The growth characteristics of the recently derived Trans-Gompertz function are compared to those of the Generalized Logistic function. Both functions are defined by one shaping parameter and one rate parameter. The functions are matched at a specified point on the growth curve by equating both the first and second derivatives. Analysis shows that the matched Trans-Gompertz function will have grown at a faster rate with a larger inflection point ratio.

In consulatu sexto et septimo postquam bella civilia exstinxeram per consensum universorum [potitus rerum own]ium rem publicam ex mea potestate in senat[us populique Romani a]rbitrium transtuli. There is very little doubt about the reading of the Latin text, except that the Greek has suggested to Schönbauer that ‘compos’ should be read for ‘potitus’. He urges that ‘compos’ has a ‘milder meaning’ than ‘potitus’ and has no connotation of the use of force. The change to ‘compos’ is worthy of consideration, but (...) suggests that the Latin ran ‘compos factus’ if ‘compos’ was used, and the phrase ‘compos factus’, though good Augustan Latin, is perhaps too retarding in rhythm to fit this place, though to that stylistic feeling too much weight should not be assigned. (shrink)

To this day, the Italian Jewish literary postwar canon is undisputedly ruled by Primo Levi, Giorgio Bassani and Carlo Levi. This study of three major Italian Jewish women writers – Natalia Ginzburg, Clara Sereni and Lia Levi – highlights the presence in Italian literature of a subversive Jewish écriture feminine. These writers’ formal independence and subversive redeployment of narrative and thematic strategies not only consolidated a strong female voice in Italian literature but also produced a specific Italian brand of Jewish (...) literature. The following analysis shows how, through their literary ‘life miniatures’, Ginzburg, Sereni and Levi recentre the domestic everydayness of woman’s personal and historical experience, while, simultaneously, challenging the traditional representations of women’s positions within family and within the public space, as well as interrogating their Jewish identity vis-a-vis their country’s Fascist past. In particular, this article focuses on the way in which all three authors portray themselves as women trying to strike a balance between their Jewish identity and history alive only in the domestic space of their family lives, and their gender identity which is repressed by the patriarchal system both in the house and in the public arena. These women respond by moving ‘out’ of their homes, by exploring the city space – thus turning the ‘urban monster’ into a positive locus for women’s self-determination and political action – and by bonding with other women. Through a demasculinization of the city space, these memoirs re-elaborated notions of family, Judaism, private and historical memory, and they reinvented a poetics for the ‘small virtues’ of woman’s everyday existence while also pioneering a new space in literature that radically changed the direction of patriarchal Italian culture in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

A complex world like ours demands for the teachers and professors to command intercultural competences in order to avoid the instrumentalization of the alterities. It is precisely the professionals of education who, given their social function, have the responsibility of forming the citizens of the future in attitudes and behaviours adjusted to plural communities. This article presents the first part of a research project carried out by researchers from Barcelona, Marseille, Rabat and Beirut on the complex world of the respect (...) necessary to face prejudices and stereotypes. (shrink)