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EFFETTO PALLA DI NEVE: LA RIFORMA UNIVERSITARIA E LA NASCITA DEI CORSI DI LAUREA IN ANTROPOLOGIA A ROMA
No full textThe introduction of the new educational system, with its Learning Agreements (which require Undergraduate Courses to provide instruction and require teachers provide students with mentoring), its Program Descriptions (which set out the professional qualifications and employment outcomes which each program aims to provide), and its ministerial charts and their credits (which, through the new composition of the former and the modification of the latter, attempt to make good on the promises of the program descriptions), has resulted in various transformations:
- The change to the new system (3+2): this Copernican revolution has radically modified structures, ways of living university spaces and criteria for the acquisition of knowledge. It has transformed what was a specialized major (for graduates with degrees in Philosophy, Humanities, or Sociology), into a basic discipline (currently there are 700 students enrolled in the first-level degree program, and 200 enrolled in the second level degree program);
- Teaching and research have been tightly bound to the ministerial grids, and to the logic of credits. The scientific pursuit of knowledge has been squeezed between academic/bureaucratic and economic levels.
- The introduction of specialized courses has brought to prominence the figure of the anthropologist, who previously remained obscured in the recesses of a generic degree.
- Teachers have been forced to confront new and urgent challenges: organization of degree programs, drafting of plans of study, and duties of management and monitoring.
- The new courses have permitted the students to feel much earlier on that they belong to a scholarly community, to see themselves as participants in a common endeavor, to critically engage with theoretical and research-related developments in their field , and also (encouraged by their apprenticeship experience) to ask questions about future employment.
The introduction of the university reform has had a “snowball effect” on the Department of Anthropology of the University of Rome. The department has moved from a predominantly academic and self-referential context to that which Nowotny has called agorà (2001: 23), that is, an open, negotiable, conflicted space. The reform has broken the old academic organizational scheme and has opened this space to new subjects and new interests: teachers, students, companies, NGOs, social cooperatives, and government agencies.
In this new context, how has the reform been implemented in the Anthropology Department at the University of Rome? What are the transformations that the reform has caused in the way in which teaching is conceived, in the organization of the undergraduate degree program, in the perspectives of the discipline? What changes have occured in the understanding of the roles of teachers and students? What changes have occured in the way in which teachers and students interrogate the space of the university?
By closely observing the practices of teachers and students, by listening to and analyzing the narratives they produce, which make sense of the university experience and render it objective, I attempt to grasp how the university reform has been negotiated with local traditions, how the idea of anthrolopogy (its boundaries, its theoretical prospectives, its methodological baggage) has changed in accordance with its configurations, both academic and non-academic.
In analyzing these perspectives and trajectories, I make use of the “community of practice” concept of Lave and Wenger
ITALIA "CANTIERE SONANTE". I FLUSSI DI SPESA PER I LAVORI PUBBLICI: ETA' LIBERALE ED EPOCA FASCISTA A CONFRONTO (1871 - 1940)
No full textThe leit-motif of the Fascist propaganda in the matter of public works was the alleged fact the Fascist regime was able of a greater spending capacity compared to the previous Liberal governments. The aim of this study is to measure the economic commitment of the Fascist regime in terms of public works and verify the alleged higher public expenditure during the Fascist period.
Based on the statement of expenses at the Ministry of Economy and Finance a time series has been designed. The period taken into account ranges from 1st January 1871 to 30th June 1940.
The time series analysis shows that between 1926 and 1940 the public works expenditure was the highest (in absolute terms) amongst periods of equal length. However, due to the faster growth of the total public expenditure, the amount allocated to public works was significantly lower compared to the same amount during the so-called Età Giolittiana (1901 - 1914) and especially during the left-wing governments from 1876 to 1895
Epileptiform Synchronization of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex of the Rat and its Modulation by Mu-Opioid Receptor
No full textOver the past century, the cingulate cortex has been catching the interest of both basic science and clinical research in various fields of investigation due to its involvement in several physiological functions. This brain region can in fact modulate affection and behavior, motor responses and autonomic functions, and it has been implicated in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders and epilepsy.
The relevance of considering seizures arising from the cingulate gyrus as a distinct neurological entity has been considered in light of the capability of this brain region to directly affect the functional balance of a more extensive system, involving frontal and temporal areas. The term “cingulate epilepsy” identifies a chronic neurological syndrome, which can be distinguished from other epileptic conditions by its peculiar clinical manifestations.
