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In the last 20 years, computer technology has developed rapidly, and internet-based social networks (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, or Twitter) have proliferated even faster, becoming a very important part of people's lives. But in recent years, a dependence to these sites has emerged, called by many authors social media addiction. In the present study, we aim to analyze if there really is an addiction to social media networks, what are its demographic aspects, which are the health problems that occur in these addicted people, and how to intervene therapeutically in these cases. Currently, social media addiction is not recognized as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but is considered more of a behavioral addiction or a subtype of Internet addiction. If we look at this matter from an anthropological and philosophical point of view, such type of addiction can originate in what is related to the specificity of man in the contemporary world. Symptoms of excessive use of SM networks may include decreased ability to concentrate and decreased academic performance, insomnia, altered self-perception, decreased self-esteem, anxiety, depressed mood, and psycho-emotional lability. SM addiction prevention strategies should be implemented based on behavioral risk factors and demographic characteristics. The goal of treatment for this type of addiction, unlike other addictions, is not total abstinence, but rather controlled use of social networks, and relapse prevention should use strategies based on cognitive-behavioral therapies.

In this paper we will try to identify the concrete ways in which John Locke describes the limits of toleration between different types of faith and its metaphysical foundations. From the beginning of his text A Letter Concerning Toleration, John Locke specifies that toleration is, first and foremost, a practical ideal and, secondly, a moral one. As such, toleration must be the essential feature of the true Church because in the field of religious faith any claimed superiority is in fact only the expression of the struggle for power and domination. A theoretical perspective on the idea of religious toleration is also recalled from Lockeˈs radical empiricism, which correlates man's identity with his appearance at birth, for the first time in the world, as a different form from others. Such a view is contrary to metempsychosis which could lead to innate ideas in the human soul about moral principles and especially about God, as Plato or Descartes believed. Starting from the principles of toleration, John Locke's idea was to find those elements through which a fundamental separation between the Church and the State could be achieved. But toleration ceases when the Church and the State merge discreetly until they can no longer distinguish the boundaries between them. We consider that the fundamental principle of religious toleration is based on the idea of reciprocity, i.e. toleration-to-toleration and intolerance-to-intolerance, as Locke stated. This principle is also an essential landmark for a moral law on religious toleration in the contemporary, global world.

In this study, we will analyze, from philosophical, medical and bioethical points of view, the genetic ways in which the biological foundations of human behavior can be identified, as well as the technologies that can contribute to the modification of certain human behaviors, especially aggressive ones. Ideas about the inheritance of a certain behavior have been identified since Greek antiquity, but in the 20th century, along with sequencing and mapping of all genes of the members of our species, the possibility of identifying possible genes for learning and memory has emerged and therefore the ability to act on them through “behavioral genetics” could develop. In the dawn of the 21st century, researchers begin to consider that abnormal behaviors had a certain genetic mutation located on the “X” chromosome or on the “Y” chromosome and the concept of “genetics of intellectual disability” was introduced in the medical literature. After the identification of the genes or the constellation of genes that underlie the occurrence of psychiatric disorders, the researchers developed genetic engineering to be performed on certain groups of neuronal cells, but these activities lead to the question: how useful or dangerous these new genome editing technologies will be, especially in terms of conservation and perpetuation of the human species. We conclude that the chimera-type people, whose genetic structure is artificially constructed, would raise issues primarily about their identity, their integration into traditional societies, but also about the need for a new legislation. However, the future society will have, at some point, to accept the reality of genetic interventions, the purpose of which is to achieve much more radical transformations in human nature.

