Streams across the Silk Roads? The case of Islamic glass from Ghazni

Abstract This paper presents data obtained by a combined chrono-typological and archaeometric study carried out on an assemblage of glassware and bracelets unearthed at the Ghaznavid Palace of Ghazni, Afghanistan. Pulsating trade and cultural centre located along the Silk Roads, the site of Ghazni has yielded evidence of an uninterrupted archaeological sequence, with settlement continuity spanning from pre-Islamic (2nd–9th/10th CE) to Islamic periods (end 10th–19th CE). Both glassware and bracelets were manufactured by using a plant ash-based glass, in line with Central Asian glassmaking technology. Furthermore, several compositional groups were identified, showing close affinities with other assemblages from Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Jordan

Are Suicide Attempters Who Self-Mutilate a Unique Population?

OBJECTIVE: Individuals who mutilate themselves are at greater risk for suicidal behavior. Clinically, however, there is a perception that the suicide attempts of self-mutilators are motivated by the desire for attention rather than by a genuine wish to die. The purpose of this study was to determine differences between suicide attempters with and without a history of self-mutilation. METHOD: The authors examined demographic characteristics, psychopathology, objective and perceived lethality of suicide attempts, and perceptions of their suicidal behavior in 30 suicide attempters with cluster B personality disorders who had a history of self-mutilation and a matched group of 23 suicide attempters with cluster B personality disorders who had no history of self-mutilation. RESULTS: The two groups did not differ in the objective lethality of their attempts, but their perceptions of the attempts differed. Self-mutilators perceived their suicide attempts as less lethal, with a greater likelihood of rescue and with less certainty of death. In addition, suicide attempters with a history of self-mutilation had significantly higher levels of depression, hopelessness, aggression, anxiety, impulsivity, and suicide ideation. They exhibited more behaviors consistent with a borderline personality disorder and were more likely to have a history of childhood abuse. Self-mutilators had more persistent suicide ideation, and their pattern for suicide was similar to their pattern for self-mutilation, which was characterized by chronic urges to injure themselves. CONCLUSIONS: Suicide attempters with cluster B personality disorders who have a history of self-mutilation tend to be more depressed, anxious, and impulsive, and they also tend to underestimate the lethality of their suicide attempts. Therefore, clinicians may be unintentionally misled in assessing the suicide risk of self-mutilators as less serious than it is

Sustainable tourism supported by the drafting of the Crossborder Sustainable Mobility Plan (PTMS) between southern Italy and Epirus in Greece

The drafting of a cross-border Sustainable Mobility Plan, developed within the framework of the European project, financed by the Interreg Greece-Italy Cooperation Programme 2014-2020, highlights the importance of a synergic and systemic approach to cope with the need to agree on sustainable accessibility models at international and local level for the development of tourism that is sensitive to the environmental, social and economic needs of the territories. The imperative from which the research starts is the imminent urgency of providing systemic sustainability solutions for which transport assumes a central role. The Cross-Border Sustainable Mobility Plan (PTMS) was drawn up taking into account international, national and local transport plans and programmes, with particular attention to existing SUMPs (Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans), and then proposes alternative solutions to the most polluting ones and lays the foundations for the possible activation of new maritime lines connecting southern Salento (Italy) with Epirus (Greece)

A New Venture and a Commitment to Disciplinary Fusion in the Domain of Digital and Public Humanities

On 5 June 2019, Ca’ Foscari University launched the Venice Centre for Digital and Public Humanities (VeDPH) in order to take a proactive role in the digital transformation of society and of the academic landscape. With the ambition of enhancing humanities research and opening up knowledge and practices to a wider public, scholars, artists and programmers have been attracted who are engaged in the application of computer science and emerging technologies in the humanities. Building on the competences and achievements already made at the Department of Humanities, which has been awarded with an excellence grant by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR), a new team of expert scholars and specialists

Cosmetologia cinese: un viaggio tra tradizioni, arte e tecnologie ereditate dalle grandi dinastie (parte 2)

