Hasil untuk "History of Italy"

M. Martini, V. Gazzaniga, Nicola Luigi Bragazzi et al.

Summary In Europe in 1918, influenza spread through Spain, France, Great Britain and Italy, causing havoc with military operations during the First World War. The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more than 50 million people worldwide. In addition, its socioeconomic consequences were huge. “Spanish flu”, as the infection was dubbed, hit different age-groups, displaying a so-called “W-trend”, typically with two spikes in children and the elderly. However, healthy young adults were also affected. In order to avoid alarming the public, several local health authorities refused to reveal the numbers of people affected and deaths. Consequently, it was very difficult to assess the impact of the disease at the time. Although official communications issued by health authorities worldwide expressed certainty about the etiology of the infection, in laboratories it was not always possible to isolate the famous Pfeiffer’s bacillus, which was, at that time, deemed to be the cause of influenza. The first official preventive actions were implemented in August 1918; these included the obligatory notification of suspected cases and the surveillance of communities such as day-schools, boarding schools and barracks. Identifying suspected cases through surveillance, and voluntary and/or mandatory quarantine or isolation, enabled the spread of Spanish flu to be curbed. At that time, these public health measures were the only effective weapons against the disease, as no vaccines or antivirals were available. Virological and bacteriological analysis of preserved samples from infected soldiers and other young people who died during the pandemic period is a major step toward a better understanding of this pandemic and of how to prepare for future pandemics.

Denise Bruno, Giuseppe Canzoneri, Salvatore Cristofaro et al.

The COVerLeSS project (Corpus Online del Verismo tra Letteratura, Storia e Società) explores Italian Verismo within the field of Periodical Studies, drawing on ongoing digitization and preservation initiatives in libraries and cultural institutions across Italy and Europe. The project aims to develop an integrated, open-access web platform that brings together journals, reviews, and essays on Verismo’s literary production. This platform integrates Digital Humanities tools and technologies for textual analysis, combining a digital edition with XML/TEI structural and descriptive markup, managed through TEI Publisher, quantitative lexical analysis, and the development of ontologies based on specific encoding elements. The focus is on the creation of a hybrid edition-archive, or knowledge site, where textual reading is complemented by both synchronic and diachronic data analysis. A central feature is the development of a lexical map, the Verbum dictionary, that links secondary literature on Verismo to primary sources through an interactive timeline (Ver-in-time). Designed to be user-friendly and inclusive, the platform accommodates different levels of expertise, from students to researchers, offering flexible ways to navigate, explore, and engage with diverse texts. By highlighting lexical patterns and key concepts, the project reveals the deep cohesion within this literary movement, providing a fresh perspective on a pivotal period in Italian cultural and literary history: the post-unification era.

Angela Stufano, Valentina Schino, Gabriele Sacino et al.

Background: West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne RNA virus, with birds as reservoirs and humans as incidental hosts. WNV often causes asymptomatic infections, but severe neuroinvasive disease occurs in fewer than 1% of human cases. Recent climatic changes and occupational exposure have increased its spread, particularly in Southern Italy. This study aimed to assess WNV seroprevalence and occupational risks among outdoor workers to guide targeted public health interventions. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in the Apulia region, southeastern Italy, from November 2023 to April 2024. Participants completed a detailed questionnaire on socio-demographics, occupational exposure, travel history, and health symptoms. Blood samples were analyzed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and neutralization assays to detect WNV-specific antibodies. Results: 250 outdoor workers in southeastern Italy were recruited, including agricultural workers, veterinarians, forestry workers, and livestock breeders. The latter showed the highest WNV prevalence at 6.5%. Protective measures such as repellent use (β = −0.145, OR = 0.95, <i>p</i> = 0.019) and personal protective equipment (PPE) usage (β = −0.12, OR = 0.94, <i>p</i> = 0.04) significantly reduced the likelihood of WNV infection. Conclusions: The study highlights the significant occupational risk posed by WNV to outdoor workers involved in livestock breeding in Southern Italy, likely due to their frequent exposure to mosquito-prone environments. Tailored public health strategies and education programs are needed to protect high-risk outdoor workers from WNV, amidst the backdrop of changing climatic conditions that favor increased transmission.

Hany M. Hassan, Hesham E. Abdel Hafiez, Mariam A. Sallam et al.

