El Consejo de Estado y la literatura

El estudio pretende acoger un aspecto particular y generalmente descuidado de la historia de las instituciones, subrayando como ésta a menudo se entrecruza, de manera relevante, con aquélla de la literatura. Como sucedió, en particular, en el Consejo de Estado: sobre todo, en Francia, donde del Consejo instituido por Napoleón han formado parte escritores y literarios de gran importancia, de Stendhal a Benjamin Constant, de León Blum a Régis Debray, hasta Jacques Attali. El fenómeno, además, se ha extendido a diversos países, en los que el modelo ha sido reanudado de modo diverso, a partir de Italia. Por otra parte, el órgano y la figura del consejero de Estado han constituido fuentes de inspiración para novelas y relatos: ya sea en alguna ocasión para lecturas irónicas o caricaturescas desde una posición de particular prestigio, como evidencia particularmente la literatura rusa, de Gogol a Dostoevskij (pero también si se piensa, en otro contexto, en el torpe consejero de Estado de la Bohéme); ya sea como en Flaubert o Pirandello, para representar las frustraciones de quien aspira a objetivos más grandes, como puede ser el de superar el arduo concurso para ingresar en el Consejo de Estado. En definitiva, desde varios perfiles, la historia de este órgano demuestra un rol significativo en un ámbito cultural que no puede ser circunscrito a la sola ciencia jurídica. La aportación del Consejo —y de los consejeros— de Estado se proyecta, así, también sobre el ámbito literario: donde la actitud de análisis, la capacidad de componer dinámicas contradictorias, la competencia de interpretar el sentido de las palabras encuentran desarrollos particularmente fecundos.The study sets the focus on an important but generally neglected aspect of the institution's history, which often crosses the history of literature. In French a lot of important writers and men of letters joined the Conseil, which was constituted by Napoleon: from Stendhal to Benjamin Constant, from Léon Blum to Régis Debray and son on to Jacques Attali. So it happened in many countries, inspired by the French model, and also in Italy. On the other side, the organ ant the role of a State Councilor inspired lots of novels and short stories: sometimes as occasion for ironical portrays and parodies of this prestigious position, son particularly in the Russian literature, from Gogol to Dostoevskij (but do not forget the clumsy State Councilor in the Bohéme); sometímes, as for example in Flaubert or Pirandello, to represent the frustration of small men in front of too big purposes, as the arduous competition to became a Councilor. At the end of the day the history of this organ shows the significant cultural role of it, which cannot be restricted to juridical science. The contribution by the Council of State —and by the Councilors— includes also a literary aspect: the analysis attitude, the capacity to compose contradictory dynamics, the competence to interpret the word's sense, all these skills find a particularly fruitful development therein

