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Caratteristiche del volo, condizione genetica, aspetti etologici-riproduttivi e condizione di stress nel grifone(Gyps fulvus) in Sardegna
Full text linkThe present Ph.D. thesis was focused on an animal species of high ecological value, the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), presents in Sardinia in an area of great naturalistic importance and included in the Natura 2000 network. The research has a multidisciplinary approach with the combination of ethology, genetics, endocrinology, anatomy and physiology aspects.
First, we conducted a field study, analysing the ethology and the reproductive characteristics. The differences observed in the reproductive success among the six colonies examined led us to undertake a study on the feathers concentrations of Cortisol and DHEA to assess the animal health stress condition. This approach could represent an additional non-invasive model to investigate the well-being of the colonies.
This large body size species, moves only through a static flight, and only exceptionally can it be observed in beating its wings. This interesting aspect has led us to perform both a study on the structural characteristics of the bones of the wing and a genetic survey of the population. In fact, due to the type of flight, the griffon has difficulty in crossing the stretches of seas. Therefore, it is consequently genetically subjected to the phenomena of isolation. We conducted an analysis of genetic characterization of griffon populations in Sardinia and two other islands of the Mediterranean (Cyprus and Crete) and studied the frequency variations of haplotypes in Sardinia before and after 1986, when through repopulation actions, griffons were introduced coming from the European continent
Facial motor system: voluntary and emotional control
Full text linkFace expressions have a crucial role in human nonverbal behaviour and can be either voluntarily or emotionally controlled. The variety of functions of facial muscles, is reflected in their anatomical and histological characteristics. Face muscles present a peculiar coordination, in fact also during voluntary movements, facial muscles’ groups are always recruited together to produce a facial posture, but how and at which level
they are coordinated and controlled by the emotional system is still unknown. For long time was impossible to study the motor control of facial muscle in humans. Only
recently several studies have demonstrated that it is possible to probe it using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
This work thesis attempted to investigate: 1) the interhemispheric connections between facial motor cortices (fM1);2) the cerebellar-fM1 connectivity; and 3) the influence of emotional stimuli over fM1 and pre-motor cortices, using TMS protocols.
Results provided the first demonstration that : 1) the corpus callosum plays a minor role in the coordination of bilateral face movements; 2) A clear cerebellar-fM1 connectivity operates in the facial motor system; 3) fM1 is directly connected with the emotional system and specifically modulated by stimuli with positive connotation
La Wreck Removal Convention 2007: quadro normativo attuale e prospettive future
Full text linkEven though sea wrecks represented subject of interest and several attempts to regulatory at international level since ancient time, it has reached the drafting of a legal text specifically devoted to them only recently. This is the Wreck Removal Convention 2007 (WRC), entered into force on 14th April 2015, but not in Italy.
This study – quickly flowing previous rules – firstly has the purpose to understand the international legislator’s reasons to adopt a specific regulation in this matter.
Secondly, it analyze WRC provisions and their relations with other international conventions related to marine pollution prevention in order to understand if there is an overlap or integration between these.
Finally, this study also deal with some consequences of the possible entry into force of WRC in Italy that actually apply the Navigation Code 1942
Ritratto di un'autrice: il cinema di Gabriella Rosaleva
Full text linkRitratto di un’autrice. Il cinema di Gabriella Rosaleva
[Portrait of a female auteur. The cinema of Gabriella Rosaleva]
This dissertation is an expression of my interest for the role of women in film and media, which I have started to develop when I was working on my MA thesis. As is well known, the work of women is often underestimated in - and sometimes even completely erased from - the history of cinema.
More specifically, I have decided to focus on Gabriella Rosaleva, an Italian filmmaker who has worked in film and television mainly during the 1980s and the 1990s.
After an introductory chapter, I have focused on the reconstruction of Rosaleva’s biography and, subsequently, on the social and cultural context on which she has worked. In the central part of my dissertation I have extensively analysed her films. Starting from the description of the materials I have gathered during my research, I have examined the structural (narrative and stylistic) elements of Rosaleva’s cinema, outlining the recurrent motives and the most original and “personal” traits of her production - which I have further investigated in the conclusive chapter.
Besides her cinematic oeuvre, I have also analysed in-depth a series of different texts, including her novel and a number of subjects, screenplays, and treatments for films that never got made.
