Search Results (9)

Systems may depend on parameters that can be controlled, serve to optimise the system, are imposed externally, or are uncertain. This last case is taken as the “Leitmotiv” for the following discussion.A reduced-order model is produced from the full-order model through some kind of projection onto a relatively low-dimensional manifold or subspace. The parameter-dependent reduction process produces a function mapping the parameters to the manifold.One now wants to examine the relation between the full and the reduced state for all possible parameter values of interest. Similarly, in the field of machine learning, a function mapping the parameter set to the image space of the machine learning model is learned from a training set of samples, typically minimising the mean square error. This set may be seen as a sample from some probability distribution, and thus the training is an approximate computation of the expectation, giving an approximation of the conditional expectation—a special case of Bayesian updating, where the Bayesian loss function is the mean square error. This offers the possibility of having a combined view of these methods and also of introducing more general loss functions. Full article

Biological antioxidant potential (BAP) and Reactive Oxygen Metabolites (dROMs) are two tests complementarily assessing systemic oxidative statuses (SOSs) that are never applied in chronic liver disorders (CLDs). We enrolled 41 ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA)-naïve Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC) patients [age: 58.61 ± 11.26 years; females (F): 39], 40 patients with metabolic-dysfunction-associated steatotic livers (age: 54.30 ± 11.21; F: 20), 52 patients with HBV (age: 52.40 ± 8.22; F: 34), 50 patients with (age: 56.44 ± 7.79, F: 29), and 10 controls (age: 52.50 ± 9.64; F: 7). Liver fibrosis and the steatosis severity were determined using transient elastography, and the SOS was balanced using d-ROMs and the BAP test. The gene expressions of superoxide dismutase (SOD1; SOD2) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx1) were evaluated using real-time PCR in advanced fibrosis (AF: F3F4) in patients with PBC. In contrast to other CLDs, in PBC the dROMs and BAP levels were, respectively, directly and inversely correlated with hepatic fibrosis (dROMs, R: 0.883; BAP, R: −0.882) and steatosis (dROMs, R: 0.954; BAP, R: −0931) severity (p < 0.0001 all). Patients with PBC also revealed a progressively increasing trend of d-ROMs (F0–F2 vs. F3: p = 0.0008; F3 vs. F4: p = 0.04) and reduction in BAP levels (F0–F2 vs. F3: p = 0.0007; F3 vs. F4 p = 0.04) according to the worsening of liver fibrosis. In AF-PBC, the SOD1, SOD2, and GPx1 expressions were significantly downregulated in patients presenting SOS imbalance (SOD1, p = 0.02; SOD2, p = 0.03; GPx1, p = 0.02). SOS disequilibrium represents a leitmotiv in patients with PBC, perfectly reflecting their liver disease progression status. Full article

The subject of the beauty of the Virgin Mary was a delicate one in medieval aesthetic thought. Halfway between the sacred and the profane, the theological and the anthropological, the question of Mary’s beauty opened up a strictly material dimension of appreciation that could generate problems related to decorum. However, the progressive humanization of Marian images from the thirteenth century onwards invites us to wonder if there was not, after all, a way to balance or, better, to sublimate the immaterial beauty of Mary, Mother of God, and material beauty of Mary, the young virgin of Nazareth. Taking as our leitmotiv a fictional scene from Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose, we will analyze St. Bernard’s position on this issue, because he was particularly influential on this matter in his own time and later, since his work brings together not only Marian concerns of deep theological depth, but also aesthetic questions that can contribute to clarifying this question. Full article

The Versilia plain (NW Italy) experiences forms of tourism that are mainly limited to the beach area and concentrated in the summer season. The area is rich in cultural and natural heritage, not yet adequately enhanced. The presence of four local archaeological museums and a natural park offers a great opportunity to favour feasible archaeological and environmental tourism. The aim of this study is to use a holistic methodology to improve a different type of tourism in the study area. We propose a consilient multidisciplinary approach based on geological, biological and archaeological data in order to enhance the cultural and natural heritage of the Versilia plain. We have based our study on the reconstruction of palaeoenvironment maps showing the evolution of the territory and used them as a leitmotiv to link the archaeological museums and the natural park. We define real and virtual itineraries to create a synergy between the most important archaeological and natural sites and museums. It is possible to promote a different type of tourism in the study area by decreasing human impact and creating a relationship between the fragmented natural and archaeological heritage. Palaeoenvironment maps and real and virtual itineraries can be consulted with the aid of a web application, more specifically web mapping, developed with free and open-source libraries. The web mapping also contains other geological, geomorphological and archaeological datasets, which allow to understand the evolution of the environment and the cultural and natural heritage of the study area. The dataset available on the web mapping is also downloadable. Full article