This article aims to present the philosophical perspective upon the birth of the idea of the individual and the consequences of the discovery of the self-image on the techniques of image reproduction from the Renaissance to the present day. The process of projecting the self-image into the public space acquires a special importance with the elaboration of the portrait technique in the Italian painting of the 15th century. Through Leonardo da Vinci's paintings, this technique of reproducing self-image reaches a certain perfection. Following the evolution of this kind of projections and reproductions of the self-image, it is found that there is an obvious tendency by which the individual tends to free himself from certain patterns, or rather canons, which a certain epoch imposes. This process manifested in the visual arts corresponds to a new philosophical perception of man opened by the works of Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. The assertion of a new type of dignity, correlated with the idea of the microcosm, of the Renaissance man will lead to an affirmation of his own personality and especially to an increase of the will to power reflected more and more in the works of art. With the resurgence of the Italian renaissance, artists and philosophers experienced a decline, but found a favorable space for their development at the court of Elizabeth I, Queen of England. The art of portraiture, but also the philosophy of renaissance survives and is even more flourishing at the court of this queen. But the most important moment of this renaissance is marked by Dutch art after its liberation from Spanish rule. From this moment on, the emancipation of the individual will occur on an unimaginable scale until then.

In this paper I will present the way in which John Locke connected the Hobbesian theory of the natural state to a vision that also takes into account Christian precepts. First of all, I will show that, for Hobbes, the story of mankind was in fact a history of submission to a terrestrial power, bearing the metaphorical name of Leviathan, a true political monster. Hobbes's conclusion was that God's intervention in history is reserved only to those actions that do not concern coercion and punishment, but only evangelization, in view of the Savior's second coming. Secondly, I will show that this sharp separation Hobbes makes between divine law, which only regards Salvation, and the natural one, which underlies the political relations between people, is a matter of which Locke, a spirit far more pious than the author of the Leviathan, cannot accept it. Locke actually looked for a way to conclude an agreement between Filmer's theory on royalty, which exaggerated the role of the divine law on politics, and the Hobbesian theory of the natural state, which is devoid of God's intervention. In conclusion, I consider that the result of Locke’s philosophical compromise will be a new type of empiricism, which we can call Christian, different from that of his predecessors, Bacon and Hobbes, which had had more an epistemological character.

In this text we aim to present the way Sigmund Freud discovered the universe of the unconscious and the significance of dream interpretation. For „the Father of psychoanalysis”, the unconscious is not just a depository of some mental contents that belong to a sub-conscious, but a genuine reservoir of autonomous energies that have their own determinism, different from that of conscious. The Viennese psychoanalyst is the supporter of a determinism at the unconscious level, which is revealed by the mechanisms of the dream. For Freud, dreams are the royal path through which the unconscious emerges. Only in the dream conscious can look strictly passively at the way in which unconscious contents emerge in symbolic forms through all sorts of condensations and transfers of repressed drives. In the dream, the Ego becomes free and ready for the real meeting with the Self, that only he can recognize and understand in its most intimate sense. However, dreams, though ephemeral, represent extremely effective successes for everyday psychic life. In the end, I concluded that the dream contents can be properly comprehended only by the dreamer, and the psychoanalyst can help the dreamer only to recognize these subtle understandings of his own unconscious.

John Milton (1608-1674) was one of the main advocates of the reform policy initiated by Oliver Cromwell in England. The texts written by him during the conflict between the Parliament and the King determined the new Republic to offer him high-ranking positions. In the last part of his life, however, after Charles II restoration, Milton fell into the disgrace of the new king. It is the period of time when he wrote the great epic poem Paradise Lost, published in a first edition in 1667 and consisting in ten books. The present paper aims to capture the way Milton developed a theory on the right to rebellion in his poem Paradise Lost. Using the instruments of a psychoanalytic approach, we want to capture the archetype of the revolt, revealing the deep meaning of the concrete history in which it is projected. For Milton, rebellion is justified. This idea was later confirmed by John Locke as the right to rebellion in The Second Treaty on Governance. For Milton, revolt is an archetype, but for Locke it becomes a true philosophical concept. Milton's main hero, the fallen angel Lucifer, becomes an archetypal symbol for the spirit of revolt. However, the text was meant to provide its creator with rehabilitation in front of the Crown, who finally recognized his genius. Using psychoanalysis, we identified subtle links between Milton's life and his work. We can even consider that Milton's life and his work intertwine; they are one and the same thing.

