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Item A critical discourse analysis of Vandana Shiva's environmental and normative discourse : social representations and identity of seeds(Università della Calabria, 2019-09-18) Pasqua, Marilyn; De Bartolo, Anna Maria; Ventura, AlbertoDespite globalization claims to benefit all communities around the globe, it ‘provides opportunities only for a global elite’ (Kramsch/Boner 2010). This kind of analysis aims at unveiling the correlations in discourse between language and the environment. Critical discourse analysis can disclose the ways in which language plays a key role in environmental issues both at the local and global levels. One crucial aspect which can be taken into account by critical discourse analysis is that of social representations embedded in hegemonic representational systems and which can be countered by alternative environmental discourses. In the field of discourse analysis, social representations can be considered ‘as constituting, reproducing, challenging and restructuring systems of knowledge and belief’ (Fairclough 1992: 168). This research project focuses on how environmental discourse is shaped to counter the global industrialized modern world in defence of the environment. In particular, the analysis revolved around normative and environmental discourse. Two documents which were written with the intent to regulate seeds and a collection of Shiva’s texts were used as the materials to carry out critical discourse analysis which ultimately focuses on exploiting new discursive representations for a more sustainable environment. Emphasis is specifically placed on how the social reality of ‘seed’ can be reconstructed from a natural environmental perspective. The mixed method research design adopts an interdisciplinary approach which draws on Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis and the Social Representations Theory (Moscovici 2000) to uncover the socio-cognitive communicative mechanisms that contribute to the reconstruction of Shiva’s environmental worldviews within contemporary globalized social reality. In particular, findings show how Shiva constructs and portrays the identity and social representations of ‘seeds’ which is not influenced by the hegemonic dominant discourse and which fosters an alternative practice of environmental discourse. The language of ecology and the discursive constructions featuring Shiva’s counter-discourse are chosen to shape representations or re-representations which allow the audience to picture an alternative social reality of the surrounding environment. Overall, the analysis suggests how Shiva’s discourse is driven by the purpose of preserving the Earth’s natural ecosystem against current hegemonic forces of the contemporary globalized world.Item Chemical characterization of atmospheric aerosols from natural and anthropogenic sources in the Mediterranean area(Università della Calabria, 2019-10-14) Moretti, Sacha; Carbone, Vincenzo; Sprovieri, Francesca; Naccarato, AttilioThe Mediterranean Sea basin constitutes a semi-enclosed area where atmospheric particles originating from natural and anthropogenic continental sources and gas-to-particle conversion processes are present at all times. The area is, in fact, located to the south of highly populated European countries characterized by industrial, semi-industrial, and rural economies, and to the north of Africa, which includes the Sahara desert. Detailed wind trajectory analysis reported in previous research studies show that more than 60% of air masses crossing the Mediterranean originate from the north-northwest sector, containing particles emitted or derived from industrial and urban sources, whereas 13–16% of air masses coming from the Sahara region carrying predominantly mineral dust. The transport of Saharan dust occurs mostly during the spring and summer seasons and causes sporadic crustal aerosol pulses to the Mediterranean area. On the other hand, aerosol scavenging by precipitation during the rainy season (from October to May) reduces aerosol concentrations. Summer is also characterized by low inversion layers and strong sunlight conditions, causing photochemical smog. Moreover, forest fires, which occur during the summer months in the Mediterranean region and in North Africa, increase black carbon and fine particle emissions. In this frame, it is clear enough that specific meteorological conditions result in high temporal variability of aerosol concentrations. There is strong evidence on the relationship between short-term and long-term exposure to atmospheric particles, with adverse health effects. Therefore, the study on atmospheric Particulate Matter (PM) (solid or liquid particles dispersed in the atmosphere which may persist for long times to undergo transport and diffusion phenomena), and the relative chemical composition of the two particle size fractions PM2.5, (aerodynamic diameter ≤ 2.5 μm) and PM10 (aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10 μm), is essential to evaluate the effect of the PM on human health and environment. The present work of thesis developed during the Ph.D. is focused on the chemical characterization of aerosol in the Mediterranean area through a monitoring program which has foreseen a number of oceanographic campaigns performed in the Mediterranean sea onboard the CNR-research vessel in the framework of the ongoing MEDOCEANOR measurements program as well as long-term measurements carried out on-land, specifically at the high altitude GAW observatory “Monte Curcio” of the CNR-IIA (1780 m a.s.l.), located on the Sila massif, Southern Italy, and thus able to intercept long-range transport air masses and across a number of monitoring sites (i.e., coastal, urban, rural sites etc.) distributed in the south of Italy as part of the I-AMICA regional network. The concentration of aerosol size fractions and its chemical composition performed at permanent ground-based stations as well as during oceanographic measurement campaigns have been analyzed in order to assess a spatially and temporally consistent measurement data across Mediterranean basin, and to investigate the main natural and anthropogenic sources affecting the air quality using source apportionment techniques. The seasonal oceanographic campaigns developed along different routes in the western sector of the Mediterranean Sea basin, and aimed to study the influence