Prosegue l’affascinante viaggio storico attraverso i secoli e le diverse dinastie che hanno governato l’antica Cina, alla scoperta dell’arte cosmetica di questo grande paese. Possiamo così osservare le diverse tecniche formulative e le materie prime vegetali, animali e minerali impiegate per realizzare ciprie, belletti e fard, rossetti, saponi e profumi, oltre a conoscere i metodi usati dalle donne cinesi per applicarli nella decorazione del viso, con uno sguardo anche alle diverse pratiche di igiene e di estetica

Cosmetologia cinese: un viaggio tra tradizioni, arte e tecnologie ereditate dalle grandi dinastie (parte 3)

Ultima tappa del percorso storico e scientifico alla scoperta della cosmesi tradizionale dell’antica Cina, con un’ampia panoramica sulle diverse modalità e procedure di preparazione delle sostanze vegetali, animali e minerali utilizzate per realizzare le innumerevoli formulazioni cosmetiche, basate sulle proprietà “energetiche” che le caratterizzano: la natura, i sapori e i movimenti

Cosmetologia cinese: un viaggio tra tradizioni, arte e tecnologie ereditate dalle grandi dinastie. Parte I Introduzione sulla cosmetologia nella tradizione cinese. La visione olistica.

La cosmetologia cinese è una scienza prodotta dell’interazione di discipline differenti: chimica, botanica, scienze mediche che si occupano di dermopatologie ed estetica, ma anche psicologia. I principi su cui si fonda e agisce sono ritracciabili nell’olismo, per il quale l’uomo è concepito come un’entità complessa e unica, da curare nella psiche, nello spirito e nel corpo. Alla scoperta di un sistema antichissimo ma precursore della moderna cosmesi, se si considera che le donne cinesi sono state le prime a usare lo smalto per colorare e decorare le loro unghie

Biodegradable spray mulch applications in greenhouse agroecosystems

The replacement of synthetic chemical herbicides and traditional plastic sheets is a major challenge of modern horticulture in view of a sustainable weed management. In the first step of this research, we tested the weed control efficacy of two biodegradable polymers, chitosan and galactomannan, applied to the soil surface as spray mulching, with or without the addition of charcoal as a light masking agent, and five essential oils with recognized herbicide properties. The results showed the ability of chitosan in reducing the number and the biomass of annual plants, regardless of the addition of charcoal and essential oils. In the second step, we tested the efficacy of one or three days of false seeding to increase the effectiveness of chitosan against seed germination. The results showed, on average, a reduction of 79% of annual weed presence after three days of false seeding. In both steps, the microbial biomass and three indicators of microbial activity (i.e., basal respiration, FDA hydrolysis activity, and D-glucosamine-induced respiration) were measured in the soil under the experiments in order to investigate possible alterations of soil biological activity induced by the treatments. The results provided no evidence of negative impact of the treatments on soil microbial biomass and activity

Additive effects of aging and blast induced mild traumatic brain injury within white matter tracts: A novel DTI analysis approach.

Veterans of recent military conflicts have experienced a high rate of mild traumatic brain injuries from exposure to blasts (bTBI). Difficulty detecting the neuroanatomical effects of bTBI using standard imaging protocols, including diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), has hindered the development of evidence-based treatments. A possible reason for this challenge is that many past DTI studies attempting to identify neuroanatomical markers of bTBI have ignored the broad range of cumulative blast exposure among Veterans, and therefore potentially reduced sensitivity to associations between bTBI and DTI metrics. Here, we compare commonly used DTI metrics: fractional anisotropy and mean, axial, and radial diffusivity (FA, MD, AD, RD) in U.S. Military Veterans with and without a history of blast exposure using both the traditional method of dividing participants into two equally weighted groups, and an alternative method, wherein each participant is weighted by their blast exposure quantity, severity, and recency. While no differences in FA, MD, and AD (and minimal in RD) were detected using the traditional method, the alternative method revealed diffuse and extensive changes in all four DTI metrics associated with bTBI. These effects were quantified within 80 anatomically-defined white matter tracts as the percentage of voxels with significant changes, which identified the acoustic and optic radiations, fornix, uncinate fasciculus, inferior occipito-frontal fasciculus, cingulum, and the anterior commissure as the pathways most affected by bTBI. Moreover, additive effects of aging were present in many of the same tracts suggesting that the neuroanatomical effects of bTBI may compound with age