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The aim of this study was to explore the use of biotechnologies in the restoration of wall paintings and stuccos which often show a great complexity regarding constitutive materials and conservative conditions. ‘Biological methods’ were compared to traditional methods, focusing on restoring the cohesion of the superficial layers (bioconsolidation) and the removal of sulphates (biocleaning) often found on the frescoes as decay products. The experimentation took place as part of a graduate thesis and was divided in two stages: the first was spent in the laboratory working on samples of painted plaster and the second was spent in situ, on the frescoes and stuccos in the Church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, Italy. Application of the products was followed by a campaign of investigations aimed at determining the efficacy, and the advantages and disadvantages of these methods compared to conventional ones.

Book review of Rosario Forlenza, Bjørn Thomassen, Italian modernities: Competing narratives of nationhood, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. XII, 296.

Francesco De Sanctis never redacted those rules of Aesthetics that the Zurigo lessons could foreshadow he would write on that matter and that he would like to leave to posterity. But the glimmers of it can be found in some of his most important writings about literature and society. In Schopenhauer e Leopardi (1996 [1858]) the pervasiveness between form and subject matter is exalted as well as in the writings dedicated to Darwinism in Art and to some novels by Émile Zola. In them Realism is opposed to Arcadic tradition of Italian literature and an appeasing vision of it. A Desanctisian Aesthetics based on those issues was the center of a possible Benedetto Croce-Giovanni Gentile-Antonio Gramsci line-up. It is built on the ideality of a new Popular National literature that finds its turning point in it.

The paper aims at exploring how the literary representation of the worker has changed between the end of 20th-century and the beginning of the 21st-century. With the fall of the 20th-century ideologies and raising the fragmentation of labour, texts have emerged in Italian literature which illustrated the tragic social and existential condition of the working class. Among these texts we can find some récits de filiation written by sons and daughters of workers whose health and ideals have been undermined even down to death. These typology of texts let emerged two equally tragic characters: fathers, ill and defeated but still working class heroes and sons, tragically conscious of their roles witnesses-superstites of those ‘denied heroes’. Among the texts being tackled in the paper Il nemico (2009) by Emanuele Tonon, Amianto (2012) by Alberto Prunetti, Il fuoco a mare (2015) by Andrea Bottalico, Ilva Football Club (2016) by Fulvio Colucci and Lorenzo d’Alò

Exhibition review of Mito e natura. Dalla Grecia a Pompei, Palazzo Reale, Milano, 31 luglio 2015 - 10 gennaio 2016.

The aim of this article is to investigate the opportunity literature offers to oppose contemporary strategies of domination through language. Because work relationships are the main site of a subjection – meaning both the process of becoming a subject and subordination by power – whose rhetoric forms have long been extended to the political domain, studying how literary representations of symbolic domination in the workplace have emerged as a form of resistance can be particularly interesting. In order to do so, the article tackles the work of Thierry Beinstingel (1958) author of approximately ten novels most of which are inspired by their author’s own professional experience. In these texts, literature appropriates that same managerial newspeak which is used to produce and to profit from subjectivities in order to resignify it in a creative form of resistance. In his most recent novel, the writer re-elaborates in the same way some political and media discourses. From the case of France Télécom to the rise of electoral success of Front National, Beinstingel’s writings allow an exploration of the many ways linguistic manipulation is operated by neoliberal discourse as well as a reflection on the renewed critical and heuristic role literature can play to stand against them.

Starting from the case of ancient Malian terracotta in this article I propose an epistemological reflection on the relationship between hidden practices of circulation of unprovenanced objects and official discourses and policies driven by museums. In particular I develop a critique of the Kantian association of Truth, Beauty and Goodness involved in cultural heritage policies and art circulation. Through this perspective I refer to Luhmann’s theory on trust and power as well as to Handler’s theory on authenticity in order to show how the erasing of the social life of the Malian terracotta (overlapping legal/illegal, individual trajectories of the art traders, investment strategies, acquisition policies) by museums finally produces social inequality because of the lack of information through the production of trust toward their public. In this sense I endorse a consequentiality principle linking beauty and properness through which the value of a given final art product is directly proportional to the degree of opacity of its multiple production stages: the more the local context of the grey market remains vague, the more the world-wide homogenization of deontological and aesthetical official criteria is effective and firm.

