51° Festival dei Popoli

Il Festival dei Popoli è la più antica e prestigiosa manfestazione intranazionale di documentaristica sociale ed antropologica in Italia. Al suo interno sono previste proiezioni; seminari; convegni; laboratori: ecc.Fondata nel 1959 da un gruppo di studiosi di scienze umane, antropologi, sociologi, etnologi e mass-mediologi, l'associazione senza scopo di lucro Festival dei Popoli è impegnata oltre cinquanta anni nella promozione e nello studio del cinema di documentazione sociale.L'attività dell'associazione consiste in primo luogo nell'organizzare a Firenze il principale festival internazionale del film documentario in Italia. Dal 2008 si tiene anche un'edizione annuale a New York (NYDFF - New York Documentary Fim Festival). L'Istituto ha inoltre al suo attivo una vasta rete di collaborazioni per la diffusione della cultura del documentario in Italia e all'estero. Parallelamente, il Festival dei Popoli porta avanti l'attività di conservazione e digitalizzazione del proprio archivio (che conta oltre 15.000 titoli, tra video e pellicole) ed è attivo nel campo della formazione, organizzando corsi e workshop rivolti a film-maker e aspiranti documentaristi.I convegni e le tavole rotonde, considerati parte integrante della manifestazione, hanno consentito ad esponenti di spicco dei vari rami delle scienze sociali di incontrarsi a Firenze: dall'antropologia alla sociologia, all'urbanistica, alle scienze della comunicazione, all'evoluzione del linguaggio cinematografico nel corso degli ultimi cinquanta anni

50° Festival dei Popoli

Il Festival dei Popoli è la più antica e prestigiosa manfestazione intranazionale di documentaristica sociale ed antropologica in Italia. Al suo interno sono previste proiezioni; seminari; convegni; laboratori: ecc

Silencing of the Hsf gene, the transcriptional regulator of A. gambiae male accessory glands, inhibits the formation of the mating plug in mated females and disrupts their monogamous behaviour

Discovering the molecular factors that shape the mating behaviour and the fertility of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae, the principal vector of human malaria, is regarded as critical to better understand its reproductive success as well as for identifying new leads for malaria control measures. In A. gambiae mating induces complex behavioural and physiological changes in the females, including refractoriness to subsequent mating and induction of egg-laying. In other insects including Drosophila a group of proteins named Accessory gland proteins (Acps), produced by males and transferred with sperm to the female reproductive tract, have been implicated in this post-mating response. Although Acps represent a set of promising candidates for unravelling the mating physiology, their role in inducing behavioural changes in mated A. gambiae females remains largely unknown. In this work, we demonstrate that a down-regulation of a large fraction of Acp genes via silencing of the Acp regulating transcription factor Hsf, abolishes the formation of mating plug in mated females and fails to induce refractoriness of mated female to subsequent inseminations. A significant fraction of females mated to Hsf silenced males (66%) failed to receive the mating plug though seminal fluid had been transferred as documented by the presence of spermatozoa in the female sperm storage organ. Furthermore, nearly all females (95%) mated to HSF-silenced males were re-inseminated when exposed to males carrying EGPF marked sperm. Our findings provide evidence showing that Acp genes regulated by the transcription factor HSF play a key role in the function of the male accessory glands