Currently in the European Union, regional policies and their related programs are aware of the importance of fostering social responsibility, whilst, at same time, they have to promote entrepreneurship. Promoting the culture of sustainable entrepreneurship could be the answer. In this article, the Spanish case-study of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura is analyzed to show the existing regional policies fostering voluntary educational programs devoted to entrepreneurship since 2012. In this context, a specific entrepreneurship project related to sustainability was developed in 2017–2018 in secondary schools with the leitmotiv to consider the Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations. Using the Structural Equation Modeling method with a sample of 630 students under the umbrella of the project called Teenemprende, the study concludes by highlighting that sustainable entrepreneurial culture programs in the public educational system already have some positive effect on the students´ attitude to social responsibility, thus empowering them to change the world for a better future. Full article

Four molecules (L1–L4) constituted by an s-tetrazine ring appended with two identical aliphatic chains of increasing length bearing terminal morpholine groups were studied as anion receptors in water. The basicity properties of these molecules were also investigated. Speciation of the anion complexes formed in solution and determination of their stability constants were performed by means of potentiometric (pH-metric) titrations, while further information was obtained by NMR and isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) measurements. The crystal structures of two neutral ligands (L3, L4) and of their H₂L3(ClO₄)₂∙2H₂O, H₂L4(ClO₄)₂∙2H₂O, H₂L3(PF₆)₂, and H₂L3(PF₆)₂∙2H₂O anion complexes were determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The formation of anion–π interactions is the leitmotiv of these complexes, both in solution and in the solid state, although hydrogen bonding and/or formation of salt-bridges can contribute to their stability. Evidence of the ability of these ligands to form anion–π interactions is given by the observation that even the neutral (not-protonated) molecules bind anions in water to form complexes of significant stability, including elusive OH⁻ anions. Full article

At a time when the labour market is blocked and simultaneously rapidly changing, with the emergence of new professional and scientific areas, the higher education mission becomes less indisputable and more indeterminate and challenging. This uncertainty was the leitmotiv for this essay, which aims to discuss the importance of attaining transversal competences in higher education. To achieve this goal, a bibliographical research was carried out on the attention that is currently given by higher education institutions to this topic, how they respond to the need for increasingly more transversal training and how they develop a curriculum that meets these requirements. Thus, in methodological terms, a thorough research on the literature addressing the topic of transversal competences was carried out; subsequently, a document search was conducted and a qualitative review and analysis of the documents collected was performed to justify our stance. Our analysis allowed concluding that the context of indeterminacy regarding the future has variations, considering the geographical and political situation, the social context and the activity sector. Furthermore, attitudes, expectations and predispositions are also critical elements for the success of this process of transversal competences’ attainment. This latter factor is central in this process, as there is often a gap between students’ expectations regarding the competences they expect to attain in higher education and the proposals that frame their training at the micro, meso and macrosocial levels and which take the need to attain transversal competences in higher education for granted. Full article

We are pleased to introduce the first of our Journal Club Series with the aim to review and discuss the highlights of recent papers in the field of the musculoskeletal system and associated disorders, the leitmotiv of the Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology. The first edition is focused on some interesting papers published in 2015 and 2016 in the field of Articular Cartilage Tissue Engineering and Mechanical Stimulation, chosen by our Editorial Board members. We hope that this topic might tease your curiosity also in fields possibly different to your own research area, but still intrinsically connected with it. We wish you stimulating and inspiring reading. Full article

Recent developments in the disciplines of cinema studies, theology, and religion and film have generated renewed interest in the experiential dimensions of filmgoing. More specifically, those contributing to theological scholarship have begun to explore these cinematic experiences as theologically significant. With these developments in mind, this essay offers a close reading of the principal musical theme in the 2010 film Beginners, noting in particular the ways in which this music is distributed throughout the narrative. In doing so, it suggests that the music in this film expresses in concrete terms one of the key insights from emerging neuropsychological research, namely, that our affective, pre-cognitive, “wordless knowledge” of the world is the foundation upon which human consciousness is constructed. But the essay goes one step further by making an explicitly theological claim. That is, when located within the framework of a lived theology (i.e., a “poetic theology”), the film and its music shed light on the ways in which aesthetic modes of awareness (i.e., intuitive, embodied forms of knowledge) open up spaces in the contemporary world where our affections, the goods of late-modern society, and our spiritual longings are able to meet and interact. Full article