MASHING GENRES UP, BREAKING THEM DOWN: LITERACY IN THE AGE OF COPY-AND-PASTE

O trabalho investiga as práticas de construir significados resultantes da ação de copiar e colar. Quando a representação é produzida através da remixagem, a coesão não é mais um dispositivo necessário para a coerência, enquanto os textos são caracterizados pela combinação modular de temas, vozes, modos e gêneros, juntamente com a intertextualidade aumentada, implicitude e as multicamadas de significados. Textos compostos modularmente são cada vez mais frequentes em todos os contextos, modos e gêneros, enquanto os que são estruturados linearmente parecem essencialmente confinados a alguns gêneros escritos acadêmicos e educacionais. Discutimos exemplos de produções de escrita acadêmica dos alunos que revelam a influência das práticas semióticas baseadas em remixagem. As conclusões deste trabalho oferecem insights sobre as implicações para o ensino / aprendizagem de gêneros escritos

A social semiotic multimodal analysis framework for website interactivity

The paper presents a social semiotic multimodal framework for the analysis of website interactivity. Distinguishing it from interaction, the work defines interactivity as the affordance of a text of being acted (up)on. It is actualized digitally in interactive sites/signs (hyperlinks included), having a two-fold nature, as places enabling actions producing effects and as forms endowed with meanings. They have also a two-dimensional functioning, syntagmatically on the page where they are displayed, and paradigmatically, opening to multiple text realizations based on choice. The framework adapts Halliday's (1978) Ideational, Interpersonal and Textual metafunctions to the analysis of the two-fold nature and two-dimensional functioning of interactive sites/signs. As exemplified in the analysis of a sample of blogs, the framework is designed to account for the interactive meaning potentials of a digital text, both in its aesthetics and structure, and is intended to complement the extant practices of text analysis of webpages

