Este tren no está destinado a la gloria. Un estudio de ferropaisajes literarios

Ravasio P. Este tren no está destinado a la gloria. Un estudio de ferropaisajes literarios. Ensayos InterAmericanos. Vol 11. Bielefeld: kipu-Verlag; 2020

Este tren no está destinado a la gloria

The book “este tren no está destinado a la gloria” (this train is not destined for glory) revolves around the metaphor of literary ferro-landscapes. Conceived as narrative nodes created around the mobility of human and material capital by train, and at the same time interdependent of the economies that move such capital, this book approaches the literary representation of the railway world in narratives located in the Panama Canal Zone, through the Central American banana enclaves and follows the migrant caravan that crosses Mexico on La Bestia (The Beast). Ravasio reveals in her study a dialectic of in/mobilities where literary ferro-landscapes narratologically correlate spatial displacement with social immobility, exposing the exiles of modernity in their inglorious journey through the Americas

Este tren no está destinado a la gloria

The book “este tren no está destinado a la gloria” (this train is not destined for glory) revolves around the metaphor of literary ferro-landscapes. Conceived as narrative nodes created around the mobility of human and material capital by train, and at the same time interdependent of the economies that move such capital, this book approaches the literary representation of the railway world in narratives located in the Panama Canal Zone, through the Central American banana enclaves and follows the migrant caravan that crosses Mexico on La Bestia (The Beast). Ravasio reveals in her study a dialectic of in/mobilities where literary ferro-landscapes narratologically correlate spatial displacement with social immobility, exposing the exiles of modernity in their inglorious journey through the Americas

The costs incurred by patients to get eligibility to PCSK9 treatment and one-year follow-up: the results of the PRIOR Study

Background. Several health care services are required to get eligibility to PCSK9-inhibitors medicines and the follow-up of patients being treated. The ultimate goal is making prescriptions appropriate and monitoring the effects of these drugs. Some recent papers (opinion / consensus documents) highlighted the necessity to make simpler this clinical pathway. Our paper illustrates the cost of this pathway incurred by patients (direct healthcare and non-healthcare costs, productivity losses by patients and their possible care-giver due to the time dedicated to healthcare services). Methods. The study relied on a retrospective data collection through a structured questionnaire administered to 240 patients, being on treatments with PCSK9-inhibiotrd drugs for at least one year. Patients were recruited in 4 Italian healthcare centres from June 2020 to July 2021. Results. Recruited patients are 64 years old on average. 64% of patients are males and 36% are actively employed and working. Mean cost incurred by patients amounts to € 926,1. Direct healthcare costs, direct non-healthcare costs and productivity losses equal to € 463,5 (50%), € 136,7 (15%) and € 325,9 (35%) respectively. Healthcare services fully covered by the National Health Service account for 56% of the total. Co-payments are applied to 26% of healthcare services, whereas patients pay the full price for 18% healthcare services. Discussion. Getting eligibility to PCSK9-inhibitors and managing patients’ follow-up generate important costs incurred by patients. Furthermore, these costs are very different across healthcare centres. We are fully aware that appropriateness of prescriptions and patients’ follow-up are very important. However, simplifying the clinical pathway would bring economic advantages and could make more homogenous the way this pathway is managed by healthcare centres

The correlated optical and radio variability of BL Lacertae. WEBT data analysis 1994-2005

Since 1997, BL Lacertae has undergone a phase of high optical activity, with the occurrence of several prominent outbursts. Starting from 1999, the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope (WEBT) consortium has organized various multifrequency campaigns on this blazar, collecting tens of thousands of data points. One of the main issues in the study of this huge dataset has been the search for correlations between the optical and radio flux variations, and for possible periodicities in the light curves. The analysis of the data assembled during the first four campaigns (comprising also archival data to cover the period 1968-2003) revealed a fair optical-radio correlation in 1994-2003, with a delay of the hard radio events of ~100 days. Moreover, various statistical methods suggested the existence of a radio periodicity of ~8 years. In 2004 the WEBT started a new campaign to extend the dataset to the most recent observing seasons, in order to possibly confirm and better understand the previous results. In this campaign we have collected and assembled about 11000 new optical observations from twenty telescopes, plus near-IR and radio data at various frequencies. Here, we perform a correlation analysis on the long-term R-band and radio light curves. In general, we confirm the ~100-day delay of the hard radio events with respect to the optical ones, even if longer (~200-300 days) time lags are also found in particular periods. The radio quasi-periodicity is confirmed too, but the "period" seems to progressively lengthen from 7.4 to 9.3 years in the last three cycles. The optical and radio behaviour in the last forty years suggests a scenario where geometric effects play a major role. In particular, the alternation of enhanced and suppressed optical activity (accompanied by hard and soft radio events, respectively) canComment: 6 pages, 4 figure

