The current study provides data about the immediate risk perceptions and psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among Italian participants. A sample of 1034 volunteers answered a web-based survey which aimed to investigate the many facets of risk perceptions connected to COVID-19 (health, work, economy, social and psychological), and risk-related variables such as knowledge, news seeking, perceived control, efficacy of containment measures, and affective states. Socio-demographic characteristics were also collected. Results showed that although levels of general concern are relatively high (...) among Italians, risk perceptions are highest with regards to the economy and work, and lowest concerning health. Cognitive and affective risk-related variables affected the several risk perception domains differently. COVID-19 knowledge did not affect any risk perception while the perceived control decreased health risk likelihood. The other risk-related variables amplified risk perceptions: News seeking increased work-economy risk; efficacy of containment measures increased all perceived risks; negative affective states of fear, anger and sadness increased health and psycho-social risks; anxiety increased only health risk, and uncertainty increased work-economy and psycho-social risk perceptions. Finally, positive affective states increased health risk perception. Socio-psychological implications are discussed. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event entailing long-term consequences on population health and welfare. Those who contracted the coronavirus may have suffered from both physical and mental health issues that unfold the need for tailored intervention strategies. Hence, our study aims to investigate the psychological and social consequences of COVID-19 on a sample of 86 participants, encompassing 43 patients recruited from Bari University Hospital, 19 of whom were hospitalized due to the disease. The remaining 43 were individuals not fallen (...) ill with COVID-19 to date. The investigation yielded significant gender differences in post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, and representation of interpersonal distance, evaluated through the IES-R, the BDI-II, and the IVAS task, respectively. This pattern of results was not replicated in the control group. In general, participants who reported having experienced the most intense post-traumatic symptoms also presented a greater mood deflection and, more specifically, within the clinical group women obtained the highest scores on both scales. Women reported higher IES-R and BDI-II scores compared to men, that could indicate that women who have contracted COVID-19 are more exposed to post-traumatic and depressive symptoms. Our results also showed a significant effect of COVID-19 on IPD with a tendency of disease-experienced individuals to increase their preferred IPD from adults, children, and elderly people. Regarding gender differences in mood and proxemic behavior, a correlation between depressive symptoms and probable PTSD and a further correlation between probable PTSD and greater IPD were found in women from both clinical and control group. Overall, these findings might contribute to a better understanding of gender-based implications of the current pandemic on mental health, also leading to the development of integrated yet personalized intervention strategies. (shrink)

The focus of the study is (§ 1) the analysis of an inscribed bronze spherule discovered in the temenos on the Piano di Imera. The document belongs to a small group of similar inscriptions, consisting of three bronze spherules inscribed with a sample formulaic structure: the divinity’s name. Firstly, the article aims at providing a new framework of interpretation for the word ἐπιλυσαμέ‹ν›ας as Eileithyia’s epithet, the Greek deity of birth to whom literary evidence attributes the power of ‘losing up’, (...) ‘freeing’. Secondly we analyze other bronze spherules from the Piano di Imera (§ 2). This method allows to examine and compare various kind of evidence in order to get a full understanding of the particular use of these little objects, i.e. their role in cleromancy rituals (§ 3). (shrink)

In the context of research 2LAPRE 2 we observed sessions of Philosophically Orientated Discussion (POD)provided by the permanent teachers of the ordinary elementary and secondary school classes. In a formation context we are interested in the itinerary of three elementary school’s teachers of three different levels (1st Cycle, 2nd Cycle and 3rd Cycle). By the observation of actual practices at three moments during the scholar year, what can we spot of the POD norm’s construction? The analysis of the linguistic exchanges, (...) will identify what is played out for the teacher from its organizer’s point of view (beliefs, conceptions, values and what they judge as important). We will proceed with a systematic analysis: - of the communication networks through Flament’s theoretical framework (1965) to approach the linguistic productions distribution on the participants and the animation from that results; - and Geneva’s model (Roulet et al., 1985) where the communications are constructs that articulate components of different levels to study them in their structure-functional dimension. The analysis will permit to chart the variability of the activity for each of these three teachers, or not, around the conception of what is the POD. We will use the results already published in the article Saint-Dizier, Specogna, Luxembourger (2016) that we look at from the point of view of the question we want to deal with this article whether: POD norm, variability, invariability of the activity. (shrink)

The Pseudo-Plutarchan De musica provides us with the oldest history of Greek lyric poetry from the pre-Homeric epic poetry to the lyric poetry of the fourth century B.C. Importantly, the work contains also an evaluation of the role of music in the process of educating and training the citizens. Ps. Plutarch considers the καλόν in the aesthetic and ethical sense, which makes it incompatible with the καινόν dictated by the new poetic and musical season.

