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AI and future of sapiens between new horizons and ancient fears AI in its various forms and articulations represents a range of new opportunities and strategies that our species can use to improve its condition. Often the scenarios presented in association with AI speak of a humanity threatened by machines or, on the contrary, of a utopian future in which man and machine will be completely hybridised in a harmonious manner. In this interview, a moral philosopher, Professor Gianluca Giannini, and Antonio Pescapè, professor of computer engineering, will try, each from their own perspective, to answer some of the key questions emerging in the field of artificial intelligence, on the one hand avoiding sensationalist journalistic exaggerations, and on the other hand highlighting that the real challenge posed by intelligent machines lies in the new ways in which humans will narrate themselves and their possibilities of existence.

Science and philosophy: towards a common Language for the third Millennium The foundation (or refoundation) of a flexible and multifunctional Lògos for shaping a common language should be the main object of an ambitious project for the third millennium. We urge to imagine a platform in which science and philosophy are co-implicated. We need to construe a heuristic scaffolding to think in new ways an allegiance in which science and philosophy can find a new intimacy. In this interview Lucio Pastore and Gianluca Giannini discuss some crucial themes on the frontier between philosophical investigation and scientific innovations (with particular regard to life sciences).

Human Destiny at the End of Space […and Time] The common idea of time and space that we still have is surely due to Newton. Space, similar to a plank, is the entities on which and within take place all facts of the world, while time is the fundamental reason of self-identification and self-comprehension. With Einstein come to lay the foundations for the revolutionary concept whereby space and time do not exist. All this – and it is the fundamental reason for the unusual form of connection between physics and philosophy – can achieve extraordinary, speculative, acquisitions: a) the end of traditional metaphysics; b) each time this make-space, how about the existence of the entities/objects only as of the effective possibility (that is establishing actually) in their interrelationship, is preceded by a radical absence of being: there is existence only in the effectiveness of all this; c) that the Being of Western Tradition, being no longer something of a pre-writable in its pre-existence, being instead led, each time, of probabilistic, not causal, interrelations, opens to a new meaning of ontology as de-ontology. A de-ontology where being can be said only closed in the logos, in this-logos-here as the way of a strategy of man in his interrelation with the world.

Is it somehow necessary for the human being to be? Is there something that reveals the need of the human being (and for the human being) to continue to be? Through the intersection between philosophy and cinema, and the age-old problem of “The End of the World”, this paper tries to develop an hypothesis involving the deconstruction of this question and, finally, of the inner reasons that support any answers based on traditional Metaphysics.

Background: Autologous transfusions reduce the risk of alloimmune and infectious complications of allogenic blood transfusions. We have evaluated preoperative autologous blood donation practice in relation to patients characteristics and surgical technique., Methods: In the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of Genoa University, we enrolled 462 patients in an autologous transfusion program during 1997. We did not analyze 105 patients who underwent minor surgery. Patients with hemoglobin lower than 11 g/dl or with other risks related to autotransfusion have been excluded; 284 (79.5%) patients have been able to make preoperative autologous blood donations. Patients who did not undergo predeposit have utilised type screen or cross reaction for a possible who did eterologous transfusion. We have analysed the two groups of patients for kind of pathology, for number of heterologous blood units used, for number of transfused patients and we have considered the mean of the units received by each of them., Results: 44 of the 284 predeposited blood units were reinfused while 10 patients, who did not undergo predeposit, were transfused. Heterologous transfusion was done in 1.06% of the cases that underwent predeposit. Oncologic patients underwent predeposit in 83% of the cases., Conclusions: We have concluded that autologous blood donation reduces the risk of allogenic blood transfusion especially in oncologic surgery.

The authors review all the cases of polyps of the gallbladder observed during the period 1964 to 1992 at the Institutes of Pathology and General Surgery at the University of Florence. On the basis of their experience, the authors affirm that these phenomena always cause more or less evident, even if not specific clinical symptoms; moreover, since they are considered high-risk lesions for the onset of malignant tumours, the authors emphasize the need for cholecystectomy in all cases.

A recent clinical report regarding a patient with a voluminous laparocele treated using progressive pneumoperitoneum justifies this short paper on the use of this method as a preparatory act to reparative surgery. The paper emphasises the undoubted advantages deriving from the use of this technique, especially in the case of those subjects with a particularly poor respiratory function secondary to hernia.

Laparoceles are diseases of the abdominal wall and their repair does not usually involve technical problems which are difficult to resolve. The use of classic surgical methods, such as direct suture and plastic surgery, enables the parietal defect to be easily repaired in most case. However, cases do occur in which the surgeon is faced with considerable technical and tactical difficulties largely due to anatomopathological causes: the "loss of the right of domicile" of herniated viscera and the loss of musculo-aponeurotic substance. In the former case it is necessary to prepare the peritoneal cavity using pneumoperitoneum. In the event of the extensive destruction of the muscular component, or when the parietal breech is located next to bone or cartilagenous structures, it is essential to use a prosthesis. The paper goes on to describe the indications for the use of various techniques and their respective methods of use under different anatomo-clinical conditions.

Reparative surgery of ventral hernia may be relatively simple or, on the other hand, the surgeon may be confronted with a number of tactical and technical problems. Many of these are caused by the "loss of the right of domicile". In order to avoid this particular condition it is useful to resort to preoperative pneumoperitoneum. This method entails the gradual and progressive introduction of air into the peritoneal cavity. In this way abdominal capacity is increased and it is therefore possible to re-insert all the viscera into their natural cavities avoiding all the harmful consequences for respiratory and cardio-circulatory organs following forced replacement. Preoperative pneumo-peritoneum is a relatively well consolidated surgical technique in large scale eventration. The methods is simple to perform and has a low incidence of complications.

Patients affected by malignant tumors of the small intestine observed by the Department of Clinical and Pathological Surgery at the University of Florence were studied from 1964 to 1989. The most important aspects of the disease were studied, on the one hand emphasising its low incidence and on the other the poor prognosis which accompanies it. Greater attention should be focused on these lesions in order to enable an early diagnosis to be made since this currently represents the sole possibility for carrying out an efficacious therapy.

On the basis of two recently treated cases of endometriosis, the main aspects of this unusual pathology are examined; in particular its aetiopathogenesis, clinical picture and treatment still provide reasons of uncertainty. On the basis of an albeit limited experience, stress is laid on the importance of radical surgery, the only way to resolve the situation. Medical or conservative surgical measures are left to the early stages of the disease.

Ten cases of ectopic pancreas are presented. The literature on the subject is reviewed and the more controversial aspects of the disorder are discussed, in particular the clinical and anatomic-pathological significance, its diagnostic recognition, and the necessary treatment.

This study is referred to a patient with bilateral occlusion of the internal carotid artery with anastomotic compensatory circle through ophthalmic arteries.