This dissertation was written for the purpose of displacing the negative stereotype of video games being deemed as ‘lowbrow’ entertainment within critical and academic circles, when in actuality the medium has the ability to tell a captivating story through a unique lens unlike the narratives that are traditionally found in a film or a novel. Most of the criticism that games have received in the humanities come from literary scholars who have denounced the medium’s attempts to adapt seminal pieces of (...) literature such as Dante’s Divine Comedy. To counter this assumption, I will be engaging with a video game that has not been marketed as a direct adaptation of the Comedy, but rather uses Dante’s writing as a source of inspiration to enhance its own ludonarrative experience. The game I will be examining in close proximity to the Comedy is the Japanese role-playing game Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne released by the studio Atlus in 2003. Nocturne is an incredibly viable case study for this investigation because it exemplifies how, through the unconventional adaptation process of transmediality, a distant text like an RPG can transform the material of a medieval poem to best fit its digital stage while still referencing its source material. In this context, I intend to establish a methodological basis for the transmedial analysis of literature and video games through the creative insight of the Comedy and Nocturne, so that new meaning can be uncovered from both texts and further research can thus commence on relative instances of ludic adaptation. (shrink)

This book is at once an analytical study of one of the most important mathematical texts of antiquity, the Mathematical Collection of the fourth-century AD mathematician Pappus of Alexandria, and also an examination of the work's wider cultural setting. An important first chapter looks at the mathematicians of the period and how mathematics was perceived by people at large. The central chapters of the book analyse sections of the Collection, identifying features typical of Pappus's mathematical practice. The final chapter draws (...) together the various threads and presents a fuller description of Pappus's mathematical 'agenda'. This is one of few books to deal extensively with the mathematics of Late Antiquity. It sees Pappus's text as part of a wider context and relates it to other contemporary cultural practices and opens avenues to research into the public understanding of mathematics and mathematical disciplines in antiquity. (shrink)

The theorem of Pythagoras, Euclid's "Elements", Archimedes' method to find the volume of a sphere: all parts of the invaluable legacy of ancient mathematics. But ancient mathematics was also about counting and measuring, surveying land and attributing mystical significance to the number six. This volume offers the first accessible survey of the discipline in all its variety and diversity of practices. The period covered ranges from the fifth century BC to the sixth century AD, with the focus on the Mediterranean (...) region. Topics include: * mathematics and politics in classical Greece * the formation of mathematical traditions * the self-image of mathematicians in the Graeco-Roman period * mathematics and Christianity * and the use of the mathematical past in late antiquity. (shrink)

Nursing is no stranger to the revolutionary change brought about by the introduction of artificial intelligence in health care. At the beginning of 2021, the international think-tank on artificial intelligence and nursing published its conclusions, recognizing the relevance of these technologies to increase and extend the capacities of this discipline, including care. A weighted assessment of the correctness of these conclusions necessarily requires an epistemological reflection on care. This article considers the impact of artificial intelligence on nursing care from the (...) ethics of care in light of the main contributions of the Samaritanus Bonus. (shrink)

El exceso como estilo. En un conocido ensayo sobre Casablanca, Umberto Eco dice: «Cuando la elección de lo aceptado es limitada, se obtiene un film amanerado, de serie, o incluso kitsch. Pero cuando de lo aceptado se utiliza verdaderamente todo, lo que se logra es una arquitectura como la Sagrada Familia de Gaudí. Se logra el vértigo, se roza la genialidad» Esto es, en cierto modo, lo que ocurre con Nazareno Cruz y el lobo. Un film desbordante, apasionado, pleno. Una (...) historia que avanza a borbotones, una puesta en escena estridente, un relato construido por momentos (en algunos casos, gloriosos; en otros, no tanto). Nazareno es una suerte de pastiche que conjura símbolos y mitos, folclore y religión, el bien y el mal. Es todo lo contrario de lo que se podría entender como una obra acabada, homogénea, perfecta. (shrink)

Las discusiones suscitadas en torno a la exhortación apostólica Amoris laetitia evidencian que a seis lustros de la publicación de Veritatis splendor la temática del objeto moral no ha perdido actualidad. En este contexto, es interesante observar que algunas de las discusiones relativas a este tema tienen su origen en posiciones afines a los presupuestos de la Moral autónoma. A fin de poder efectuar una valoración crítica de tales posiciones, en este estudio ofrecemos una aproximación a la racionalidad normativa teorizada (...) por Franz Böckle en diálogo con el correspondiente discernimiento de Veritatis splendor sobre dicha racionalidad, el cual alcanza su cenit en la afirmación de la existencia de actos intrínsecamente malos. (shrink)

This paper aims to cast new light on one of our main sources for ancient science, Sextus Julius Frontinus; to cast new light on the science of the Graeco-Roman period; and to contribute ancient materials to present discussions on the relations between power and knowledge, and/or science and empire.

A Sr2Cu2Oy sample was prepared and the obtained Tc and Tc were 109 K and 51 K, respectively. A comparison of the M2+ ionic radius, lattice constants a and c, and the interatomic distance sum of the Cu-O and -O samples in the Sr2Cu2Oy system was made, where M = Sr, Ca, Mg, Hg, Cd or Cu. It was found that if the atomic radius of M2+, which is in the -O plane of the -1212 specimen, is larger, then the (...) sample will have a higher Tc and the major effect of the M2+ on the Tc of Sr2Cu2Oy samples was to change the interatomic distance sum of Cu-O and -O when the Cu2+ ion was exchanged for an M2+ ion. (shrink)

A conversation between the artist Mimmo Paladino, the philosopher and art critic Arthur C. Danto and the curator Demetrio Paparoni on topics such as beauty, icons, projectuality in art, history of art and its supposed end - the main thread being, obviously, Paladino’s entire corpus.