Prospects for the detection of the chargino-neutralino direct production with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), currently under installation at CERN, is designed to provide high-energy proton collisions at the TeV energy scale, with a large instantaneous luminosity. This will allow to explore an energy region never reached by the previous accelerators and to search for new physics, also beyond the Standard Model (SM), as expected by a wide range of models. ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) is one of the four experiments which will be installed at the LHC. It is a general-purpose experiment which address the investigation of the full discovery potential provided by the LHC. Chapter 1 is dedicated to the description of the accelerator, the ATLAS experiment and its discovery capabilities. ATLAS is a large and complex experiment, accounting roughly $10^8$ electronic channels. Its trigger and data acquisition systems will be able to select and save few interesting events in between millions. Hence, to bring ATLAS to its maximum performances, a complete and effective monitoring system, able to facilitate the reaching of the correct running conditions and the assessing of the data quality, will be needed. The development of such monitoring tools started during the past beam tests and, at present, it continues supporting the detector commissioning and installation phase. In chapter 2, the development of a lightweight low-level monitoring framework, devoted to the hardware-functionality monitoring, is discussed. Presently the SM is not considered as an ultimate theory, and therefore new models are studied in order to find answers to open questions. Among these theories, the supersymmetries provide a framework that can possibly solve some theoretical problems, such as the hierarchy problem. Up to now, no experimental evidences of supersymmetries were found, however, if they exist, the LHC experiments could possibly find their signatures. An introduction to supersymmetrical theories, particularly focused on gaugino physics, is the object of chapter 3. Among the several signatures predicted by the supersymmetric models, the decay of $\tilde\chi_0^2\tilde\chi_1^\pm$ gaugino pairs into three leptons and missing transverse energy is particularly interesting. Indeed this channel has a low SM backgrounds, especially from QCD, and can provide information on the model parameters. Hence, we developed, through fast simulation data, a search strategy for the trilepton channel, within the ATLAS detector, for a large number of models. The results of this analysis are reported in chapter 4. Most of the LHC discovery potential is driven by its large target luminosity of $10^{34}$ cm$^{-2}$s$^{-1}$. However, to reach this target, fine optimizations of beam optics and tuning are necessary. Moreover, experiments may need to know the bunch-by-bunch luminosity, in order to correct physics results for pile-up events. Hence, a luminometer, able to high-precision bunch-by-bunch relative luminosity measurements, will be an effective tool both for the accelerator and the experiments. In chapter 5, the development of a LHC luminometer, based on a fast radiation-hard argon ionization chamber, performed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is discussed

Geomorphological evolution of coastal landslides in Malta: integration of terrestrial and marine datasets

The paper shows the main results of multidisciplinary research carried out in the Island of Malta aiming at the integration of terrestrial and marine datasets. Identification, mapping, monitoring and dating of landslides, including submerged ones, have enabled to define a time frame for the development of landslides and to reconstruct the geomorphological evolution of the investigated areas. This has provided useful means for landslide susceptibility and hazard mapping, which is crucial for north-west coast of Malta

Tutela e valorizzazione di una risorsa per il territorio: la valle del Rio della Rocca (Appennino reggiano)

Le attività estrattive condotte a partire dagli anni ‘50 del XX secolo hanno profondamente modificato la porzione orientale e mediana del bacino del Rio della Rocca nel Comune di Castellarano (Appennino reggiano). Considerato l’elevato pregio degli elementi naturali dell’area e per contro il degrado ambientale – essenzialmente legato alla presenza di cave abbandonate – in cui essa versa, è emersa da tempo la necessità di una riqualificazione territoriale basata su una fruizione a fini turistico-ricreativi della valle, che tenga in debita considerazione i diversi aspetti naturalistici che la caratterizzano, compresi quelli di interesse geologico. Per definire opportune strategie e azioni di riqualificazione, si è resa necessaria un’analisi delle restrizioni e delle opportunità che il territorio presenta. A tale scopo è stata effettuata una dettagliata ricognizione della normativa vigente con particolare riguardo per le disposizioni previste dagli strumenti di gestione per i siti inclusi nella Rete Natura 2000, di cui la valle del Rio della Rocca fa parte come Sito di Importanza Comunitaria. Tra le risorse territoriali che l’area offre è emerso come la spettacolarità e l’esemplarità degli elementi del patrimonio geologico della valle rappresentino un’opportunità per operare una valorizzazione in chiave geoturistica. A tal proposito, sono stati individuati i siti di interesse geologico che meglio si prestano agli obiettivi di valorizzazione, al fine di indirizzare i primi interventi di riqualificazione e conservazione.Conservation and improvement of a natural territorial resource: the valley of Rio della Rocca (Italy). The quarrying activities carried out since the 1950s have deeply modified the lower-middle sector of the Rio della Rocca valley in the municipality of Castellarano (Reggio Emilia Apennines, Italy). The great value of the natural elements is, however, accompanied by environmental degradation, mainly due to abandoned quarries. Interventions aimed at territorial upgrading for the purpose of recreation and tourism had to be devised, taking into account the different naturalistic aspects of the area including its geological features. In order to define suitable strategies and actions, an analysis of territorial restrictions and opportunities was necessary. For this purpose, a detailed review of current legislation was carried out, with particular regard to the provisions stated by the management tools of “Natura 2000 Network”, in which the Rio della Rocca catchment is included as a Site of Community Importance. Among the territorial resources of the area, the scenic value and the exemplarity of its geological heritage are an opportunity to carry out territorial upgrading by assigning the valley to qualified geotourism activities. The sites of most considerable geological interest have therefore been selected, in order to establish preliminary requalification and conservation measures