A The novelty of this study consists in the fact that, at the same time as the monitoring and acquisition of data of the air quality (from inside and outside), a monitoring and acquisition of data of the real-time biometric measurements of subjects exposed directly to the needle will be made. Medium by means of a bracelet attached to the subject's arm. This bracelet is designed to perform biometric measurements without creating discomfort to the subjects analyzed in the activities in which they are involved. This measurement is carried out with 9 different sensors for: pulse, oxygen in the blood, air flow (breathing), body temperature, electrocardiogram, galvanic skin response, blood pressure, the patient's position/movement, and the status of muscle (electromyography sensor). The data thus obtained will be focused on a PC and subsequently analyzed. The results of monitoring the health parameters of the subjects analyzed find application in the maritime field, to ships, especially in the engine room, where the air suffers quality transformations. The crew's return to the workplace may decrease due to the degradation of the air quality in the premises.

This paper proposes a methodology to assess the rheological behavior of cement paste as a first step to linking this behavior to the robustness of the Self Compacting Mortar (SCM) and further extending this to Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC). Cement paste�s rheological behavior was assessed in terms of spread (using a mini-cone) and time of flow (using the Marsh cone). The results show that the type of superplasticizer (SP) admixture has a great influence on the rheological behavior of cement paste and for each combination of binder and superplasticizer admixture there is a specific range of water to binder ratio in which the rheology of paste seems to be appropriate for obtaining a robust SCC mix. The influence of SP and limestone filler addition on the kinetic of cement hydration process was assessed by X Ray Diffraction and thermal analysis (TG-DTA). Based on these results, i.e. an important delaying effect exerted by superplasticizer additions on cement hydration process at early ages (1 day), it can be concluded that when designing SCC for the precast industry - where the early strength of concrete is of high importance, analyzing the early strength of binder paste together with the robustness properties is very important. The correlation between the two aspects - rheology and early strength -is very important in this case in order to obtain applicable results in practice.

Spinoza wrote the most fascinating politico-philosophical texts during his life, because these were intertwined with his life, with the events he attended and actively involved in, hoping for a reformation of the world in which he lived. Theologico-Political Treatise and On the Improvement of the Understanding reveal us that Spinoza does not belong to eternity, but to his time. He was a thinker who wrote first of all for its contemporaries, for the people of the 17th century. In this paper I will analyze in the psychoanalytic key these two texts and the context in which they were elaborated because we can better understand the philosopher's reaction to the events of his time. Firstly, I will point out that these two treaties wrote by the Dutch philosopher captured the spirit attempt to maintain its thinking independence on emotional tensions that threatened to throw the soul of man in the whirl of regrettable events and actions. Secondly, I will show that Spinoza, a man of his time, was directly involved in the complicated process that aimed solutions for a spiritual unification of the old continent in the second half of the 17th century. He was able to experience a vast array of emotional states ranging from ambivalence to fear and despair and from resignation to enthusiasm in front of scientific and political realities which were on the way to be acomplish in the favorable conditions of the new Europe that emerged after Peace of Westphalia.

