Central sensitization refers to the increased responsiveness of nociceptive neurons in the central nervous system after repeated or sustained peripheral nociceptor activation. It is hypothesized to play a key role in the development of chronic pain. A hallmark of central sensitization is an increased sensitivity to noxious mechanical stimuli extending beyond the injured location, known as secondary hyperalgesia. For its ability to modulate the transmission and the processing of nociceptive inputs, attention could constitute a promising target to prevent central sensitization (...) and the development of chronic pain. It was recently shown that the experimental induction of central sensitization at both forearms of healthy volunteers using bilateral high-frequency electrocutaneous stimulation (HFS), can be modulated by encouraging participants to selectively focus their attention to one arm, to the detriment of the other arm, resulting in a greater secondary hyperalgesia on the attended arm as compared to the unattended one. Given the potential value of the question being addressed, we conducted a preregistered replication study in a well-powered independent sample to assess the robustness of the effect, i.e., the modulatory role of spatial attention on the induction of central sensitization. This hypothesis was tested using a double-blind, within-subject design. Sixty-seven healthy volunteers performed a task that required focusing attention toward one forearm to discriminate innocuous vibrotactile stimuli while HFS was applied on both forearms simultaneously. Our results showed a significant increase in mechanical sensitivity directly and 20 min after HFS. However, in contrast to the previous study, we did not find a significant difference in the development of secondary hyperalgesia between the attended vs. unattended arms. Our results question whether spatial selective attention affects the development of secondary hyperalgesia. Alternatively, the non-replication could be because the bottom-up capture of attention caused by the HFS-mediated sensation was too strong in comparison to the top-down modulation exerted by the attentional task. In other words, the task was not engaging enough and the HFS pulses, including those on the unattended arm, were too salient to allow a selective focus on one arm and modulate nociceptive processing. (shrink)

While the normative debate on European integration has addressed the importance of the construction of truly democratic institutions as well as the establishment of social rights at EU level, the role of progressive social movements has not been much debated. Building upon theorization and research in social movement studies, I argue that progressive social movements are indeed already contributing to the construction of European public spheres. Not one liberal (or bourgeois), public sphere but the proliferation of subaltern counterpublics could allow (...) for the participation of the excluded, giving them the possibility to make their political voice heard. Through different paths of Europeanization (in particular, domestication, externalization and transnationalization), progressive social movements have played an important role in the creation of a critical public sphere as, by contesting European institutions, they have contributed to make them (more) accountable, but have also developed collective identities at EU level and, with them, European public spheres. A main challenge is now to connect an emancipatory critical public to public institutions. (shrink)

The paper dealt with the control on political corruption in Italy, in particular with the reasons why most of the control mechanisms did not work for a long time, allowingfor the development of"tangentopoli". First of all, we briefly discussed the reasons why the controls ''from below"--that is, from citizens or electors--did not function in Italy: the pervasive occupation of the administration and the civil society by the political parties, as well as "secret" agreements between political parties in order to avoid (...) political scandals were discussed.The paper continued by analyzing two types of institutional control: the administrative controls and the judiciary controls. In the second part, we presented some main characteristics of the Italian public administration that hampered internal controls, the informal control of parties over the bureaucrats through clientelism and complicity in corruption being one among them. In the third part, we focused on the peculiar characteristics of a magistracy that enjoyed of a very high degree of format autonomy from the political power, but was "pushed" towards politics for reasons as different as complicity in corruption and the need to "substitute" for the weak policy making capacity of political parties. In the fourth part, we reviewed some reform bills to deal with the control of political corruption. (shrink)

Children’s sociocultural experiences in their day-to-day lives markedly play a key role in learning about the world. This study investigated parent–child teaching during early childhood as it naturally occurs in the home setting. Thirty-nine families’ naturalistic interactions in the home setting were observed; 1033 teaching sequences were identified based on detailed transcriptions of verbal and non-verbal behavior. Within these sequences, three domains of learning (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) and subtopics were identified and analyzed in relation to gender, child birth order, (...) context, teaching strategies, and learner response. Findings show knowledge, skills, and dispositions were taught equally, marked by the most prominent subtopics taught within each domain, including cognitive (skill), game rule (knowledge), and social rule (disposition). Further, mothers and fathers were found to teach their children equally, however, fathers taught knowledge more than mothers, whereas mothers taught dispositions more than fathers. Differences between domains of learning and subtopics also existed between mother’s and father’s teaching based on child birth order and gender. This study also assessed the contrast between teaching knowledge, skills, and dispositions by context, parent teaching strategies, and child learner response. Results support the notion that family interactions in the home setting set a stage for children’s rich informal learning experiences. Vygotskian sociocultural conceptions underpin this research and findings are discussed using this central theoretical lens. (shrink)

