Il genere grammaticale e la sua acquisizione in FLE da parte degli studenti italofoni

La mia tesi di Dottorato si interessa di una questione spinosa sia dal punto di vista interlinguistico che intralinguistico strettamente connesso alla lingua francese: l’acquisizione del genere grammaticale dei nomi. Questo lavoro si pone come obiettivo l’osservazione dei processi di acquisizione del genere grammaticale in Francese L2 da parte dei locutori italofoni. Nello specifico, si intende osservare il livello di preminenza della categorizzazione su base semantica o morfo-fonologica. Si tratta di un’osservazione variegata sia per quanto riguarda il corpus degli apprendenti osservati (studenti di età e di livello di istruzione differente) sia per le modalità di osservazione. In riferimento a questo ultimo punto, infatti, si è voluta attenzionare l’evoluzione ontologica degli apprendenti a seguito di un intero anno accademico per gli studenti universitari e una disamina sulla base di una somministrazione singola negli Istituti Secondari di Secondo Grado. Sono stati coinvolti studenti di provenienza diversa: a livello accademico le Università interessate sono state l’Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore, l’Università degli studi di Milano e l’Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, per quanto concerne gli Istituti secondari di Secondo Grado il test è stato somministrato in due Licei romani e in uno in Francia (Longwy). Avendo qui coinvolto un Liceo frequentato da studenti di origine italiana, rientra negli obiettivi di osservazione la divergenza dei risultati in relazione al contesto di acquisizione/apprendimento. Il primo capitolo si presenta come una disamina del genere (natura, origine, evoluzione e peculiarità) ed affronta l’analisi del genere grammaticale in italiano, in francese e nelle lingue ad esso correlate, quali il retoromanzo, le lingue creole a base francese o l’italiano antico, tra diacronia e sincronia. Il secondo capitolo intende offrire una attenta indagine circa la linguistica acquisizionale e l’interlingua. Di quest’ultima si osservano i relativi fenomeni di transfer, l’importanza della prossimità tra L1 e L2 e le nuove prospettive di osservazione e interpretazione degli errori commessi in fase di acquisizione. Il terzo capitolo descrive la natura, il ruolo e le interferenze tra gli indizi semantici e morfo-fonologici nell’attribuzione del genere grammaticale in francese. Dopo aver osservato i dati relativi al grado di predicibilità delle terminaisons e la loro co-occorrenza con altri indizi che interferiscono con essi, si passa a descrivere il test elaborato e sottoposto ai locutori, oggetto di studio del quarto capitolo. La descrizione degli intenti di osservazione e la motivazione che ci ha condotto a strutturare il test così come è stato elaborato costituiscono l’oggetto di attenzione della fase finale del capitolo. Il quarto capitolo, invece, intende offrire una attenta considerazione dei criteri di elaborazione e della struttura psicometrica del lavoro, dell’organizzazione degli elaborati, dei suoi intenti di osservazione e destinatari, dei risultati ottenuti nella somministrazione dei test e della relativa e personale interpretazione che abbiamo voluto dare a essi. Il numero di partecipanti coinvolti sono stati 76 studenti universitari intervistati nel primo incontro e 67 nel secondo, mentre sono stati 47 i liceali coinvolti nell’attività

Knowledge, attitudes, and health status of childbearing age young women regarding preconception health - an Italian survey

Introduction Preconception health is a public health issue, concerning aspects that could have repercussions on pregnancy outcomes. Despite the importance, often there is a lack of knowledge, particularly among young women. The objective of this cross-sectional study is to evaluate knowledge, attitudes and health status of young women regarding preconception health in the Italian context. Methods From July 2020 until April 2021 a validated questionnaire (systematic review, Delphi procedure and pilot study) was administered to a sample of 340 women aged 18 to 25 years, attending secondary grade schools and universities. It collected information on knowledge, physical, sexual and mental health. T-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine a statistically significant difference in knowledge mean score (KMS) among different groups. Results KMS was 67.6% (SD=18.1). Participants with Italian nationality, enrolled in a health-field university, with a full-time job, an income higher than 35,000€/year and teachers or health providers as information source, had a significantly higher KMS. Only 15.9% of women who saw a gynaecologist in the last year (47.7%) asked about preconception health. Even if 56.5% knew that folic acid is effective in reducing the risk of neural tube defects, only 5.9% was taking it. 82.3% was living in stressing environment. Gender-based discrimination at work, school or family was felt by 25.1%, while 38.2% experienced at least one type of violence. Conclusions Promoting preconception health by improving knowledge, attitudes and behaviours may be an impactful possibility to reduce inequalities and improve women’s, children’s, and communities’ health

