Electronic Town Meeting a Palermo. Dispositivi tecnologici e limiti della partecipazione

Gli autori propongono una riflessione sull'uso dello strumento di partecipazione a partire dall'esperienza maturata a Palerm

Modificazioni morfo-strutturali placentari nel ritardo di crescita asimmetrico idiopatico

Obiettivo: valutare le alterazioni dello sviluppo e della struttura dei villi coriali di placente di gravidanze con ritardo di crescita fetale asimmetrico idiopatico (IUGR) tardivo. Pazienti e metodi: sono state esaminate 45 placente di pazienti con IUGR idiopatico con parto, per via vaginale o addominale, espletato dal gennaio 2001 al dicembre 2007 . L'esame istologico è stato condotto secondo le linee guida del Gruppo Italiano di Anatomia Patologica. La diagnosi di IUGR è stata posta sulla base dell'evidenza clinica ed ultrasonica di ridotta crescita fetale e basso peso neonatale in associazione a riduzione del liquido amniotico e a placenta “matura” all'esame USG. Risultati: l'esame istologico ha evidenziato lesioni dello sviluppo e della struttura dei villi tipici della ipoperfusione cronica placentare così definite: maturazione accelerata dei villi (ipermaturità villare), villite ischemica (equivalente a microinfarti) ed infarti. In 10 casi, insieme a tali lesioni, ne è stata identificata un'altra , definita “ipercapillarizzazione dei villi”, che si associa ad una condizione di ipossia relativa del sangue materno che circola tra i villi. Conclusioni: il ritardo di crescita intrauterino asimmetrico idiopatico può essere ricondotto ad alterazioni dell'angiogenesi e vasculogenesi che avvengono nelle fasi iniziali della gravidanza. Ciò determina una condizione di ipossia placentare con alterazioni dello sviluppo dei villi tipici della ipoperfusione cronica placentare

Spinach, a cyclops, and the search for a cure for prostate cancer

Abstract only availableOther than skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer in men. The likelihood of developing prostate cancer increases with age; so that nearly every male will die with some form of prostate cancer though most likely not from the cancer itself. Prostate cancer is regulated by endocrine and dietary factors, as well as genetic predisposition. In the male reproductive tract, Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) signaling is necessary for the development of the prostate. It has also been found to be extremely important in the growth of a number of tumor types including prostate cancer, basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer), medulloblastoma, glioma, sarcoma, tumors of the digestive tract, small cell lung cancer and pancreatic carcinoma. The Lubahn lab has been studying the roles of Estrogen Receptors and estrogenic compounds on prostate cancer, and has recently used a series of phytoestrogens, natural estrogens found in plants, to inhibit the hedgehog-signaling pathway. One natural product, cyclopamine, is able to inhibit the pathway and has been shown to inhibit prostate cancer cell growth both in vitro and in vivo xenograft models. Additionally, some flavanoid compounds in spinach have been found to have a similar chemical structure to several other phytoestrogens that have been shown to have preventative effects on prostate cancer. A competitive binding assay was performed using various doses of cyclopamine and an unpurified spinach extract to determine Kd for both compounds to ER alpha and ER beta. The compounds were also tested in the NIH-3T3 Shh Light II cells, which have a stably transfected Gli-Luciferase reporter, to see if they downregulated the hedgehog signaling pathway.Food for the 21st Century Undergraduate Research Program in Nutritional Science

Biological activity of Bacillus spp. evaluated on eggs and larvae of red palm weevil Rhynchophorus ferrugineus

This study was conducted to characterize the Bacillus populations associated with dead Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, to develop a biological control for the red palm weevil. Dead adult beetles, collected throughout Sicily, were used for isolating internal and external spore forming bacteria (SFB) microbiota. The isolates, preliminarily allotted to the Bacillaceae family, were tested at 4 concentrations (103 to 106 CFU/mL) for their ability to inhibit hatching of eggs of R. ferrugineus and were used at 106 CFU/mL to monitor their insecticidal activity against 10 day-old larvae. Total amounts of SFB measured outside the skeleton and in the inners part of the beetles were 5.59-6.94 and 5.17-7.05 Log CFU/g, respectively. Hatching was inhibited markedly by 9 isolates, representing 9 distinct strains of 7 species (Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus pumilus, Bacillus subtilis, and Lysinibacillus sphaericus), especially by the strains B. pumilus GC43 and GC51, which exhibited lethal concentrations 50 (LC50) values of 1.60 × 103 and 9.84 × 103 CFU/mL, respectively. Among all the strains tested, only B. licheniformis CG62 exhibited significant insecticidal activity against red palm weevil larvae. The Bacillus isolates characterized and tested in this study inhibited the hatching of red palm weevils in a contact-dependent manner. Thus, these isolates can be used as a preventive rather than as a curative treatment. Keywords Bacillus, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, hatching assays, larvae, Pal

MEDLAB Sicilia Le occasioni per l\u2019innovazione sociale e territoriale MEDLAB in Sicily An opportunity for social and territorial innovation

