Chapter Giuristi ed economisti nella massoneria italiana fra le due guerre

The article focuses its attention on a list of jurists and economists, all university professors, who were active in Italy in the period between the two world wars and were affiliated with Freemasonry. The survey is based on a sample of 27 individuals belonging to the Grand Orient of Italy (16 jurists and 11 economists or statisticians) and using a prosopographic approach reconstructs their scientific and professional activity. The article highlights that many of them had important positions in universities or held political and institutional roles of national importance. The author carries out some reflections on the reasons that led such a large number of teachers to join the Freemasonry and on the influence that through them it could exercise on the political and cultural life of Italy

La Franc-maçonnerie et le mouvement pour la paix en Europe (1889-1914)

Dès ses origines, la franc-maçonnerie eut dans le pacifisme un élément de distinction de son propre univers idéal, l’inévitable point d’ancrage d’une Weltanschauung qui avait comme points cardinaux le cosmopolitisme et l’humanitarisme. Vers la fin du xixe siècle, les principales franc-maçonneries européennes (à l’exception notable de la franc-maçonnerie anglaise) ont essayé de soutenir le mouvement pour la paix en organisant différents congrès maçonniques internationaux, dont le premier eut lieu à Paris en 1889. Le Congrès de Genève en 1902 marque la naissance du Bureau international des relations maçonniques, qui avait parmi ses objectifs la défense de la paix. Certains Prix Nobel pour la Paix, parmi lesquels le Suisse Élie Ducommun (1902), l’Autrichien Alfred Hermann Fried (1911), le Belge Henri La Fontaine (1913) et le Français Léon Bourgeois (1920), étaient membres de la franc-maçonnerie. Les contradictions profondes du pacifisme maçonnique émergèrent avec l’éclatement de la première guerre mondiale. Le rappel au patriotisme et au sentiment de fidélité aux institutions nationales fut plus fort que l’idée de la fraternité universelle. Toutes les grandes organisations maçonniques européennes se déclarèrent en faveur de l’intervention dans la guerre et pour la défense des intérêts nationaux de leurs pays respectifs.Since its origins Freemasonry had in pacifism one of its most distinctive ideals, the cornerstone of a vision of the world, which had as its cardinal points cosmopolitanism and humanitarianism. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the main European Freemasonries (with the notable exception of the English one) tried to support the peace movement by organizing various international Masonic congresses, the first of which was held in Paris in 1889. The Geneva Congress of 1902 marked the birth of the Bureau international des relations maçonniques, which had among its goals the defense of peace. Some Nobel Prizes for Peace, among whom the Swiss Élie Ducommun (1902), the Austrian Alfred Hermann Fried (1911), the Belgian Henri La Fontaine (1913) and the French Léon Bourgeois (1920), belonged to Freemasonry. The deep contradictions of Masonic pacifism emerged with the outbreak of the First World War. The reference to patriotism and to the sense of loyalty to the nation was stronger than the idea of universal brotherhood. All European Freemasonries aligned themselves in favour of the intervention in war and in the defense of national interests of their respective countries

The Dream of the Republic. Diaspora, Exile, Anti-Fascism and Italian Freemasons in the Interwar Period

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Advanced Computational Methods for Oncological Image Analysis.

The Special Issue "Advanced Computational Methods for Oncological Image Analysis", published for the Journal of Imaging, covered original research papers about state-of-the-art and novel algorithms and methodologies, as well as applications of computational methods for oncological image analysis, ranging from radiogenomics to deep learning [...]