The paper deals with one of the most popular female projections or phantoms of male desire, that is the charmer who never cedes, by comparing some literary and cinematic texts. This “allumeuse” which turns men into puppets in a dynamic of impossible seduction is the protagonist of La Femme et le Pantin (1898) by Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925), whose unforgettable Conchita from Sevilla was inspired by the young Charpillon who maddened the expert seducer Casanova. Conchita’s fame was deepened by the numerous adaptations of the text for the screen, especially von Sternberg’s The Devil is a Woman (1935) starring Marlene Dietrich, Duvivier’s La Femme et le Pantin (1959) with Brigitte Bardot, and Buñuel’s free and outstanding reinterpretation in Cet obscur objet du désir (1977). In the end, the adaptation of the novel Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura (1874) by Portuguese Eça de Queirós (1845-1900) which Manoel de Oliveira directed in 2009 will be evoked to argue that the unattainable female character could represent a projection of the male protagonists’ desire and romantic idealizations as well as of their fears and bourgeois conventions.

The scope of the paper is to present the work and the poetics of Francesco Biamonti (1928 - 2001), a real man of the frontier, born and raised in San Biagio della Cima, on the far West of Ligury. Instead of dealing with the territory where the writer has lived all his life and set all his novels, the paper focuses on another threshold he has crossed with his work, that is the one between painting and writing, both of which he considered visual practices connected from a theoretical and technical point of view. The paper briefly deals with the education of Biamonti and, by examining some of his quotes, it would like to demonstrate that his writings aim at showing the landscape by an act of “donner à voir” whereby the space of action of the characters is visualised: such work is theoretically based on the reflections of philosophers and artists about perception (Merleau-Ponty and Cézanne above all) but also structurally inspired by the paintings the writer lived the most. This study is only a first step in the investigation of the traces (the memory) Biamonti’s work bares of the author’s readings on philosophy and art, especially painting.

Copyright of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia is the property of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia Editorial Board and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia is the property of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia Editorial Board and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia is the property of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia Editorial Board and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Scienza Riabilitativa is the property of Associazione Italiana Fisioterapisti and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of SCENARIO: Official Italian Journal of ANIARTI is the property of ANIARTI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summary: Background. Pain is one of the most common symptoms that weighs on life's quality and health expenditure. In a reality in which increasingly personalized therapies are needed, the early use of genetic tests that highlight the individual response to analgesic drugs could be a valuable help in clinical practice helping to reduce response times, to achieve a good level of analgesia and to reduce the risk of side effects and adverse events. The study aims to confront the clinical response to analgesic drugs with the result of pharmacogenetic testing in patients with persistent pain. Methods. This preliminary study compares the genetic results of pharmacological effectiveness and tolerability analyzed with a Pharmacogenetic Test with the results obtained in clinical practice in 5 patients suffering from acute and chronic pain. Results. Regarding the genetic results of the 5 samples analyzed, 2 reports were found to be completely comparable to what found in clinical practice, while 3 reports showed that the profile of tolerability and effectiveness were partially discordant. Conclusions. In light of the data, not completely overlapping with results observed in clinical practice, further studies would be appropriate in order to acquire more information on the use of the PGT in clinical practice., Competing Interests: The authors of this article have no conflict of interests to disclose., (Copyright© by GIMLE.)

Aim: This paper reports personal experience relating to the use of "static" and "permicturition" prostatic transrectal ultrasonography and urethral ultrasonography in the imaging diagnosis of obstructed patients., Methods: Between January 1996 and January 1998 we selected 96 consecutive patients aged between 25 and 73 years old (mean 54 years) with symptoms of obstructive dysuria with pathological uroflowmetry and pressure/flow rates (Qmax ranging between 5-12 ml/sec and URA between 34-81). Eighteen of the patients selected had previously undergone prostate surgery for benign pathologies. All patients underwent a standard and permicturition transrectal ultrasonography and urethral ultrasonography using a retrograde approach. The results were compared with those obtained by retrograde urethrocystography and urethrocystoscopy, regarded as the "gold standard" for the diagnosis of urethral obstruction., Results: Sixty-three (65.5%) patients were able to execute the permicturition phase, but only 54 (56.2%) reported that the test was indicative of "real urination", whereas retrograde urethral ultrasonography was well tolerated in all cases and easy to accomplish. In 19 (20%) patients (6 of whom had undergone prostate surgery and 13 were suffering from urethral stenosis), "major" organic alterations responsible for urethral obstruction were observed with the combined use of these ultrasonographic methods. These were not evident using static transrectal ultrasonography and increased the diagnostic sensitivity from 80 to 98%., Conclusions: We feel that an increasingly complete ultrasonographic study of the lower urinary tract is necessary, above all in obstructed patients. This can be achieved using permicturition and urethral transrectal ultrasonography, ensuring an accurate diagnosis and optimising health expenditure.

