The Nature and Function of Languages

Several studies in philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience have tried to define the nature and functions of language. Cybernetics and the mathematical theory of communication have clarified the role and functions of signals, symbols and codes involved in the transmission of information. Linguistics has defined the main characteristics of verbal communication by analyzing the main tasks and levels of language. Paleoanthropology has explored the relationship between cognitive development and the origin of language in Homo sapiens. According to Daniel Dor, language represents the most important technological invention of human beings. Seemingly, the main function of language consists of its ability to allow the sharing of the mind’s imaginative products. Following language’s invention, human beings have developed multiple languages and cultures, which, on the one hand, have favored socialization within communities and, on the other hand, have led to an increase in aggression between different human groups

Effects of Mindfulness Training on School Teachers\u2019 Self-Reported Personality Traits As Well As Stress and Burnout Levels

Among a sample of only female school teachers, we compared a mindfulness meditation (MM) training group (n = 19) with a waiting-list control group (n = 20) on several participant-completed questionnaires: the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, the Big Five Personality Inventory, the Teacher Stress Inventory, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. With these measures, we assessed the participants\u2019 dispositional mindfulness, personality styles, and their stress and burnout. Following mindfulness training, teachers in the MM group showed higher trait mindfulness and conscientiousness and lower neuroticism and stress and burnout levels than teachers in the waiting-list control group. These results support the beneficial role of MM in individuals\u2019 effective management of stressful conditions in the workplace

An Automatic Offset Correction Platform for High-Throughput Ion-Channel Electrophysiology

High-throughput ion channel screening for drug discovery is at the base of the recent shift of resources in the pharmaceutical industry towards addressing drug safety issues earlier in the discovery process. Very few examples of parallel ion-channel recording platforms are currently present in literature, due to the complexity of the setup. However, single-junction Ag/AgCl electrodes suffer of intrinsic voltage offsets, due to the electrode-buffer interface variability. This is very critical, since ion- channel recording requires high accuracy (pA resolution) within the full-scale (nA range), limiting the operability of the measurement, especially on a multi-channel approach. This paper presents an automatic offset correction system fully implemented on a lipid bilayer membrane platform. The platform allows offset-free recording of ion-channel signals acquired and displayed by means of a graphical user interface

THE IMPLANT TREATMENT OF TWO PATIENTS SUFFERING FROM SJÖGREN’S SYNDROME WITH MULTIFACTORIAL REGENERATIVE PROTOCOL

The purpose of the work is to show that it is possible to rehabilitate with Multifatorial Regenerative Protocol (MFRP) also the patients with diseases considered to be absolute contraindications to the implant rehabilitation. For the rehabilitation it has been used the PBR rehabilitation technique, that allows to insert prosthetic roots not excessively traumatizing the bone tissue and to avoid the use of high speed rotary burs. Despite the disease and the poor bone quality, it has been possible to obtain the osteo-connection only in 45 days. Using the MFRP implants, it is possible to rehabilitate with a high percentage of success also patients with poor bone quality and density

Mindfulness Through Storytelling for Mental Health of Primary School Children: Impact on Acceptability and Its Associations with Personality

Alessio Matiz,1,2 Franco Fabbro,3 Cristiano Crescentini1,3 1Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education and Society, University of Udine, Udine, Italy; 2Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 3Institute of Mechanical Intelligence, School of Advanced Studies Sant’Anna, Pisa, ItalyCorrespondence: Alessio Matiz, via Margreth, 3, Udine, 33100, Italy, Tel +39 0432 249893, Email [email protected]: Acceptability of mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) in primary school settings seems to represent a critical factor influencing the intervention effects on children’s mental health. This study aims at assessing the acceptability of an MBP delivered through the technique of storytelling, as well as identifying which participants’ personality characteristics can influence it.Participants and Methods: Italian children in grades 3-to-5 (n = 147, 47.6% girls) participated in a 24-session MBP, which included 225 minutes of formal mindfulness practices and was delivered by the pupils’ school teachers. Children’s personality traits were assessed with the junior Temperament and Character Inventory (jTCI), while their subjective experiences and acceptability of the program were investigated using a survey containing open-ended and closed-ended questions.Results: Program acceptability was 2.9 ± 0.7 on a 0– 4 scale. Higher jTCI scores of persistence, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence were related to higher ratings in liking the program, finding it useful and engaging themselves in it. Moreover, 57.8% of the children generalized the mindfulness practices in daily life and 93.9% of them declared they would recommend the program to their friends/parents. Five main themes emerged from children’s answers on what they learned: “help for difficulties (emotional, mental, and physical)”, “calm, relax, tranquility”, “resilience, positiveness, personal growth”, “self-exploration, interoception”, and “attention, concentration, and here-and-now”.Conclusion: Program acceptability was generally higher than in similar programs in the literature, and children reported personal gains in various areas related to psychological well-being. The study also suggests which children’s personality traits should be considered when proposing an MBP in order to improve its acceptability and utility.Keywords: mindfulness training, mental health, children, storytelling, thematic analysis, personalit