In questo lavoro si esplora la possibilità che l’inserzione dello sfruttamento umano all’interno del processo lavorativo e la conseguente apparizione sociale dell’uomo-merce abbiano lasciato tracce nell’opera di Dante. Si rintracciano così in una selezione di passi i problemi che questo processo impone alla nascente concezione dell’identità individuale e all’assunzione in una cornice ideologica ancora sacralizzata della distinzione fra ambito pubblico e ambito privato, che caratterizzerà il capitalismo fino a poche decadi fa.

In his Paralipomena Johannes Kepler reported an experimentum that he had seen in the Dresden Kunstkammer. In one of the rooms there, which had been turned in its entirety into a camera obscura, he had witnessed the images formed by a lens. I discuss the role of this experiment in the development and foundation of his new theory of optical imagery, which made a distinction between two concepts of image, pictura and imago. My focus is on how Kepler used his (...) report of the experiment inside the camera obscura to criticize the account of image formation given in Giovanbattista Della Porta's Magia naturalis . I argue that this experiment allowed Kepler to sort out the confusion between images 'in the air'—referring to the geometrical locus of images in the perspectivist tradition of optics—and the experimentally produced 'projected images', which were empirically familiar but conceptually alien to perspectivist optics. (shrink)

Una riflessione, a 400 anni dalla morte di Giovan Battista Della Porta Napoletano, uno dei grandi geni del Rinascimento.

This volume contains essays that examine the optical works of Giambattista Della Porta, an Italian natural philosopher during the Scientific Revolution. Coverage also explores the science and technology of early modern optics. Della Porta's groundbreaking book, Magia Naturalis, includes a prototype of the camera. Yet, because of his obsession with magic, Della Porta's scientific achievements are often forgotten. As the contributors argue, his work inspired such great minds as Johanes Kepler and Francis Bacon. After (...) reading this book, researchers, historians, and students will have a better appreciation of this influential scientist. They will also gain a greater understanding of an important period in the history of optics. Readers will learn about Della Porta's experimental method, a process governed by the protocols, aims, and theoretical assumptions of natural magic. Coverage also discusses the material properties and limitations of optical technology in the early 17th century, based on a recently discovered Dutch spyglass. It also demonstrates how diagrams were instrumental in the discovery of the sine law of refraction. In addition, the book includes an in-depth analysis of previously untranslated Latin sources. This makes the material useful to historians of optics unfamiliar with the language. More than 70 illustrations complement the text. (shrink)

In his Paralipomena Johannes Kepler reported an experimentum that he had seen in the Dresden Kunstkammer. In one of the rooms there, which had been turned in its entirety into a camera obscura, he had witnessed the images formed by a lens. I discuss the role of this experiment in the development and foundation of his new theory of optical imagery, which made a distinction between two concepts of image, pictura and imago. My focus is on how Kepler used his (...) report of the experiment inside the camera obscura to criticize the account of image formation given in Giovanbattista Della Porta's Magia naturalis. I argue that this experiment allowed Kepler to sort out the confusion between images 'in the air'—referring to the geometrical locus of images in the perspectivist tradition of optics—and the experimentally produced 'projected images', which were empirically familiar but conceptually alien to perspectivist optics. (shrink)

This article analyses the role that animals play in Della Porta’s method of physiognomics. It claims that Della Porta created his own, original, method by appropriating, and yet selectively adapting Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian sources. This has not been adequately reconstructed before in previous studies on Della Porta. I trace, in two steps, the conceptual trajectory of Della Porta’s physiognomics, from human psychology to animal psychology, and ultimately from psychology to ethics. In the (...) first step, I show how Della Porta substantially adapts the physiognomic principle of the body-soul relationship as found in the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomonica. In the second, I demonstrate that the real aim of Della Porta’s physiognomics is a practical one, namely understanding how to live a good life, and I explain why he refers to Aristotle in order to ground this conception. (shrink)