The incidence of DVT in axillo-subclavian district is rather low. Up-to-date reports show however it is progressively increasing, owing to the widespread diffusion of intravenous prosthetic devices. While the opportunities of a correct diagnosis are becoming various, particularly because of the development of echo color-Doppler and imaging techniques, there is indecision for the treatment: the question is about a medical and a surgical therapy. Neither the former nor the latter are well established. This case report is about a 61-year-old woman affected by a recurrent DVT of the subclavian and axillary veins, who never underwent operation and/or handling of the venous district. Clinical tests didn't show any well determinate cause of thrombosis. It was decided not to treat the patient surgically, so a medical therapy was undertaken. Now she is completely recovered.

Background and Aims: There is a high incidence of varicocele or dilatation of the spermatic vessels associated with reflux in the male population varying, according to statistics, from 4.5 to 30.7%. Among the numerous hypotheses put forward to explain infertility in approximately 50% of patients with varicocele, it has recently been shown that there is an increased concentration of noradrenalin in the spermatic vessel which might be responsible for chronic arterial vasoconstriction affecting the gonads, leading to endothelial hyperplasia and consequent infertility., Materials and Methods: In this study the authors have evaluated the bilateral flow of spermatic arteries at the level of the scrotum in patients with varicocele and in the healthy (varicocele-free) population with normal and hypospermatogenesis., Results: In all groups and in the absence of other major pathologies (including arterial hypertension), no significant differences were found in systolic peak velocity (SPV) in relation to the presence or otherwise of varicocele and the degree of reflux. Mean SPV ranged between 3.5 and 4 cm/sec in patients with hypo- and/or normal zoospermia both in the varicocele and healthy population., Conclusions: In line with other authors, we feel that despite the lack of substantial differences in arterial flow in the patients examined, it is not possible at present to explore the testicular microcirculation and possible hypoperfusion using eco color-Doppler, in spite of the fact that the method shows a high level of diagnostic accuracy in the diagnosis of phlogistic pathologies and/or twisting of the spermatic cord. New approaches might be provided through the improved study of the microcirculation using power Doppler which appears to be more sensitive than eco color-Doppler in visualizing small intraparenchymal vessels.

This work deals with our experience of a programme of early diagnosis of prostate cancer carried out on patients suffering from dysuria through rectal-digital examination (EDR), hematic dosage of PSA (IRMA COAT-A-COUNT DPC) and transrectal echtomography. We have also quantified the costs and verified which methods, either single or combined with other methods, are most advantageous as regards costs/benefits. From Jan 1991 to Jan 1995 306 of 1185 patients (25.8%) underwent prostate biopsy by means of transperineal echograph with gauge 18 needles as in Hodge's technique. Histologic examination revealed prostate adenocarcinoma in 81 (26.5%) cases, benign prostate hypertrophy in 196 (64%), acute and/or chronic phlogosis in 26 (8.5%) and granulomatosic prostatitis in 3 (1%). The diagnostic sensitivity, preciseness and accuracy were, respectively, 92.5%, 78.3%, 79.3% for the EDR, 80.2%, 93.3% and 90% for PSA with cut-off 10 ng/ml, 91% 78.3%, and 90% for the PSA with cut-off 4 ng/ml, 100%, 30.3% and 48.6% for the echograph, 98.8%, 60% and 77% for EDR+PSA (cut-off 4 ng/ml), 98.8%, 65.8 and 79.9% for EDR+PSA (cut-off 10 ng/ml), 100%, 22% and 64.2% for EDR+echograph, 100%, 20% and 62.9% for echograph+PSA (cut-off 4 ng/ml), 100%, 26.6% and 64.9% for echograph+PSA (cut-off 10 ng/ml). We calculated that a programme of early diagnosis using the three methods, if completely at the patient's expense, would cost 207.000-437.000 lire (average 322.000) per patient for a total of 245,295,000-517,845,000 (average 381,570,000). An eco-guided prostate biopsy with a histologic examination would cost 250.000-500.000 lire (average 375.000) per patient with a total cost for 306 patients of 76,500,000-153,000,000 (average 114,750,000). We also quantified, in the light of the results reported here, the number of biopsied which would have been necessary if we had used only two methods in the screening and we also estimated the costs. The results reveal that the echograph is not to be considered as a first approach method as it gives a high number of false positive results; in fact if we had excluded it from the screening we would not have ignored any diagnosis of prostate neoplasia and we would have avoided about 141 (46.2%) biopsied with a reduction in health expenditure of 62.1%. On the contrary the EDR and the PSA have a better cost/benefit result: setting the cut-off of the PSA at 4 ng/ml or at 10 ng/ml without varying the diagnostic accuracy, the sensitivity and/or specificity of the method increase respectively. To conclude, we consider the EDR and the serum dosage of PSA necessary and adequate methods in the programme of early diagnosis and screening of prostate neoplasy. The prostate echography should be reserved for cases of doubt (hematic PSA between 4-10 ng/ml etc.) and for the exclusion of needle biopsy. These measures also result in an optimization of health expenditure.

