Interpretare per i minorenni: osservazioni su un'esperienza con alunni della scuola secondaria di primo grado

This dissertation focuses on the peculiarities of interpreting for children described in the literature and on the need for a specific training for interpreters and other professionals who work in this field, emphasizing the importance of collaboration among experts in the best interest of the child. The study describes four interpreter-mediated interviews with children aged 11 and 12. Each interview involves an Italian-speaking child, a professional interpreter and a German interviewer who tries to gather information about the events featuring in a video showing a mugging and watched by the four children before the interview. The interpreter’s strategies and approach were explored, together with children’s participation to the interaction. The analysis shows that the interpreter, who was not used to working with children, was able to manage the turn-taking system and to give coherence and cohesion to fragmented and incoherent turns uttered by the children. In terms of information transfer, the four interviews had a positive outcome since the interviewer got a report which was similar to the actual events shown in the video. From an interactional point of view, though, many of the rapport-building strategies used by the interviewer (repetition of the child’s name, backchannels, greetings and expressions of gratitude) were not reproduced by the interpreter in his translation. The analysis of these four interpreter-mediated interviews with children highlights that specific training to work with children would be beneficial to all participants in the interaction. In particular the interpreter should be made aware of the pragmatic and interactional consequences of her/his interpreting decisions and should be encouraged to cooperate with the person who conducts the interview so that the best interest of the child is pursued. Since our sample is relatively small and homogeneous, our findings should be further explored and expanded using more extensive and diverse data

The possible prognostic role of histone deacetylase and transforming growth factor β/Smad signaling in high grade gliomas treated by radio-chemotherapy: a preliminary immunohistochemical study

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive tumor of the central nervous system. Unfortunately, patients affected by this disease have a very poor prognosis, due to high level of invasiveness and resistance to standard therapies. Although the molecular profile of GBM has been extensively investigated, the events responsible for its pathogenesis and progression remain largely unknown. Histone Deacetylases (HDAC) dependent epigenetic modifications and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β/Smad pathway seem to play an important role in GBM tumorigenesis, resistance to common therapies and poor clinical outcome. The aim of this study was to evaluate the involvement and the possible interaction between these two molecular cascades in the pathogenesis and prognosis of GBM. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed on microdissected GBM samples, collected from 14 patients (6 men and 8 women) ranging in age from 43 to 74 years. The patients were previously divided, on the basis of their overall survival (OS), into two groups: short and long OS. Patients with poor prognosis showed hyperexpression of HDAC4 and HDAC6, an activation of the TGF-β/Smad pathway, with high levels of IL-13, Smad2, PDGF and MMP3 expression, compared to the long survivors. The short OS group exhibits a decrease in Smad 7 expression and also low levels of p21 immunostaining, which represents a common target of the two pathways. The IHC data was confirmed by quantitative analysis and Immunoblotting. Our preliminary results suggest that both HDAC4 and HDAC6 together with the TGF-β/Smad pathway may be involved in progression of GBM and this cross talking could be a useful prognostic marker in this deadly disease

HDACs expression in glioblastoma: an immunohistochemical study

Glioblastoma is the most common and lethal primary malignant brain tumor. Although standard treatments have been improving, the clinical outcome remains unacceptably poor. Several genetic alterations are supposed to be involved in the eti- ology of different grades of astrocytoma, including epimutations. Histone deacety- lases (HDACs) are involved in the post-translational modification on the lysines of histone tails. For this reason HDACs are recognized as promising targets for cancer treatment (1). In the past several years, HDAC inhibitors (HDACis) have been used as radiosensitizers in glioblastoma treatment. However, no study has demonstrated the status of global HDAC expression in gliomas and its possible correlation to the use of HDACis (2). Aim of our study was to evaluate with an immunohistochemi- cal and immunoblotting analyses the expression of different classes of HDACs (Class I: HDAC 1-2-3-8; class II: HDAC 4-6) in microdissected glioblastoma. Tumor sam- ples were taken from 14 patients (n.8 men and n.6 women) ranging in age from 43 to 74 years. HDAC1 and HDAC3 expression was not significantly different between the two proteins and was predominantely located at cytoplasmic level of cancer cells with different intensity of immureaction from mild to moderate whereas HDAC2 staining was localized to the nucleous of neoplastic cells. The pattern of HDAC4 immureactivity was always cytoplasmatic and showed a marked and diffuse increase of immunostaining in neoplastic areas. HDAC8 was always absent in cancer cells and the only positivity was located in the endothelial cells of the vessels. HDAC6 was often absent and, if present, showed a very low cytoplasmic immunopositivity in cancer cells. HDAC1, HDAC2 and HDAC3 levels were not significantly different in immunoblotting results; HDAC4 showed a marked increase while HDAC6 and HDAC8 expression was poor, confirming the IHC data. These previous results dem- onstrate a different pattern of HDAC expression and could suggest a more addressed therapeutical use of HDACis in glioblastoma.