Background: squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second most common type of malignancy worldwide. Skin and mucosa of the head and neck areas are the most frequently affected. An aggressive behavior in SCC is not easily detected, and despite all efforts, mortality in these types of cancer did not show major improvements during recent decades. In this study, we aim to determine the role of histological features available through standard pathology assessment in SCC and their relation with tumor behavior and patients’ survival. Method: in a group of one hundred patients diagnosed with SCC involving the head and neck areas, we assessed the presence of four histological features (tumor/stroma ratio, immune infiltration at the front of invasion, tumor-budding activity, and tumor necrosis), their correlations with tumor type (mucosal or cutaneous), tumor clinicopathological characteristics, and their prognostic potential. Results: the comparison between histological features in cutaneous versus mucosal SCC reveals no significant differences for any of the four parameters assessed. We found significant correlations between tumor/stroma ratio and lymphatic metastasis (p = 0.0275), perineural invasion (p = 0.0006), and clinical staging (p = 0.0116). Immune infiltration at the front of invasion revealed similar correlations with lymph node involvement (p = 0.002), perineural invasion (p = 0.0138), and clinical staging (p = 0.0043). Tumor budding and tumor necrosis correlated with the size of the tumor (p = 0.0077 and p = 0.0004) and the clinical staging (p = 0.0039 and p = 0.0143). In addition, tumor budding was significantly correlated with perineural invasion (p = 0.0454). In mucosal SCC, patients with improved outcome revealed high values for the tumor/stroma ratio (p = 0.0159) and immune infiltration at the front of invasion (p = 0.0274). However, the multivariate analysis did not confirm their independent prognostic roles. Conclusions: extended histological assessments that include features such as tumor/stroma ratio, immune infiltration at the front of invasion, tumor budding, and tumor necrosis can be an easy, accessible method to collect additional information on tumor aggressiveness in skin and mucosa SCC affecting the head and neck areas.

(1) Background: The immune microenvironment plays an important role in carcinogenesis and has prognostic potential in many types of cancer. In this study we assess the prognostic character of tumor-infiltrating immune cells CD4+, CD8+ and CD56+ in resectable oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), (2) Methods: We have evaluated the densities of CD4+, CD8+ and CD56+ in two distinct compartments, intratumor and invasion front, in 90 patients with OSCC, (3) Results: Significant differences were found between the tumor compartments for the CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes. An improved outcome (OS) was seen in patients with high densities of intratumor CD8+ lymphocytes (p = 0.0086), CD8+ lymphocytes at the front of invasion (p = 0.0011) and for intratumor CD56+ cells (p = 0.0016). Multivariate analysis confirmed the independent prognostic role of CD8+ at the front of invasion (OR = 3.75, CI95% 1.17–12.35, p = 0.026) and for intratumor CD56+ cells (OR = 3.669, CI95% 1.09–15.37, p = 0.035), (4) Conclusions: Tumor-infiltrating CD8+ lymphocytes at the front of invasion and CD56+ in the intratumor compartment display predictive traits in OSCC. A reach immune infiltration with these types of cells is associated with an improved patient outcome.

When Thomas Hobbes commented on Descartes' Meditations on first philosophy in 1641, he was in his mature age, and the theoretical directions of his own worldview were probably already fully engaged. In this paper, I argue that Hobbesian objections to Descartes' Meditations reveal the philosophical thoughts of the English thinker. What seems to bind both thinkers is the idea of ego seen as a principle. But an essential difference could be traced between the two philosophical visions. For Descartes, the ego is a theoretical principle, a metaphysical one, while Hobbes thinks to it in an instrumental way, in terms of human action on which it is based. Hobbes' egoism is radical because the self is the only instance that determines and justifies the action. For Hobbes, an error couldn’t be the result of limitations of the cognitive faculties as Descartes understood it, but rather the result of a failure in the action plan. In the English philosopher's thinking, the passions of the ego reflects the engine of human fulfillment and the sign of a strong mind, able to engage in real life and to assume a destiny. So, any action that leads to a victory is an obvious sign of her successful validation. A failed action signifies the existence of a false idea behind it, and this false idea is consider to be the result of weak passions that are inadequate to reality. By reading the Meditations, Hobbes defined his own thinking that could no longer accept the Cartesian dualism and replaced it with a new monistic philosophy in which he gave reality only to the sensitive world. The truth became an issue more related to a practical approach than to one with a contemplative, theoretical facet. The classical dispute between Descartes and Hobbes on one of the central subjects in philosophy which is truth can be interpreted as an incipient form, avant la lettre, of a philosophical Brexit by which nominalistic Anglo-Saxon thinking defined its originality and independence in relation to the continental philosophy dominated by Thomism and Cartesianism.