From November 1992 to March 1994, in the Gynaecological ward of the Obstetrical and Gynaecological section of Cannizzaro Hospital, 218 patients suffering from urinary stress incontinence (U.S.I.) were observed. Using computerized clinical cards, U.S.I. was found in the 71.79% cases. From the clinical evaluation 38.39% of patients were found to be suffering from 1st degree bladder prolapse, 34.82% from 2nd degree bladder prolapse and 16.97% from, 3rd degree. 9.82% of the patients did not manifest signs of bladder prolapse. Therapy was mainly surgical. Burch colposuspension was carried out on 65 patients. When necessary a total hysterectomy and perineal plastic surgery was carried out. A Perrin-Leger bladder neck suspension was carried out on 10 patients and a Pereyra-Raz on 5. Given the varied aspects of U.S.I., the Authors would conclude that the best results are obtained by combining medical, surgical and rehabilitative treatment.

The authors discuss the state-of-the-art of ultrasound diagnosis for pelvic swellings, with special reference to uterine and ovarian cancer. They review the applications of Eco colour Doppler in gynecological oncology and discuss the protocols for the prevention and/or early diagnosis of gynecological tumours.

The authors report a case of epibronchial esophageal diverticula. The patient underwent a diverticulectomy and subdiverticular myotomy was associated. No significant complications were observed in the post-operative period. In the light of the literature the paper discusses anatomic-clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic aspects of esophageal diverticula.

Over the last decade PSA has been widely acknowledged to be a very sensitive and specific marker of prostatic tumour pathologies. This paper reports the authors' experience relating to the use of PSA in the early diagnosis of prostatic heteroplasia on the basis of results obtained in a study performed in 805 dysuric patients who underwent rectal exploration and CAT. Echo-guided prostate biopsy according to Hodge was performed in 212 (26.4%) out of 805 patients and adenocarcinoma was found in 55 cases (25.9%). PSA ranged between 10-198 ng/ml in 42 out of 212 patients, between 4-10 ng/ml in 60, and was below 4 ng/ml in 110. In addition, PSAd was assayed in all patients with PSA < 10 mg/ml. Having established the cutoff of PSA at 10 ng/ml, it was found that some heteroplasia, above all at the initial sage, presented normal PSA blood values. In fact, in 8 cases, equivalent to 14.5% of the neoplasias diagnosed, values were under 4 ng/ml, and in 5 cases, equivalent to 9%, they ranged between 4-10 ng/ml. This finding showed that the threshold value of 10 ng/ml gives PSA a high specificity, but a lower sensitivity in the early diagnosis of prostatic adenocarcinoma. Moreover, the analysis of PSA-density does not significantly allow the diagnosis of a larger number of heteroplasias: in fact, out of 13 cases of adenocarcinoma with PSA < 10 ng/ml, PSAd was only > 0.15 in 2 patients. Therefore, in line with the data reported in the literature, the authors consider that PSA assay represents a sensitive and specific screening method for prostatic tumour pathologies in symptomatic patients, but in order to obtain an early diagnosis, and especially in cases with serum values between 4-10 ng/ml, it must be combined with both rectal exploration and, above all, transrectal scan.

From June 1993 to July 1994 we treated 136 male patients affected by dysuria with hematic dosage of TPS and PSA, with DRE, transrectal echography and prostatic biopsy using an echograph. The patients treated were divided into two groups: A and B. Group A (TPS cut-off of 75 U/l) was made up of 91 patients, ages ranging from 41 to 85 years (average 72.5 years). Group B (TPS cut-off > 75 U/l) was made up of 45 patients, ages ranging from 39 to 88 years (average 75.1 years). In group A, 22 patients (24.2%) resulted as suffering from prostatic carcinoma, 4 (4.3%) resulted as suffering from prostatic phlogosis, and 65 (71.4%) resulted as suffering from BPH. In group B, 6 (13.3%) were affected by prostatic heteroplasia, 2 (4.4%) were affected by prostatic phlogosis, and 37 (82.2%) were affected by BPH. The TPS had a sensibility of 21.4% and a specificity of 66.3%. A comparison of the data obtained in the two groups did not reveal any significant differences. In this study the TPS showed a poor diagnostic reliability as a biologic marker of prostatic carcinoma.

