5,113 research outputs found
Big Shoes to Fill: the ANC and Zuma’s Leadership Deficit
No full textThis introductory chapter guides the reader through South Africa’s major political developments in the post-apartheid era and provides an important overview of the main motives behind the current deterioration of the country’s political and economic situation. Building on an in-depth dissection of the milestones, lights and shadows that have shaped the ANC’s more than two decades of unchallenged dominance, the author stresses how this long “reign” resulted in the party losing touch with the needs and urgency for better distribution of the dividends of democracy and, eventually,
in a broader falling apart of elite consensus in the country. The author also argues that the ascent of a questionable leader like Jacob Zuma to the forefront of South Africa’s – and the ANC’s – political scene has seriously contributed to the rapid jading of the long-term legitimation capital the ANC had gained by guiding the country’s transition to democracy under Mandela, hence opening the way to the increasing success of contenders that are now seriously challenging the ANC’s hegemony
Author Correction: Gluten consumption and inflammation affect the development of celiac disease in at-risk children
No full textThe original version of this Article contained an error in the spelling of the authors Renata Auricchio, Ilaria Calabrese, Martina Galatola, Donatella Cielo, Fortunata Carbone, Marianna Mancuso, Giuseppe Matarese, Riccardo Troncone, Salvatore Auricchio & Luigi Greco which were incorrectly given as Auricchio Renata, Calabrese Ilaria, Galatola Martina, Cielo Donatella, Carbone Fortunata, Mancuso Marianna, Matarese Giuseppe, Troncone Riccardo, Auricchio Salvatore & Greco Luigi. The original article has been corrected
Response to: The association between hypertension and rotator cuff disease: a spurious result?
No full textResponse to: The association between hypertension and rotator cuff disease: a spurious result?
Dear editor,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer to letter to the Editor JSES-D-12-00464. As mentioned by the author of this letter, it is well known that the incidence of rotator cuff tears increases with age and that a large proportion of tears is completely asymptomatic4,5,6. The population prevalence of full thickness rotator cuff tears is 22.2% in females of age 60-83 years and 47% of these tears are completely asymptomatic3. The author affirms that the failure to consider the presence of asymptomatic cuff tears in the control group could fully account for the authors observation of an association between hypertension and rotator cuff tears. If we hypothetically assume that we had a plausible prevalence in the control group of asymptomatic cuff tears of 22.2%,3 it will not not affect the result that in the cuff tear patient group the prevalence of hypertension is significantly higher, but, on the contrary, it makes it more evident.
In our article, we selected 201 patients negative for shoulder pathologies because shoulder painless2 and because negative to clinical tests for cuff tears. Of course, as the author state, there is no radiological assessment of their rotator cuff.2 On the other side, a patient affected by a cuff tear (symptomatic or asymptomatic) usually does not have normal shoulder external or internal rotation strength or does have a negative external rotation lag sign.1 In addition, the main result of our study is that there is an association between size of cuff tear and hypertension and, thus, this result is not affected by eventual bias of selection of the control group, being this result calculated only in the study group (patients who underwent arthroscopic cuff repair).
Best personal regards,
Prof. Stefano Gumina (MD, PhD)
References
1)Castoldi F, Blonna D, Hertel R. External rotation lag sign revisited: Accuracy for
diagnosis of full thickness supraspinatus tear. J Shoulder Elbow Surg 2009; 18: 529-534.
2)Gumina S, Arceri V, Carbone S, Albino P, Passaretti D, Campagna V, Fagnani C, Postacchini F. The association between arterial hypertension and rotator cuff tear: the influence on rotator cuff tear sizes. J Shoulder Elbow Surg. 2012 Jun 27. doi: 10.1016/j.jse.2012.05.023
3) Oag HCL, Daines MD, Nichols AS, Arden NK, Carr AJ. The association between rotator cuff tears, shoulder pain and activities of daily living: Normal population data. Presented at BESS (British Shoulder and Elbow Society) 2012 and awaiting publication in Proceedings of BESS.