The theme of separating the soul from the body created many concerns once it had been announced by Rene Descartes in his Metaphysical Meditations and Passions of the soul. We believe that Freud was able to bring something new in the philosophical thinking, overcoming the dualism between body and soul. Freud didn’t look after a solution that would start from metaphysical principles, as Spinoza or Leibniz did, but he approached the dualism in its anthropological foundations. The great discovery of the psychoanalysis father was that of the innate human behaviours. First, Freud studied the instincts, which definitely are innate, and then he moved the analysis to the level with a relative innateness, where he discovered the extremely complex universe of drives (Trieb), like sexual drive, aggressive one, territorial or that of fear, and so on. The drives are the elements that feed the behaviours which are not only the result of learning, of education. To a large extent, behaviours and the drives that underlie them overlap the instincts; in this sense, nutrition can be the support for sexual drives or death instinct that Freud discovered during the First World War can become the support of the aggressive drives. Up to Freud, the dispute was centred on the innate ideas in the context of the controversies between rationalist and empiricist philosophers. With Austrian thinker, the emphasis is on the preconceptual existential level: the basal behaviours. These ideas led C. G. Jung, whom Freud had called him “his beloved son”, to the complex theory of archetypes as innate behavioural structures. These ideas had a great resonance in the anthropology of the twentieth century.

A 55-year-old female who undergone mitral valve replacement eight years ago with a mechanical graft, presented accusing sudden decrease of effort tolerance and two episodes of pulmonary edema in the last month. Anamnesis, physical examination, electrocardiogram (ECG), transthoracic echocardiography and coronarography were performed. The mechanical valve leaflets and the tissue surrounding the prosthetic ring were evaluated by: optical microscopy (hematoxylin eosin stain and immunohistochemistry), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and EDAX analysis (Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy). Anamnesis: inferior myocardial infarction in 2006, congestive cardiac insufficiency, pulmonary hypertension, and arterial hypertension. Clinical examination and ECG: minimal perimaleolar edema bilateral, sinus rhythm on admission. Transthoracic echocardiography: 55% ejection fraction, a pression gradient across the mitral valve (Gmax/Gmed= 24/11 mmHg), tricuspid regurgitation, and pulmonary hypertension. A mitral prosthetic valve’s leaflet was found immobile. No thrombus was evidenced. Coronarography: an immobile graft’s leaflet, stenoses on the right coronary artery, stenosis on left anterior descending artery and occlusion at the circumflex artery emergence. The prosthesis was replaced, and two coronary artery bypasses were performed. Macroscopic examination: a fibroconjunctive tissue expansion in close contact with the leaflet. Histopathological evaluation: muscle cells with altered phenotypes, fibroblasts along with fibrous connective tissue and calcium depots areas. SEM evaluation: tissue depots on the immobile leaflet, suggesting that the connective tissue expansion was blocking the leaflet’s movements. EDAX analysis: the metallic leaflets surface was made of tantalum; sodium, calcium and chloride deposits were also detected. Graft failure was caused by the tissue proliferation affecting leaflet’s mobility. SEM is a viable method for failed cardiovascular grafts investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of some alkyl-phenyl-pyridinium compounds (which are in fact cytostatics) on the pseudotumoral tissues after their exposure to optical UV- vis beams.

Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) represents a highly sensitive method for the detection of pancreatic masses. When available, EUS-guided fine needle aspiration (FNA) is the best technique for the diagnosis and staging of pancreatic cancer due to its ability to obtain tissue for diagnosis. The standardized indications for pancreatic EUS-FNA comprise the definite diagnosis of malignancy and histopathological confirmation of adenocarcinoma before surgical resection, chemo/radiotherapy, or celiac plexus neurolysis. The technique of performing EUS-FNA is described in detail, from the vizualization of the target lesion and adequate placement of the transducer to allow optimal needle access, to needle penetration and sampling of the targeted lesion. We report a series of 9 patients who underwent EUS-FNA and shortly review the indications, technique, results and impact of EUS-FNA on the management of these patients.