The anterior cingulate cortex presents with a high density of opioid receptors, which account for the involvement of this cortical area in pain perception. Nonetheless, opioid receptors may be relevant to epilepsy as well, providing their contribution as modulators of cortical activity. However, whether opioid receptors exert a pro- or an anti-convulsant effect is still matter of debate. In light of the high expression of opioid receptors, the cingulate cortex represents a valuable anatomical substrate to address this question. Nonetheless, the data available from in vitro investigation performed so far are contradictory regarding the effect of opioid receptor activation on excitatory and inhibitory activities in this cortical area. Some inconsistencies are uncovered when comparing receptor-binding studies with electrophysiological investigations.
Moreover, the currently available information about the role and involvement of the anterior cingulate cortex in epilepsy is mainly based upon clinical and imaging findings, while in vitro studies remain scarce, in light of the fact that the major interest regarding this cortical area points to its role in emotion and pain. Nonetheless, cingulate epilepsy accounts today for ~30% of brain surgery for refractory epilepsy in the United States. This leads to the need of finding new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of this neurological disorder. To this aim, understanding the basic mechanisms underlying epilepsy is of primary importance.
This Thesis reports an in vitro electrophysiological study of the basic synaptic mechanisms underlying the generation of epileptiform discharges in the anterior cingulate cortex of the rat. Further experimental investigation is dedicated to clarify the role of muopioid receptor activation in epileptiform activity generated by this cortical area.
Part I provides the reader with a general comprehensive overview of the structure and function of the anterior cingulate cortex, and summarizes the main clinical aspects of cingulate epilepsy. A separate chapter is dedicated to report the current knowledge about the role of opioid receptors in synaptic transmission in this cortical area.
Part II provides an insight into the experimental approach by describing the model and the technique.
Part III illustrates the electrophysiological findings of the current study and discusses the possible implications in epilepsy research.
Most of the experiments presented in Part III were performed at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, in the laboratory of Dr. Massimo Avoli, and are published in Epilepsia (Panuccio et al., 2008, see Appendix II). In this section, Chapters 5 (Results) and 6 (Discussion) are excerpts from the published paper.CIHR Grant MOP8109 to Dr. Massimo Avoli
La previsione dei consumi elettrici: un’applicazione al settore del trasporto ferroviario
No full textDue to the liberalization of countless electricity markets, load forecasting has become crucial to all public utilities for which electricity is a strategic variable. With the goal of contributing to the forecasting process inside public utilities and companies in general, this paper addresses the issue of applying different quantitave forecasting models for forecasting the daily and hourly electricity load curve of the Italian railways. The analysis shows the accuracy of the models proposed as well as their properties for this particular case
A probabilistic approach to Performance-Based Wind Engineering (PBWE)
No full textPerformance-Based Design (PBD) is a modern and efficient framework to conceive and assess complex structural systems, which allow designers to consistently take into account both natural and man-made hazards, both in the design of new facilities and in the rehabilitation or retrofitting of existing ones. The first formal applications of PBD were devoted to seismic engineering and design; later it has been extended to other engineering fields, like Blast Engineering and Fire Engineering.
Wind engineering has appeared of great potential interest for further developments of PBD. The expression "Performance-Based Wind Engineering" (PBWE) was introduced for the first time in 2004 by an Italian research project. In this work, the approach proposed by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) for Performance-Based Earth-quake Engineering is extended to the case of PBWE. The general framework of the approach is illustrated and applied to two example cases: a long span suspension bridge and an offshore wind turbine
L'"Altra Storia" dell'architettura residenziale olandese
No full textUn panorama storico-critico sull'architettura olandese -da sempre "un'architettura di case"- negli ultimi 25 anni, attraverso l'analisi di una serie di mega-interventi residenziali esemplari: le grandi riconversioni delle aree portuali ed industriali di Amsterdam e Rotterdam, le "città nuove" dei piani VINEX, la demolizione-rigenerazione del Bijlmermeer, caposaldo dell'urbanistica modernista. Con una particolare attenzione all'Architettura Urbana e alla creazione dell'ambiente residenziale. Un quarto di secolo di grande successo internazionale dell'architettura olandese, che nasconde però numerose contraddizioni e la crisi del modello sociale e politico del polder. Dietro la facciata di un'architettura "super-moderna" da esportazione, lontano dai riflettori della stampa specialistica internazionale ha avuto eccezionali opportunità realizzative un'architettura che per opposizione si può definire "super-tradizionale". Indagando l'ultimo secolo di architettura olandese, da Berlage a Oud, da Amsterdam Zuid al Lijnbaan, da Van Eyck a MVRDV, cresce il dubbio che arrovellava Rem Koolhaas già nel 1989: "How modern is Dutch Architecture?"Tesi di Dottorato in Architettura e Costruzione - Spazio e Società. Composta da tre volumi autonomi. Fa parte di una ricerca collettiva del Dottorato su "Housing in Europa. 1980-2005