The study of vegetables represents one of the main topics in Bacon’s Sylva sylvarum. Not only in quantitative terms, because plants occupy about a third of the entire book, but the centuries on plants are among the most structured, and this reveals Bacon’s particular interest for the topic. The key to understanding Bacon’s interest can be found in both his Sylva sylvarum and the Historia vitae et mortis, where Bacon explains how the results of studying certain processes in plants can (...) be later transferred and applied to animals and humans. In the context of his discussion of nourishing foods and drinks, Bacon addresses the question of how nourishment gets assimilated in the body. One of the ways in which the... (shrink)

Lo studio degli interventi politici repubblicani fiorentini dopo il 1494 (prediche savonaroliane, testi d'intervento, discorsi, dialoghi, cronache e storie) mette in rilievo in quest'articolo la nascita di una nuova lingua della politica, più immediata, più efficace, più precisa, più chiara che intende render conto dei tempi nuovi della guerra permanente e del suo stato d'emergenza. Questa retorica inedita porta quindi in sé nuove forme di razionalità politica che portono con sé buona parte dell'aurora della politica moderna.

In questo testo si affronta, a livello ontologico, la questione della tecnica in relazione allo sviluppo del digitale. Parlare di “tecnontologia digitale” implica che il digitale porta alla luce l’homo technicus in maniera peculiare rispetto alla dimensione analogica. Non avviene un processo di smaterializzazione, bensì di ridefinizione della materia e di pervasività della dimensione digitale nei confronti della nostra corporeità e della nostra esistenza quotidiana. Viene proposta una lettura della relazione con la tecnologia (...) digitale basata sulla fenomenologia della carne, traendo spunto dalle riflessioni di Merleu-Ponty ne Il visibile e l’invisibile. Si mostra che la carne, tessuto comune della corporeità del mondo, rende possibile concepire la relazione tra tutti gli enti secondo un’ontologia piatta. Questo consente di vedere il rapporto con il digitale come compartecipazione e di riconfigurare il problema della responsabilità legato ai dispositivi, ai robot e alle piattaforme digitali. -/- In this paper the issue of technology in relation to its digital developments is addressed from an ontological point of view. The idea of “digital technontology” implies that the digital brings out the homo technicus in a unique way that differs from what happens in the analog dimension. What occurs is not a process of dematerialization, but a redefinition of the matter and a clear pervasiveness of the digital dimension in our corporeity and daily existence. This paper offers an interpretation of the relation between humans and digital technology based on the phenomenology of the flesh, taking inspiration from what Merleau-Ponty writes in The Visible and the Invisible. The idea of flesh, which is the common body of the world, allows us to conceive the relation among all beings according to a flat ontology. In this way, the relation between us and the digital can be seen as a form of involvement and the problem of responsibility concerning devices, robots, and digital platforms can be reconfigured accordingly. (shrink)

Starting with the reference to “Plato’s dictum” that Freud added in the second last page of the first edition of The Interpretation of Dreams, the author explains the convergences between the conception of dreams expounded by Plato in the Republic and Freud’s fundamental insights. The analysis of bibliographic sources used by Freud, and of his interests, allow than to suppose not only that Freud omitted to acknowledge the Plato’s theoretical genealogy of “the Via Regia to the unconscious”, but also the (...) possibility that the Republic constituted a tacit source of inspiration for the composition of The Interpretations of dreams. -/- Muovendo dal richiamo al «detto di Platone» inserito nella penultima pagina della prima edizione de "L’interpretazione dei sogni" di Freud (1899), vengono preliminarmente esposte le convergenze tra la concezione del sogno di Platone esposta ne "La Repubblica" e le intuizioni poste alla base dell’edificio freudiano. Alla luce delle fonti testuali citate e utilizzate da Freud, e dei suoi interessi, viene poi avanzata l’ipotesi che egli non soltanto abbia omesso di riconoscere la genealogia teoretica platonica della «via regia che porta alla conoscenza dell’inconscio» (p. 282), ma che l’antico dialogo abbia potuto rappresentare una fonte tacita di ispirazione per la composizione de "L’interpretazione dei sogni". (shrink)