John Cabot University ScholarShip
ScholarShip is the digital repository at John Cabot University. It provides an online space designed to archive, organize, preserve, and make accessible the digital scholarship faculty and students produce, showcasing the accomplishments of the University’s scholarly community.
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Publication Market and State-Supported Sustainability: A Tale of Two Rural Communities in Iowa and Italy(2012)The aim of the article is to compare, using surveys, interviews and participant observation, long-term development strategies in two rural communities, one in Iowa (Amana Colonies) and the other in southern Italy (Val Comino). The Amana Colonies have chosen a market model whereas the Val Comino uses a model supported with funds from the European Community. Both strategies prioritise local ability to co-ordinate actions across geographical and institutional scales. The findings suggest that the efficiency of the two strategies is wearing out and their long-term sustainability is in question. In the case of southern Italy, this is because powerful members in local institutions operate on conventions of clientelism and corporativism; in the Amanas it is because shareholders who live in the community are interested in preserving the identity of the territory whereas those who do not are interested in the corporation's dividends.Publication Ecomedia Literacy’s El Buen Vivir/Sumak Kawsay: The Practice of Care in Media Education in Latin America(2024)The Andean concept of “sumak kawsay” (translated as el buen vivir in Spanish and the good life/good living in English) entails a form of relationality between humans and the other-than-human realms (land, water, minerals, air, spirits, etc.) based on care and reciprocity. Corresponding with the “eco-territorial turn” in Latin American social movements, el buen vivir/sumak kawsay informs an ecocentric and decolonial disposition that recognizes the need to confront the disproportionate ecological impacts of information and communication technology (ICTs) and global communications on marginalized populations. In this article, the authors explore how ecomedia literacy expands the notion of care to the other-than-human world in media education, and through the work of artists/activists in Ecuador who are using poetry and music in their unique expression of ecomedia literacy and eco-territorial media practices.Publication “(Re)Ordering the Mediterranean: The Evolution of Security Assistance as an International Practice(2024)Security assistance – foreign actors training and equipping security forces in another country – has proliferated in the Mediterranean over the last decades. Now, more than a decade on from the Arab Uprisings, security assistance cannot be considered merely a tool to obtain strategic objectives, but is in itself a site of competition, collusion and potential collision. In this Introduction to the Special Issue, we develop a framework deploying reordering as a lens through which comparative and interdisciplinary explorations can develop comprehensive and critical views of the evolution of security assistance in the Mediterranean. We propose a theoretical framework centred on international practice and socio-material network theory, which brings different types of providers and recipients, as well as the discourse-material structures underpinning them, into a common frame. The framework conceptualizes security assistance as operating at vertical (between provider and recipient), and horizontal (between vertical blocks) levels. It can purposefully be analysed across three dimensions – knowledge, materiality and networks. In so doing, we may be able to observe how, despite the absence of formal institutions, norms or governing mechanisms, security assistance constitutes an international practice and contributes to the ordering, and continuous reordering, of the Mediterranean as a governable geospatial field of intervention.Publication Estimation Model for Healthcare Costs and Intensive Care Units Access for Covid-19 Patients and Evaluation of the Effects of Remdesivir in the Portuguese Context: Hypothetical Study(2022)Background and Objectives In March 2020, the World Health Organization announced a state of emergency due to the appearance of a pandemic caused by the Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a severe acute respiratory syndrome, known as Covid-19. Most governments chose to implement precautionary measures, e.g., physical distancing and use of protective devices, which can in part limit the transmission of the virus. However, the healthcare system experienced numerous structural problems in managing the Covid-19 patients given the limited human and technical resources in critical areas, such as the intensive care units (ICUs). Different therapeutic solutions should therefore be assessed, which can potentially minimize the negative impact of the disease on patients, favoring their recovery and optimizing healthcare resources. The objective of this study is to simulate the impact of remdesivir treatment on the pandemic course in the long term. Methods A forecasting model is designed to estimate how remdesivir would impact the ICU capacity and the healthcare costs from the hospital perspective when managing COVID-19 patients. This model is applied in the Portuguese context with a 20-week projection starting on May 1st and concluding on September 18th, 2021. The data inputs were carefully collected by consulting different sources, such as published global literature, official governmental reports, and available infectious diseases databases, i.e., Our World in Data, Portuguese Ministry of Health, and experts’ opinions. Results The model showed that the introduction of remdesivir-based treatment in patients with Covid-19 pneumonia requiring supplemental oxygen therapy generates a significant reduction in both the number of ICU admissions and deaths, which would produce more than €23 million in cost savings and avoid more than 261 ICUs admissions and 166 deaths. Conclusion It is demonstrated that alternative treatments such as remdesivir can reduce both the health burden for healthcare facilities, optimize their management, and improve patients’ clinical conditions. However, the model is centered on Rt values, which cannot be generalized to the entire country; hence, the results of this research should be considered as a “hypothetical study”.Publication ‘Weeping Tears of Blood’: Exploring Italian Soldiers’ Emotions in the First World War(2012)Emotion plays a vital role in any rounded history of warfare, both as an element in morale and as component in understanding the soldier's experience. Theories on the functioning of emotions vary, but an exploration of Italian soldiers' emotions during the First World War highlights both cognitive and cultural elements in the ways emotions were experienced and expressed. Although Italian stereotypes of passivity and resignation dominated contemporary discourse concerning the feelings and reactions of peasant conscripts, letters reveal that Italian soldiers vividly expressed a wide range of intense emotions. Focusing on fear, horror and grief as recurrent themes, this article finds that these emotions were processed and expressed in ways which show similarities to the combatants of other nations but which also display distinctly Italian features. The language and imagery commonly deployed offer insights into the ways in which Italian socio-cultural norms shaped expressions of personal war experience. In letters that drew on both religious imagery and the traditional peasant concerns of land, terrain and basic survival, soldiers expressed their fears of death, isolation, suffering and killing in surprisingly vigorous terms.
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