331 research outputs found

    Economic factors affecting obesity: an application in Italy

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    The World Health Organization has stated that obesity is spreading around the world like a “global epidemic”. In 2004 the percentage of obese people in the Italian population was 9%, but the trend s increasing in recent years. Focusing on this country, the purpose of the paper is to analyze the socio-economic variables affecting obesity by means of a survey conducted in a consumer sample. Our analysis is based on a survey conducted in Italy, and the sample was composed of 999 consumers. We used a binary logit model and the dependent variable is body mass index (BMI), expressed in a dichotomic way (seriously overweight and obese, value 1, and normal weight, value 0). The results show that the condition of the seriously overweight and obese increases with age, especially in people over 65 of age. Also gender is correlated with the pathology: being seriously overweight and obese is far more likely for men than for women. An inverse relation was shown between obesity and education, and between obesity and the level of food knowledge. The results highlight that disadvantaged social categories are more susceptible to the problem of overweight and obesity. A policy implication of the analysis, to limit the spread of obesity, could lie in programs aimed at improving health and food awareness and focused on these minority groups.economics of obesity, BMI and consumer, logit model, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy,

    Albrecht Dürer e Venezia, a cura di Giovanni Maria Fara

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    Questo libro di Giovanni Maria Fara, con saggi anche di Chiara Callegari, Giampaolo Ermini, Elena Filippi, Alessia Giachery, Massimiliano Rossi, è uno studio monografico sul Dürer veneziano; non è però limitato ai pochi, significativi, anni che egli soggiornò in laguna, ma indaga, secondo tempi e prospettive differenti, il fenomeno inscindibile e assai ampio della sua ricezione, come pittore, incisore e teorico dell’arte. Dürer e Venezia, quindi: dal suo accertato soggiorno fra l’autunno del 1505 e il gennaio del 1507 – che, comunque, viene letto anche alla luce delle esperienze giovanili di fine Quattrocento – fino alla decisiva stagione dell’erudizione europea compresa fra la fine del XVIII e l’inizio del XIX secolo, in Veneto incarnata dalle figure di Giovanni de Lazara e Jacopo Morelli, che si scambiano una loro versione italiana delle lettere veneziane di Dürer, rese note nel 1781 da Christoph Gottlieb von Murr: versione che in questa sede viene per la prima volta integralmente pubblicata, anche nelle sue redazioni intermedie

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    Detecting pathogens and mounting immune responses upon infection is crucial for animal health. However, these responses come at a high metabolic price (McKean and Lazzaro, 2011, Kominsky et al., 2010), and avoiding pathogens before infection may be advantageous. The bacterial endotoxins lipopolysaccharides (LPS) are important immune system infection cues (Abbas et al., 2014), but it remains unknown whether animals possess sensory mechanisms to detect them prior to infection. Here we show that Drosophila melanogaster display strong aversive responses to LPS and that gustatory neurons expressing Gr66a bitter receptors mediate avoidance of LPS in feeding and egg laying assays. We found the expression of the chemosensory cation channel dTRPA1 in these cells to be necessary and sufficient for LPS avoidance. Furthermore, LPS stimulates Drosophila neurons in a TRPA1-dependent manner and activates exogenous dTRPA1 channels in human cells. Our findings demonstrate that flies detect bacterial endotoxins via a gustatory pathway through TRPA1 activation as conserved molecular mechanism.sponsorship: Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie Alessia Soldano Luis Franco Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Bassem A Hassanr Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0702.12 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0077.15 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0680.10 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0681.10 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0503.12 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0654.15 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0761.10N Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0596.12 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek G.0565.07 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Alejandro Lopez-Requena Natalia Mora Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar KU Leuven GOA/14/011 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar European Commission IUAP P7/13 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekensr KU Leuven OT/12/091 Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talaverar KU Leuven PF-TRPLe Alessia Soldano Yeranddy A Alpizar Brett Boonen Luis Franco Alejandro Lopez-Requena Guangda Liu Natalia Mora Emre Yaksi Thomas Voets Rudi Vennekens Bassem A Hassan Karel Talavera (Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0702.12, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0077.15, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0680.10, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0681.10, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0503.12, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0654.15, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0761.10N, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek|G.0596.12, KU Leuven|GOA/14/011, KU Leuven|OT/12/091, European Commission|IUAP P7/13, KU Leuven PF-TRPLe)status: Publishe

    Social Network to analyse the relationship between ‘victim-author’ and ‘motivation’ of violence against women in Italy.

