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Preface
The volume provides a first comprehensive study on the so-called Lectura Thomasina, a commentary on the Sentences written by William of Peter of Godin at the beginning of the 14th century. The conspicuous number of verbatim quotations from Thomas Aquinas’ writings makes the text a very interesting case study: Godin does not aim at writing a mere collection of Aquinas’ dicta, but rather a sort of “Thomistic” teaching handbook. This peculiarity makes the Lectura Thomasina a fundamental piece to the mosaic of the reworking of Aquinas in late medieval teaching activity before his canonization. The first section of the volume is devoted to a textual analysis of the Lectura and its sources. The second section examines certain themes in Godin’s theology and philosophy. The last section is devoted to Godin’s influence on the Dominican traditio
Preface
Introduction to the volume "The Lectura Thomasina in Its Context. Philosophical and Theological Issues", which collects articles based on the workshop “Freedom of Teaching and Educational Policy. Censures, Condemnations, Corrections in the Late Medieval Schools,” held in Cologne in February 2017
Polimeri "imprinted" per l'analisi proteomica - Molecularly imprinted Polymers for proteome analysis
Il lavoro di ricerca nell’ambito del Corso in Dottorato in Biotecnologie
Industriali e Ambientali è stato svolto nel dipartimento Scientifico
Tecnologico dell’Università di Verona, nei Laboratori di Metodologie
Biochimiche. Il lavoro è stato svolto in cotutela con l’università di
Cranfield, UK e supervisionato dalla Dr.ssa Alessandra Bossi e dal
Prof. Sergey Piletsky.
Il lavoro si è svolto nell’ambito della proteomica, nel tentativo di
risolvere uno dei principali problemi che affligge lo studio del
proteoma d’organismi complessi. Come è ben noto in fluidi biologici o
campioni complessi sono presenti diversi intervalli di espressione di
proteine. Alcune (geni strutturali o house-keeping) sono presenti
nell’ordine dei mg/ml mentre altre sono espresse nell’ordine dei
ug/ml o pg/ml). Spesso quindi la presenza di proteine molto espresse
maschera il segnale di proteine meno abbondanti, queste ultime
generalmente considerate potenziali biomarcatori per diverse
malattie. La rivelazione di questi potenziali biomarcatori risulta
difficile e con esso la diagnosi della patologia.
La letteratura riporta differenti approcci che permettono la rimozione
di proteine molto abbondanti; essi si basano su approcci di tipo
cromatografico, elettroforetico o metodologie coadiuvate da anticorpi.
In questo progetto di tesi, si è voluto creare e applicare una tecnologia
innovativa all’analisi del proteoma, mai applicata fino ad ora: la
creazione di polimeri selettivi per una specifica proteina. In
particolare, sono stati creati polimeri specifici per una delle proteine
più problematiche nell’analisi del siero umano vale a dire l’albumina,
che rappresenta circa il 60% delle proteine totali espresse. Tali
polimeri sono creati con una particolare tecnologia, in altre parole
durante la fase di polimerizzazione, la proteina che deve essere
rivelata nel campione è aggiunta alla miscela di polimerizzazione, in
modo da creare, durante la fase di polimerizzazione una specifica
cavità nella matrice polimerica, come un vero e proprio stampo. Le
proprietà di tali polimeri chiamati “MIP” vengono confrontate con le
proprietà dello stesso polimero in cui durante la fase di
polimerizzazione non è stato usata nessuna proteina (il controllo). In
seguito alla polimerizzazione la proteina utilizzata è rimossa
lasciando libera una cavità che è in grado di ospitare la stessa
proteina una volta che essa verrà messa in contatto con il polimero
stesso.
La tesi che si fonda su questa tecnologia si può quindi dividere in due
sezioni:
Sezione I: Sviluppo di una tecnologia per derivatizzare palline di silice
con acido 3-amminofenilboronico e in grado di riconoscere l’albumina
di siero umano.
Sezione II: Creazione di nuovi polimeri costituiti da poliacrilammide
(PAA) e capaci di rimuovere l’albumina di siero umano.The research work carried out in the last three years and presented
in this thesis, has been conduced in the Laboratory of Biochemical
Methodologies of the Scientific and Technologic Department of the
University of Verona, in collaboration with Cranfield Health of the
University of Cranfield (UK).
One of the main problems in proteome analysis is the presence of
high abundance proteins from house-keeping or structural genes,
that mask the signal of low abundance ones. The low ones are often
potential biomarkers to study specific diseases.
In literature different approaches for the removal of high abundance
proteins are described, among which electrophoretic and
chromatographic pre-fractionation techniques and antibodymediated
depletion of specific proteins from biological fluids (i.e.,
human serum, cerebrospinal fluid).