The second volume of the thesis presents an ample iconographic appendix and gathers a selection of her cinematic writings, which have been preserved from the decay of time through digitization
L'Epistolario di Petrarca fra ars poetica e interpretazione
Full text linkThis study of Petrarch’s epistolary (including Familiares, Seniles, Epystole, Sine nomine and Disperse) intends to select, analyse and comment upon the letters in which the writer dealt with some principles of ars poetica, such as writing and interpretation, in order to realize a thematic anthology. After an overall examination of the letters, it has been possible to identify some of the fundamental thematic units of Petrarchan literary thought: the interpretation and study of the text (Fam., XXIV 1, Sen., IV 5, Fam., X 4, Disp., 7, Disp., 11, Disp., 61, Sen., XVII 3 and Sen., XVII 4), the defence of poetry and the study of the liberal arts (Fam., I 7, Fam., I 12, Sen., II 1), the importance of the exemplum (Fam., IV 4), the relationships between classical and Christian models (Fam., XXII 10) as well as between Latin and vulgar eloquences (Fam., XXI 15, Fam., I 1) and the criticism of the auctoritates (Disp., 16). I have also examined the letters that analyse some principles and rhetorical institutes such as the imitatio (Fam., I 8, Fam., XXII 2, Fam., XXIII 19) and the theory of re-writing (Fam., XIII 12). Particular attention has been devoted to Petrarch as a critic and master, constantly active in the evaluation of his friends’ and acquaintances’ works and ready to dispense advices about writing techniques (Disp., 55). Finally, I have attempted to clarify how voluptas scribendi and voluptas legendi, incurable diseases that vex Petrarch, are actually considered by the writer as unique characteristics that distinguish the real writer and the real intellectual from the populace and the Sunday poets (Fam., III 18 and Fam., XIII 7)
Una Ricerca Grounded Theory sul senso di appartenenza alla comunità professionale: la solitudine degli assistenti sociali
Full text linkA Grounded Theory research about the sense of belonging to the professional community. The loneliness of social workers
This Ph.D thesis focuses on the theme of the sense of belonging of social workers to their professional community. We chose to use the methodology of Grounded Theory that, for premises, paradigms, characteristics, techniques adopted, seemed to respond to the need to investigate the topic starting from the point of view of colleagues. The embryonic “sensitizing concept” of the sense of belonging has gradually been defined in more precise research questions: What factors affect the sense of belonging to the professional community? What is the role of the professional Order? Following the Grounded Theory approach, the research is characterized by a spiral process that starts from the collection of data through individual interviews, processes two different levels of codification and analysis, then returns to the field through the focus group and, by a further level of codification, identifies in the loneliness of social workers the main core catogory. The comparison to the scientific literature has allowed to delimit the emerging theory, anchoring the loneliness of social workers to the paradox of the Public New Managment which describes characteristics and implications of the daily job of social workers. It is highlighted what has emerged in connection to the relationship between the professional community and the social workers Order and, finally, another possible investigation trail is showed
Comparison of effects on immunity and autoimmunity of impairment of SH2B3 gene function in human and mice
Full text linkAim: The genetic and physiological similarities between mice and humans have led to dedicate a remarkable attention on murine models in the biomedical research. Our objective is to identify the molecular origins of autoimmunity diseases and immunosenescence by the analysis of a knock-out (KO) mouse model, SH2B3 deficient mouse, as model of autoimmunity. The study includes the comparison of SH2B3 KO mouse immune traits with those of human carriers of a specific genetic variant localized in the SH2B3 gene, the nsSNP rs3184504-T, that is associated with the significant increase of specific cell (Orrù, 2013) and with several autoimmune diseases; moreover the impact of ageing on immune trait levels is considered. To this aim we measured specific immune traits in SH2B3 KO mouse at 2/3, 6/7, 10/11, 14/15 and 18 months.
Methods: To detect immune traits we examined SH2B3 KO and wild-type (WT) blood mice by flow cytometry, complete blood count and immunoassay.
Results: At 2/3 and 6/7 months, we noted a significant increment of leukocytes, granulocytes, monocytes, platelets, immunoglobulins, B cells and subtypes, T cell and subtypes in SH2B3 KO mice compared to WT. At 10/11, 14/15 and 18 months, the increment in SH2B3 KO mice compared to WT mice was maintained for all immune traits, except for T cell and their subtypes.