WEBT and XMM-Newton observations of 3C 454.3 during the post-outburst phase. Detection of the little and big blue bumps

The blazar 3C 454.3 underwent an unprecedented optical outburst in spring 2005. This was first followed by a mm and then by a cm radio outburst, which peaked in February 2006. We report on follow-up observations by the WEBT to study the multiwavelength emission in the post-outburst phase. XMM-Newton observations on July and December 2006 added information on the X-ray and UV fluxes. The source was in a faint state. The radio flux at the higher frequencies showed a fast decreasing trend, which represents the tail of the big radio outburst. It was followed by a quiescent state, common at all radio frequencies. In contrast, moderate activity characterized the NIR and optical light curves, with a progressive increase of the variability amplitude with increasing wavelength. We ascribe this redder-when-brighter behaviour to the presence of a "little blue bump" due to line emission from the broad line region, which is clearly visible in the source SED during faint states. Moreover, the data from the XMM-Newton OM reveal a rise of the SED in the UV, suggesting the existence of a "big blue bump" due to thermal emission from the accretion disc. The X-ray spectra are well fitted with a power-law model with photoelectric absorption, possibly larger than the Galactic one. However, the comparison with previous X-ray observations would imply that the amount of absorbing matter is variable. Alternatively, the intrinsic X-ray spectrum presents a curvature, which may depend on the X-ray brightness. In this case, two scenarios are possible.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Simposio Internacional “Mundos Conectados: Saberes, imágenes y sonidos del Caribe y Centroamérica en el mundo atlántico"

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Pattern of care and effectiveness of treatment for glioblastoma patients in the real world: Results from a prospective population-based registry. Could survival differ in a high-volume center?

BACKGROUND: As yet, no population-based prospective studies have been conducted to investigate the incidence and clinical outcome of glioblastoma (GBM) or the diffusion and impact of the current standard therapeutic approach in newly diagnosed patients younger than aged 70 years. METHODS: Data on all new cases of primary brain tumors observed from January 1, 2009, to December 31, 2010, in adults residing within the Emilia-Romagna region were recorded in a prospective registry in the Project of Emilia Romagna on Neuro-Oncology (PERNO). Based on the data from this registry, a prospective evaluation was made of the treatment efficacy and outcome in GBM patients. RESULTS: Two hundred sixty-seven GBM patients (median age, 64 y; range, 29-84 y) were enrolled. The median overall survival (OS) was 10.7 months (95% CI, 9.2-12.4). The 139 patients 64aged 70 years who were given standard temozolomide treatment concomitant with and adjuvant to radiotherapy had a median OS of 16.4 months (95% CI, 14.0-18.5). With multivariate analysis, OS correlated significantly with KPS (HR = 0.458; 95% CI, 0.248-0.847; P = .0127), MGMT methylation status (HR = 0.612; 95% CI, 0.388-0.966; P = .0350), and treatment received in a high versus low-volume center (HR = 0.56; 95% CI, 0.328-0.986; P = .0446). CONCLUSIONS: The median OS following standard temozolomide treatment concurrent with and adjuvant to radiotherapy given to (72.8% of) patients aged 6470 years is consistent with findings reported from randomized phase III trials. The volume and expertise of the treatment center should be further investigated as a prognostic factor

Black Costa Rica: la imaginación histórica multidimensional en poesía afra-costarricense

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Black Costa Rica: Plurizentrische Zugehörigkeit in der weiblichen Afro-costa-ricanischen Poesie