A Comprehensive assessment of preconception health needs and interventions regarding women in childbearing age: a systematic review

Background This systematic review summarizes the preconception health needs of women in childbearing age, necessary to be addressed to have an eventual safe and healthy pregnancy. Methods Web of Science, PubMed and Scopus were searched. We excluded studies involving women with reproductive system pathologies and referring to interconceptive or pregnancy period and non-empirical or only abstract studies. Two researchers independently performed the blind screening based on titles/abstracts and full-text and the quality assessment. Results Four major domains resulted from the thematical analysis: knowledge, behaviours and attitudes, health status and access to healthcare services. The most examined topics were knowledge and awareness on preconception health, folic acid assumption, tobacco and alcohol consumption, physical activity and healthy diet. Conclusions This review could assist healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses, midwives) in guiding tailored counselling to women to provide the adequate level of preconception care and act as a reference to policymakers

EEG-based cognitive control behaviour assessment: an ecological study with professional air traffic controllers

Several models defining different types of cognitive human behaviour are available. For this work, we have selected the Skill, Rule and Knowledge (SRK) model proposed by Rasmussen in 1983. This model is currently broadly used in safety critical domains, such as the aviation. Nowadays, there are no tools able to assess at which level of cognitive control the operator is dealing with the considered task, that is if he/she is performing the task as an automated routine (skill level), as procedures-based activity (rule level), or as a problem-solving process (knowledge level). Several studies tried to model the SRK behaviours from a Human Factor perspective. Despite such studies, there are no evidences in which such behaviours have been evaluated from a neurophysiological point of view, for example, by considering brain activity variations across the different SRK levels. Therefore, the proposed study aimed to investigate the use of neurophysiological signals to assess the cognitive control behaviours accordingly to the SRK taxonomy. The results of the study, performed on 37 professional Air Traffic Controllers, demonstrated that specific brain features could characterize and discriminate the different SRK levels, therefore enabling an objective assessment of the degree of cognitive control behaviours in realistic setting

Neurophysiological Responses to Different Product Experiences

It is well known that the evaluation of a product from the shelf considers the simultaneous cerebral and emotional evaluation of the different qualities of the product such as its colour, the eventual images shown, and the envelope’s texture (hereafter all included in the term “product experience”). However, the measurement of cerebral and emotional reactions during the interaction with food products has not been investigated in depth in specialized literature. (e aim of this paper was to investigate such reactions by the EEG and the autonomic activities, as elicited by the cross-sensory interaction (sight and touch) across several different products. In addition, we investigated whether (i) the brand (Major Brand or Private Label), (ii) the familiarity (Foreign or Local Brand), and (iii) the hedonic value of products (Comfort Food or Daily Food) influenced the reaction of a group of volunteers during their interaction with the products. Results showed statistically significantly higher tendency of cerebral approach (as indexed by EEG frontal alpha asymmetry) in response to comfort food during the visual exploration and the visual and tactile exploration phases. Furthermore, for the same index, a higher tendency of approach has been found toward foreign food products in comparison with local food products during the visual and tactile exploration phase. Finally, the same comparison performed on a different index (EEG frontal theta) showed higher mental effort during the interaction with foreign products during the visual exploration and the visual and tactile exploration phases. Results from the present study could deepen the knowledge on the neurophysiological response to food products characterized by different nature in terms of hedonic value familiarity; moreover, they could have implications for food marketers and finally lead to further study on how people make food choices through the interactions with their commercial envelope