Video-Interaction on YouTube: contemporary changes in semiosis and communication

La tesi ha per oggetto la \u2018video-interazione\u2019, ossia una nuova forma di comunicazione che ha luogo sul sito YouTube grazie all\u2019introduzione \u2013 nel maggio 2006 \u2013 dell\u2019opzione di \u2018video risposta\u2019, tramite la quale un video pu\uf2 fungere da risposta ad un altro video. Questa funzionalit\ue0 consente agli interagenti di costruire scambi comunicativi attraverso dei video. Il suo impiego genera intere catene comunicative, costituite appunto da video che rispondono l\u2019un l\u2019altro. In considerazione dell\u2019assenza di studi su questo nuovo tipo di comunicazione, la ricerca mira a fornire una descrizione accurata della video-interazione, sia in termini di processi che di prodotti. Nello specifico, l\u2019analisi del processo si focalizza su (a) i tratti distintivi e le caratteristiche strutturali della video-interazione in quanto forma di comunicazione, (b) le \u2018affordances\u2019 semiotiche (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001: 67), in termini di ci\uf2 che il mezzo consente o impedisce (e promuove o stigmatizza) sia a livello materiale (tecnologico) che di convenzioni sociali, e (c) le pratiche semiotiche diversificate (e spesso conflittuali) secondo cui le affordances vengono attualizzate dagli interagenti. D\u2019altra parte, l\u2019analisi dei testi della video-interazione s\u2019incentra su video-threads (filoni d\u2019interazione video), che prendono avvio dai video che hanno ricevuto il maggior numero di video risposte e esamina i patterns multimodali \u2013 in termini di regolarit\ue0 e di variazione \u2013 dei processi di segnificazione nella catena della semiosi, cio\ue8 le modalit\ue0 con cui le video risposte si relazionano al video iniziale e tra loro nel filone. Il capitolo teorico rivisita alcune delle pi\uf9 influenti teorie di comunicazione, quali i modelli comunicativi di codifica-decodifica (Shannon and Weaver, 1949) e quelli inferenziali (Grice, 1957, 1975; Sperber and Wilson, 1986), insieme alle nozioni di coerenza e coesione tradizionalmente utilizzate nell\u2019analisi testuale (Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981; Fairclough, 1992; Halliday and Hasan, 1976; van Dijk, 1985). Mediante un confronto con le pratiche semiotiche in uso nella video-interazione, il capitolo evidenzia le inadeguatezze di tali teorie per la descrizione della video-interazione, essenzialmente in ragione del fatto che, in quest\u2019ultima, la reciproca comprensione del significato intenzionale degli interagenti non \ue8 essenziale perch\ue9 scambi comunicativi di successo abbiano luogo. In considerazione di ci\uf2, viene presentato il quadro di riferimento adottato per l\u2019analisi, ovvero l\u2019analisi multimodale socio-semiotica (Hodge and Kress, 1988; Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2006; Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001). All\u2019interno di tale quadro e sulla base della nozione socio-semiotica di \u2018interesse\u2019 (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2006: 13), lo studio introduce l\u2019euristico di \u2018relazione di prompt-response\u2019 dettata dall\u2019interesse del sign-maker (segnificatore). Tale euristico, derivato dall\u2019osservazione stessa delle pratiche di segnificazione nei filoni d\u2019interazione video, viene adottato come strumento analitico e descrittivo sia del processo che dei testi della video-interazione. Il capitolo metodologico discute delle problematiche della raccolta di dati online, in termini di rappresentativit\ue0 del corpus e di significativit\ue0, riproducibilit\ue0 e verificabilit\ue0 dei risultati, e illustra il criterio di popolarit\ue0 che \u2013 per ovviare a tali problematiche \u2013 ha guidato la selezione dei dati. Una riesamina dei metodi di trascrizione esistenti ne evidenzia l\u2019inutilizzabilit\ue0 per gli scopi del presente lavoro e motiva la trascrizione ad hoc formulata per i testi del corpus. Successivamente il capitolo illustra la metodologia d\u2019analisi, che ha coinvolto in maniera ciclica ogni stadio della ricerca, dalla selezione dei dati, alla loro trascrizione, allo studio pilota e alla conseguente messa a punto del quadro teorico di riferimento e degli strumenti analitici. L\u2019analisi segue un processo ad \u2018imbuto\u2019, che, dall\u2019identificazione di regolarit\ue0 e \u2018eccezioni\u2019 ai livelli pi\uf9 generali, si focalizza su livelli d\u2019analisi sempre pi\uf9 dettagliati. L\u2019analisi integra metodi di tipo quantitativo e qualitativo con l\u2019interpretazione testuale incentrata sui significanti (sulle risorse semiotiche presenti nei testi piuttosto che sui significati). Il capitolo discute, infine, la posizione etica alla base della scelta di una metodologia di osservazione nascosta delle pratiche in atto sul sito, senza la previa richiesta di consenso ai partecipanti. Tale scelta \ue8 motivata dall\u2019esplicito status pubblico del sito (e dal criterio di popolarit\ue0 che ha guidato la selezione dei dati) e dalla volont\ue0 di evitare atteggiamenti paternalistici nei confronti degli autori dei video, considerati qui come veri e propri film-makers. Tale presa di posizione apporta nuovi contributi all\u2019acceso dibattito attualmente in corso sull\u2019etica della ricerca online.This thesis investigates the interaction by means of videos on YouTube Website. Video-interaction is a new form of communication which has been taking place on YouTube since May 2006 thanks to the introduction of the \u2018video response\u2019 option. The functionality enables (You)Tubers to reply to any given video by means of another video; hence whole communication threads are built composed of videos interacting one with another. Given that so far no study has investigated this new type of communication, the general aim of the research is to provide a thorough description of video-interaction, in terms of both its process and products. Specifically, the analysis of the process of video-interaction focuses on (a) its distinctive features and structural characteristics, (b) its semiotic \u2018affordances\u2019 (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001: 67), in terms of the material and social constraints and possibilities which the medium imposes over the semiosis, and (c) the diversified (and often conflicting) semiotic practices with which the affordances are actualized by the interactants. The analysis of the texts of video-interaction focuses on video-threads which start from some of the most responded videos on the Website and investigates the multimodal patterns of regularities and variations of sign-making in the chain of semiosis, that is to say, how videos establish relatedness in the thread while differentiating themselves. The theoretical chapter reviews some of the most influential theories of communication, namely the coding-decoding and inferential models of communication (Grice, 1957, 1975; Shannon and Weaver, 1949; Sperber and Wilson, 1986), together with the notions of coherence and cohesion traditionally used in text analysis (Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981; Fairclough, 1992; Halliday and Hasan, 1976; van Dijk, 1985). Furthermore, it confronts these models and notions with the practices of video-interaction; finally, it discusses the inadequacies of these theories for the description of video-interaction, crucially because, in video-interaction, the interlocutors\u2019 mutual understanding of their intended meaning is not essential for communication to succeed. On these grounds the framework adopted for the analysis is introduced, i.e., social semiotics multimodal analysis (Hodge and Kress, 1988; Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2006; Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001). Within this framework and on the basis of the social-semiotic category of \u2018interest\u2019 (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2006: 13), the heuristic notion of an \u2018interest-driven prompt-response relation\u2019 is devised as an analytic tool used for the description of both the process and the texts of video-interaction. The methodological chapter discusses the issues of representativeness, significance, reproducibility and verifiability implied in collecting a corpus of online data. It illustrates the criterion of popularity which has driven the selection of the data in order to overcome the aforesaid hardly solvable issues. A review of the current practices of transcription highlights their inaptness for the purposes of the present research and motivates the ad hoc transcription devised for the threads. Then the chapter illustrates the analytical methodology, which, in a cyclic process, has involved all stages of the research, from the selection of the data and their transcription, to the pilot study and up to the consequent refinement of the theoretical framework and of its analytic tools. The analysis follows a funnel process; indeed, from the regularities and variations detected at more general levels, it zooms in to more fine-grained levels of analysis. The analysis combines quantitative and qualitative methods with a textual interpretation focused on signifiers (on the semiotic resources present in the texts, rather than on their signifieds). Finally, the chapter discusses the ethical stance which has grounded the choice of conducting a covert observation on the Website, with no prior consent asked to the participants. This choice is motivated by the manifest publicity of the Website (and by the criterion of popularity driving the data selection) and by the intention of avoiding any patronizing attitude towards the authors of the videos, considered here as film-makers. This standpoint adds to the debate currently ongoing on online research ethics