Black Costa Rica: Pluricentrical Belonging in Afra-Costa Rican Poetry engages the lyric of Eulalia Bernard (Limón, Costa Rica *1935), Shirley Campbell (San José, Costa Rica *1965), and Dlia McDonald (Colón, Panamá *1965) by a historically backwards-looking perspective that explores a pluricentrical sense of belonging. This concept refers mainly to plural centers of cultural and historical identifications along a glocal sociohistorical continuum stretched across the multifold aspects of the nation~diaspora dynamic/s. The literary analysis traces the coming of age of the Afro-Costa Rican community in these women’s poetry as a local manifestation of global phenomena concerning diaspora/s, the dialectics of race and nation, and processes of assimilation and of marginalization. The dissertation asks, fundamentally, how does their poetry reveal a historical imagination referring both to a national specificity while simultaneously expressing identification with socio-historical processes in the circum-Caribbean region? What are the poetic themes and which the lyrical forms that constitute a myriad of local and global aspects regarding the coming of age of the Afro-Costa Rican community? Departing from these premises, the dissertation tells a story of the past by addressing the ways in which the glocal is deployed through specific figures of speech. Based on the study of what I have termed a modernized-nature oxymoron in McDonald, a skin-history metonymy in Campbell, and code-switching in Bernard, spatial and racial configurations as well as linguistic identity are here addressed as features of a trifold historical imagination yielding pluricentrical belonging. The oxymoron tells of an outernational past (diasporic) while the metonymy declaims a supranational one (global); multilingualism instead points to an infranational historical imagination (‘non’-Costa Rican). By way of a close reading, the dissertation tells the recent story of the country’s past in the form of a three layered stor(y)ing of spatially–, meta-historically–, and multilingually-defined imaginings of Black Costa Rica.Die Dissertation betrachtet Lyrik von Eulalia Bernard (Limón, Costa Rica *1935), Shirley Campbell (San José, Costa Rica *1965) und Dlia McDonald (Colón, Panamá *1965) aus einer historisch rückblickenden Perspektive, die den plurizentrischen Aspekt von Zugehörigkeit ins Zentrum rückt. Dieser Terminus beschreibt metaphorisch die Pluralität diverser Zentren kultureller und historischer Identifikationsmöglichkeiten und ist als (g)lokales soziohistorisches Kontinuum zu verstehen, welches sich über die mannigfaltigen Aspekte der Nation/Diaspora-Dynamiken ausbreitet. Die folgende literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse hat es sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die Spuren der Coming-of-Age-Entwicklung der afro-costa-ricanischen Gemeinde in der Poesie jener Autorinnen ausfindig zu machen. Hierbei wird die Poesie als Spiegelung globaler Dimensionen im Hinblick auf die Diaspora/Nation-Dynamik, die Dialektik ethnischer Gruppen und Nationen, sowie Prozesse der Assimilation und der Marginalisierung ethnischer Minoritäten betrachtet. Im Fokus dieser Dissertation steht die grundlegende Frage nach den poetischen Themen und der jeweiligen Formen die eine Unmenge lokaler und globaler Fülle konstituieren. Gefragt wird also, Wie legen die Texte eine glokale historische Imagination offen, die auf eine nationale Einzigartigkeit verweist und gleichzeitig eine Identifizierung mit dem übergeordneten karibischen Raum ausdrückt? Die Dissertation zielt darauf ab, eine Geschichte des Vergangenen zu erzählen. Hierzu wird angestrebt, die Aspekte jenes plurizentrischen Zugehörigkeitssinnes, der durch bestimmte rhetorische Stilmittel zum Ausdruck gebracht wird, nachzuempfinden. Im Fokus stehen das, wie ich es benannt habe, Oxymoron der modernized-nature bei McDonald, der skin-history Metonymie bei Campbell und das Code-Switching-Phänomen im Falle von Bernard. Dabei werden sowohl räumliche und ethnische Variationen als auch sprachliche Identität als Elemente einer dreidimensionalen historischen Vorstellung betrachtet. Das Oxymoron beschreibt eine außernationale (diasporische) Vergangenheit, während die Metonymie im selben Moment eine supranationale (globale) proklamiert. Multilingualismus wiederum verweist auf eine infranationale historische Vorstellung (als ‚nicht-costa-ricanisch‘ bezeichnet). Diese Dissertation manifestiert letztlich – auf einer philologischen Analyse basierend – die Geschichte der Vergangenheit Costa Ricas in der Form einer dreidimensionalen Erzählung räumlich, metahistorisch und multilingual definierter Vorstellungen eines schwarzen Costa Ricas.The book you hold in your hands is an interdisciplinary study on diaspora literacy in Afro-Central America. An exploration through various imaginings of times past, this study is concerned with how oxymoron, metonymy, and multilingualism deploy pluricentrical belonging. By exploring the interlocking of multiple roots that have developed on account of routes, rhizomatic historical imaginations are unearthed here so as to imagine an other Costa Rica. A Black Costa Rica