The volume contains written in italian and english language on the reflections and the final results of international partnership experience by Medlab (project promoted by European Commission, MED Program) concerning the case of Living Labs in Sicily. Gelardi and Salemi showed the action of the regional innovation instruments of urban and regional planning at institutional regional level and in particular the role of experience of international cooperation in the comparison of experiences of different kind of territorial innovation in the Euro-Mediterranean area. Marsh shows as the MedLab project has been to examine the current and potential role of Living Labs within regional development policy and the questions thrown up by considering Living Labs as a policy tool. This means looking at issues of development policy and linking their relevance to broader territorial innovation strategies. In addition, governance issues arise for coordinating different Living Lab initiatives within a territorial domain, with the aim of maximising benefits not only to ICT-based innovation and the local knowledge economy, but also to the fields of application that Living Labs address: the environment, the economy, social and government services, etc. The process has thus involved first looking at how these questions can be addressed from the standpoints of different types of actors and how they can engage in reciprocal learning processes. The idea is to develop a model of \u201cinnovation literacy\u201d for local authorities and policy makers, namely the capacity to structure the demand for and supply of ICT-based innovation in order to maximise the concrete benefits to specific policies and initiatives. The ultimate vision is of a virtuous circle whereby regional development authorities apply the Living Lab model in an increasing array of fields and the ICT industry increasingly recognises the value proposition of engaging in co-design processes in concrete local and regional development initiatives. In the following pages, we explore the experiences developed in the MedLab project according to three issues: a) a first exploration of the concept of \u201cterritorial innovation\u201d at the basis of the MedLab hypothesis, and its potential impact on policy and governance; b) The case story of the formation of the original TLL-Sicily partnership in 2007 and how that experience shaped the MedLab workplan; c) The summative conclusions of the MedLab project, exploring the concept of an emergent macro-regional Living Lab. Giambalvo e Lucido involved the analysis of urban change in a social and economic context particularly full of difficulties as the town of Favara. Their contribution tries to define the processes of social innovation when they born and move the first steps, this contribution aims to collect the challenge born inside the Medlab project \u2013 Mediterranean Living Lab for the Territorial Innovation to reflect on some of the outcomes of the Living Lab approach to support territorial innovation in the geographical areas of Sicily concerned by the pilot cases of MedLab (the spatial planning of the province of Ragusa and the strategic plan of the municipality of Favara). More specifically, the remark starts from a work of research on the field and facilitation of communicative processes aimed to identify what dynamics of social innovation, such as transactions among the social actors and what new micro-economic ecosystems are developing in the municipality of Favara, whose background has been explored and treated as territorial Living Lab. Di Bono e Parisi describe the way of the Province of Ragusa tried to initiate arrangements to create a Living Lab from experience of local planning and addressing to the involvement of the local firm to obtain a dinamic digital mapping of local creativity. In the contribution the autors try to show that the concept of innovation is still evolving and the market is not disappearing from this innovation concept, but it is one of its components; the social dimension is increasingly relevant, as well as the institutional innovation. In fact, public boards, dealing with the themes of territorial innovation, can re-design their role starting from networking open innovation approaches and building up public-private partnerships able to activate technological and social innovation processes in a participatory way. Trapani present a cotribution on theme about the report of launching a citizen initiative for the mobilization of the social capital in the second Constituency of Palermo; it includes the Brancaccio neighborhood very famous for the murder of Father Puglisi. The initiative is designed as an integrated program of architectural, urban, cultural, social, environmental and economic qualification for the development (also for touristic aims) of Castle Maredolce and (oncoming) park close the monument and the nearby gardens. The proposal which is maturing in this period, falls within the framework of infrastructural transformations taking place in the districts of Brancaccio and Bandita and compared to the new role of the metropolitan city in the new economies of the Mediterranean, namely in a context in which Sicily seems to remain more at the edge of Europe and see, in the cautious use of its cultural resources, a way of survival. The proposal initially moves from the definition of projects and visions for the architectural setting and the urban and social redefinition of a new square in front of an important Moorish Castle undergoing restoration. Furthermore, the interest is moved to the second municipal constituency. The integrated urban program consists of interventions which specify the contents of the strategic plan of Palermo for the second constituency. The urban part, specifically, is characterized by the presence of important infrastructure and services for the production of small and medium-sized enterprises. It has been possible to examine the characteristics of the citizens, their expectations in terms of their objectives and concerning the concrete possibilities of integrated planning and design within participatory and urban sphere on the background of the failure of urban traditional planning tools

Communication Habits and Relationship Satisfaction within College Students’ Romantic Relationships

Honors (Bachelor's)SociologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112142/1/nlucido.pd

Towards an Understanding of the Mutual Dependency of Consciousness and Matter

The notion in quantum mechanics that observation causes the collapse of the probability wave function brings consciousness directly into physical theory. To date, however, there has not been an adequate explanation as to how this could be the case, a circumstance that leads some to view this notion as unparsimonious and speculative. This paper attempts to provide an a priori reason for the mutual dependency of consciousness and matter by considering the consequences of the indistinguishably of elementary particles and the temporally extended nature of consciousness. In doing so, it is hoped that an ontology is elucidated which is applicable within many mainstream interpretations of quantum mechanics

Do-It-Ourselves Slideshow

The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming book by Corrine Lucido to be published by The Feminist Press. Community Workshops On Children\u27s Books grew out of a project funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund. Have you ever thought of using a slide show to dramatize the findings of a feminist project you\u27ve been working on in your own community? If so, you probably wondered how much time was involved, how much it would cost and what special skills you might need to make one. We asked these same questions last year when we considered making slides for our Community Workshops on Children\u27s Books in Mt. Holyoke, Mass., Baltimore, Md. and Westbury, N.Y. Ultimately, two of the Workshops decided to go ahead and make slides on stereotypes in local children\u27s book collections. Though there are several slide shows which deal with the subject, we wanted to produce shows about particular books in our communities. We\u27d like to share with you what we learned from those experiences