This article examines the way in which American rock and roll was translated into Italian culture. It argues that Italian versions of rock and roll were not just 'watered down' or 'domesticated' versions of the original. Rather, Italian rock emerged from a context that was different in musical, ethnic, political, linguistic and religious terms. By focussing on Adriano Celentano (the most prominent 'Italian Elvis' of the 1950s), it is shown that Italian rock singers evolved from mere imitation to cultural forms that were more related to the Italian environment. Musically, this meant a relationship with the domestic melodic tradition, jazz and American rock and roll rather than the blues. The rebellious attitude of early singers was a function of the hostility demonstrated towards them by political and religious authorities. Once this attitude was replaced by one of co-optation, opposition was replaced by modernizing integration. A figure like Celentano managed to be simultaneously defiant and conservative, pagan and religious, conformist and non-conformist. The resulting contradictions were concealed beneath a personal magnetism partly based on an established 'cool' style that appealed to the new categories thrown up by social and economic changes. Celentano's fame was confined to Italy not because he merely imitated American rock but because he developed an original synthesis that was specifically adapted to Italian tastes.

System and method for providing a telecommunication transmission from an originating device to a terminating device over a telecommunications network. In one embodiment a bit code may be received from the telecommunication network, such that the bit code is extracted from the telecommunication transmission from the originating device. A directory number associated with the originating source may be received and a predefined message may be determined based at least on the directory number and bit code. The predefined message may be displayed on the terminating device.

The present invention provides a test strip for measuring a concentration of an analyte of interest in a biological fluid, wherein the test strip may be encoded with information that can be read by a test meter into which the test strip is inserted.

A connector for establishing electrical connection between a testing device and a test strip with a biological fluid thereon includes a contact pad on the test strip, and one or more contact wires in the testing device. When the strip is inserted into the testing device, part of the strip's end engages a contact portion of a contact wire and deflects it in a direction normal to the direction of insertion. In certain embodiments the radius of curvature (in the direction of insertion) of the contact portion is controlled to reduce abrasion of the strip by the wire. In other embodiments the radius of curvature (perpendicular to the direction of insertion) is controlled to reduce the abrasion of the strip by the wire. Sometimes the contact portion and/or contact pad is plated with a sacrificial material to reduce the coefficient of friction. In other embodiments various numbers of contacts receive the end of the strip substantially simultaneously, or are staggered in rows to distribute the resistance presented.

A reflector for improving the signal of spectrophotometer, the reflector comprising a truncated cone having a reflective inner surface and a conical axis, the truncated cone open at a larger axial end thereof, open at a smaller axial end thereof, and having an opening in the cone surface. The reflector returns specularly scattered light back to the surface of a sample, and therefore enhances the amount of collected light.

A method to compensate for lamp spectrum shift, comprises exposing a first detector to a first light from a lamp, thereby generating a first signal indicative of intensity of said first light; exposing a second detector to a wavelength (.lambda.) of a second light from said lamp, thereby generating a second signal indicative of intensity of said wavelength of said second light, after said second light has interacted with a sample; determining a new color temperature (T.sub.1) of said first light using the following equation

A relocation tracking system (10) and method are provided. The relocation tracking system (10) includes a mass storage device for storing a relocation database (22) and a processor (40). Relocation database (22) includes a transferee table (44) and a shipping table (48). Relocation database (22) may include any of a variety of other tables such as an expense table (46), a shipping table (48), a home selling table (50), a home buying table (52), a tracking table (54), a non-relocation table (56), and a comment table (58). The processor (40) processes a relocation request that indicates the authorized benefits for each relocation. The processor (40) accesses and updates the transferee table (44) and the shipping table (48) of relocation database (22) in response to processing the relocation request.

An electronic device may communicate wirelessly with another electronic device. The electronic device may include a first processor configured to control only wireless communications with the another device but not operations associated only with the electronic device, a second processor configured to control the operations associated only with the electronic device but not the wireless communications with the another device, and a memory device connected between the first and second processors. The first and second processors may each be configured to exchange information with the memory device separately and independently of the exchange of information by the other of the first and second processors with the memory device.