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Childhood friends Elia, Giorgio, Claudio, and Fabrizio had been meeting in their favorite café in the center of the ancient city of Arezzo in Tuscany for forty years. One day, they decided to go to Bucharest to visit their friend Angelo. They brought along Gert and Sebastian, more old acquaintances, to have a reunion. When they got there, Angelo had a surprise waiting for them. Little did they know that this visit would change their lives forever. Cracks began to appear in marriages as well as in the wonderful friendships they had enjoyed for the past forty years. It all began with this first trip. It wouldn’t be their last. This book was written in Tuscany, inspired by real events that took place years ago.
Witchcraft and magic are topics of enduring interest for many reasons. The main one lies in their extraordinary interdisciplinarity: anthropologists, folklorists, historians, and more have contributed to build a body of work of extreme variety and consistence. Of course, this also means that the subjects themselves are not easy to assess. In a very general way, we can define witchcraft as a supernatural means to cause harm, death, or misfortune, while magic also belongs to the field of supernatural, or at least esoteric knowledge, but can be used to less dangerous effects (e.g., divination and astrology). In Western civilization, however, the witch hunt has set a very peculiar perspective in...
Increasingly clear evidence points to the need to consider gender differences in human health. In this collection of papers, recent research that supports gender differences in the immune system are discussed. We have loosely divided the eBook into two sections. The first section focuses on the role of steroid hormone interactions within the immune system, and their impact on autoimmune diseases, infection and allergy. This section contains comprehensive reviews and an opinion article about this topic. In the following section, original research articles revolve around the effects of the sex hormones on immune response. Two original manuscripts deal with the role of estrogen receptors in autoimmune diseases. Other two research articles discuss the role of the immune system during pregnancy. Finally, differences between males and females in infections are the topic of further two research articles. We are confident this collection of papers will be important for exploring and developing a greater understanding of gender differences in human health and disease.
A look at the history of censorship, science, and magic from the Middle Ages to the post-Reformation era. Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and methods stretching from the late eleventh century to well into the sixteenth. Unlike earlier studies, Defining Nature’s Limits engages the history of both learned and popular magic. Tarrant explains how the church developed a program that sought to codify what was proper belief through confession, inquisition, and punishment and prosecuted what they considered superstition or heresy that stretched beyond the boundaries of religion. These ...
In 1513 two Camaldolese hermits, Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Querini, presented the newly elected Pope Leo X a Libellus, or small book, offering a variety of suggestions for what they believed were needed reforms in the Roman Catholic Church. Chief among their recommendations was a crusade against the Ottoman Turks and, ultimately, all of Islam. In A Crusade Against the Turks as a Means of Reforming the Church: Two Camaldolese Hermits’ Advice for Pope Leo X, James G. Kroemer introduces the pope who received the Libellus, and the hermits who wrote and sent it. Kroemer explains why the hermits believed Islam was a danger to Christendom, and what their strategy was to cleanse the world of this perceived threat. The Augustinian Friar Martin Luther is presented as one who also advocated church reform, but questioned using a crusade against Islam as a means of attaining needed changes. This book delves into the desire held by some devout people of faith who wish to achieve what they may consider religious purity at any cost, even by force if necessary.
Psoriasis is a chronically relapsing inflammatory skin disorder affecting about 2% of the worldwide population. The disease is associated with important systemic manifestations, including cardiovascular comorbidities and metabolic syndrome. In addition, about 30% of patients develop joint inflammation known as psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Our knowledge on the pathogenesis of psoriasis has dramatically expanded in the last decade, suggesting the existence (or co-existence) of both auto-immune and auto-inflammatory components. Skin lesions develop from a complex interplay between keratinocytes, vascular endothelium, dendritic cells, and T cells, generating a self-sustaining inflammatory cycle. W...
In 2016, the Nordic Cooperation Ministers decided to put more emphasis on economic development in the Arctic within the Arctic Cooperation Program of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The Nordic Council of Ministers partnered up with the Arctic Economic Council in carrying out an Arctic Business Analysis. The aim was to qualify knowledge on the business environment in the Nordic Arctic and how to take the business environment to a next level. The analysis covers 1) Entrepreneurship and Innovations; 2) Public- Private Partnerships & Business Cooperation; 3) Bio-economy, and 4) Creative and Cultural Industries. The general findings of the analysis are: → a need for an increased collection and dissemination of Arctic specific data; → a need for strengthened cross-border business collaboration between regions and actors in the Arctic; and → a need for a positive branding of the Arctic as an attractive and sustainable market for investments and economic development.
This volume provides a collection of protocols that will allow researchers to further explore the multiple, fascinating activities of Alpha-1 Antitrypsin (AAT) isoforms in innate immunity, and gene therapy. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Alpha-1 Antitrypsin: Methods and Protocols aims to ensure successful results in the further study of this vital field.
The Mosaic of Autoimmunity: The Novel Factors of Autoimmune Diseases describes the multifactorial origin and diversity of expression of autoimmune diseases in humans. The term implies that different combinations of factors in autoimmunity produce varying and unique clinical pictures in a wide spectrum of autoimmune diseases. Most of the factors involved in autoimmunity can be categorized into four groups: genetic, immune defects, hormonal and environmental factors. In this book, the environmental factors are reviewed, including infectious agents, vaccines as triggers of autoimmunity, smoking and its relationship with rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, thyroid disease, multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel diseases. An entirely new syndrome, the autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA), is also included, along with other diseases that are now recognized as having an autoimmune etiopathogenesis.
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In Ritual Boundaries, Joseph E. Sanzo transforms our understanding of how early Christians experienced religion in lived practice through the study of magical objects, such as amulets and grimoires. Against the prevailing view of late antiquity as a time when only so-called elites were interested in religious and ritual differentiation, the evidence presented here reveals that the desire to distinguish between religious and ritual insiders and outsiders cut across diverse social strata. The magical evidence also offers unique...