Old Cairo, also known as Islamic Cairo, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site representing a rich tapestry of history and culture. Today, among various significant aspects, its cultural heritage necessitates the elaboration of a proactive conservation strategy, which should take advantage of the intrinsic support provided by the efforts documented in the literature that have been made in several scientific fields, disciplines, and directions over the years. Most historic religious monumental buildings in Old Cairo, in particular, not only face the effects of local seismic hazards, which are emphasized by damage by past earthquakes, but also suffer the consequences of several influencing parameters that are unique to the Cairo city context. In this sense, it is known that the structural retrofitting of these monumental buildings requires sound knowledge of technical details and criticalities, based on inspections, numerical simulations, the in-field integration of technologies, and laboratory tests. Many other gaps should also be addressed, and a sound conservation strategy should be elaborated on the basis of a multi-target approach, which could account for the structural engineering perspective but also contextualize the retrofit within the state of the art and the evolution of past events. This is the target of the contemporary “Particular Relevance” bilateral Italy–Egypt “CoReng” project, seeking to define a multidisciplinary strategy for conserving Old Cairo’s cultural heritage and focusing primarily on the case study of the Religions Complex. To this end, a review analysis of major oversights and challenges relating to historic monuments in Old Cairo is presented in this paper. Learning from past accidents and experiences is, in fact, the primary supporting basis for elaborating new operational steps and efficient approaches to mitigating challenges and minimizing the consequences of emergency events. As such, this review contribution specifically focuses on the structural vulnerability of historic monumental buildings in Old Cairo, reporting on past efforts, past strategy proposals, research experiences, and trends.

G. Calvi, M. Moratti, G. O’Reilly et al.

Abstract On 14 August 2018 at 11:35 AM, a relevant portion (about 243 m) of the viaduct over the Polcevera river in Genoa collapsed, killing 43 people. The bridge was designed in the early 1960s by Riccardo Morandi, a well-known Italian engineer, and opened to the public in 1967. The collapsed part of the bridge essentially comprised an individual self-standing structure spanning 171 m and two simply-supported connecting Gerber beam systems, each spanning 36 m from the self-standing structure to the adjacent portions of the bridge. This paper aims to reminisce the complete story of the bridge, from the Italian construction boom in the 1960s to some of the issues that soon arose thereafter: the strengthening intervention in the 1990s, the subsequent structural monitoring and, finally, the strengthening project never brought to fruition. Potential reasons for the collapse are discussed, together with some of the possible inadequacies of the bridge, its maintenance and loading history based on critical reflection, comparison with specific features of bridge construction practice today and results obtained using numerical models with different levels of refinement. Since the entire matter (specifically the debris) was considered classified by the investigating magistrate in the immediate aftermath of the bridge collapse, this work is based entirely on publicly available material.

Silvia Ferrara, Laura Tassoni, Bernd Kromer et al.

Abstract Placing the origin of an undeciphered script in time is crucial to understanding the invention of writing in human history. Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, developed a script, now engraved on fewer than 30 wooden objects, which is still undeciphered. Its origins are also obscure. Central to this issue is whether the script was invented before European travelers reached the island in the eighteenth century AD. Hence direct radiocarbon dating of the wood plays a fundamental role. Until now, only two tablets were directly dated, placing them in the nineteenth c. AD, which does not solve the question of independent invention. Here we radiocarbon-dated four Rongorongo tablets preserved in Rome, Italy. One specimen yielded a unique and secure mid-fifteenth c. date, while the others fall within the nineteenth c. AD. Our results suggest that the use of the script could be placed to a horizon that predates the arrival of external influence.

Lucas Marolleau

Our article proposes to deduce from the geohistorical analysis of heritage polarized by the historic center of Bologna (Italy) the successive and simultaneous logics that accompany the temporal evolution of the heritage fact, and thus define what we render by the neologism of “pluripatrimonialization”. To this end, we are conducting a comparative study of the architectural and urban heritage of this area, based on the porticoed sites listed by Unesco as World Heritage Sites in July 2021.This corpus is in fact an opportunity for local player to highlight a typical form of heritage, spread throughout the commune of Bologna, which is part of the local heritage history. Its definition presupposes that they confront both exogenous representations in a context of cultural globalization (Gravari-Barbas, 2012) and the semiogenesis of existing corpora of national and municipal property as legacy and production of meaning (Davallon, 2000; Rautenberg, 2003; Morisset, 2009). The labelled result is thus the product of diachronic relationships with previous patrimonializations and synchronic relationships with the territory and its socio-spatial dynamics. These heritage polytemporalities reveal the multiple extensions of heritage status and the different spatio-temporal strata that constitute an example of pluripatrimonialization.

