The contribution of verbal working memory to deaf children's oral and written production

open3noopenArfé, Barbara; Rossi, Cristina; Sicoli, SilviaArfe', Barbara; Rossi, Cristina; Sicoli, Silvi

EMILIA-ROMAGNA IN THE TIME OF THE CRISIS: THE INDICATOR OF REGIONAL ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AND THE SPECIALISATION OF PRODUCTION AND TRADE

This paper aims at providing some evidence of the short-term and long-term changes occurred in the Italian regional economies following the economic downturn. Our analysis will combine the use of structural and coincident indicators to describe the specialization of the region Emilia Romagna and its economic performance during the crisis. We adopt the Indicator of the Regional Economic Activity – IREA (Brasili, Benni 2006) to proxy the regional business cycle and give a timely picture of its economic performance till September 2010. The IRAE overcomes the deficit of the regional GDP – which is released with considerable delays by the national statistical authorities – by using a set of timely and high-frequency variables that tend to move in concert with the GDP. For our assessment of the regional specialization, we will proceed to the reconstruction of a pre-crisis scenario of specialization, using a set of structural indexes. Then, we will study the conjunctural changes occurred in the main sectors of specialization. We will complement our analysis by studying the evolution of the trade specialization through the index of “relative comparative advantages†(Lafay 1992). In the final section, we will compare the specialization models of Emilia-Romagna, Toscana and Lombardia and discuss their vulnerability to disruptive shocks in the short and long term.

Existence of minimizers for eigenvalues of the Dirichlet-Laplacian with a drift

This paper deals with the eigenvalue problem for the operator $L=-\Delta -x\cdot \nabla$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions. We are interested in proving the existence of a set minimizing any eigenvalue $\lambda_k$ of $L$ under a suitable measure constraint suggested by the structure of the operator. More precisely we prove that for any $c>0$ and $k\in \mathbb{N}$ the following minimization problem \min\left\{\lambda_k(\Omega): \> \Omega \>\mbox{quasi-open} \>\mbox{set}, \> \int_\Omega e^{|x|^2/2}dx\le c\right\} has a solution

Albumin infusion in cirrhotic patients with infections other than spontaneous bacterial peritonitis: End of the story?

Non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis with impulse elastography: Comparison of Supersonic Shear Imaging with ARFI and FibroScan

Improving spatial-simultaneous working memory in Down syndrome: effect of a training program led by parents instead of an expert

Recent studies have suggested that the visuospatial component of working memory (WM) is selectively impaired in individuals with Down syndrome (DS), the deficit relating specifically to the spatial-simultaneous component, which is involved when stimuli are presented simultaneously. The present study aimed to analyze the effects of a computer-based program for training the spatial-simultaneous component of WM in terms of: specific effects (on spatial-simultaneous WM tasks); near and far transfer effects (on spatial-sequential and visuospatial abilities, and everyday memory tasks); and maintenance effects (1 month after the training). A comparison was drawn between the results obtained when the training was led by parents at home as opposed to an expert in psychology. Thirty-nine children and adolescents with DS were allocated to one of two groups: the training was administered by an expert in one, and by appropriately instructed parents in the other. The training was administered individually twice a week for a month, in eight sessions lasting approximately 30 min each. Our participants' performance improved after the training, and these results were maintained a month later in both groups. Overall, our findings suggest that spatial-simultaneous WM performance can be improved, obtaining specific and transfer gains; above all, it seems that, with adequate support, parents could effectively administer a WM training to their child

Obstructive sleep apnea associated with Diabetes mellitus Type 2: a proteomic study

Background: We previously showed that Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a common public health concern causing deleterious cardiometabolic dysfunction, induced proteomic alterations in red blood cells (RBC) such as changes in the redox-oligomeric state of peroxiredoxin 2 (PRDX2)1-2. Herein, we aimed to investigate whether OSA patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus before and after positive airway pressure (PAP) treatment present similar changes in the RBC antioxidant protein PRDX2 to better understand the molecular basic mechanisms associated with OSA and OSA outcomes. Methods: RBC samples from control snorers (n=22 being 3 diabetics) and OSA patients before and after six month of PAP-treatment (n=29 being 8 diabetics) were analysed by non-reducing western blot using antibody against PRDX2 or PRDXSO2/3 to measure the total and overoxidized levels of monomeric/dimeric/multimeric forms of PRDX2. Results: We confirmed previously data by showing that in OSA RBC the overoxidation on the monomeric forms of PRDX2 was higher compared to controls. After PAP treatment, this overoxidation decreased followed by an increase of multimeric-overoxidized forms of PRDX2 described to be associated with chaperone protective function. In contrast, the level of PRDX2 monomers in RBC diabetic OSA, although higher abundant its overoxidation level was much lower than those observed in OSA without comorbidity and did not significant change after treatment. Moreover, the level of PAP-induced PRDX2-overoxidized-multimers was also lower in these diabetic OSA patients. The level of overoxidized monomeric/dimeric forms of PRDX2 correlated negatively with levels of insulin / triglycerides and HbA1C, respectively. After PAP, the level of (overoxidized) PRDX2SO2/3 multimers correlated positively with adrenaline levels. Conclusions: The redox/oligomeric state of RBC PRDX2 that is regulated by overoxidation of the active cysteines was differentially modulated in diabetic OSA patients compared to OSA without this comorbidity. PAP-induced overoxidized oligo forms of PRDX2 that is associated with chaperone protective function showed decreased in OSA patients with diabetes. The clinical impact of these findings needs further investigation and validation.Project partially supported by Harvard Medical School-Portugal Program (HMSP-ICJ/0022/2011), ToxOmics - Centre for Toxicogenomics and Human Health (FCT-UID/BIM/00009/2013).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Experimental constraints on amphibole stability in primitive alkaline and calc-alkaline magmas

