The success of films like the Oscar-winning La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino), the family-friendly comedy Sole a catinelle (Buckets of Sunshine, Gennaro Nunziante) and the poetic documentary Sacro GRA (Sacred GRA, Gianfranco Rosi), all released in 2013, confirms the continued and perhaps surprising vitality and variety of Italian cinema. This variety tended to be ignored in what might be called the Standard Model of Italian cinema history, which emphasized the realist and auteurist traditions in Italian cinema. In this article I range across contemporary, classic and lesser-known Italian cinema by analyzing the means and priorities that have been employed when studying it in the Anglophone academy. My title, “What is Italian cinema?,” intentionally recalls Bazin (and I refer also to Deleuze and “world cinephilia”), but an additional clause might read, “and how do we think we know?”. The second half of the article considers the contents of three edited companions to Italian cinema (one recently published and two forthcoming) in order to grasp the current concerns of Italian cinema studies and so to signpost the state of knowledge about Italian cinema, at least as it exists in English. I suggest throughout some methods and approaches for better grasping the variety of Italian cinema over its history, but I finish by noting that the Pantheon of World Cinema has also distilled Italian cinema to neorealism and the “golden age” auteurs and so has obscured both the range and the particularity of Italian cinema.

Regulated protein synthesis is mediated by an intricate ensemble of protein-protein and -mRNA interactions, and is pivotal in allowing for flexible, rapid changes in gene expression in response to cellular conditions. Recognition of the mRNA 5′ m7GTP cap structure by a heterotrimeric factor, eIF4F, is cornerstone step in translation initiation for most eukaryotic mRNAs. The eIF4F complex includes the cap-binding protein, eIF4E, and a “scaffold” protein, eIF4G. Meanwhile, the mRNA 3′ poly(A) tail is bound by a poly(A)-binding protein (Pab1p in Saccharomyces cerevisae). Decades of research led to the proposition of the “closed-loop” model, where simultaneous interactions between eIF4F•mRNA and eIF4F•Pab1p circularize the mRNA, promoting enhanced mRNA stability and synergetic enhancement of translation. However, the kinetic scheme of how the closed-loop factors coordinate on full-length mRNA has not been directly validated experimentally. A barrier to progress in our knowledge of translation initiation is the inherent complexity and dynamism of translation initiation, as all these activities must be coordinated to recognize the mRNA and promote ribosome loading efficiently. Here we attempt to disseminate the interplay between mRNA identity – sequence and structure – and the kinetics of the closed-loop interactions on an initiation timescale. Mounting evidence proposes mRNA end-to-end distance is an intrinsic property of mRNA, and the universality of the closed loop model has come into light in recent years with the discovery that different mRNAs exhibit variable closed-loop dependence in vivo, and also appear to be selected for translation initiation with differential efficiencies. An emerging predictor of in vivo enrichment of circularization factors is coding sequence (CDS) length, which encompasses both nucleotide composition and secondary structures of mRNA. Thus, it’s important to understand the interplay between these elements and to the dynamics that modulate translation initiation efficiency. I hypothesize that mRNA-specific elements control dynamics that differentiate the efficiency of translation initiation for varying mRNAs. Single-molecule methods are well suited to address these fundamental gaps in our knowledge, as they allow for the direct tracking of labeled translation initiation factors as they bind and dissociate. We leverage a single-molecule fluorescence assay to study the dynamics of the closed-loop model, using reconstituted yeast eIF4E, eIF4G and Pab1p on full-length mRNAs. We applied this assay to address how factor-factor and mRNA-factor interactions modulate cap-binding kinetics on individual transcripts in real-time. Our aim was to establish a kinetic model for the closed-loop interactions, which elaborates on how factor-factor interactions modulate cap binding rates. These results will contribute to development of a mechanistic model for the closed-loop interactions in translation initiation, which can be applied to understand a fundamental element of cell biology – translation control in health and disease. 

The LA Urban Forest Equity Collective (UFEC) co-produced a new method of classifying urban space, the Planting Tiers Framework, which allows community members, planners, and decision makers to consider varying levels of tree planting difficulty based on the built environment. This framework accounts for the limitations imposed on canopy expansion in areas that have been highly developed, historically disinvested, and where a preponderance of impervious surfaces limits planting opportunities.

Articulating a common language and enacting a targeted, coordinated prioritization and action plan can facilitate progress toward urban forest equity in areas where physical constraints exist. The tiered model presented here emerged from a necessity for scalability, and it seeks to codify new terminology for measuring levels of investment, trade offs, and opportunities to reach meaningful solutions to the systemic problem of urban forestry inequity. The tiers reflect types of interventions and levels of investments needed to reach a more equitably distributed tree canopy, from individual streets to council districts and larger political jurisdictions throughout Los Angeles.

This guidebook was written by Krystle Yu, a graduate of the Masters in Urban Planning program through the University of California Los Angeles, with guidance from the greater UFEC team.