4) Yamaguchi K, Ditsios K, Middleton WD, Hildebolt CF, Galatz LM, Teefey SA. The demographic and morphological features of rotator cuff disease. A comparison of asymptomatic and symptomatic shoulders. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2006; 88: 1699-1704. doi:10.2106/JBJS.E.00835
5) Yamamoto A, Takagishi K, Kobayashi T, Shitara H, Osawa T. Factors involved in the presence of symptoms associated with rotator cuff tears: a comparison of asymptomatic and symptomatic rotator cuff tears in the general population. J Shoulder Elbow Surg 2011; 20:1133-1137. doi:10.1016/j.jse.2011.01.011
6) Yamamoto A, Takagishi K, Osawa T, Yanagawa T, Nakajima D, Shitara H, Kobayashi T. Prevalence and risk factors of a rotator cuff tear in the general population. J Shoulder Elbow Surg 2010; 19: 116-20. doi:10.1016/j.jse.2009.04.00
Patchwork theory: dalla letteratura postmoderna all'ipertesto
No full textIl percorso delineato in questo libro illustra la metamorfosi del nostro clima culturale in un momento nodale di passaggio quando la teoria critico-letteraria esaurisce le sue potenzialità, trova un temporaneo pretesto per sopravvivere negli studi culturali e finisce poi per confondersi nell'orizzonte di una nuova universalità di volta in volta mediata, esaltata o denigrata sotto il nome di globalizzazione. I vari saggi di questo libro si aprono su un orizzonte teorico decostruzionista localizzato nella scuola di Yale. Si interrogano poi sullo statuto del nuovo ruolo dell'intellettuale umanista nell'epoca della accelerazione mediatica, e affronta quindi l'analisi di alcune tra le opere più significative di ciò che con un termine ormai non più sufficiente è stato chiamato postmodernismo. Si tratta di autori come David Lodge, D.M.Thomas, Peter Ackroyd, Shelley Jackson. Quest'ultima in particolare, con l'acclamato Patchwork Girl, è l'artista capace di collegare i migliori risultati di una scrittura letterariamente alta alla plasticità compositiva permessa dall'ipertesto
“Concrete Poetry Remediated: the Body, the Algorithm and the Word”
No full textIt is a shared opinion that electronic literature was born in the orbit of concrete poetry in the late
50s. In 1954 Eugen Gomringer says “the new poem is simple and can be perceived visually as a
whole as well as in its parts. It becomes an object to be both seen and used; an object containing
thought but made concrete through play-activity, its concern is with brevity and conciseness. It is
memorable and imprints itself upon the mind as a picture. Its objective element of play is useful to
modern man, whom the poet helps through his special gift for this kind of play-activity. (...) The
constellation is an arrangement, and at the same time a play-area of fixed dimensions. The
constellation is ordered by the plot. He determines the play-area, the fields or force and suggests its
possibilities. The reader, the new reader, grasps the idea of play, and joins in. (...) the Constellation
is an invitation. [E. Gomringer, From Line to Consellation]
The purpose of this presentation is to investigate how some of the main features of concrete poetry
are radicalised and remediated in digital environment. As it happened to concrete poetry in the 20th
c., a form of writing made for a large audience and the exploitation of new ways to communicate
are essential reasons behind electronic literature, which is nowadays conceived as a global
experimentation in poetry as well as in storytelling. Besides, the visual dislocation of the text
beyond the white page of the book, and the emphasis on the opacity and materiality of the word
might at first sight lead to the “topographical writing” that David J. Bolter has theorized in order to
describe hypertext. Differently, I would rather advocate a remediation based on a strong connection
between the text, seen as “constellation and an invitation”, and the body of the beholder. It often
happens that the reader’s body becomes the reading surface of the text and a necessary means to
create a participative experience, which corresponds to the construction of the narrative/poetic text
and its meaning.
Two are the main aspects to be discussed: 1. just like the reproducibility of the product (Walter
Benjamin) makes the consumer’s behaviour become an essential part of the work of art, in
electronic literature a machine-reader-algorithm-author cybernetic feedback-loop is vital to create
the aesthetic experience; 2. the opacity of the word becomes a multi-perceptive stream of linguistic
signs that the reader needs to recognize per se before decoding.
