Victorian novelist George Gissing (1857-1903) was a devotee of ancient Roman culture and visited Italy three times between 1888 and 1897. In spite of this admiration, his relationship with Italy was problematic, largely due to personal mishaps. In light of these conflicting views, my essay considers Gissing’s portrayals of mostly Southern Italian locations through his fiction, letters, and tr…
Caretta caretta is the only sea turtle species nesting along the Tuscan coastline, where nests are becoming more numerous and widespread, as well as the number of Sea Turtle Egg Fusariosis (STEF)-affected eggs. In this work, we analyzed eggs from natural nests of C. caretta that showed visual symptoms of STEF from Tuscan nests, with the aim to (i) isolate Fusarium spp. strains present in unhatc…
The construction industry faces significant challenges, including a high prevalence of occupational incidents, often involving fires, explosions, and burn-related accidents due to worker non-compliance with safety protocols. Adherence to safety guidelines and proper utilization of safety equipment are critical to preventing such incidents and safeguarding workers in hazardous work environments.…
The goddess Išḫara is attested early in cuneiform sources, and her cult can be traced back in all regions of the Ancient Near East over a period of more than 2000 years. From this point of view, it is worthwhile to look at her integration into the Hittite pantheon and try to identify changes and continuities in her figure and present some ideas about the circumstances under which the process…
Real and virtual are often considered terms in reciprocal opposition, but the boundaries between the two are blurred. The main goal of our study consists in answering the question whether the presence of a third dimension (3D) is a fundamental step of the virtual toward the real world, and if it causes some difference in the neural activity of the spectator [8]. Also, the possibility to conside…
Cosmology & the universe
Biotechnology
When black South African artist Willie Bester, whose art persistently criticizes the colonial and totalitarian history of his country, created a sculpture of Sarah Bartmann (or Saartjie Bartmann) out of recycled material, one wouldn’t have imagined so many ruptures from this work. Buikema (2007) clinically unpacks the first rupture at the University of Cape Town by deploying politics of repre…
Family planning policy is one of the basic policies in China. Since the founding of New China, it has gone through three stages during its development process, which include free fertility policy, one-child policy (including selective two-child policy), and universal two-child policy. The number of induced abortions in China has increased from 3,910,110 in 1971 to 9,626,731 in 2017, and the pro…
Early intervention in mental health seeks to improve the wellbeing of as many people as possible, by intervening at an early stage in the onset of illness, or by taking preventative action in ‘at risk’ populations. The paradigm is rhetorically powerful, and it is easy to talk in terms of it helping to deliver rights to health and realise social justice. However, in spite – or perhaps beca…