The aim of my PhD thesis has been using Molecularly Imprinted
Polymers (MIPs) to manufacture a polymeric synthetic receptor
capable of recognising Human Serum Albumin from human serum
(60% of the total serum proteins). Molecular imprinting can be
defined as the process of template-induced formation of specific
recognition sites (binding or catalytic) in a material, where the
template drives the positioning and orientation of the material’s
structural components by a self-assembling mechanism. The
polymer are very easy to prepare and to use, finally cheaper than
some methods usually applied. Such a MIP would then be used to
remove albumin from serum samples, in order to improve and to
help the analysis of the “hidden” proteome.
The objectives of my PhD project can be grouped in two different
sections, according to which the present thesis is structured:
Section I: Development of a new methodology for imprinting silica
beads for the recognition of Human Serum Albumin.
Section II: Creation of new imprinted polymers made of
polyacrylamide gel capable of removing Human Serum Albumin from
human serum, thus increasing the signal of low abundance proteins
in two-dimensional maps
Molecularly imprinted polymers for protome analysis
Fast and efficient methods for the detection of insurgence and
progression of diseases are at the basis of modern diagnostics and
medicine. In this concern, biomarkers represent a powerful
diagnostic tool, as their expression profiles well correlate with the
pathology progression. Thus, the pathological state could be
diagnosed by measuring the altered presence of a biomarker.
In this direction, conspicuous help has been given by proteomics,
intended as the study of the protein pattern of a sample and most
frequently performed by two-dimensional electrophoresis. Although
the proteome approach is a powerful analytical method, its
application to biological samples for the detection and quantification
of putative biomarkers is hampered by technical problems, in fact,
the wide diversity in concentrations exhibited by the proteins present
in the biological samples, with a concentration range spanning over nine orders of magnitude, and the relative abundance of each protein,
are responsible of masking the less abundant species and of their
loss in traceability.
The aim of my PhD project is to apply Molecularly Imprinted
Technology to the specific removal of a high abundance protein
(Human Serum Albumin, HSA) frequently affecting proteomic
analysis, in order to increase the detection of potential biomarkers.
This technology allows the creation of artificial recognition sites in
synthetic polymers for a specific protein. These sites are tailor-made
in situ by co-polymerisation of functional monomers and cross-linkers
around the template molecules.
Two different approaches have been assayed in order to remove HSA:
• Immobilisation of protein template on a rigid silica support
(bead) and creation of polymer around beads.
• Polymerisation in bulk of a polymer with protein template and
application of this polymer to multicompartment electrolyser. In both of the cases, the chemical and structural features of the
polymers have been analysed, after that they have been applied to
complex proteome pre-treatment, obtaining encouraging results
«Ancora non ci ho capito niente di come funziona l’algoritmo»: la consapevolezza algoritmica degli host di Airbnb
Sulla scia dei recenti studi sulla consapevolezza algoritmica (Eslami et al. 2015; Gran et al. 2021), l’articolo propone un focus sul livello di questa consapevolezza (Gran et al. 2021) tra gli host di Airbnb. Lo studio si avvale di una etnografia digitale (Pink et al. 2016) che include un periodo di 4 mesi di osservazione non partecipante dei gruppi Facebook chiusi costituiti da host di Airbnb, dal 1° marzo al 30 giugno 2021, e 15 interviste semi strutturate con host di Airbnb residenti in Toscana e Sardegna. Dall’etnografia emerge che la consapevolezza algoritmica varia in base al livello di professionalizzazione degli host. L’opacità della governance algoritmica di Airbnb favorisce quindi un divario crescente tra host professionisti e host amatoriali, che si traduce in una distribuzione diseguale della visibilità degli annunci e dei benefici economici che gli host possono trarre da questa piattaforma.In the wake of recent studies on «algorithmic awareness» (Eslami et al. 2015; Gran et al. 2020), this article proposes a focus on the level of this awareness (Gran et al. 2020) among Airbnb hosts.
The study uses a digital ethnography (Pink et al. 2016) that includes a 4-month period of non-participant observation of closed Facebook groups formed by Airbnb hosts, from March 1 to June 30, 2021, and 15 semi-structured interviews with Airbnb hosts residing in Tuscany and Sardinia.