Retwitting, Reposting, Repinning; Reshaping Identities Online: Towards a Social Semiotic Multimodal Analysis of Digital Remediation

The paper focuses on crossposting, as a form of digital remediation consisting in the production and distribution of multimodal texts in multiple online spaces through embedding and sharing. The study sketches the analytical steps to approach the phenomenon, applying them on a UK food blogger’s activity spanning her blog, her Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts. In the instance examined, recontextualized texts are re-genred; genre assignment is given by the combination of the multimodal configuration in each space and the blogger’s use of these affordances to her aims. Through minimum new text creation, by recontextualizing her texts in different spaces, the blogger can shape differently her relation with the audience. The analytical framework is intended as a flexible tool that, adjusted as appropriate, can be used for a broader in-depth analysis of crossposting

Performance of alere determine HIV-1/2 Ag/Ab combo rapid test for acute HIV infection: A case report | Performance del test rapido Alere Determine HIV-1/2 Ag/Ab Combo nell?infezione acuta da HIV: Un caso clinic

We describe a case of symptomatic acute HIV infection in a young man where a fourth-generation rapid screening test combining HIV-specific antibody and p24 antigen was negative. In highly suspicious cases of acute HIV infection, plasma HIV RNA assays together with conventional, non-rapid screening tests should be used

Outcomes of three years of teamwork on critical limb ischemia in patients with diabetes and foot lesions