Against a background of anxious evocation of Dionysiac rites, Euripides'Heraclesstages the extreme degradation of the tragic hero who, as a consequence of the hatred of a divinity, loses his heroic traits and above all his human ones in the exercise of brutal violence. By comparing Heracles in the grip of madness to a furious bull assailing its prey, the tragedian clearly shows the inexorability of the divine will and its arbitrariness, and emphasizes madness itself through images traditionally associated with the (...) bull. However, the reference to monstrosity and animals does not only involve Heracles, but also concerns the representation of Lyssa, the demon of madness sent by Hera to induce Heracles to slaughter his own family. This representation of Lyssa includes the monstrous and disturbing Gorgon and the dog, set alongside the metaphor of hunting, which in turn highlight the link between the demon and the Erinyes, those other bringers of madness. (shrink)

Spectroscopy is a scientific topic at the interface between Chemistry and Physics, which is taught at high school level in relation with its fundamental applications in Analytical Chemistry. In the first part of the paper, the topic of spectroscopy is analyzed having in mind the well-known Johnstone’s triangle of chemistry education, putting in evidence the way spectroscopy is usually taught at the three levels of chemical knowledge: macroscopic/phenomenological, sub-microscopic/molecular and symbolic ones. Among these three levels, following Johnstone’s recommendations the macroscopic (...) one is the most useful for high school students who learn spectroscopy for the first time. Starting from these premises, in the second part of the paper, we propose a didactic sequence which is inspired by the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments from the first spectroscopes invented by Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen in 1860 to the UV–vis spectrophotometers which became common since the 1960s. The idea behind our research is to analyze the conceptual advancements through the history of spectroscopy and to identify the key episodes/experiments and spectroscopic instruments. For each of them, a didactic activity, typically an experiment, is then proposed underlining the relevant aspects from the chemistry education point of view. The present paper is the occasion to reflect on the potentialities of an historical approach combined with a laboratorial one, and to discuss the role of historical instruments and related technological improvements to teach spectroscopy. (shrink)

This volume brings together the advanced research results obtained by the European COST Action 2102: “Cross Modal Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication”. The research published in this book was discussed at the 3rd joint EUCOGII-COST 2102 International Training School entitled “Toward Autonomous, Adaptive, and Context-Aware Multimodal Interfaces: Theoretical and Practical Issues ” and held in Caserta, Italy, on March 15-19, 2010.

In this case report, we studied Theory of Mind and figurative language comprehension in a 7.2-year-old child, conventionally named RJ, with isolated and complete agenesis of the corpus callosum, a rare malformation due to the absence of the corpus callosum, the major tract connecting the two brain hemispheres. To study ToM, which is the capability to infer the other’s mental states, we used the classical false belief tasks, and to study figurative language, i.e., those linguistic usages involving non-literal meanings, we (...) used tasks assessing metaphor and idiom comprehension. RJ’s intellectual level and his phonological, lexical, and grammatical abilities were all adequate. In both the ToM false belief tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension, RJ showed a delay of 3 years and a significant gap compared to a typically developing control group, while in idioms, his performance was at the border of average. These outcomes suggest that RJ has a specific pragmatic difficulty in all tasks where he must interpret the other’s communicative intention, as in ToM tasks and novel sensory metaphor comprehension. The outcomes also open up interesting insights into the relationships between ToM and figurative language in children with isolated and complete ACC. (shrink)

The image of wine has a “spiritual sense”, which helps the faithful to understand the principles of their belief. Its mystery is connected with the theme of “sober inebriation”, developed by Philo of Alexandria and Origen, and culminating in Ambrose. The good wines that the bride enjoys before the groom’s arrival are a symbol of the good doctrines of the OT, whose teachings are however inferior to the revelation of the incarnate Christ. Good, sweet wine, meanwhile, refers to the doctrines (...) of the NT interpreted spiritually, the logos that helps us begin to know Christ, to bind ourselves to him in ecclesial unity and to love our neighbour. It also leads us to the “winepress”, i.e. renouncing superfluous land, becoming “full of must” and inebriated, so that we can dedicate ourselves to contemplation. The vine has a Christological value and catechetical function, dating back to John 15.1, which is often quoted with Saint Paul. The place where the vine is born and develops is the soul; the Logos supports its flowering in those who, by their free will, choose to flourish. The cluster of grapes refers to Christ, or to the victory of the righteous; the many grapes that he contains are believers. The vineyard is a symbol of the church formed by the pagans, of the commandments of God, or of the good things that God gave to man, who did not preserve them, having been stripped of them by the devil. The guardians of the vineyard are angels or priests. (shrink)

Gregory of Nyssa’s bearing in Qohelet 3:5b to wealth, rather than to the matrimonial “embrace”, is unusual by comparison withother ancient exegeses; it seems to be motivated not only by the acoluthia which characterizes his spiritual interpretation of the passage Qo. 3:2-8, but also by the crucial importance he gives to catharsis, as one the qualities he considered necessary for the exegete.