In the report we refer to our experience as regards the role of transrectal ultrasonography in the early diagnosis of prostatic heteroplasia based on the results obtained by a research led from January 1991 to January 1995 on 1185 dysuria patients who have been subjected also to a rectal exploration and a serous dosage of PSA. Among the 306/1185 (25.8%) of the patients subjected to prostatic echoguided biopsy sec. Hodge in 238 (77.7%) a hypoechogenic zone on behalf of the periphery of the prostatic parenchyma has been reported. The histological result has pointed out the presence of adenocarcinoma in 81 (26.4%) patients; of benign prostatic hypertrophy in 196 (64%); of acute and/or chronic non specific phlogosis in 26 patients (8.4%) and granulomatosis prostatitis in 3 (1%). The sensibility, the specificity and the diagnostic efficiency of the transrectal ultrasonography in the diagnosis of prostatic heteroplasia have resulted equal, respectively to 100%, to 30.2% and to 48.6%. In 122 patients (66%) the hypoechogenic zone was not pathognomonic of prostatic heteroplasia. Definitely, considering the high sensibility in opposition to the insufficient specificity of the echography, it is our future intention not submit to prostatic biopsy those patients who show only a hypoechogenic zone in absence of pathology EDR and PSA but to monitor them through quarterly clinic checks.

Therapy of urinary tract infections with nitrofurantoin macro-crystals. The aim of this study is to evaluate the therapeutic effectiveness of two dosages of nitrofurantoin macro-crystals. Between January 1993 and February 1994, 101 patients (54 male and 47 female), either suffering from urinary tract infections or on whom internal examination had been carried out, were treated with nitrofurantoin macro-crystals. There were divided into two groups: A, a posology of 100 mg 3 times daily for 7 days and B, a posology of 100 mg 4 times daily for 7 days. A urine culture was carried out on all patients before and after treatment. E. Coli was found in 60.5% of cases, Streptococcus Faecalis in 12.7% and Staphylococcus aureus in 5.6%. Infection was eliminated in 85.3% of patients in group A and 93.9% in group B. The dysuric symptomatology was cured in 84.6% of patients in group A, and 89% in group B. The statistic elaboration of the results with X2 and p tests did not reveal any difference between the two groups examined.

Rehabilitative therapy of the perineum (FKT, SEF and biofeedback) represents an efficient method in the treatment of urinary stress incontinence without resorting to a complete uro-genital prolapse, as in patients with urethral instability and/or incontinence. One hundred twenty-one women, 55 with urinary stress incontinence (USI), 20 with urge incontinence (UI) and 46 suffering from both types of incontinence, underwent rehabilitative therapy. On each patients the following tests were carried out: an internal test, a urodynamic test (uroflowmeter, PPU, cystomanometry and pessure/flow study), a meter UEC, situated at the bladder neck, anterior and posterior urethra, both clinostatic and orthostatic, urine test with urinoculture and a pap-test. The aim of this study is that of establishing if it is possible a) to simplify the rehabilitative sitting using only FKT with weekly treatment; b) to treat women suffering from urge incontinence or from both types, but with bladder stability (standard cystomanometria) with FKT and Ditropan (1 tablet 3 times daily for weeks therapy). One group of patients underwent rehabilitative therapy while another group underwent traditional therapy, for a minimum of 12 sitting, using also electric functional stimulation (SEF). Of 121 women who underwent rehabilitative therapy, 90 (74.4%) were healed, 30 (24.7%) improved and one (0.9%) showed no signs of improvement. Patients treated with FKT, or FKT and made as good if not better grogress than those who attended more sittings and/or underwent SEF.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Bacteriological and systematic investigation has been carried on 135 confined to bed patients at the Neurological Department of the Policlinico of the University of Catania from January 1993 to June 1993, in order to estimate the frequency of the I.V.U. and the probable correlations with the basic nerve disease. Infections have been found with greater frequency between women and patients with catheter. The microorganisms most frequently isolated were: E. coli (36%) and Streptococcus faecalis (36%). Patients with positive urine culture have been treated in accordance with the indications of the bacterial identification. Particularly, surveys carried out in a group of patients suffering from cerebral stroke (81 cases), showed a frequent association between the I.V.U. and the beforesaid pathology. Similar results have been obtained in the two groups of patients submitted to 2 and to 3 drawings of urine respectively, practised at a distance of 5 of 5 days the one form the other.

The Authors first briefly describe the possible histological features of parotid masses, difficult to differentiate only on the basis of clinical signs. They report on imaging techniques for detecting this kind of pathology and suggest the best diagnostic protocol for correct evaluation of parotid masses, because of its great importance in planning optimal surgical management.