Video essay: writing or sovereign montage

La palabra «escritura» es cada vez más una palabra central en el escenario audiovisual contemporáneo, caracterizada por una fructífera «impureza». Precisamente porque cada vez más asistimos a una convergencia entre las prácticas propias de la escritura literaria o de no ficción, con el uso de imágenes y la edición. Una onda subterránea pero poderosa atraviesa prácticas aparentemente diferentes como la literatura y el cine: una idea de hibridación, de búsqueda de una impureza constitutiva que tienen en común un determinado cine y una determinada literatura. Una de las tendencias cada vez más presentes en el estudio y el análisis de los medios de comunicación es el video ensayo o la crítica videográfica, en la que se funden nuevas formas de edición y escritura sobre y con las imágenes. Por eso, el ensayo explora esta tendencia, identificando algunos de sus momentos fundadores (Eisenstein, Astruc) y reconociendo su potencial, hipotetizando una posible cartografía de las formas que se han extendido en los últimos años. En todas estas formas vibra la aspiración del montaje a convertirse en una forma de discurso, no para sustituir la palabra, sino para integrarla, hibridarla, descubrir su naturaleza íntima como imagen. Este campo móvil debe ser explorado, y este es uno de los retos teóricos, estéticos y críticos de nuestro tiempo.The word «writing» is more and more a central word in the contemporary audiovisual scenario, characterized by a fruitful «impurity». Precisely because we are increasingly witnessing a convergence between practices that belong to literary or non-fiction writing, with the use of images and editing. A subterranean but powerful wave crosses apparently different practices such as literature and cinema: an idea of hybridization, of research of a constitutive impurity that a certain cinema and a certain literature have in common. One of the trends that is more and more present in the study and analysis of media is that of the video-essay or Videographic Criticism, in which new forms of editing and writing about and with images are merged. This essay explores this trend, identifying some of its founding moments (Eisenstein), recognizing its potential and hypothesizing a possible mapping of the forms that have spread in recent years. In all these forms, the aspiration of the montage to become a form of discourse vibrates in different ways, not to replace the word, but to integrate it, hybridize it, discover its intimate nature as an image. This mobile field must be explored, and this is one of the theoretical, aesthetic and critical challenges of our time.Facultad de Arte

La transparencia o la utopía ambivalente : Eisenstein, el cine y la Glasshouse

En torno al caso del proyecto de la Glass House, de Sergei Eisenstein, Daniele Dottorini revisa el concepto de transparencia tal y como se dio en el campo artístico entre fines del siglo XIX y principios del XX, en tanto lo considera uno de los conceptos clave de la contemporaneidad.Dossier: Cine y sociedad de control: imagen, memoria, resistencia (primera parte)Facultad de Bellas Arte

La transparencia o la utopía ambivalente : Eisenstein, el cine y la Glasshouse

En torno al caso del proyecto de la Glass House, de Sergei Eisenstein, Daniele Dottorini revisa el concepto de transparencia tal y como se dio en el campo artístico entre fines del siglo XIX y principios del XX, en tanto lo considera uno de los conceptos clave de la contemporaneidad.Dossier: Cine y sociedad de control: imagen, memoria, resistencia (primera parte)Facultad de Bellas Arte

Primary settling changes the microbial community of influent wastewater to wastewater treatment plants

The continuous immigration of bacteria in influent wastewater strongly impacts the microbial community of activated sludge (AS) in wastewater treatment plants (WWTP), both in terms of species composition and their abundance. Therefore, it is of interest to elucidate the route of immigrating bacteria into the biological tanks, including the effect of primary settlers. These are commonly used pretreatment units that can possibly selectively increase or reduce the relative abundance of certain bacteria. Species-level identification of the microbial composition of influent wastewater before and after primary settling was carried out in four full-scale municipal WWTPs biweekly over one year by 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Overall, 37–49% of incoming COD was removed in the primary settlers. Most genera and species were present in the wastewater to all four plants and the trend of these were investigated across the primary settlers. Approximately 50% of the genera had the same trend across at least three WWTPs. Few genera significantly increased in relative read abundance (3.7%) after settling, while 22.3% showed a significant reduction in relative abundance. We investigated process-critical species in AS, such as known nitrifiers, polyphosphate-accumulating organisms, and filamentous bacteria. Most taxa were affected similarly in all WWTPs including multiple genera involved in bulking in AS. However, some genera, e.g., important polyphosphate-accumulating bacteria, had inconsistent trends across WWTPs, suggesting that the characteristics of the wastewater are important for the trend of some bacteria through primary settling. In all cases, primary settling changed the microbial community of the influent wastewater, posing an obvious candidate for upstream control to optimize the assembly of the microbial communities in activated sludge.</p