AFM phase imaging of soft-hydrated samples: A versatile tool to complete the chemical-physical study of liposomes

Despite of the several approaches applied to the physicochemical characterization of liposomes, few techniques are really useful to obtain information about the surface properties of these colloidal drug-delivery systems. In this paper, we demonstrate a possible new application of tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) to discriminate between conventional and pegylated liposomes. We showed that the differences on liposomal surface properties revealed by the phase images AFM approach well correlate with the data obtained using classical methods, such as light scattering, hydrodynamic, and nuclear magnetic resonance analysis

Nanoparticle transport across the blood brain barrier

ABSTRACT: While the role of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is increasingly recognized in the (development of treatments targeting neurodegenerative disorders, to date, few strategies exist that enable drug delivery of non-BBB crossing molecules directly to their site of action, the brain. However, the recent advent of Nanomedicines may provide a potent tool to implement CNS targeted delivery of active compounds. Approaches for BBB crossing are deeply investigated in relation to the pathology: among the main important diseases of the CNS, this review focuses on the application of nanomedicines to neurodegenerative disorders (Alzheimer, Parkinson and Huntington's Disease) and to other brain pathologies as epilepsy, infectious diseases, multiple sclerosis, lysosomal storage disorders, strokes

Hair analysis to monitor abuse of analgesic combinations containing butalbital and propyphenazone

Butalbital, a barbiturate, is present in analgesic combinations used by headache sufferers. Overuse/abuse of these combinations may cause dependence, chronic migraine, and medication-overuse headache (MOH). MOH is difficult to manage: it improves interrupting analgesic overuse, but requires monitoring, because relapses are frequent. A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) method for hair analysis has been developed and validated to document abuse of an analgesic combination containing butalbital and propyphenazone by a patient with MOH. For over ten years the patient managed her headache using eight suppositories/day of an analgesic combination containing butalbital 150 mg, caffeine 75 mg, and propyphenazone 375 mg per suppository. An outpatient detoxification treatment was carried out. After three weeks, the patient reduced the consumption to one suppository/day. At the first control visit, after three months from the beginning of detoxification, the patient increased the use of the combination to four suppositories/day and at the second control visit, after seven months from the beginning of detoxification, she was back to eight suppositories/day. At the two control visits, a hair sample was taken for determination of butalbital and propyphenazone. Moreover blood and urine samples for determination of butalbital were drawn at the beginning of detoxification treatment and at the two control visits. With the segmental analysis of two hair samples the medication history of ten months could be estimated. In the first hair sample, collected at the first control visit, in the distal segment, butalbital and propyphenazone concentrations were, respectively, 17.5 ng/mg and 56.0 ng/mg, confirming the prolonged abuse; in the proximal segment, concurrently with the detoxification treatment, butalbital and propyphenazone concentrations had reduced respectively to 5.45 ng/mg and 11.1 ng/mg. The second hair sample, collected at the second control visit, proved the fair course of the detoxification treatment in the distal segment and signalled relapse in the abuse of the analgesic combination in the proximal segment. In the clinical context, hair analysis can be advantageously used to monitor the abuse of analgesic combinations with butalbital, common among headache patients. The validation data showed that GC–MS method developed for determination of butalbital and propyphenazone was rapid, highly sensitive, specific and selective

New development: Directly elected mayors in Italy: creating a strong leader doesn’t mean creating strong leadership

More than 20 years after their introduction, directly elected mayors are key players in Italian urban governance. This article explains the main effects of this reform on local government systems and provides lessons for other countries considering directly elected mayors