Gabriele Paleari

Questo articolo si propone di contribuire a far conoscere l'esistenza di espressioni culinarie autoctone “italiane” al di fuori dei confini dell'Italia attuale e della cosiddetta diaspora italiana. Grazie a quest'ultima, la lingua italiana del cibo e la cucina italiana si sono diffuse in tutto il mondo. Tuttavia, questo saggio non riguarda l'Italia o la diaspora, ma i contesti della Svizzera meridionale, in particolare dei Grigioni, e dei territori costieri dell'Adriatico orientale, come l'Istria, la Dalmazia e le Bocche di Cattaro. Alcune aree non hanno mai fatto parte dell'Italia politica, altre le sono state annesse, come province, nel corso del XX secolo. È nel contesto della Svizzera italiana e delle zone costiere dell'Adriatico che si sono sviluppate culture alimentari autoctone simili a quelle italiane. Per arricchire l'analisi delle espressioni culturali sono stati utilizzati approcci fotografici, etnografici e letterari. L'oralità delle interviste contribuisce ad arricchire i dati raccolti con altri metodi. Detto questo, la letteratura e le interviste non permettono di visualizzare espressioni significative come piatti o simboli; una fotografia, invece, può evocare narrazioni.    

E. Nicastri, C. Castilletti, G. Liuzzi et al.

A man in his early 30s reported in January 2016 a history of fever, asthenia and erythematous rash during a stay in Haiti. On his return to Italy, ZIKV RNA was detected in his urine and saliva 91 days after symptom onset, and in his semen on day 188, six months after symptom onset. Our findings support the possibility of sexual transmission of ZIKV and highlight the importance of continuing to investigate non-vector-borne ZIKV infection.

M. Shahbaz, M. Destek, Kangyin Dong et al.

D. Pritchard, M. Griffo, M. Attenni et al.

<p>Modern terrestrial laser scanners and photogrammetric imaging systems can provide highly accurate and objective as-built records of existing architectural, engineering, and industrial sites. This comprehensive digital recording benefits culturally significant places like heritage buildings, monuments, and other vital structures. The collected data can be instrumental in various ways, including aiding in conservation, management, monitoring and repair efforts and serving as an educational resource for scholars and the general public. These technical capabilities are especially well-suited for architecturally complex, ornate buildings like the Aachen Cathedral UNESCO World Heritage site. This paper describes the recent recording efforts at the Aachen Cathedral and is a comparative study of the previous documentation work done at the Cologne Cathedral.</p><p>The 3D documentation of the Aachen Cathedral UNESCO World Heritage Site is an ongoing collaborative project between the Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, and in partnership with RWTH Aachen University, and the Dombauhütte Aachen.</p>

Dorena Caroli

This article aims at presenting the origins and the evolution of the disciplinary field of history of pedagogy in Italy. It is a process to which the Centro Italiano per la Ricerca Storico-Educativa (CIRSE), founded in 1980, contributed and which continues to this day. After an introduction describing the scientific changes occurred in the two decades preceding the foundation of CIRSE – similar in some ways to what happened in France – this paper consists of four parts describing the definition process of the study of history of pedagogy initiated in the cultural context of the 1968 revolution; the methodological and epistemological renewal established on the basis of the scientific activities carried out by CIRSE; the different legislation steps that led to the development of an independent field history of pedagogy at university level; finally, the current potential of CIRSE in the promotion of networks and scientific collaboration among Italian universities.

Iris M. Bosa, Adriana Castelli, Michele Castelli et al.

Abstract On 31st January 2020, the Italian cabinet declared a 6-month national emergency after the detection of the first two COVID-19 positive cases in Rome, two Chinese tourists travelling from Wuhan. Between then and the total lockdown introduced on 22nd March 2020 Italy was hit by an unprecedented crisis. In addition to being the first European country to be heavily swept by the COVID-19 pandemic, Italy was the first to introduce stringent lockdown measures. The SARS-CoV-2 outbreak and related COVID-19 pandemic have been the worst public health challenge endured in recent history by Italy. Two months since the beginning of the first wave, the estimated excess deaths in Lombardy, the hardest hit region in the country, reached a peak of more than 23,000 deaths. The extraordinary pressures exerted on the Italian Servizio Sanitario Nazionale (SSN) inevitably leads to questions about its preparedness and the appropriateness and effectiveness of responses implemented at both national and regional levels. The aim of the paper is to critically review the Italian response to the COVID-19 crisis spanning from the first early acute phases of the emergency (March–May 2020) to the relative stability of the epidemiological situation just before the second outbreak in October 2020.