Gepoclu: a software tool for identifying and analyzing gene positional clusters in large-scale gene expression analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The notion that genes are non-randomly organized within the chromosomes of eukaryotic organisms has recently received strong experimental support. Clusters of co-expressed and co-localized genes have been recognized as playing key roles in a number of functional pathways and adaptive responses including organism development, differentiation, disease states and aging. The identification of genes arranged in close proximity with each other within a particular temporal and spatial transcriptional program is anticipated to unravel possible functional links and reciprocal interactions.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We developed a novel software tool <it>Gepoclu </it>(Gene Positional Clustering) that automatically selects genes based on expression values from multiple sources, including microarray, EST and qRT-PCR, and performs positional clustering. <it>Gepoclu </it>provides expression-based gene selection from multiple experimental sources, position-based gene clustering and cluster visualization functionalities, all as parts of the same fully integrated, and interactive, package. This means rapid iterations while exploring for emergent behavior, and full programmability of the filtering and clustering steps.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p><it>Gepoclu </it>is a useful data-mining tool for exploring relationships among transcriptional data deriving form different sources. It provides an easy interactive environment for analyzing positional clustering behavior of co-expressed genes, and at the same time it is fully programmable, so that it can be customized and extended to support specific analysis needs.</p

Nickel-and Fe3+-rich oxy-dravite from the Artana Mn prospect, Apuan Alps (Tuscany, Italy)

Nickel-and Fe3+-rich oxy-dravite was identified on a specimen collected in the Artana Mn prospect, Carrara, Apuan Alps, Tuscany, Italy. Oxy-dravite occurs as brownish-orange prismatic crystals, up to 0.3 mm in length, associated with quartz, carbonates, and hematite. Electron microprobe analysis gave (in wt. % – average of 7 spot analyses): SiO2 35.81, TiO2 0.41, B2 O3(calc) 10.38, Al2 O3 29.36, V2 O3 0.78, Cr2 O3 0.09, Fe2 O3 3.32, FeO 0.33, MgO 8.04, CaO 0.39, MnO 0.34, NiO 3.46, ZnO 0.40, Na2 O 2.84, F 0.29, H2 O(calc) 3.00, O = F –0.12, total 99.12. The Fe3+/Fetot ratio was calculated based on optical absorption spectroscopy. The empirical ordered formula of the studied sample is (with rounding errors)X(Na0.92 Ca0.07 □0.01)Σ1.00 Y (Mg2.01 Ni2+0.47Fe3+ Ti0.33 0.05Mn2+0.05Fe2+ Zn)Z (Al 0.05 0.05 Σ3.005.80 V0.10 Cr0.01 Fe3+) Si O (BO)V (OH) 0.09 Σ6.00 6 18 3 33W [O0.50 (OH)0.35 F0.15 ]Σ1.00 . This is an intermediate member of the dravite–oxy-dravite series. In naming it, the prefix oxy-was preferred sinceWO is very close to being larger than 0.5 atoms per formula unit. Infrared spectroscopy revealed the occurrence of significant amounts ofW(OH), and allowed to propose a specific short-range arrangements around the O(1) and O(3) sites. Unit-cell parameters are a = 15.9349(11), c = 7.2038(5) Å, V = 1584.1(2) Å3, space group R3m. The crystal structure was refined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction data to R1 = 0.0146 on the basis of 1138 unique reflections with Fo &gt; 4σ(Fo) and 94 refined parameters. The optimized crystal-chemical formula isX(Na0.92 Ca0.07 □0.01)Σ1.00Y (Mg1.21 Al0.80 Ni2+0.47Fe3+0.26 Ti0.05 Mn2+ Zn V Cr)Z (Al 0.05 0.05 0.10 0.01 Σ3.005.00 Mg0.80 Fe3+ 0.16Fe2+) Si O (BO) O(3) O(1) (OH) 0.05 Σ6.00 6 18 3 33 [O0.50 (OH)0.35 F0.15 ]Σ1.00 . Nickel is ordered at the Y site, in agreement with results obtained on synthetic tourmalines. Oxy-dravite is likely the result of the metamorphic recrystallization of Mn-rich layers at the top of the Liassic carbonates belonging to the Marble Formation of the Apuan Alps Metamorphic Complex