725. Correction of Laminin-5-Deficient Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa by Transplantation of Genetically Modified Epidermal Stem Cells. A Phase-I Clinical Trial

Mutations in genes encoding the laminin-5 heterotrimer, a key component of the epidermal-dermal junction, cause junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB), a severe and often fatal skin adhesion defect. Epidermal stem cells isolated from patients affected by |[beta]|3 chain-deficient JEB were transduced with a retroviral vector expressing a |[beta]|3 cDNA, and used to generate uniformly transduced cultured skin implants. The transgene was steadily expressed for >160 cell doublings in culture, leading to restoration of normal laminin 5 levels, assembly of functional hemidesmosomes, and full phenotypic correction. Cloning and sequencing of vector integrations showed that <20 stem cells are responsible for long-term maintenance of a transplantable skin culture. A phase-I clinical trial started in October 2005, aimed at proving the safety of the transduction/transplantation procedure, and analyzing persistence of transgene expression and long-term survival of transduced stem cells. The first patient was a 30-yr-old male affected by non-lethal JEB, carrying a null mutation in one LAMB3 allele and a point mutation (E212K) in the other one. The mutation affects the assembly of the laminin-5 heterotrimer, present at residual levels (<5%) in vitro and in vivo. Six genetically modified, cultured epidermal sheets of 100 sq cm were transplanted on both legs after removal of the outer skin layer using a minimally invasive technique. The procedure was well tolerated, and the patient discharged after five days. Engraftment was completed after 10 days, and transplanted skin remained stable on both legs in the absence of blistering or inflammation for the duration of the follow-up (4 months at the time of writing). 3-mm punch biopsies were taken 1 and 3 months after transplantation, and analyzed for vector presence by quantitative PCR and for protein expression by immunohistochemistry. A vector signal compatible with full transduction of the transplanted epidermis was observed at both time points. Synthesis and assembly of normal levels of heterotrimeric laminin-5 and |[alpha]|6|[beta]|4 integrin was observed at the level of the basal lamina in all biopsies, together with the development of a firmly adherent, fully differentiated epidermis. Epidermal stem cells (p64+) were detected in the basal layer of the transplanted skin in normal numbers. These data show that gene therapy of JEB by transplantation of genetically corrected stem cells is feasible, and leads to full phenotypic correction of the adhesion defect in vivo. Safety studies are under way, which include detection or humoral or cytotoxic immune responses against laminin-5, and ex vivo cloning and sequencing of the integrated proviruses

Thermometric absorption spectroscopy through active locking of microbubble resonators

We implemented a Microbubble Resonator (MBRs) as an opto-thermal transducer to reconstruct the absorption spectrum of a nanoparticle suspension through its temperature increase. The experimental configuration features the MBR as both the vial containing the suspension and the optical transducer, allowing for a sensitive ultra-compact system with a straightforward microfluidic integration. With respect to a previous publication, the active lock of the MBR resonance produced an order-of-magnitude improvement in the system performance and a smooth absorption reconstruction. Additionally, since the detection process is temperature-based, the measurement is intrinsically insensitive towards scattering spectrum, both of the particles and of the host liquid. These features make the MBR system an interesting candidate for the characterisation of extremely small samples in the context of medical diagnosis from whole biological samples, quality controls for food safety or chemical production processes, and, in general, for the measurement of absorption in opaque mediums

Knowledge representation for culturally competent personal robots: requirements, design principles, implementation, and assessment

Culture, intended as the set of beliefs, values, ideas, language, norms and customs which compose a person’s life, is an essential element to know by any robot for personal assistance. Culture, intended as that person’s background, can be an invaluable source of information to drive and speed up the process of discovering and adapting to the person’s habits, preferences and needs. This article discusses the requirements posed by cultural competence on the knowledge management system of a robot. We propose a framework for cultural knowledge representation that relies on (i) a three layer ontology for storing concepts of relevance, culture specific information and statistics, person-specific information and preferences; (ii) an algorithm for the acquisition of person-specific knowledge, which uses culture specific knowledge to drive the search; (iii) a Bayesian Network for speeding up the adaptation to the person by propagating the effects of acquiring one specific information onto interconnected concepts. We have conducted a preliminary evaluation of the framework involving 159 Italian and German volunteers and considering 122 among habits, attitudes and social norms