of natural and anthropogenic sources of PM and associated levels of pollutants. Chemical analysis assisted by the receptor models, identified, in particular, six main sources: crustal, volcanic, biomass burning, marine spray, industrial and vehicular traffic. The carbonaceous content in the PM sampled in Monte Curcio station shows seasonal trends for Organic Carbon (OC) and Elemental Carbon (EC) in both PM size fractions. The concentrations during the warm season are higher than those observed during the cold season and the annual levels of EC and OC were lower than those observed at the other four monitoring sites as part of the regional network “I-AMICA” distributed in southern Italy (Capo Granitola, Lamezia Terme, Lecce; Naples) due to different environmental conditions (eg, coastal/marine, suburban and urban) characterizing these sampling sites compared to “Monte Curcio” remote site. In particular, both OC and EC average concentrations were minimal at Monte Curcio and increased in the following order: remote < coastal/marine < suburban < urban (i.e., Monte Curcio < Capo Granitola < Lamezia Terme < Lecce < Naples). The Secondary Organic Carbon (SOC) was mainly present in PM2.5 at all sites, and higher SOC/OC ratios were observed at the urban and suburban site. Indeed, the yearly average SOC in Monte Curcio station has been estimated as 52% of OC in PM2.5 and representing, on average, the major mass contributes to PM2.5 during the cold season. Furthermore, the receptor models used shown differences among the possible sources of carbonaceous aerosol between different seasons. The cold season was characterized by aerosol mainly coming from the long-range transport, while during the warm season it is influenced by local and regional sources. In the following Chapters, the results have been presented and discussed.Item Ion energization in the terrestrial magnetosphere(Università della Calabria, 2019-10-29) Catapano, Filomena; Zimbardo, Gaetano; Delcourt, Dominique; Carbone, Vincemzo; Retinò, AlessandroItem Qualitative properties of solutions to some semilinear and quasilinear elliptic PDEs(Università della Calabria, 2019-12-23) Esposito, Francesco; Leone, Nicola; Sciunzi, Berardino; Farina, AlbertoIl metodo dello spostamento degli iperpiani di A.D. Alexandrov e J.B. Serrin è lo strumento più importante utilizzato per studiare le proprietà qualitative di soluzioni di equazioni alle derivate parziali (EDP) di tipo ellittico non lineari, come simmetria e monotonia. Il Capitolo 1 tratta i principi del massimo, i principi di confronto e il lemma di Hopf che svolgono un ruolo cruciale nel metodo del moving planes. In questo capitolo, inoltre, è presente anche lo stato dell’arte nei problemi semilineari e quasilineari. Nel Capitolo 2 consideriamo le soluzioni positive di EDP ellittiche semilineari con non linearità singolari. In questo contesto, usando un argomento di “riscalamento”, dimostriamo un nuovo lemma di Hopf al bordo, eludendo la perdita di regolarità di soluzioni vicine al bordo. Il Capitolo 3 tratta della versione quasilineare del problema studiato nel Capitolo 2. Dopo aver ottenuto un lemma di Hopf per questo tipo di equazione, dimostreremo la simmetria e la monotonia delle soluzioni positive nel semispazio e nei domini limitati e convessi. Nel Capitolo 4, utilizzando il metodo del moving planes, dimostriamo la simmetria e la monotonia di soluzioni positive di EDP semilineari (possibilmente singolari) in domini limitati e illimitati. Il caso quasilineare, che è molto di più delicato e tecnico, è trattato nel Capitolo 5. Il capitolo 6 è dedicato allo studio delle proprietà qualitative di soluzioni positive e singolari di alcuni sistemi ellittici cooperativi. Verrà dimostrato che i risultati ottenuti nel Capitolo 4 restano veri in questo contesto. Nell’ultimo capitolo (Capitolo 7) dimostriamo la versione quasilineare della congettura di Gibbons.Item Dynamic Methods for Monitoring Structural Health: analytical and experimental aspects(Università della Calabria, 2018-11) Miceli, Angela; Zinno, Raffaele; Carbone, VincenzoItem GPER mediates the up-regulation of acid synthase (fasn) intuced by 17B-estradiol in cancer cell and in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs)(2012-11-26) Santolla, Maria Francesca; Maggiolini, Marcello; Sisci, DiegoActivation of lipid metabolism is an early event in carcinogenesis and a central hallmark of many tumors. Fatty acid synthase (FASN) is a key lipogenic enzyme catalyzing the terminal steps in the de novo biogenesis of fatty acids. In cancer cells, FASN may act as a metabolic oncogene given that it confers growth and survival advantages to these cells, whereas its inhibition effectively and selectively kills tumor cells. Hormones like estrogens and growth factors contribute to the transcriptional regulation of FASN expression also through the activation of downstream signaling and a crosstalk among diverse transduction pathways. In this study, we demonstrate for the first time that 17β-estradiol (E2) and the selective GPER ligand G-1 regulate FASN expression and activity through the GPER-mediated signaling which involved the EGFR/ERK/c-fos/AP1 transduction pathway, as ascertained by using specific pharmacological inhibitors, performing gene-silencing experiments and ChiP assays in breast SkBr3, colorectal LoVo, hepatocarcinoma HepG2 cancer cells and breast cancerassociated fibroblasts (CAFs). In addition, the proliferative effects induced by E2 and G-1 in these cells involved FASN as the inhibitor of its activity, named cerulenin, abolished the growth response to both ligands. Our data suggest that GPER may be included among the transduction mediators involved by estrogens in regulating FASN expression and activity in cancer cells and CAFs that strongly contribute to cancer progression.Item <> costruzione di possibili profili di sostenibilità applicati a scala di quartiere.(2013-11-29) Manfredi, Emilia; Pantano, Pietro; Rossi, FrancescoItem Simulation-based optimization in port logistics(2017) Mazza, Rina Mary; Grandinetti, Lucio; Legato, PasqualeItem Preparation of modified α-amino acids, useful building blocks for peptide sinthesis(2010-12-15) De Marco, Rosalia; Liguori, Angelo; Gabriele, BartoloItem Metodi e tool per l'ottimizzazione della calibrazione e della validazione dei sistemi di controllo motore(2012-09-29) Guzzo, Alessandra; Rizzuti, Sergio; Bova, Sergio; Riegel, Alessandro