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In termini sociologici, il concetto di cronofagia si riferisce alla contrazione di tempo (e spazio) nel nostro mondo globalizzato e ai suoi effetti sulla vita quotidiana, in particolare si intendono considerare le conseguenze di questi processi sull'esperienza fisica della realtà: l'esperienza incorporata. Molti studiosi concordano nel ritenere che l'accelerazione del tempo sociale e la riduzione di barriere spaziali siano tratti caratterizzanti dell'epoca industriale e post-industriale. All'interno di questo corso storico, tuttavia, sembra che ci siano momenti in cui la contrazione del tempo e dello spazio abbia determinato una rottura con equilibri precedenti a causa dell'intensità dei cambiamenti (Paolucci, 2003).

Con riferimento al testo di Elia Canetti "Masse e potere" come anche ad altri "classici" della letteratura sociologica riguardanti le dinamiche sociali delle masse, si esaminano le condizioni per cui la massa diventa la condizione in cui gli individui si liberano dal fatto di subire il potere degli altri.

SPM has been widely used for the operator independent assessment of functional and molecular differences in human PET or MRI brain images. Despite the large diffusion of dedicated image systems and protocols, the use of SPM methodology to preclinical studies have been described in a limited number of studies, particularly for PET. Aim of this work was to optimize and adopt SPM analysis for the identification of patterns of altered metabolism due to acute stress in rat brain using PET with F-18-FDG

During the spring of 2011, 26 Italian families were interviewed for understanding whether they subjiectively thought they had had an intercultural learning by hosting a foreign student/person in their home. Results of content analysis of the families' narratives of both groups show no level of intercultural learning.

In accordance with the UN development objectives (Millennium), with the UNESCO report (Our creative diversity) and with the definitions of global ethics of the European Council, we think that the conceptual and practical tools offered by intercultural relations’ literature and praxis should be used and disseminated not only among students, faculties and staff, but also embodied by local communities in the perspective of shared responsibility. It is necessary to stabilize all the practice of change in order to open the traditionally closed systems of higher education. In the academic year 2010-2011, Bicocca University inaugurated a 160 hours bilingual workshop, taught simultaneously in Italian and Spanish. Professors and students had a diverse background (sociology, anthropology, medicine, economics, political science, informatics, statistics, intercultural communication, psychology, and public health) and were evenly distributed between Italians and Latinamericans from universities in Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Italy and Nicaragua. Through an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach, it offered new extraordinary opportunities of learning and human progress. The workshop, in turn, inserts into a program of action research which offers to the students and professors of the participating universities a chance to interact, also through fieldwork, in the context of integrated local development activities, collaborating with institutional actors and civil society organizations. The program of the Interuniversity and Intercultural Network, foresees that this experience, along with that of the workshop in Bicocca, could extend to all the universities of the network and their territories, under the broad idea that the universities should increasingly act as agents for local development.

One of the possible lines of action for the internationalization of universities is that of international co-operation for development. This definition generally implies a concept of aid to the so-called third countries: the thesis here supported is that co-operation for development should have criteria of reciprocity, made possible above all through exchanges. International institutions promoting exchange programs tend not to foresee an attention to the dimensions of potential change within people and organizations which happens as a result of contact. In accordance with the UN development objectives (Millennium), with the UNESCO report (Our creative diversity) and with the definitions of global ethics of the European Council, we think that the conceptual and practical tools offered by intercultural relations’ literature and praxis should be used and disseminated not only among students, faculties and staff, but also embodied by local communities in the perspective of shared responsibility. The intercultural dimension of exchange and co-operation is, in our vision, a key to the internationalization process: it is necessary to stabilize , through adequate reflection, all the practice of change in order to open the traditionally closed systems of higher education. This paper will try to identify areas of application of good practices which emerged from international research on students’, faculties and workers’ exchange and on change agentry with intercultural sensitivity, which is at the basis of a new concept of co-operation for development.

Nella complessa situazione delle società occidentali contemporanee le organizzazioni del lavoro, in particolare del comparto soaciale e sanitario, si trovano impreparate a gestire una crescente diversità interna (tra i propri impiegati e collaboratori) ed esterna (in clienti ed utenti). Accettare la diversità è un percorso non intuitivo per la maggior parte delle persone, che sono portate a riconoscere i propri simili e non gli estranei; gestire la diversità e i bisogni di riconoscimento identitari è tuttavia la nuova sfida delle organizzazioni dei servizi e delle istituzioni. I risultati della ricerca qui presentata sul livello di sensibilità interculturale di alcune organizzazioni della Provincia di Milano dimostrano situazioni di impreparazione. Attraverso un intervento di ricerca azione monitorato viene però dimostrato come la situazione possa cambiare rapidamente se si usano strumenti diagnostici e formativi adeguati.

