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Il caso dell’elezioni politiche del 24-25 Febbraio 2013
No full textI linguaggi politici nella modernità hanno subito, ancor più fortemente di altri, l’emergere della dimensione multimediale frutto dello sviluppo tecnologico. Il codice propriamente verbale-linguistico riveste ormai solo una parte del nucleo significativo dell’accadere politico. La comunicazione politica, ora deve comprendere qualsiasi evento in grado di essere trasmesso e quindi guardato da un soggetto/elettore. Servono dunque strumenti concettuali diversi. Proprio perché la comunicazione politica comprende ogni “manifestazione ostensiva”, essa deve comprendere una visione dell’uomo e del suo stare al mondo moderna e coerente che ci permetta di capire il più possibile le dinamiche attraverso cui l’uomo dà senso e significato a un messaggio, non in quanto enunciato linguistico ma in quanto “segno”, qualsiasi sia la sua dimensione contestuale.
Il progetto di ricerca consiste in tre parti principali. Nella prima si analizza il paradigma della mente descritto dalle scienze cognitive di recente formazione creando le basi per l’analisi dei fenomeni appartenenti a ciò che oggi è da ritenersi comunicazione politica operando una integrazione tra approcci diversi in una prospettiva integrata. Nella seconda parte si svolge un’analisi estensiva delle elezioni politiche del 2012-2013 mettendo in luce le strutture ricorrenti che rappresentano una particolare identità soprattutto analizzando l’uso dell’immagine e di un linguaggio sincretico di tipo metaforico che ben si applica ai mezzi di comunicazione più moderni che in tempi recenti rivestono un’importanza sempre maggiore. Nella terza parte si traggono le conclusioni mostrando i risultati dell’analisi svolta e proponendo futuri sviluppi nel campo di ricerca in oggetto.Sapienza University of Rome; George Lakoff at University of California, Berkeley; Seanna Coulson at University of California, San Diego
Artemis and Virginity in Ancient Greece
No full textABSTRACT
This thesis will examine the nature and function of virginity in the service of Artemis. It will look at two famous virgins in classical literature, Iphigenia and Hippolytus, the girls called “bears” in the festival of Artemis at Brauron, the virgin choruses of Artemis in Sparta, prophetic and sacrificed virgins, abducted and dead virgins in Ovid (Daphne, Callisto, and Philomela), and the virgin goddess Artemis herself. Whereas previous studies emphasize social and legal aspects, arguing that virginity mattered in order to legitimize offspring and marriage, this study will attempt to demonstrate that virginity was originally largely a religious concept and that it occupied a significant place in ancient society, at least as reflected in literary sources. In classical antiquity, however, the chiefly religious properties of virginity became intellectualized as purity and chastity among poets and philosophers. Euripides and Plato were two early proponents. These concepts in the realm of ethics were further developed by pagan philosophers in late antiquity. Early Christian writers, who were heavily influenced by contemporary philosophical teachings, subsequently reclaimed virginity, purity, and chastity as religious properties in the service of God
Characterization of human erythroblasts produced in vitro using HEMA culture
No full textIn the context of the constant difficulty of obtaining supplies of blood products, the interest of disposing of complementary sources of red blood cells (RBCs) for transfusion is evident. Thus, an attempt to generate erythroid cells in vitro makes good sense.