DDS-induced colorectal fibrosis in mice: anti-fibrotic effects of GED 0507-34 levo, a novel PPARγ ligand

Intestinal fibrosis is a progressive process characterized by de novo synthesis and uncontrolled deposition of extracellular matrix components (ECM) following a tissue chronic inflammation mainly regulated by Transforming Growth Factor (TGF)β/ Smads pathway. Frequently associated to Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), intestinal fibrosis may lead to stenosis and obstructions that require surgery up to 75% of patients as drugs currently used in IBD are unable to improve fibrostenosis lesions (1). Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-γ is able to antagonize (TGF) β/Smads and could be an crucial target to develop novel antifibrotic therapeutic strategies (2). Aim of this study is to evaluate the antifibrotic action of a novel PPARγ agonist, GED 0507-34 levo, in colonic fibrosis in mice. Immunohistochemistry and immunoblotting evaluations, TGFβ1, CTGF, Collagen types I-III, Smad3, α-SMA, were performed in in three groups of C57BL/6 mice: Dextran Sulphate Sodium (DSS) colitis group, DSS+GED group and controls. Evident macroscopic and microscopic lesions in the most of colons of DSS treated mice were observed compared to DSS+GED mice and controls. The tissue levels of the main markers of fibrosis resulted significantly increased in DSS mice and restored by administration of GED. GED seems to prevents ECM colonic deposition and to improve the intestinal fibrotic lesions by its ability in controlling TGFβ/Smads pathway signalling activation

Microbiota and myopericarditis: The new frontier in the cardiological field to prevent or treat inflammatory cardiomyopathies in covid‐19 outbreak

Myopericarditis is an inflammatory heart condition involving the pericardium and myocardium. It can lead to heart failure, dilated cardiomyopathy, arrhythmia and sudden death. Its pathogenesis is mainly mediated by viral infections but also can be induced by bacterial infections, toxic substances and immune mediated disorders. All these conditions can produce severe inflammation and myocardial injury, often associated with a poor prognosis. The specific roles of these different pathogens (in particular viruses), the interaction with the host, the interplay with gut microbiota, and the immune system responses to them are still not completely clear and under investigation. Interestingly, some research has demonstrated the contribution of the gut microbiota, and its related metabolites (some of which can mimic the cardiac myosin), in cardiac inflammation and in the progression of this disease. They can stimulate a continuous and inadequate immune response, with a subsequent myocardial inflammatory damage. The aim of our review is to investigate the role of gut microbiota in myopericarditis, especially for the cardiovascular implications of COVID‐19 viral infection, based on the idea that the modulation of gut microbiota can be a new frontier in the cardiological field to prevent or treat inflammatory cardiomyopathies

The visual and semantic features that predict object memory: Concept property norms for 1,000 object images

Abstract: Humans have a remarkable fidelity for visual long-term memory, and yet the composition of these memories is a longstanding debate in cognitive psychology. While much of the work on long-term memory has focused on processes associated with successful encoding and retrieval, more recent work on visual object recognition has developed a focus on the memorability of specific visual stimuli. Such work is engendering a view of object representation as a hierarchical movement from low-level visual representations to higher level categorical organization of conceptual representations. However, studies on object recognition often fail to account for how these high- and low-level features interact to promote distinct forms of memory. Here, we use both visual and semantic factors to investigate their relative contributions to two different forms of memory of everyday objects. We first collected normative visual and semantic feature information on 1,000 object images. We then conducted a memory study where we presented these same images during encoding (picture target) on Day 1, and then either a Lexical (lexical cue) or Visual (picture cue) memory test on Day 2. Our findings indicate that: (1) higher level visual factors (via DNNs) and semantic factors (via feature-based statistics) make independent contributions to object memory, (2) semantic information contributes to both true and false memory performance, and (3) factors that predict object memory depend on the type of memory being tested. These findings help to provide a more complete picture of what factors influence object memorability. These data are available online upon publication as a public resource

The Foreign Complex | A Cross-Cultural Vernacular

This thesis investigates transforming a decommissioned military site into a productive part of its host nation’s context. Okinawa consists of a group of islands that make up the southern-most prefecture of Japan. MAP It is situated midway between Tokyo and Manila, and called the “keystone of the Pacific” by military planners because of its strategic location. AERIAL FLIGHT MAP It was the site of the devastating Battle of Okinawa in WWII which prompted an ongoing history of military intervention and occupation. TIMELINE Immediately after the war, displaced Okinawans were put in camps while the military claimed land for bases. Some of the most productive land, used for farming and sustaining livelihood, was requisitioned for military use.AERIAL PHOTOS OF BASES In the central and southern part of the island, towns were rebuilt around their historical footprints. The island was fully occupied by the United States military until its reversion to Japan in 1972, and Okinawans have had to coexist with the remaining US military presence since. Seventy-five percent of the U.S. military facilities in Japan are located in Okinawa, despite Okinawa being only 0.6% of the land area of Japan