Da tempo le società multiculturali occidentali stanno affrontando la sfida della coesistenza di culture diverse. Non più solo nuovi arrivi, ma seconde e terze generazioni di persone che acquisiscono cittadinanza e allo stesso tempo rimangono portatrici di stili di comunicazione e di riferimenti valoriali diversi dal cosiddetto mainstream. Il contesto italiano si presenta come un laboratorio estremamente interessante nel panorama europeo per il numero di nazionalità ed etnie presenti sul territorio e per la scarsa influenza del fenomeno di attrazione migratoria post-coloniale tipico di nazioni come la Francia, il Regno Unito e l’Olanda. Le organizzazioni del lavoro sono le prime, insieme alla scuola, a doversi confrontare con tale tipo di complessità. Gli ambiti dei servizi sanitari e sociali stanno vivendo questo cambiamento da diversi anni per quanto riguarda l’utenza che è sempre più “straniera”; alcune realtà inoltre registrano già una presenza, più o meno significativa, di personale di cultura nazionale diversa all’interno dell’organizzazione, e in una prospettiva crescente. Eppure la diversità tra le persone non consiste solo di un passaporto: ci sono diversità tra uomini e donne, tra persone con una diversa abilità fisica, tra individui con un orientamento sessuale differente, tra generazioni, tra regioni, e tra diverse appartenenze funzionali e organizzative. Se questo caleidoscopio di differenze rimane sottaciuto generalmente diventa un problema: se valorizzato, una risorsa. Il diversity management o gestione della diversità come strategia organizzativa, nasce agli inizi degli anni Novanta negli Stati Uniti proprio con l’intento di affrontare tale complessità negli ambiti del lavoro e della scuola. Negli ultimi dieci anni si è diffuso nel Nord Europa e sta approdando in Italia. Questo volume intende presentare le potenzialità di tale approccio nel nostro Paese attraverso dati empirici e pratiche da testare. Coniugando la prospettiva interculturale dinamica e

AIM: To evaluate the performance of the positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) Discovery-STE (D-STE) scanner for lesion detectability in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) acquisition. METHODS: A NEMA 2001 Image-Quality phantom with 11 lesions (7-37 mm in diameter) filled with a solution of (18)F (lesion/background concentration ratio: 4.4) was studied. 2D and 3D PET scans were sequentially acquired (10 min each) in list mode (LM). Each scan was unlisted into 4, 3 and 2-min scans. Ten [(18)F]FDG PET oncological patient studies were also evaluated. Each patient underwent a 3D PET/CT whole body scan, followed by a 2D PET scan (4 min LM) and a 3D PET scan (4 min LM) over a single field of view. Both 2D and 3D scans were unlisted in 3 and 2-min scans. Data were evaluated quantitatively by calculating quality measurements and qualitatively by two physicians who judged lesion detectability compared to statistical variations in background activity. RESULTS: Quantitative and qualitative evaluations showed the superiority of 3D over 2D across all measures of quality. In particular, lesion detectability was better in 3D than in 2D at equal scan times and 3D acquisition provided images comparable in quality to 2D in approximately half the time. Interobserver variability was lower in evaluation of 3D scans and lesion shape and volume were better depicted. CONCLUSION: In oncological applications, the D-STE system demonstrated good performance in 2D and 3D acquisition, while 3D exhibited better image quality, data accuracy and consistency of lesion detectability, resulting in shorter scan times and higher patient throughput., Aim. To evaluate the performance of the positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) Discovery-STE (D-STE) scanner for lesion detectability in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) acquisition. Metbods. A NEMA 2001 Image-Quality phantom with 11 lesions (7-37 mm in diameter) filled with a solution of 18F (lesion/background concentration ratio: 4.4) was studied. 2D and 3D PET scans were sequentially acquired (10 min each) in list mode (LM). Each scan was unlisted into 4, 3 and 2-min scans. Ten [18F]FDG PET oncological patient studies were also evaluated. Each patient underwent a 3D PET/CT whole body scan, followed by a 2D PET scan (4 min LM) and a 3D PET scan (4 min LM) over a single field of view. Both 2D and 3D scans were unlisted in 3 and 2-min scans. Data were evaluated quantitatively by calculating quality measurements and qualitatively by two physicians who judged lesion detectability compared to statistical variations in background activity. Results. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations showed the superiority of 3D over 2D across all measures of quality. In particular, lesion detectability was better in 3D than in 2D at equal scan times and 3D acquisition provided images comparable in quality to 2D in approximately half the time. Interobserver variability was lower in evaluation of 3D scans and lesion shape and volutne were better depicted. Conclusion. In oncological applications, the D-STE system demonstrated good performance in 2D and 3D acquisition, while 3D exhibited better image quality, data accuracy and consistency of lesion detectability, resulting in shorter scan times and higher patient throughput.

Objectives: A novel approach to the PET image reconstruction is presented, based on the inclusion of image deconvolution during conventional OSEM reconstruction. Deconvolution is here used to provide a recovered PET image to be included as "a priori" information to guide OSEM toward an improved solution. Methods: Deconvolution was implemented using the Lucy-Richardson (LR) algorithm: Two different deconvolution schemes were tested, modifying the conventional OSEM iterative formulation: 1) We built a regularizing penalty function on the recovered PET image obtained by deconvolution and included it in the OSEM iteration. 2) After each conventional global OSEM iteration, we deconvolved the resulting PET image and used this "recovered" version as the initialization image for the next OSEM iteration. Tests were performed on both simulated and acquired data. Results: Compared to the conventional OSEM, both these strategies, applied to simulated and acquired data, showed an improvement in image spatial resolution with better behavior in the second case. In this way, small lesions, present on data, could be better discriminated in terms of contrast. Conclusions: Application of this approach to both simulated and acquired data suggests its efficacy in obtaining PET images of enhanced quality. © 2007 Schattauer GmbH.

A quantitative statistical analysis of perfusional medical images may provide powerful support to the early diagnosis for Alzheimer's Disease (AD). A Statistical Parametric Mapping algorithm (SPM), based on the comparison of the candidate with normal cases, has been validated by the neurological research community to quantify ipometabolic patterns in brain PET/SPECT studies. Since suitable 'normal patient' PET/SPECT images are rare and usually sparse and scattered across hospitals and research institutions, the Data Grid distributed analysis paradigm ('move code rather than input data') is well suited for implementing a remote statistical analysis use case, described in the present paper. Different Grid environments (LCG, AliEn) and their services have been used to implement the above-described use case and tackle the challenging problems related to the SPM-based early AD diagnosis. © 2006 The authors. All rights reserved