1,720,968 research outputs found
“American National Literature. Is there any such thing – or, can there ever be?”: Walt Whitman e le strategie di selezione del canone tra discorso metaletterario e politica culturale
No full textThe present contribution deals with the strategies of selection, which lay at the basis of the so-called national literary canons, by examining a number of critical prose essays written by the American poet Walt Whitman. Under a sociological perspective, Whitman’s essays may be considered not only as mere literary texts, but also as a specimen of meta-literary discourse, fostering the development of the American literary field of the late-Nineteenth century, in its entangled relations with and within the literary marketplace (authors, readers, and publishing industry). Through their publication on the periodical press, Whitman’s essays enact complex strategies of selection, aimed at constructing a national literature by means of references to previous traditions – either by choosing or discarding their aesthetic and ideological paradigms. At the same time, the cultural role performed by magazines and newspapers in post-Civil War America testifies to the double process of legitimization of literary authorship, and commodification of the literary work available to a wide audience mainly made up of middle-class readers
Effects of surface-modified 3D printed titanium bone implants on human macrophages
No full textTitanium orthopaedic biomaterials to replace degenerated joint surface, improve bone regeneration and fixation are studied and used worldwide. However, not always biomaterial implantation is successful, and the main causes of implant failure remain implant associated infections (IAI) and poor osseointegration. In the recent years, additive manufacturing and titanium surface modification have been extensively researched in order to develop bone implants able to enhance bone formation at bone/material interface while reducing the risk of microbial adhesion. New bone formation at the implant site is an inflammation-driven process, since the implantation of a biomaterial in the human body is always followed by an immune response. Among the inflammatory cells involved in the inflammation stage following initial hemostasis after surgery, macrophages play a crucial role in regulating subsequent bone formation and remodelling secreting a wide range of factors. Therefore, in this study, human macrophage response to 3D printed Ti-6Al-4V surfaces was investigated. Ti-6Al-implants were modified by plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO), during which an oxide layer containing electrolyte components were generated on implant surfaces. In order to generate an antimicrobial coating, silver nano-particles (Ag NPs) were also incorporated into the surface. Surface morphology and chemical composition were analysed by SEM. Human macrophages were cultured in the presence of SLM implants in a transwell culture or directly on the surface for 4 days. Macrophage morphology and viability were assessed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and fluorescence microscopy. Cell secreted factors were analysed performing an ELISA assay while gene expression analysis was performed using qPCR. Human mesenchymal stem cell (hMSC) response in terms of morphology and viability was also evaluated after 4 days of culture. PEO modification on SLM surfaces resulted in an additional TiO2 layer containing electrolyte components (Ca, P and Ag) and interconnected porosity. The ion release from SLM surfaces did not have an effect on human macrophage polarisation, while when cells where cultured directly on the implants, they secreted and expressed different amounts of pro- and anti-inflammatory factors. SLM NT (not PEO-treated) surfaces up-regulated macrophage pro-inflammatory cytokines compared to SLM PEO surfaces. However, cells cultured on SLM NT up-regulated also anti-inflammatory factors. SLM surfaces containing Ag NPs were cytotoxic for human macrophages but not for hMSCs. In general, both SLM NT and SLM PEO surfaces expressed anti-inflammatory and tissue repair-related macrophage factors, suggesting that either implant geometry achieved by 3D printing and surface biofunctionalization may have beneficial impact on promoting macrophage anti-inflammatory secretion and subsequent osteogenesis around the implant
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Imaginary Transatlantic Crossings: Textual Configurations of Domesticity and Foreignhood in Emily Dickinson's Italian Atlas
No full textBasically intersecting transnational and spatial theoretical perspectives,
this essay aims at a deeper understanding of Emily Dickinson’s internationalism, by
focusing on Dickinson’s textual domestication of Italian-related images. Dickinson’s
imaginary transatlantic voyage testifies to a peculiar use of Italy which actually reshapes
the conventional travel rhetoric and, in so doing, Dickinson significantly partakes in the
aesthetic construction of the nineteenth-century American textual space
L’ékphrasis modernista di William Carlos Williams: modalità di rappresentazione intersemiotica e transculturale
No full textLa figura di Edgar Allan Poe nella cultura letteraria italiana tra Ottocento e Novecento: il caso delle edizioni Sonzogno
No full textCollocandosi all’interno del filone di studi sulla letteratura tradotta, l’articolo indaga le modalità di adattamento e di circolazione dei racconti di Edgar Allan Poe nel panorama letterario italiano tra gli anni Ottanta del XIX secolo e gli anni Trenta del Novecento. Il caso di studio fornito da quattro traduzioni della casa editrice milanese Sonzogno pubblicate dal 1883 al 1934 (Racconti straordinari, Nuovi racconti straordinari, Racconti grotteschi e Nuovi racconti strani) è indicativo delle particolari strategie messe in campo dai mediatori italiani (l’editore e i diversi traduttori), finalizzate alla popolarizzazione della figura dello scrittore americano e della sua opera
Letteratura americana e Rinascimento italiano. Dal mito storico al discorso letterario. 1776-1862
Get PDFConiugando gli strumenti critici e metodologici dei Translation Studies, del neostoricismo e della sociologia della letteratura, Letteratura americana e Rinascimento italiano si propone di ripercorrere in chiave transnazionale la storia letteraria degli Stati Uniti nel periodo che si estende dalla Rivoluzione alla Guerra Civile. Il volume prende in considerazione modalità e strategie di adattamento del Rinascimento italiano alla luce delle differenti funzioni assunte da questo modello nella nascita e nel consolidamento della letteratura nazionale americana attraverso una serie di autori (tra questi, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph W. Emerson). Lo studio approfondisce, quindi, le radici storico-letterarie di un binomio teorico – quello tra Rinascimento e America – finora rimasto limitato quasi esclusivamente alla sua applicazione in campo critico, il cui vertice è rappresentato dall’American Renaissance di Francis Otto Matthiessen e dalle relative riformulazioni. In questa ottica, la progressiva trasformazione della mitologia storica del Rinascimento in stratificato discorso letterario viene esaminata attraverso il confronto ravvicinato e l’analisi comparata di una pluralità di testi appartenenti a diversi generi, che spaziano dalla trattatistica politica alla narrativa, dalla poesia alla critica letteraria
- …