N. Parolini, L. Dede’, P. Antonietti et al.

The COVID-19 epidemic is the latest in a long list of pandemics that have affected humankind in the last century. In this paper, we propose a novel mathematical epidemiological model named SUIHTER from the names of the seven compartments that it comprises: susceptible uninfected individuals (S), undetected (both asymptomatic and symptomatic) infected (U), isolated infected (I), hospitalized (H), threatened (T), extinct (E) and recovered (R). A suitable parameter calibration that is based on the combined use of the least-squares method and the Markov chain Monte Carlo method is proposed with the aim of reproducing the past history of the epidemic in Italy, which surfaced in late February and is still ongoing to date, and of validating SUIHTER in terms of its predicting capabilities. A distinctive feature of the new model is that it allows a one-to-one calibration strategy between the model compartments and the data that are made available daily by the Italian Civil Protection Department. The new model is then applied to the analysis of the Italian epidemic with emphasis on the second outbreak, which emerged in autumn 2020. In particular, we show that the epidemiological model SUIHTER can be suitably used in a predictive manner to perform scenario analysis at a national level.

Pia H. Bülow, Deborah Finkel, Monika Allgurin et al.

Abstract Background The concept of deinstitutionalization started in the 1960s in the US to describe closing down or reducing the number of beds in mental hospitals. The same process has been going on in many countries but with different names and in various forms. In Europe, countries like Italy prescribed by law an immediate ban on admitting patients to mental hospitals while in some other European countries psychiatric care was reorganized into a sectorized psychiatry characterized by open psychiatric care. This sectorization has not been studied to the same extent as the radical closures of mental hospitals, even though it entailed major changes in the organization of care. The deinstitutionalization in Sweden is connected to the sectorization of psychiatric care, a protracted process taking years to implement. Methods Older people, with their first admission to psychiatric care before or after the sectorization process, were followed using three different time metrics: (a) year of first entry into a mental hospital, (b) total years of institutionalization, and (c) changes resulting from aging. Data from surveys in 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011 were used, together with National registers. Results Examination of date of first institutionalization and length of stay indicates a clear break in 1985, the year when the sectorization was completed in the studied municipality. The results show that the two groups, despite belonging to the same age group (birthyears 1910–1951, mean birthyear 1937), represented two different patient generations. The pre-sectorization group was institutionalized at an earlier age and accumulated more time in institutions than the post-sectorization group. Compared to the post-sectorization group, the pre-sectorization group were found to be disadvantaged in that their level of functioning was lower, and they had more unmet needs, even when diagnosis was taken into account. Conclusions Sectorization is an important divide which explains differences in two groups of the same age but with different institutional history: “modern” and “traditional” patient generations that received radically different types of care. The results indicate that the sectorization of psychiatric care might be as important as the Mental Health Care Reform of 1995, although a relatively quiet revolution.

Stefano Mammola, Enrico Lunghi, Helena Bilandžija et al.

Abstract Caves and other subterranean habitats fulfill the requirements of experimental model systems to address general questions in ecology and evolution. Yet, the harsh working conditions of these environments and the uniqueness of the subterranean organisms have challenged most attempts to pursuit standardized research. Two main obstacles have synergistically hampered previous attempts. First, there is a habitat impediment related to the objective difficulties of exploring subterranean habitats and our inability to access the network of fissures that represents the elective habitat for the so‐called “cave species.” Second, there is a biological impediment illustrated by the rarity of most subterranean species and their low physiological tolerance, often limiting sample size and complicating laboratory experiments. We explore the advantages and disadvantages of four general experimental setups (in situ, quasi in situ, ex situ, and in silico) in the light of habitat and biological impediments. We also discuss the potential of indirect approaches to research. Furthermore, using bibliometric data, we provide a quantitative overview of the model organisms that scientists have exploited in the study of subterranean life. Our over‐arching goal is to promote caves as model systems where one can perform standardized scientific research. This is important not only to achieve an in‐depth understanding of the functioning of subterranean ecosystems but also to fully exploit their long‐discussed potential in addressing general scientific questions with implications beyond the boundaries of this discipline.