Through the analysis of Mariano Campo’s published works and thanks to further insights offered by some unpublished manuscripts, the profile of a philosopher is outlined, whose main interest, throughout his academic and research activity, has been aesthetics. More specifically, Campo has focused on the centrality of feelings to human aesthetic experience: it is through feeling that we experience a transfiguration of reality, which happens paradigmatically when, in front of an artwork, we appreciate it as an integral whole, a totality.

Using a “psychotherapeutic attitude”, as a criterion and measure of the psychiatrist’s involvement in clinical relationship (with the “trial identification” according to Fliess), some phenomenological and epistemological considerations are offered about diagnostic assessments, as a synchronic and diachronic recognising process. Inspired by Gehlen’s notion of “exoneration” (i.e., the reducing and focusing of the perceptive experience as applied to the wealth of the perceptible), this paper examines how the mind of a skilled diagnostician might work. Three levels are explored: firstly, “the (...) symbolic perception”, where perceptive/emotional data derived by “trial identification” and worked through during one’s professional experience, automatically selects wide fields of allusions (e.g., in the psychopathological prefigurations, suggested by the ‘‘contact’’); then, we consider the “exoneration” of scientific hypothesis, which allows the psychiatrist to give a scientifically recognisable form to the first diagnostic outlines gathered in the interpersonal communication; and thirdly, the holistic reflection is examined, which returns the doctor’s focus to the patient’s individual problems, after going through different and, at times, very high inference levels. It is not a question of phases, but of varyingly interwoven moments in the mind of the skilful clinician, which are based on the dialectics of identification/separation. (shrink)

The present paper sets out to counter the claim put forward by British philosopher of mind, Robert Kirk, according to which Sartre's notion of consciousness as for-itself, while offering some valuable insights regarding human existence, nonetheless fails to engage with the problem of how to establish the existence of such conscious beings on philosophical grounds. To the extent that it succeeds in meeting the challenge raised by Kirk's comment, the reading of Being and Nothingness offered here could be considered as (...) fulfilling a twofold aim. Firstly, it offers an answer to the problem of other minds which is construed on the basis of Sartre's ontological work, thus contributing to a still open debate in the scholarly literature devoted to Sartre's thought. Secondly, it illustrates one way in which a specific problem which is amply discussed among contemporary philosophers of mind could be tackled from within a conceptual framework rooted in the continental tradition of philosophy. (shrink)

The subject of bullying has received widespread academic attention, going back to pioneering studies in the 1970s. However, work in this area has tended to take a gender-neutral/male perspective that does not distinguish between male and female bullying. While retaining a dialogue with generalist literature on the subject, this article seeks to highlight the theoretical and political-social relevance of gender-specific and intersectional approaches when exploring the question of bullying between adolescent girls. Based on the study _Il bullismo femminile a scuola. (...) Un’indagine intersezionale mixed-method_ (Female bullying at school, an intersectional, mixed-method study) – conducted in medium-sized and large cities in northern, central and southern Italy – it proposes a theoretical-analytical framework in which to consider the phenomenon of female bullying in Italian schools. (shrink)

Déjà réédité, ce manuel a pour vocation de présenter tout le champ des relations entre femme et écriture pour les dix siècles du Moyen Age (500-1500). Figurent donc ici des textes écrits par des femmes, des textes destinés à la lecture féminine et des textes dont les femmes sont le sujet. L'Europe est l'espace culturel couvert. La lecture d'une anthologie est sans doute la moins prévisible qui soit : devant l'immense domaine couvert, chaque lecteur tracera son propre chemin. En effet,...

En dépit de sa date de parution un peu ancienne, il semble important de signaler cet ouvrage aux lecteurs de ce numéro de Clio. Les évaluations péjoratives de la conversation féminine sont, comme on sait, un des lieux communs les plus anciens et les plus ancrés ; « bavardage », « caquetage », « ragots »... sont quelques-uns des termes métaphoriques qui stigmatisent une façon d'échanger et un style de contenu situés au plus loin de la parole sûre et pondérée (...) des hommes. Jennifer Coates... (shrink)

In 1930, in Anfänge der bürgerlichen Geschichtsphilosophie, Horkheimer analyzes utopia in bourgeois philosophy of history and identifies two aspects: the criticism of what is, and the representation of what should be. Utopia therefore plays a revolutionary role in history. In 1937, in Traditionelle und kritische Theorie, Horkheimer changes opinion. Utopia is criticized as misleading, acquiescent to reality. In later writings, in a pessimistic view, the Director of the Frankfurt School describes contemporary society as a dystopia.