El presente libro es una traducción en lengua italiana del original inglés publicado en 2012. Ingmar Persson y Julien Savulescu son reconocidas voces en la discusión académica sobre el potenciamiento moral la cual traspasó las fronteras del ámbito anglosajón. La estructura de la obra se asemeja a una pirámide: el lector se va aproximando al núcleo del potenciamiento moral transitando los nueve capítulos que preceden al último en el cual, como cima de la obra, se ofrece una exposición completa de (...) la temática. Esta estructura refleja la intención de los autores, esto es, reconocer que el potenciamiento moral es la única salida posible para resolver los problemas resultantes del mal uso de la tecnología. En efecto, una de las principales tesis del libro es evidenciar que gracias a la ciencia y la tecnología el hombre cambió radicalmente las condiciones de su vida mientras que su psicología moral permaneció inalterada a lo largo del tiempo. En consecuencia, el hombre no está dotado con una psicología moral adecuada que le permita afrontar los acuciantes problemas morales creados por las nuevas condiciones de vida. Entre los principales problemas se cuentan la posibilidad de utilizar armas de destrucción masiva, el cambio climático y la degradación del ambiente. (shrink)

The current study investigates the effects of green advertising and a corporation’s environmental performance on brand attitudes and purchase intentions. A 3 × 3 (firm’s environmental performance and its advertising efforts as independent variables) experiment using n = 302 subjects was conducted. Results indicate that the negative effect of a firm’s low performance on brand attitudes becomes stronger in the presence of green advertising compared to general corporate advertising and no advertising. Further, when the firm’s environmental performance is high, both (...) green and general corporate advertising result in more unfavorable brand attitudes than no advertising. The study’s counter-intuitive findings are explained by attribution theory. (shrink)

Advances in perinatology have permitted the survival of fragile neonates. Quality of life has been considered a key element in medical decision-making. In this review we analyse the role of Q...

The focus on negative attitudes toward other groups has led to a dichotomy between the prejudice reduction and the collective action approach. To solve the resulting problems identified by Dixon et al., we suggest analyzing the psychological processes underlying the construction of relationships between own and other groups.

The article retraces Mimmo Paladino’s entire artistic path and tries to identify a characterising trait, although in the innumerable variations of a work that is pluristylistic by its very nature. This trait seems to be “a spirit of South”, the echo of the culture of the Italian South which can be found both in sculptures and paintings that Paladino creates starting from the Eighties.

While walking within the installation, even though moving among its elements, the image cannot really be grasped in its entirety. Hence, Paladino deals with three distincdy contrasting concepts: the part refers to the whole; the part has totality in itself; the part refers only to itself (being unable to take in the totality of the image, the part can only be related to as an autonomous fragment). And the different positions are incompatible because many believe they can experience the (...) whole through the part, ruling out that the world is made up of autonomous fragments. In turn, the idea that reality is made up of fragments independent of one another is inconsistent with the idea that we can grasp the totality. Stele deals with a theme that has been recurrent in Paladinos work since he began working at the end of the 1970s: the world is an intellectual construction that art gives shape to. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the relationship between concept— assuming that it’s embedded in artwork — and visual representation. To this end, I first examine some of Paladino’s artworks considering them as: very classical, expressivist, postmodernist and anti-conceptualist. Finally, I assume the exhibition in Torino is not only a tribute to Philosophy but also an exhortation to reflect on the complicated relationship between art and reality.

Mimmo Paladino: Intanto le faccio un regalo, questa pubblicatone appena uscita per festeggiare i cento anni di Lévi-Strauss. Sono stato molto onorato di essere stato invitato a illustrare “Tristi tropici”, che tra l’altro e un testo che ho sempre amato e leggo continuamente, e stranamente ci ritrovo elementi del mio lavoro. Sergio Givone: Grazie, grazie mille. Ma a dire il vero, questa attinenza non mi stupisce, mi fa subito venire in mente qualcosa che ha a che fare con Don (...) Chisciotte. E cio... (shrink)

Mimmo Paladino’s artistic research is characterized by an interest in the language and the relationship between “individual” and “community”. The idea of “individual” Paladino focuses in his work on is placed in the Mediterranean culture, and carries with itself the request of social emancipation — that can be ascribable to some Marxist topics — and the faith in the magical power. Along this route Paladino meets Ernesto De Martino’s South and Magic, Marcel Mauss and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s works. (...) With the same naturalness he makes coincide his sign with those of Matisse and Beuys, overlaps conceptually Spinoza to Jarry, Giordano Bruno to Beuys by getting the common trait in the transgressive dimension. It would be misleading trying to get a unitary route at all costs because only in the idea of the “encounter” apparently causal, that recalls the impracticable and audacious routes of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, we can get the meaning of the Paladino’s contaminations with philosophy. (shrink)

This article aims to investigate the relationship between music and Mimmo Paladino s figurative work throughout his career. Starting as a painter of silence, an artist finding shelter in silence to paint, Paladino then engaged in an increasingly dense dialogue with the art of sounds. He is convinced that the creation of music stemming from tonal harmony is parallel to the creation of the work of art originated from formal harmony, and believes that the elements of his compositions (...) can be compared to counterpoints, notes, intervals, rhythms and musical harmonies. It is a long and complex path that led - and this is recent history - to the two collaborations with the non-musician Brian Eno, whose works this article will extensively dwell on. (shrink)