To evaluate the outcomes of a multidisciplinary team working on diabetic foot (DF) patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI) in a specialized center, the authors retrospectively traced all the patients admitted in their department in 3 consecutive years with a diagnosis of CLI. From January 2006 to December 2008, 245 consecutive DF patients with CLI according the TransAtlantic interSociety Consensus II criteria were included in the study. Treatment strategy was decided by a team of diabetologists, inteventional radiologists, and vascular surgeons. Technical and clinical success, mortality, and ulcer recurrence were evaluated at 6 months and at a mean follow-up of 19.5 +/- 13.4 months. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) was performed in 189 (77%) patients, whereas medical treatment, open surgical revascularization (OSR), and primary amputation were performed in 44 (18.3%), 11 (4.3%), and 1 (0.5%) patients, respectively. Revascularization was successful in 227/233 (97.4%) patients. At follow-up, the overall clinical success rate was 60.4%; it was significantly (P = .001) higher after revascularization (75.9%) compared with medical treatment (48.3%). During follow-up, surgical interventions in the foot were 1.5 +/- 0.4 in those treated with PTA, 1.6 +/- 0.5 in those treated with OSR, and 0.3 +/- 0.8 in those receiving medical therapy (P < .05 compared with the others). Ulcer recurrence occurred in 29 (11.8%) patients: 4 (1.6%) in PTA, 2 (0.8%) in OSR, and 23 (9.4%) in the medical therapy group (P < .05). Major amputation rate was 9.3%, being significantly (P = .04) lower after revascularization (5.2%) compared with medical therapy alone (13.8%). Cumulative mortality rate was 10.6%. In conclusion, this study confirms the positive role of a PTA-first approach for revascularizing the complex cases of DF with CLI in a teamwork management strategy

Development of methodologies for researching online: the case of food blogs

The expanding reach of the Internet has opened new sites for conducting social science research. More recently, attention has been given to weblogs – or blogs, as they are more commonly known – as a generative data resource. Blogs are a contemporary digital authoring platform widely kept and read across different social and cultural groups for a range of different purposes. They have become a significant aspect of online engagements; their widespread adoption has been attributed to user-friendly template designs in free access blogging platforms. In this paper, we explicate on our combined multimodal social semiotic, ethnographic and narrative methods to provide a more encompassing approach: one that is able to attend to the unique, online material, which might not be wholly illuminated by any one of the three methodologies used independently. This involves coming to terms with the different epistemological perspectives that guide and shape the cross-disciplinary collaboration. We explain the framework we developed and the research processes, including data sampling, collection, archival and analysis; provide an overview of key findings from the substantive focus of this project; discuss the overall possibilities and constraints of working with combined perspectives; as well as offer suggestions for future online research in blogging platforms

Development of methodologies for researching online: the case of food blogs

The expanding reach of the Internet has opened new sites for conducting social science research. The prominence of blogs in combination with their varied areas of focus makes them a rich source of qualitative ‘user-generated data’. However, there are significant practical challenges in empirical research on digital material online. Central among these are ethical, archival and methodological issues. We highlight these in the development of our cross-disciplinary approach. We combine multimodal social semiotic, ethnographic and narrative methods to examine blogs, in our case here, food blogs, created on Wordpress platforms. ‘Food blogs’ are a prospective source of information about parenting, feeding and caring for children, given blogs’ wide use among parents, particularly mothers, in the UK. This relatively new digital environment of the blog, in which often quite intimate portraits of family life are materialized through public ‘multimodal narratives’ of mothers, provides the context for our online research. In this paper, we explicate on our combined multimodal social semiotic, ethnographic and narrative methods to provide a more encompassing approach: one that is able to attend to the unique, online material, which might not be wholly illuminated by any one of the three methodologies used independently. This involves coming to terms with the different epistemological perspectives that guide and shape the cross-disciplinary collaboration. We explain the framework we developed and the research processes, including data sampling, collection, archival and analysis; provide an overview of key findings from the substantive focus of this project; discuss the overall possibilities and constraints of working with combined perspectives; as well as offer suggestions for future online research in blogging platforms

The Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit: a consolidated design for the system requirement review of the preliminary definition phase

