Semantic and inferencing abilities in children with communication disorders

Background: Semantic and inferencing abilities have not been fully examined in children with communication difficulties. Aims: To investigate the inferential and semantic abilities of children with communication difficulties using newly designed tasks. Methods & Procedures: Children with different types of communication disorder were compared with each other and with three groups of typically developing children: those of the same chronological age and two groups of younger children. In total, 25 children aged 11 years with specific language impairment and 22 children, also 11 years of age, with primary pragmatic difficulties were recruited. Typically developing groups aged 11 (n = 35; age‐match), and those aged 9 (n = 40) and 7 (n = 37; language similar) also participated as comparisons. Outcomes & Results: For Semantic Choices, children with specific language impairment performed significantly more poorly than 9‐ and 11‐year‐olds, whilst the pragmatic difficulties group scored significantly lower than all the typically developing groups. Borderline differences between specific language impairment and pragmatic difficulties groups were found. For inferencing, children with communication impairments performed significantly below the 11‐year‐old peers, but not poorer than 9‐ and 7‐year‐olds, suggesting that this skill is in line with language ability. Six children in the pragmatic difficulties group who met diagnosis for autism performed more poorly than the other two clinical groups on both tasks, but not statistically significantly so. Conclusions: Both tasks were more difficult for those with communication impairments compared with peers. Semantic but not inferencing abilities showed a non‐significant trend for differences between the two clinical groups and children with pragmatic difficulties performed more poorly than all typically developing groups. The tasks may relate to each other in varying ways according to type of communication difficulty

e-EVN monitoring of M87

M87 is a privileged laboratory for a detailed study of the properties of jets, owing to its proximity (D=16.7 Mpc, 1 mas = 0.080 pc), its massive black hole (~6.0 x 10^9M) and its conspicuous emission at radio wavelengths and above. We started on November 2009 a monitoring program with the e-EVN at 5 GHz, in correspondence of the season of Very High Energy (VHE) observations. Indeed, two episodes of VHE activity have been reported in February and April 2010. We present here the main results of these multi-epoch observations: the inner jet and HST-1 are both detected and resolved in our datasets. We study the apparent velocity of HST-1, which seems to be increasing since 2005, and the flux density variability in the inner jet. All in all, the radio counterpart to this year’s VHE event seems to be different from the ones in 2005 and 2008, opening new scenario for the radio-high energy connection

Endothelial cells, endoplasmic reticulum stress and oxysterols

Oxysterols are bioactive lipids that act as regulators of lipid metabolism, inflammation, cell viability and are involved in several diseases, including atherosclerosis. Mounting evidence linked the atherosclerosis to endothelium dysfunction; in fact, the endothelium regulates the vascular system with roles in processes such as hemostasis, cell cholesterol, hormone trafficking, signal transduction and inflammation. Several papers shed light the ability of oxysterols to induce apoptosis in different cell lines including endothelial cells. Apoptotic endothelial cell and endothelial denudation may constitute a critical step in the transition to plaque erosion and vessel thrombosis, so preventing the endothelial damaged has garnered considerable attention as a novel means of treating atherosclerosis. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the site where the proteins are synthetized and folded and is necessary for most cellular activity; perturbations of ER homeostasis leads to a condition known as endoplasmic reticulum stress. This condition evokes the unfolded protein response (UPR) an adaptive pathway that aims to restore ER homeostasis. Mounting evidence suggests that chronic activation of UPR leads to cell dysfunction and death and recently has been implicated in pathogenesis of endothelial dysfunction. Autophagy is an essential catabolic mechanism that delivers misfolded proteins and damaged organelles to the lysosome for degradation, maintaining basal levels of autophagic activity it is critical for cell survival. Several evidence suggests that persistent ER stress often results in stimulation of autophagic activities, likely as a compensatory mechanism to relieve ER stress and consequently cell death. In this review, we summarize evidence for the effect of oxysterols on endothelial cells, especially focusing on oxysterols-mediated induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress

Quantitative evaluation of emission properties and thermal hysteresis in the mid-infrared for a single thin film of vanadium dioxide on a silicon substrate

We present a comparative study of the emission properties of a vanadium dioxide thin film (approximately 200 nm) deposited on a silicon wafer in different sub-spectral-ranges of the mid-infrared, with particular attention to the windows of transparency of the atmosphere to the infrared radiation (i.e., 3–5 μm, 8–12 μm). The infrared emission properties of the structure are closely related to the well-known phase transition of the first order, from semiconductor to metal, of the vanadium dioxide around the temperature of 68 °C. The characterization of the emissivity in the sub-regions of the mid-infrared was carried out both in the front configuration, that is on the VO2 film side, and in the rear configuration on the silicon wafer side, and showed a strong difference in the hysteresis thermal bandwidth, in particular between the short wave region and the long wave region. The bandwidth is equal to 12 °C for the front and 15 °C for the rear. The emissivity behaviors as a function of temperature during the semiconductor-metal transition in the mid-infrared subregions were analyzed and explained using the theories of the effective medium of Maxwell Garnett and Bruggeman, highlighting the greater functionality of one theory with respect to the other depending on the spectral detection band

Emissivity characterization of different stainless steel textiles in the infrared range

We experimentally investigated the infrared properties of a set of steel textiles, prepared using different type of fabrics. Infrared emission of the textiles was characterized in the mid-infrared range, i.e. 8÷14 mm, by observing their temperature evolution under heating regime with a focal plane array (FPA) infrared camera. Standard test method for measuring and compensating emissivity using infrared imaging radiometers was applied to the set of metallic textiles. The obtained experimental results allowed to retrieve the infrared emissivity at different applied temperatures. Although their infrared emission show some differences depending on the specific fabric, all the investigated textiles composed of steel yarns appear to be suitable for thermal shielding applications. Finally, the measured data were interpreted by means of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) numerical simulations as well as using Plank's theory of black-body radiation

Longitudinal phase-space manipulation with beam-driven plasma wakefields

The development of compact accelerator facilities providing high-brightness beams is one of the most challenging tasks in field of next-generation compact and cost affordable particle accelerators, to be used in many fields for industrial, medical and research applications. The ability to shape the beam longitudinal phase-space, in particular, plays a key role to achieve high-peak brightness. Here we present a new approach that allows to tune the longitudinal phase-space of a high-brightness beam by means of a plasma wakefields. The electron beam passing through the plasma drives large wakefields that are used to manipulate the time-energy correlation of particles along the beam itself. We experimentally demonstrate that such solution is highly tunable by simply adjusting the density of the plasma and can be used to imprint or remove any correlation onto the beam. This is a fundamental requirement when dealing with largely time-energy correlated beams coming from future plasma accelerators

The SEEMP Approach to Semantic Interoperability for E-Employment

SEEMP is a European Project that promotes increased partnership between labour market actors and the development of closer relations between private and public employment services, making optimal use of the various actors’ specific characteristics, thus providing job-seekers and employers with better services. The need for a flexible collaboration gives rise to the issue of interoperability in both data exchange and share of services. SEEMP proposes a solution that relies on the concepts of services and semantics in order to provide a meaningful service-based communication among labour market actors requiring a minimal shared commitment