Equilibrium crystallization experiments were carried out on two primitive basaltic rocks (APR16: Na2O+K2O=4.40 wt%; CM42: Na2O+K2O=2.59 wt%) with the aim to investigate the amphibole stability in the differentiation processes at deep crustal level, of primitive alkaline (APR16) and calc-alkaline (CM42) magmas. The experiments were performed with different initial H2O contents (0-5 wt%), at pressure of 800 MPa, in the temperature range of 975-1225 °C. For the explored conditions, amphibole crystallization occurs in both compositions at H2O in the melt >7wt% while the temperature of their occurrence is lower in the alkaline composition (<1050 °C in APR16 and ≥1050 °C in CM42). Moreover, amphibole crystallization seems to be influenced by the Na2O/K2O ratio rather than the absolute Na2O content in the melt. This is evident when experimental results on the APR16 and CM42 are compared with experimental data obtained from a primitive ultrapotassic composition (leucite-basanite: Na2O+K2O=4.58 wt%) and with thermodynamic modelling by the Rhyolite-MELTS algorithm. The comparison shows that amphibole never saturates the leucite-basanite at any of the investigated/modelled conditions, even when an extended crystallization increases the Na2O of melts up to contents like those of calc-alkaline experimental glasses. We conclude that, at pressure of 800 MPa and hydrous conditions, only primitive liquids with Na2O/K2O ratio ≥0.9 are more prone to crystallize amphibole

Sudden cardiac death in young athletes: Literature review of molecular basis

Intense athletic training and competition can rarely result in sudden cardiac death (SCD). Despite the introduction of pre-participation cardiovascular screening, especially among young competitive athletes, sport-related SCD remains a debated issue among medical personnel, sports communities and laypersons alike, and generates significant media attention. The most frequent cause of SCD is a hidden inherited cardiomyopathy, the athletes may not even be aware of. Predictive medicine, by searching the presence of pathogenic alterations in cardiac genes, may be an integrative tool, besides the conventional ones used in cardiology (mainly electro and echocardiogram), to reach a definitive diagnosis in athletes showing signs/symptoms, even borderline, of inherited cardiomyopathy/ channelopathy, and in athletes presenting family history of SCD and/or of hereditary cardiac disease. In this review, we revised the molecular basis of the major cardiac diseases associated to sudden cardiac death and the clinical molecular biology approach that can be used to perform risk assessment at DNA level of sudden cardiac death, contributing to the early implementation of adequate therapy. Alterations can occur in ion channel genes, in genes encoding desmosomal and junctional proteins, sarcomeric and Z-disc proteins, proteins for the cytoskeleton and the nuclear envelope. The advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology has provided the means to search for mutations in all these genes, at the same time. Therefore, this molecular approach should be the preferred methodology for the aforementioned purpose

A complete census of HαH\alpha emitters in NGC 6397

We used a dataset of archival Hubble Space Telescope images obtained through the F555W, F814W and F656N filters, to perform a complete search for objects showing $H\alpha$ emission in the globular cluster NGC 6397. As photometric diagnostic, we used the $(V-H\alpha)_0$ color excess in the $(V-H\alpha)_0$-$(V-I)_0$ color-color diagram. In the analysed field of view, we identified 53 $H\alpha$ emitters. In particular, we confirmed the optical counterpart to 20 X-ray sources (7 cataclysmic variables, 2 millisecond pulsars and 11 active binaries) and identified 33 previously unknown sources, thus significantly enlarging the population of known active binaries in this cluster. We report the main characteristics for each class of objects. Photometric estimates of the equivalent width of the $H\alpha$ emission line, were derived from the $(V-H\alpha)_0$-excess and, for the first time, compared to the spectroscopic measurements obtained from the analysis of MUSE spectra. The very good agreement between the spectroscopic and photometric measures fully confirmed the reliability of the proposed approach to measure the $H\alpha$ emission. The search demonstrated the efficiency of this novel approach to pinpoint and measure $H\alpha$-emitters, thus offering a powerful tool to conduct complete census of objects whose formation and evolution can be strongly affected by dynamical interactions in star clusters.Comment: Accepted for publication by ApJ; 14 pages, 8 Figures, 1 Tabl