1989), the most important Italian Catholic philosopher and political thinker of the 20th century. The focus is on how Del Noce came to elaborate a Catholic \u2018modernity,\u2019 bridging a positive encounter between Catholicism, democracy and freedom. This philosophical project had a considerable impact on modern Italian culture and politics. At the theoretical level, the argument is embedded within the larger aim of recognizing attempts within Catholic philosophy to articulate an Italian political trajectory that does not simply accept the tale of a singular path to modernity based on the Enlightenment model but instead tries to articulate an alternative vision of the modern, grounded within a transcendental perspective

Catholic Modernity and the Italian Constitution

This article analyzes the Catholic contribution to the Italian republican and democratic Constitution of 1948. It focuses on the specific way \u2013 inspired by Catholic social philosophy \u2013 in which the Italian citizen became symbolically coded as a \u2018person\u2019 and not as an \u2018individual\u2019. The Catholic project for the new Constitution had a considerable impact on modern Italian culture and politics and on the building of a modern mass democracy and welfare state. During the crucial historical juncture that followed the collapse of Fascism, Catholic politicians and intellectuals sought to interpret and give direction to the idea of political modernity, producing a positive encounter between Catholicism, democracy, and freedom. At the theoretical level, the argument is embedded within a larger aim to recognize attempts within Catholic philosophy and political thought to articulate a trajectory that moved away from the Enlightenment model, trying instead to articulate a Catholic, post-liberal and \u2018spiritual\u2019 political modernity