We explored in this work the characteristic of in vitro culture of erythroblasts (EBs) expanded from adult peripheral blood (AB) or cord blood (CB) mononuclear cells (MNCs), with the aim to define the best source for EBs amplification and to optimize the culture conditions to reach a clinical grade production of RBCs. With the aim to define the best source for EBs amplification, we studied the progenitor cell content and the amplification potential of AB- and CB-MNCs in the HEMA culture system. First, five distinct cell populations have been identified by CD34/CD36 staining in AB- and CB-MNCs at the beginning of the culture. They were morphologically and functionally (CFC, liquid culture) characterized. As expected, results showed that in CB the CD34pos content was higher than in AB (1.1±0.66 vs 0.14±0.05, p ≤0.05), while the frequency of erythroid colonies recovered in AB was not statistically different from that of CB. These observations inspired us to compare the expansion potential of these two sources. Results demonstrated that both CD34pos and CD34neg were able to generate EBs in culture. The CD34pos population had a greater proliferation potential, but MNCs generated greater number of EBs in culture both for AB and CB. In addition, we found that AB- and CB-MNCs have similar potential to generate erythroid cells in vitro: MNCs from discarded buffy coat of regular blood donations generate number of EBs comparable to those obtained by low volume CB. In order to reach the goal of optimization of EBs expansion, we performed a functional characterization of EBs obtained from AB- or CB-MNCs. First, we identified in AB-EBs the population that sustains the culture: the immature EBs (iEBs, CD36posCD235anegCD117posCD63low) that retain high self-renewal ability and able to generate greater number of EBs when repeatedly sorted from the bulk of culture. The comparison with CB-EBs revealed the presence of a higher percentage of iEBs than AB-EBs, but despite they showed the same antigenic profile, they highlighted distinct biological properties: they did not retain the ability to self-renew and failed to mature when repeatedly sorted. In fact, the phosphoproteomic profiles revealed differential signaling pathway active in AB- and CB-EBs.
In conclusion, these results indicate that in HEMA culture, MNCs are better than CD34pos cells because they generate greater number of EBs. Furthermore, buffy coats from regular blood donations are a rich source of stem/progenitor cells which may have clinical potential and are not inferior to CB in generation of EBs. Moreover a molecular characterization of the signaling pathways activated during erythroid differentiation could be a novel approach to promote EBs expansion or the sequential purification of iEBs could be considered as an additional strategy to increase the expansion of these cells useful as transfusion products
RNAi machinery cooperates with SWI/SNF complexes in nucleosome positioning at Transcriptional Start Sites
No full textIn Eukaryotes, Argonaute (AGO) proteins have a well-established role in the cytoplasm in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression in association with different classes of small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs).
In plants and yeast, it has been demonstrated that AGO proteins exert a role in the epigenetic regulation of chromatin modifications. Furthermore, AGO2 protein acts also in the nuclei of human cell lines and emerging literature reports that upon the transfection of sRNAs complementary to non-coding promoter transcripts, AGO2 is recruited on target promoters.
Previous results in our laboratory demonstrated that AGO2 and SWI/SNF have a physical interaction, which is independent of RNA or DNA, in human cell lines. As SWI/SNF is the major chromatin-remodelling complex in human, these data suggest that AGO2 might participate in the regulation of chromatin plasticity. In eukaryotes, the proper organization of chromatin is essential for the control of gene expression and is achieved through the concerted activity of histone modifications, DNA methylation and nucleosome positioning.
The focus of the present thesis has been the development of relevant bioinformatics pipelines for data processing, analysis and visualization, all aiming at dissection of the functional significance of the AGO2-SWI/SNF interaction.
Interestingly, this bioinformatics pipeline allowed me to identify a novel class of nuclear AGO2-bound sRNAs arising from genomic regions 150 nt around the Transcription Start Sites (TSS) bound by SWI/SNF (swiRNAs). Furthermore, swiRNAs present a Dicer-dependent processing and show an involvement in nucleosome occupancy at nucleosome +1. These data represent the first description of a molecular mechanism through which AGO2 is involved in nucleosome positioning in mammalian cells
Il dialogo uomo-macchina: analisi di un corpus originale raccolto nell'ambito del progetto Speaky Acutattile
No full textRestauro di superfici cartacee biodeteriorate: batteri pulitori e nuovi metodi enzimatici integrati
No full textSYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION AND FUNCTIONALIZATION OF PEDOT CONDUCTING SYSTEMS ON ETHYLENE VINYL ALCOHOL COPOLYMER SUPPORTS AND DERIVATIVES
No full textThe research work described in this PhD thesis focuses on methods and strategies of employing a polymer substrate for poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) synthesis.
For the purpose an ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVAL) was chosen. It offers many potentialities. Serving as mechanical support and/or functionalizable phase, it was differently combined with PEDOT to give conducting composite polymer flms or it was modified to obtain electro-active materials.
Aim of the work is to show how, starting from the same base, it is possible to introduce functionalities into supported conducting systems both through the substrate and through the conducting phase, and all the strategies that were adopted