The Athena X-ray Integral Unit (X-IFU) is the high resolution X-ray spectrometer, studied since 2015 for flying in the mid-30s on the Athena space X-ray Observatory, a versatile observatory designed to address the Hot and Energetic Universe science theme, selected in November 2013 by the Survey Science Committee. Based on a large format array of Transition Edge Sensors (TES), it aims to provide spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy, with a spectral resolution of 2.5 eV (up to 7 keV) over an hexagonal field of view of 5 arc minutes (equivalent diameter). The X-IFU entered its System Requirement Review (SRR) in June 2022, at about the same time when ESA called for an overall X-IFU redesign (including the X-IFU cryostat and the cooling chain), due to an unanticipated cost overrun of Athena. In this paper, after illustrating the breakthrough capabilities of the X-IFU, we describe the instrument as presented at its SRR, browsing through all the subsystems and associated requirements. We then show the instrument budgets, with a particular emphasis on the anticipated budgets of some of its key performance parameters. Finally we briefly discuss on the ongoing key technology demonstration activities, the calibration and the activities foreseen in the X-IFU Instrument Science Center, and touch on communication and outreach activities, the consortium organisation, and finally on the life cycle assessment of X-IFU aiming at minimising the environmental footprint, associated with the development of the instrument. Thanks to the studies conducted so far on X-IFU, it is expected that along the design-to-cost exercise requested by ESA, the X-IFU will maintain flagship capabilities in spatially resolved high resolution X-ray spectroscopy, enabling most of the original X-IFU related scientific objectives of the Athena mission to be retained. (abridged).Comment: 48 pages, 29 figures, Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy with minor editin

The Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit: a consolidated design for the system requirement review of the preliminary definition phase

The Athena X-ray Integral Unit (X-IFU) is the high resolution X-ray spectrometer studied since 2015 for flying in the mid-30s on the Athena space X-ray Observatory. Athena is a versatile observatory designed to address the Hot and Energetic Universe science theme, as selected in November 2013 by the Survey Science Committee. Based on a large format array of Transition Edge Sensors (TES), X-IFU aims to provide spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy, with a spectral resolution of 2.5 eV (up to 7 keV) over a hexagonal field of view of 5 arc minutes (equivalent diameter). The X-IFU entered its System Requirement Review (SRR) in June 2022, at about the same time when ESA called for an overall X-IFU redesign (including the X-IFU cryostat and the cooling chain), due to an unanticipated cost overrun of Athena. In this paper, after illustrating the breakthrough capabilities of the X-IFU, we describe the instrument as presented at its SRR (i.e. in the course of its preliminary definition phase, so-called B1), browsing through all the subsystems and associated requirements. We then show the instrument budgets, with a particular emphasis on the anticipated budgets of some of its key performance parameters, such as the instrument efficiency, spectral resolution, energy scale knowledge, count rate capability, non X-ray background and target of opportunity efficiency. Finally, we briefly discuss the ongoing key technology demonstration activities, the calibration and the activities foreseen in the X-IFU Instrument Science Center, touch on communication and outreach activities, the consortium organisation and the life cycle assessment of X-IFU aiming at minimising the environmental footprint, associated with the development of the instrument. Thanks to the studies conducted so far on X-IFU, it is expected that along the design-to-cost exercise requested by ESA, the X-IFU will maintain flagship capabilities in spatially resolved high resolution X-ray spectroscopy, enabling most of the original X-IFU related scientific objectives of the Athena mission to be retained. The X-IFU will be provided by an international consortium led by France, The Netherlands and Italy, with ESA member state contributions from Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, with additional contributions from the United States and Japan.The French contribution to X-IFU is funded by CNES, CNRS and CEA. This work has been also supported by ASI (Italian Space Agency) through the Contract 2019-27-HH.0, and by the ESA (European Space Agency) Core Technology Program (CTP) Contract No. 4000114932/15/NL/BW and the AREMBES - ESA CTP No.4000116655/16/NL/BW. This publication is part of grant RTI2018-096686-B-C21 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe”. This publication is part of grant RTI2018-096686-B-C21 and PID2020-115325GB-C31 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033