Susanna Esposito, Giuseppe Maglietta, Margherita Di Costanzo et al.

The development and spread of antibiotic resistance is an increasingly important global public health problem, even in paediatric urinary tract infection (UTI). In light of the variability in the data, it is necessary to conduct surveillance studies to determine the prevalence of antibiotic resistance in specific geographical areas to optimize therapeutic management. In this observational, retrospective, multicentre study, the medical records of 1801 paediatric patients who were hospitalised for UTI between 1 January 2012, and 30 June 2020, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, were analysed. <i>Escherichia coli</i> was the most frequently detected pathogen (75.6%), followed by <i>Klebsiella pneumoniae</i> (6.9%) and <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> (2.5%). Overall, 840 cases (46.7%) were due to antimicrobial-resistant uropathogens: 83 (4.7%) extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing, 119 (6.7%) multidrug resistant (MDR) and 4 (0.2%) extensively drug resistant (XDR) bacteria. Empirical antibiotic therapy failed in 172 cases (9.6%). Having ESBL or MDR/XDR uropathogens, a history of recurrent UTI, antibiotic therapy in the preceding 30 days, and empirical treatment with amoxicillin or amoxicillin/clavulanate were significantly associated with treatment failure, whereas first-line therapy with third-generation cephalosporins was associated with protection against negative outcomes. In conclusion, the increase in the resistance of uropathogens to commonly used antibiotics requires continuous monitoring, and recommendations for antibiotic choice need updating. In our epidemiological context, amoxicillin/clavulanate no longer seems to be the appropriate first-line therapy for children hospitalised for UTI, whereas third-generation cephalosporins continue to be useful. To further limit the emergence of resistance, every effort to reduce and rationalise antibiotic consumption must be implemented.

Monica Lanfranco, Francesca Irene Sensini

Thanks to information provided by Monica Lanfranco in this interview, we have the opportunity to trace the history of feminist thought in Italy over the last 50 years. To do this, we use the history of the magazine Marea, which this Genoese activist, journalist and essayist founded in 1994 and has edited ever since. From the difficulty of openly asserting the magazine’s feminist stance to the issues of ecofeminism, including the debate triggered by the magazine during the G8 summit in 2001 and the focus on secularism in a section of the international feminist movement, which Marea identifies with, Monica Lanfranco enables us to take stock of the present and understand the importance of developing feminist thought to address the challenges we will all have to face in the future.

G. Aad, B. Abbott, D.C. Abbott et al.

A search for the dimuon decay of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson is performed using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 collected with the ATLAS detector in Run 2 pp collisions at s=13 TeV at the Large Hadron Collider. The observed (expected) significance over the background-only hypothesis for a Higgs boson with a mass of 125.09 GeV is 2.0σ (1.7σ). The observed upper limit on the cross section times branching ratio for pp→H→μμ is 2.2 times the SM prediction at 95% confidence level, while the expected limit on a H→μμ signal assuming the absence (presence) of a SM signal is 1.1 (2.0). The best-fit value of the signal strength parameter, defined as the ratio of the observed signal yield to the one expected in the SM, is μ=1.2±0.6.

Avery E. Broderick, Roman Gold, Mansour Karami et al.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) provides the unprecedented ability to directly resolve the structure and dynamics of black hole emission regions on scales smaller than their horizons. This has the potential to critically probe the mechanisms by which black holes accrete and launch outflows, and the structure of supermassive black hole spacetimes. However, accessing this information is a formidable analysis challenge for two reasons. First, the EHT natively produces a variety of data types that encode information about the image structure in nontrivial ways; these are subject to a variety of systematic effects associated with very long baseline interferometry and are supplemented by a wide variety of auxiliary data on the primary EHT targets from decades of other observations. Second, models of the emission regions and their interaction with the black hole are complex, highly uncertain, and computationally expensive to construct. As a result, the scientific utilization of EHT observations requires a flexible, extensible, and powerful analysis framework. We present such a framework, Themis , which defines a set of interfaces between models, data, and sampling algorithms that facilitates future development. We describe the design and currently existing components of Themis , how Themis has been validated thus far, and present additional analyses made possible by Themis that illustrate its capabilities. Importantly, we demonstrate that Themis is able to reproduce prior EHT analyses, extend these, and do so in a computationally efficient manner that can efficiently exploit modern high-performance computing facilities. Themis has already been used extensively in the scientific analysis and interpretation of the first EHT observations of M87.