Conclusions: Considering the obtained data from mouse and the comparison with human data, we believe that the KO model helps us to define the role of the SH2B3 gene, but not to clarify the specific effect of the allelic variant rs3184504-T
Potential use of tannin containing legumes in ruminant and monogastric nutrition
Full text linkRecent studies have demonstrated that forage legumes with moderate levels of condensed tannins (CT) can be favourable for animal nutrition. The nutritional benefits included faster growth rates, higher milk production, increased fertility, improved nitrogen (N) utilization and reducing greenhouse gas and N emissions. The main objective of the present thesis was to investigate how CT from legumes, in particular Birdsfoot trefoil (BT) and Sainfoin (SF) can improve protein utilization of ruminant and monogastric and by that improve their performance and the quality of the final product. The effects of CT from BT was first investigated in Chapter 2. In particular, we focused on the potential of CT to reduce the formation of the compounds responsible of the “pastoral flavour” on lamb meat as well as their ability to protect dietary PUFA from ruminal biohydrogenation enhancing their availability in the small intestine. The influence of BT on intake, digestibility and N balance of lambs fed diets differing in CP level was investigated in the Chapter 3. In this study, special emphasis has been given to the fate of CT by monitoring possible changes in CT concentrations as well as soluble, protein and fibre bound CT fractions after the passage through the digestive tract. Finally, in the Chapter 4 we investigated the impact of increasing levels of CT from SF on growth performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of 48 entire male (EM) with special focus on the potential of CT to reduce the formation of the boar taint related compounds
Investigation on lateral saturated soil hydraulic conductivity evaluated at different spatial scales in a Mediterranean hillslope
Full text linkLateral saturated hydraulic conductivity, Ks,l, is the soil property that mostly governs subsurface flow in shallow soils of steep hills. Hence, Ks,l characterizing is crucial for understanding and modelling the hydrological processes at the hillslope and catchment scales. Although several methods have been developed so far to measure Ks,l, reliable determinations of this property is challenging due to anisotropy and scaling effects of spatio-temporally variable soil heterogeneities on Ks,l measuring. The thesis investigates the changes of Ks,l estimations as a function of soil volume sampled with a given measurement technique based on drainage experiments carried out by a drain, large volume monoliths and on small soil cubes, representative for hillslope, plot and point spatial scales, respectively. The observed discrepancies between the considered scales were mainly attributed to macropore flow and the difficulty in adequately embodying the macropore network on smaller sampled soil volumes. However, at the plot-scale, the sampled volume was sufficient to effectively represent the large-scale hydrological effects of the macropore network. This suggests that performing drainage experiments at this scale is a promising method for routinely characterizing lateral conductivities over large spatial scales. Overall, the thesis provided useful information for the hydrological characterization of soils in semiarid Mediterranean regions, where water management and conservation are critical
Utilization of information and communication technologies to monitor grazing behaviour in sheep
Full text linkThis thesis is a contribution on the study of feeding behaviour of grazing sheep and its general goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of a tri-axial accelerometer based sensor in the discrimination of the main activities of sheep at pasture, the quantification of the number of bites and the estimation of intake per bite.
Based on the literature, it has been observed that feed intake at pasture is a difficult parameter to measure with direct observation, for this reason automated systems for monitoring the activities of free-ranging animals have became increasingly important and common.
Among these systems, tri-axial accelerometers showed a good precision and accuracy in the classification of behavioural activities of herbivores, but they do not yet seem able to discriminate jaw movements, which are of great importance for evaluating animal grazing strategies in different pastures and for estimating the daily herbage intake.
Thus, the main objective of this research was to develop and test a tri-axial accelerometer based sensor (BEHARUM) for the study of the feeding behaviour of sheep and for the estimation of the bite rate (number of bites per min of grazing) on the basis of acceleration variables.
The thesis is organized in 4 main chapters.
Chapter 1. This introduction section reports a literature review on the importance of studying the feeding behaviour of ruminants and on the measuring techniques developed over the years for its detection, with specific emphasis on accelerometer based sensors, which showed a good precision and accuracy in the classification of behavioural activities of herbivores.
Chapter 2. This chapter describes the results of short tests performed in grazing conditions to discriminate three behavioural activities of sheep (grazing, ruminating and resting) on the base of acceleration data collected with the BEHARUM device. The multivariate statistical analysis correctly assigned 93.0% of minutes to behavioural activities.
Chapter 3. This part evaluates the effectiveness of the BEHARUM in discriminating between the main behaviours (grazing, ruminating and other activities) of sheep at pasture and to identify the epoch setting (5, 10, 30, 60, 120, 180 and 300 s) with the best performance. Results show that a discriminant analysis can accurately classify important behaviours such as grazing, ruminating and other activities in sheep at pasture, with a better performance in classifying grazing behaviour than ruminating and other activities for all epochs; the most accurate classification in terms of accuracy and Coehn’s k coefficient was achieved with the 30 s epoch length.
Chapter 4. This section illustrates the results of a study that aimed to derive a model to predict sheep behavioural variables like number of bites, bite mass, intake and intake rate, on the basis of variables calculated from acceleration data recorded by the BEHARUM. The experiment was carried out using micro-swards of Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.), alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), oat (Avena sativa L.), chicory (Cichorium intibus L.) and a mixture (Italian ryegrass and alfalfa). The sheep were allowed to graze the micro-swards for 6 minutes and the results show that the BEHARUM can accurately estimate with high to moderate precision (r2=0.86 and RMSEP=3%) the number of bites and the herbage intake of sheep short term grazing Mediterranean forages.
Finally, the dissertation ends with a summary of the main implications and findings, and a general discussion and conclusions