The ethnography shows that algorithmic awareness varies with the level of professionalization of hosts. The opacity of Airbnb’s algorithmic governance thus fosters a widening gap between professional and amateur hosts, which results in an unequal distribution of visibility and economic benefits that hosts can derive from this platform
Museums and digital technology: a literature review on organizational issues
In the past 20 years, museums have made digital technologies key resources for accomplishing and innovating their functions. The current pandemic affirms museums’ dependence on digital tools, which have become the only means to reach the public during lockdowns. While the scientific community generally examines information and communication technology as a tool to provide innovative museum functions, it rarely seeks to understand how digital solutions permeate daily organization and management. Through an extensive literature review, this paper aims to consolidate a pre-pandemic body of knowledge from which further investigations and useful suggestions can be developed. By benchmarking heterogeneous literature sources, the study identifies three core topics (business models, digital professions and digital strategy), questioning whether changes driven by digital technology within museums follow radical innovation or gradual adaptation. In the conclusions, the paper underlines major implications for museums, policy makers and scholars
Resistenza e solidarietà algoritmica nelle piattaforme digitali: un'indagine etnografica dei gruppi di engagement su Instagram
In this article, we show the complexity of the relationship existing between the power ofplatforms and the agency of users through the case study of engagement groups (pods)on Instagram, on which we carried out an eight-month digital ethnography (October 2019-May 2020) to understand the processes of meaning-making that take place within them.
Through the discussion of the ethnographic material generated during the eldwork.
we illustrate that this relationship is neither monolithic nor deterministic as many schol-ars have recently portrayed it. Although users of the platforms are bound to them byhighly asymmetrical power relations, there still seems to be a space for the exercise ofindividual agency, which, in the case that we studied, takes the form of the creationof a collective network of users who support each other and question the discursiverhetoric typical of Instagram, replacing it with an alternative moral code. We proposeto frame the activity of these groups as a form, albeit fragile, of «everyday» resistance tothe power and moral code of online platforms. Instagram pods are unable to subvert
the power exerted by platforms, but they represent the rst step, among many neces
-
sary ones, towards the construction of more structured forms of resistance in the eld
of emerging «platformised» cultural industries
La nobiltà nel pensiero medievale
Il volume è dedicato ai significati medievali della «nobilitas», un tema trattato in ciascun contributo in relazione ad autori, discipline e contesti diversi. Pur nella loro varietà tematica, tutti i contributi con- vergono nell’evidenziare lo spessore filosofico di questo concetto, che finora è stato prevalentemente trascurato dagli studiosi di filosofia e teologia medievale, mentre è stato studiato in altri ambiti disciplina- ri: il diritto, la letteratura, la storia. I contributi partono da prospettive diverse, adottano approcci differenziati e si muovono in ambiti culturali distinti, tracciando in questo modo una mappa medievale dell’ampia gamma di significati, temi, dottrine e dibattiti che ruotarono intorno alla nobiltà.
In particolare nel volume vengono esaminate la concezione della nobiltà di Maimonide (Diana Di Segni), Guglielmo Peraldo (Irene Zavattero) e Alberto Magno (Andrea Colli); vengono studiate le fonti del concetto di nobiltà in Dante (Diego Quaglioni); vengono ricostru- iti alcuni dei dibattiti filosofici e teologici tardomedievali intorno alla nobiltà (Silvia Negri, Pasquale Porro, Valérie Cordonier); un contributo fa luce sulle forme di eccellenza nell’Islam medievale (Massimo Campanini); un altro analizza il rapporto tra nobiltà e verità (Andrea Aldo Robiglio); un altro ancora traccia la storia del concetto di igno- biltà dalla tradizione antica fino agli ultimi esiti nel pensiero contemporaneo (Olivier Boulnois). È una panoramica che, pur non esaustiva, è certo indicativa della fecondità dottrinale del tema della «nobilitas» e fa da stimolo a proseguire questo filone di ricerca allargando l’inda- gine ad altri autori e altri contesti
From the Condemnations to the Schools. The Correctorium Literature in the Lectura Thomasina
Censures, condemnations, and corrections animated the debate around Thomas Aquinas’ works between the end of the 13th and the first de- cades of the 14th century. The Lectura Thomasina of William of Peter of Godin (†1336) seems to typify this passage of Thomas Aquinas’ thought from the condemnations, characterizing the last decades of the 13th century, to teaching activities of the 14th-century schools. Godin does not aim at writing a mere collection of Thomas’ dicta, but rather an original teaching handbook. These peculiarities make the Lectura Thomasina a fundamental piece to the mosaic of the reworking of Aquinas in late medieval teaching activity before his canonization
The Lectura Thomasina in Its Context. Philosophical and Theological Issues
The volume provides a first comprehensive study on the so-called Lectura Thomasina, a commentary on the Sentences written by William of Peter of Godin at the beginning of the 14th century. The conspicuous number of verbatim quotations from Thomas Aquinas’ writings makes the text a very interesting case study: Godin does not aim at writing a mere collection of Aquinas’ dicta, but rather a sort of “Thomistic” teaching handbook. This peculiarity makes the Lectura Thomasina a fundamental piece to the mosaic of the reworking of Aquinas in late medieval teaching activity before his canonization. The first section of the volume is devoted to a textual analysis of the Lectura and its sources. The second section examines certain themes in Godin’s theology and philosophy. The last section is devoted to Godin’s influence on the Dominican tradition
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