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    The paper aims to analyse the phenomenon of Violence against women in the Italian context during 2020. It proposes to study the relationship between ‘victim-author’ and ‘motivation’ in femicides committed in domestic environment. By means of the properties of the Social Network Analysis on bimodal data, the study detected main actors and motivations that generated the homicides with female victims. At the same time, the structural relationships allowed to investigate the existence of motivations that better characterized the action of the various actors. The bipartite graph visualization and centrality scores calculated have demonstrated the effectiveness of the methodology for the pursued objectives

    Louis-Philippe Dalembert, «vagabond jusqu’au bout de la fatigue»

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    The Haitian novelist and poet Louis-Philippe Dalembert (Port-au-Prince, 1962) has developed in his works of fiction the concept of vagabondage as a literary projection of his biographical wandering through multiple spaces. The aim of this essay is to study the presence of vagabondage and its distinctive features in those novels written by Dalembert that reflect the writer’s perpetual motion: Le Crayon du bon Dieu n’a pas de gomme (1996), L’Autre face de la mer (1998), L’Île du bout des rêves (2003), Les dieux voyagent la nuit (2006). The main characters are constantly moving, they are cosmopolitan wanderers who belong to many places at the same time, just like Dalembert himself. By analyzing the representation of movement in these fictions, we will show that the notion of vagabondage is depicted by the author as a positive and meaningful opportunity for the vagabond who travels across countries, languages and cultures

    Una ridiscussione dei concetti di home e identity nell’Asia globalizzata: il caso di These Foolish Things (2004) e How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013)

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    The evolution of postcolonial studies in the last thirty years and the development of a transnational approach in literary studies (Jay 2010) have led to a renewed interest towards the subaltern voices, especially in relation to the phenomena of migration and diaspora and their global effects. In this light, the idea of 'home' is characterized by a sort of porosity and by a new geographical and emotional conceptualization which inevitably influences the personal and collective identities of migrant communities. The aim of the paper is to analyze these topics from a cultural and literary standpoint through the examination of the two different kinds of migrant flows and postcolonial scenarios depicted in These Foolish Things (2004) by the English author Deborah Moggach, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013) by the Pakistan novelist Mohsin Hamid. In these novels, the chaotic Indian framework – the former margin of the British empire – is torn between its colonial past and the current effects of the permeability of its borders. It is, therefore, a perfect global context, wherein the experiences and the feelings of the modern Indian identities are reinterpreted by the two authors

    Sulle tracce della fortuna dei Carmina di Ennodio tra Tardoantico e Medioevo

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    Knowledge of the poems of Magnus Felix Ennodius in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages is a field of research that has not yet been explored. The essay provides some food for thought on the possible fortune of the Late Antique author starting from Columbanus up to Radulfus Tortarius, identifying in the greatest medieval poets (Aldhelm, Paul the Deacon, Sedulius Scotus) expressions, verbal sequences and original clauses of the poet of Ticinum. The last section is dedicated to the epigraphic field and above all to the Fortleben of notable iuncturae minted by Ennodius in some inscriptions of the 8th-9th century

    Gambling challenges public agencies for dependencies treatment (Ser.D.): a case study

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    The Italian case is emblematic of the liberalization of gambling and the drive towards its commercialization, taking place in several countries. Despite an uncertain political-legal framework, public services for addiction treatment are adapting to face the challenge posed by gambling. Therefore, a qualitative study was conducted within a sample of public services for addiction (SerT) of an Italian region, involving professionals dedicated to gambling. The Author has attempted to identify the theoretical and practical approach adopted by organizations and professionals, through the comparison with the “chronic disease model” and “public health model

    La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia di Dino Buzzati: una fiaba-romanzo tra testo e immagini d'autore.

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    This article proposes a reflection on a tale that can be a bridge between “literature for children and teens” and “literature for adults”: The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati. It offers a link between fable and fantasy novel and contains all of the elements of the fairy tale that Vladimir Propp planned in 1928: loss, departure, challenges to overcome, reward, and return. It is closely connected to its historical reality (the period after the Second World War), but at the same time it detaches itself from that period through the fantastic element. In short, the book is a mirror of Buzzati’s literary personality and the first literary work of a restless but sensitive author who always felt linked to painting and writing, to adults and children, to reality and evasion.Il presente contributo propone una riflessione su un racconto da sempre in grado di fare da ponte tra “letteratura per bambini e ragazzi” e “letteratura per adulti”: La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia di Dino Buzzati è infatti un romanzo di confine, un anello di congiunzione tra fiaba e romanzo fantastico. Ha in sé tutti gli elementi della fiaba magistralmente gerarchizzati da Vladimir Propp nel 1928 (mancanza, partenza, prove, premio, ritorno), è strettamente connesso alla realtà storica del suo tempo (il secondo dopoguerra) e al tempo stesso se ne distacca con garbo tramite l’elemento fantastico. È, insomma, specchio della personalità letteraria di Dino Buzzati, la prima prova di un autore inquieto e insensibile, da sempre legato da un doppio filo a pittura e scrittura, adulti e bambini, contemporaneità ed evasione

    D’une édition à l’autre. Le premier roman d’Anthony Phelps quarante ans après

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    Moins l’infini, the first novel written by the Haitian writer and poet Anthony Phelps, has recently been republished, with some quite remarkable changes between the two editions. With a different title, a new dedication and some lexical and morphosyntactic variations, this reissue may be interpreted as a rewriting of the novel which was first published in 1972. This rewriting made by the author may be conscious or not but it results in a more universal atmosphere, less linked to a strictly Haitian milieu. These variations are probably due to the historical and cultural gap between the two editions: forty years have passed and this love story which takes place under François Duvalier’s dictatorship has a different meaning now. The time has come to mourn the death of Duvalier’s opponents, the heroes never rewarded by justice that are mentioned in the new version of the title, Des fleurs pour les héros
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