Non autosufficienza: analisi e proposte per un nuovo modello di tutela

L\u2019Unione europea ha recentemente ribadito, nell\u2019ambito dell\u2019iniziativa circa il Pilastro Europeo dei Diritti Sociali, l\u2019esigenza di rinnovamento dei sistemi di welfare per realizzare risposte efficaci a nuovi bisogni, a tal fine incoraggiando strategie di innovazione sociale. In Italia ci\uf2 \ue8 particolarmente vero con riferimento al problema della non autosufficienza: siamo uno dei Paesi pi\uf9 longevi al mondo, ma la qualit\ue0 della vita in termini di buona salute e/o limitazioni funzionali non \ue8 altrettanto confortante. La risposta sia pubblica che privata continua ad essere nettamente inadeguata sotto il profilo quali/quantitativo: frammentazione disorganizzata di interventi con conseguente rischio di inappropriatezza delle prestazioni, dispersione delle gi\ue0 scarse risorse e attribuzione alle famiglie dell\u2019onere organizzativo e in gran parte di quello economico dell\u2019assistenza. Lo studio intende definire i contorni di un possibile nuovo modello di copertura della non autosufficienza basato su una logica di welfare life-cycle che superi la rigida struttura a silos che caratterizza il vigente sistema di welfare, fornendo indicazioni circa la sua concreta fattibilit\ue0, in particolare individuando le diverse componenti del modello; possibili attori e relative relazioni; i costi e le relative coperture; i necessari interventi legislativi. L\u2019analisi sar\ue0 condotta nel rispetto dei seguenti principi: a) approccio multidimensionale integrato, che realizzi sinergie fra servizi sanitari e sociali, professionalit\ue0 diverse, diversi attori pubblici e privati, profit e non profit; b) approccio culturale focalizzato non sulla malattia ma sulla persona e il suo progetto di cura e di vita sotto il profilo clinico ma anche con riferimento al contesto familiare, economico, ambientale. Il fine \ue8 la definizione di percorsi diagnostico-terapeutici assistenziali (PDTA) personalizzati che coinvolgano attivamente non solo il paziente, ma anche i caregiver di riferimento. La sua realizzazione deve rispondere a criteri di flessibilit\ue0 e modularit\ue0, con focus sul differenziale fra intervento delineato dal PDTA e intervento pubblico, tenendo conto della diversa declinazione territoriale e delle diverse capacit\ue0 di spesa dei soggetti interessati; c) valorizzazione del momento collettivo e della bilateralit\ue0 quali elementi di contenimento di costi e ampliamento dei tradizionali perimetri di copertura

Positive impact of mindfulness meditation on mental health of female teachers during the COVID-19 outbreak in Italy

The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent public health measures were shown to impact negatively on people\u2019s mental health. In particular, women were reported to be at higher risk than men of developing symptoms of stress/anxiety/depression, and resilience was considered a key factor for positive mental health outcomes. In the present study, a sample of Italian female teachers (n = 66, age: 51.5 \ub1 7.9 years) was assessed with self-report instruments one month before and one month after the start of the Covid-19 lockdown: mindfulness skills, empathy, personality profiles, interoceptive awareness, psychological well-being, emotional distress and burnout levels were measured. Meanwhile, they received an 8-week Mindfulness-Oriented Meditation (MOM) course, through two group meetings and six individual video-lessons. Based on baseline personality profiles, analyses of variance were performed in a low-resilience (LR, n = 32) and a high-resilience (HR, n = 26) group. The LR and HR groups differed at baseline in most of the self-report measures. Pre\u2013post MOM significant improvements were found in both groups in anxiety, depression, affective empathy, emotional exhaustion, psychological well-being, interoceptive awareness, character traits and mindfulness levels. Improvements in depression and psychological well-being were higher in the LR vs. HR group. We conclude that mindfulness-based training can effectively mitigate the psychological negative consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak, helping in particular to restore well-being in the most vulnerable individuals

Binary Sequences for Online Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy of Battery Cells

Online diagnostic of lithium-ion battery (LIB) cells may have significant impact on chemical energy storage systems. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is widely used for the characterization of LIBs and could be the most appropriate technique for online diagnostic, but its response time should be shortened. This work investigates the usage of multisine excitation to shorten the measurement time and simplify the hardware implementation for EIS of battery cells. Two types of multisine binary sequences are considered: sigma-delta modulated multisine sequences (SDMSs) and maximum length binary sequences (MLBSs). Their applicability to online and in situ EIS monitoring is evaluated by designing a measurement architecture also suitable to be implemented in a system-on-chip. The calibrated measurement system is compared with a benchtop reference instrument, reporting an RMSE deviation smaller than 5% in the frequency range of interest 1-200 Hz. The realized system is then used for online monitoring of the discharge process of a commercial 18650 LIB cell. The two proposed sequences are compared in terms of accuracy using a digital battery emulator circuit. Both the sequences demonstrated to be suitable for fast measurement and simple hardware integration, enabling online in situ EIS monitoring at cell level

Clinical application of mindfulness-oriented meditation: A preliminary study in children with ADHD

Mindfulness-oriented meditation (MOM) is a self-regulatory training used for attentional and behavioral problems. With its focus on attention, MOM is a promising form of training that is gaining empirical support as a complementary or alternative intervention for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this study, we tested the preliminary efficacy of MOM training in children with ADHD, by comparing its efficacy with an active control condition (Emotion Education Program, EEP). Twenty-five children with ADHD aged 7\u201311 years participated in MOM training (n = 15) or EEP (n = 10) 3 times per week for 8 weeks. Neuropsychological and academic measures and behavioral, emotional, and mindfulness ratings were collected before and after the two programs. On average, MOM training had positive effects on neuropsychological measures, as evidenced by a significant mean improvement in all outcome measures after training. Moreover, positive effects on ADHD symptoms were found only in the MOM group. Although they are preliminary, our results documented that MOM training promotes changes in neuropsychological measures and in certain behavioral symptoms, suggesting it as a promising tool for ameliorating cognitive and clinical manifestations of ADHD