The literary works I intend to analyse are: the sculptural poetry Text Rain by Camille Utterback, the
physio-cybertext The Breathing Wall by Kate Pullinger, Stefan Schemat and babel, and an example
of literary work realized in the three-dimensional space of the virtual cave. All these works imply a
“programmed improvisation”, that is a sensual, conceptual and communicative answer to the
machine. As for concrete poetry, electronic literature leads to a powerful and immediate playful
mechanism which makes many detractors say that these works are comparable to videogames. My
questions are: what do we expect from a literary text in digital environment? Why and how is it
produced? What is the role played by the author? Even more important: what is the relationship
between algorithm (computer programming) and poetics? How is the reading experience shaped by
the machine code? What is the process of reading in electronic environment
Impacts à moyen terme (20 ans) de traitements sylvicoles intensifs sur la séquestration et la stabilité du carbone du sol
No full textCette étude, menée dans une plantation de pins blancs (Pinus strobus L.) et d'épinettes blanches (Picea glauca) à la forêt de recherche de Petawawa (Ontario, Canada), avait pour objectif de déterminer les impacts à moyen terme (20 ans) du scalpage, de la fertilisation, de l'application d'un phytocide et des essences forestières sur les réserves et la stabilité du carbone du sol. Vingt ans après traitement, le scalpage a réduit significativement le contenu en carbone dans l'horizon organique. Cette diminution s'accompagnait d'une augmentation significative de la proportion de carbone labile même si le contenu en carbone labile restait finalement inférieur sur les parcelles scalpées. Dans le sol minéral, la fertilisation a pu améliorer la reconstitution des réserves de carbone des parcelles scalpées. Une diminution du contenu en carbone du sol minéral a été observée avec l'application du phytocide. Les essences forestières n'ont eu aucun effet sur le contenu en carbone
An Early Modern Apulian Confraternity: the Real Monte di Pietà di Barletta (c. 16th-18th Centuries)
No full textThe history of the Real Monte di Pietà di Barlett
Diritto di famiglia e Unione europea
No full textThe book is edited by Ilaria Queirolo and Sergio Maria Carbone, that collected and co-ordinated the contributions written by many professors and researchers who devoted their studies to the topic of family relationships within the European Union. To this purpose, the book considers all the aspects related to family law that have been touched by European Community and European Union legislation (i.e: Part I: Family in the perspective of the free movement of persons; Part II: Family in the perspective of the protection of fundamental rights; Part III: The dissolution of marriage in the Brussels II (bis) Regulation; Part IV: The discipline of parental responsibility; Part V: Maintenance obligations), giving a critical reconstruction of the legal framework and a complex view to the critical issues arising from it.
In this context Ilaria Queirolo is also the author of two chapters of the book: the first one (Premise), written together with prof. Carbone, underlines the legal basis of the European intervention in the field of family law, therefore giving a solid structure to the book by the identification of a common thread to all other contributions. The second chapter written by the Author (Chapter VIII) is precisely devoted to the critical analysis of the 2006 Commission proposal of amendment of Regulation 2201/2003 and considers the impact and the relapses that such amendments would entail for the Italian discipline. To this purpose, particular attention is given to the impact of introducing the relevance of parties’ autonomy in the field of family law, with reference to both jurisdiction and applicable law
Histogram-Based Techniques for ADC Testing
No full textOver the past 20 years, researchers both in academia and in industry have carried out a large amount of research on the topic of Data Converter Testing. The motivations are both economical and technical. In fact, both the high percentage of testing costs over total production costs and the large increase in the market demand for both Analog-To-Digital (ADC) and digital-to-analog converters have justified investigations and development of new and more efficient testing methods. On the technical side, the problem of data converter testing is challenging for several reasons, such as the nonlinear behavior of the quantizer inside an ADC and the ever-increasing sampling rate. Test engineers have also been challenged both in modeling the test process and in actual implementation of testing procedures. Both sides of this issue are important: modeling brings about new insights in the solution of practical testing problems and, conversely, experimental results help validate and improve models accuracy and usability
The Critical Reception of Cartesian Physiology in Tommaso Cornelio’s Progymnasmata physica
No full textThis article highlights certain key moments in the dissemination of Cartesianism in Naples in the 17th century. It focuses, in particular, on the "Progymnasmata physica" (1663), written by Tommaso Cornelio (1614–1684), who derived a great deal of his conceptions of physics and physiology from Descartes. Although precise references to Descartes’ texts are thin on the ground, the author hypothesizes that Cornelio was familiar with "L’Homme", probably also on the basis of the fifth part of the "Discours de la méthode", in which, as is well known, there is a summary and a completion of the treatise that Descartes declined to publish. Finally, the article stresses the critical aspects of Cornelio’s reception of Cartesianism and the fact that he introduces the novelty of Cartesian teachings and positions to a wider context
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