Reaction studies with low-energy weakly-bound beams at INFN-LNS

The reaction dynamics of collisions involving halo or weakly bound nuclei, at energies around the Coulomb barrier, can be strongly affected by the structure of such nuclei. Very strong entrance channel effects have been observed on various reaction pocess such as, elastic scattering, fusion and direct reactions when comparing collision induced by the 6He and 11Be halo nuclei with the ones induced by their cores 4He and 10Be. Collisions induced by the stable weakly bound nuclei 6Li, 7Li show also some peculiarities in comparison to the ones induced by well bound nuclei; coupling with the break-up channel is in fact very important in reproducing low energy data. In this contribution an overview of our present understanding of the discussed topic will be given along with the discussion of some new preliminary results

Therapeutic potential of TRPM8 antagonists in prostate cancer.

Transient receptor potential melastatin-8 (TRPM8) represents an emerging target in prostate cancer, although its mechanism of action remains unclear. Here, we have characterized and investigated the effects of TRPM8 modulators in prostate cancer aggressiveness disclosing the molecular mechanism underlying their biological activity. Patch-clamp and calcium fluorometric assays were used to characterize the synthesized compounds. Androgen-stimulated prostate cancer-derived cells were challenged with the compounds and the DNA synthesis was investigated in a preliminary screening. The most effective compounds were then employed to inhibit the pro-metastatic behavior of in various PC-derived cells, at different degree of malignancy. The effect of the compounds was then assayed in prostate cancer cell-derived 3D model and the molecular targets of selected compounds were lastly identified using transcriptional and non-transcriptional reporter assays. TRPM8 antagonists inhibit the androgen-dependent prostate cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasiveness. They are highly effective in reverting the androgen-induced increase in prostate cancer cell spheroid size. The compounds also revert the proliferation of castrate-resistant prostate cancer cells, provided they express the androgen receptor. In contrast, no effects were recorded in prostate cancer cells devoid of the receptor. Selected antagonists interfere in non-genomic androgen action and abolish the androgen-induced androgen receptor/TRPM8 complex assembly as well as the increase in intracellular calcium levels in prostate cancer cells. Our results shed light in the processes controlling prostate cancer progression and make the transient receptor potential melastatin-8 as a ‘druggable’ target in the androgen receptor-expressing prostate cancers

Effects of coupling to breakup channels in reactions induced by weakly bound and halo nuclei

12th International Conference on Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions 2015The experimental elastic scattering angular distributions of the collisions involving the weakly bound nuclei 6,7Li and the halo nucleus 6He on the same 64Zn target at several energies around the Coulomb barrier were measured at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS, Italy), and the Cyclotron Research Center, Louvain La Neuve (Belgium), respectively. The experimental elastic scattering angular distributions of the 6,7Li + 64Zn systems have been analyzed within the continuumdiscretized coupled-channels method, while the 6He + 64Zn data have been compared with both continuum-discretized coupled-channels and coupled-reaction-channels calculation

Comparison of the effects of couplings to breakup channels in reactions induced by 6Li and 6He on the same 64Zn target

The experimental elastic scattering angular distributions for the weakly bound nuclei 6,7Li and for the halo nucleus 6He on the same 64Zn target at several energies around the Coulomb barrier were measured at the Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS, Italy) and at the Cyclotron Research Center, Louvain La Neuve (Belgium), respectively. The measured elastic scattering angular distributions of these three systems at the same center of mass energy have been compared. The experimental data of the 6,7Li+ 64Zn systems have been analyzed within the CDCC method, while the 6He+64Zn data have been compared with both both CDCC and CRC calculations

N-4 Alkyl Cytosine Derivatives Synthesis: A New Approach

The selective N-4 alkylation of cytosine plays a critical role in the synthesis of biologically active molecules. This work focuses on the development of practical reaction conditions toward a regioselective synthesis of N-4-alkyl cytosine derivatives. The sequence includes a direct and selective sulfonylation at the N-1 site of the cytosine, followed by the alkylation of the amino siteusing KHMDS in CH2Cl2/THF mixture, providing a fast and efficient approach consistent withpyrimidine-based drug design