The digital rhetoric of Prezi. Visual re-presentations of depression and other psychological conditions

We analyze the presentation software Prezi as an evocative object and a talkative technology that engages users in diverse web-based learning situations. Prezi claims to offer an alternative to a much ridiculed PowerPoint, and Prezi’s rhetorical options indeed privilege storytelling and metaphors through spatial organization, movement, and visuals. Still, we argue that many educational prezis in psychology fall short of such aims, relying on bullet points in a decorated, quasi slide-based document. The Prezi company, together with dedicated commercial and professional users, create a talkative and plurivocal technology, with a flow of tutorials and showcased presentations. Nonetheless, we propose that these voices leave important aspects uncovered for educational users, and we argue that the Prezi team should redefine its author guidance strategy. The paper is structured as follows: we first discuss the significance of presentation tools for learning. We then go on to investigate what is Prezi and how we encounter it. We analyze several types of messages from and about Prezi, and we discuss how it is currently used. We conclude the paper by highlighting the main findings and reflecting on implications for research on digital rhetoric. Prezi is designed as an evocative technology: it explicitly aims to encourage certain ways of dealing with knowledge, organizing information in space, through movement and storylines. Its templates bring to the fore metaphors as a persuasive device; the most acclaimed prezis, highlighted through contests and various informal rankings, illustrate the presentation principle of a journey through a visual landscape, using movement to create surprise and perplexity by zooming in, and to achieve clarification by zooming out to the bird’s-eye view. Prezi is also a verbose and multivocal tool: commercial and technical interests fuel a flow of messages and conversations about how to design prezis, aiming for ‘stunning’ presentations, for clarity and creativity. Prezi users have much to learn from ‘tips and tricks’ presentations and from illustrations in showcased prezis. Nonetheless, many prezis composed for classroom use, among those published on the Prezi platform, do not make full use of the tool’s capabilities and do not really follow its invitations to storytelling, metaphorical argumentation and spatial reasoning. We have observed this shortcoming in the case of prezis about psychological conditions such as depression, bipolar disorders, and delusions: although such conditions can be greatly clarified through analogies and storytelling, the bullet list of symptoms and causes remains a dominant rhetorical device in prezi frames. Visuals are used mostly for decoration, and movements do not have other rhetorical use besides the creation of attention-grabbing transitions. We propose that part of this limitation derives from the business focus of Prezi, including its clarifying-and-encouraging voices. There are relatively few showcased prezis that deal with the clarification of scientific concepts, and there is no special focus on science throughout the corpus of prezi tutorials. Users could also benefit from comments on specific prezis, explaining how they do what they do: teachers and students may well appreciate the persuasive power of a stunning prezi without having the vocabulary to describe and then reflect on its rhetorical choices. This requires redefining the Prezi tutorial approach through an intersection between the currently disparate endeavors of ‘tips and tricks’ advice versus showcasing prominent, creative prezis

Comparative study on metal versus zirconium dioxide infrastructure manufacturing in prosthetic rehabilitation in the maxillary frontal zone

Prosthetic rehabilitation of the maxillary front teeth is an extremely laborious problem for the dental team, consisting of the dentist and the dental technician. If for the physiognomic component the most recommended materials are the ceramic masses, for the resistance substrate there are several variants. Conventional technologies using dental alloys and modern ones involving the use of zirconium dioxide can be used successfully in performing fixed prosthetic restorations in the maxillary frontal area, both options having both advantages and disadvantages, as we will describe in this material

Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System score (PI-RADS) and Glutathione S-transferase P1 methylation status (GST-P1) in the diagnosis of prostate cancer patients with borderline PSA values

Objectives. The objective of this study was to evaluate the potential use of Prostate Imaging – Reporting and Data System version 2 (PI-RADS) in combination with Glutathione S-transferase P1 (GST-P1) expression for an improved diagnosis of prostate cancer, in patients with inconclusive values of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Materials and Methods. The study was conducted on 80 patients for whom PSA values were evaluated and were found to be inconclusive (4-10 ng/ml). These patients underwent imagistic evaluation (PI-RADS), followed by transurethral prostate biopsy, with the evaluation of GST-P1 expression and histopathological examination (for diagnosis confirmation). Results. By combining the results of PI-RADS and GST-P1 the capacity of the tests to correctly identify healthy subjects, with an area under curve of 0,832 (95% CI 0.732–0.907), with a sensitivity of 73,25% and a specificity of 77,78%. Conclusions. PI-RADS lesions and GST-P1 methylation testing when PSA levels are in a “grey zone”, provide a better specificity and sensitivity by comparison through single testing. Testing patients with inconclusive PSA levels allows for a more accurate diagnosis and less over-diagnosis by non-invasive procedures, such as repeated biopsies

Dentists, members of the French Resistance movement during the World War II

The Resistance was a reaffirmation of France's independence and individuality, as well as a struggle to regain freedom and, above all, national integrity. In fact, many historians appreciate that the French Resistance could have achieved more if it had been more effectively integrated into Allied plans and strategies. Thus, in this material we tried to present some short biographies of dentists who worked in the French Resistance against the German occupation troops, some of them even paying with their lives for the courage they showed