How readers perceive translated literary works: an analysis of reader reception

Abstract - The aim of this paper is to investigate the reader’s reception of translated literary texts and to explore the reader’s expectations about literary works. For this purpose, three comparable corpora of British, American and Italian online book reviews commenting on the English version of Andrea Camilleri’s La forma dell’acqua (The Shape of Water) and on the Italian version of Stephen King’s Joyland were assembled and analysed. The way active target language readers perceive and evaluate a translated literary work was then explored by taking the language they actually used in book recommendation websites. The analysis demonstrates that the Anglo-American and Italian readers’ reception of the translated text is different, in terms of focus and perception. Riassunto - Il presente articolo esplora il modo in cui i lettori recepiscono testi letterari tradotti e quali sono le loro aspettative. A tale scopo sono stati raccolti e analizzati tre corpora comparabili di recensioni online scritte da lettori britannici, americani e italiani sulla versione inglese de La forma dell’acqua di Andrea Camilleri e sulla versione italiana di Joyland di Stephen King. In particolare, l’articolo esplora il modo in cui i lettori della lingua di arrivo percepiscono e valutano un’opera letteraria tradotta partendo dal linguaggio da usato dai lettori nei siti web di recensioni di libri. L’analisi dimostra che i lettori anglo-americani e italiani percepiscono un testo tradotto in modo differente e ne commentano aspetti differenti

Extracorporeal CO2 removal in hypercapnic patients who fail noni nvasive ventialtion and refuse endotracheal intubation. a case series

Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) represents the standard of care for patients with exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. However, NIV fails in almost 40% of the most severe forms of acute hypercapnic respiratory failure and patients must undergo endotracheal intubation and invasive ventilation. Such transition from NIV to invasive ventilation is associated to increased mortality. Under these circumstances, patients may express a clear intention not to be intubated

Space use following restricted space availability in two mammals and two arthropods

Captive environments can provide a variety of sources of stress for animals with space limitation being one of the primary contributors. Spatial restrictions may result in psychological stress by which the memory and learning of animals can become impaired. One solution to spatial stress has been to increase the size of the enclosure for captive animals. In my dissertation, I questioned the rationale of providing increased space by investigating whether more space leads to greater use of space. My study had 2 aims. Firstly, I tested whether the previous experience of an individual, or of a group of individuals in a small area, would influence the subsequent use of space when they were introduced into larger enclosures. I used 4 different species (chimpanzees, striped mice, woodlice and cockroaches). Secondly, I tested whether the spatial perceptions were dependent on neuronal complexity in terms of cognitive ability, i.e. is space use of a species related to neuronal complexity. Chimpanzees and striped mice were considered to have greater neuronal complexity than woodlice and cockroaches since mammals display more complex cognition compared to arthropods. The chimpanzees comprised of 8 individuals at the Johannesburg Zoo, 7 of which were transferred from a 10 m x 10 m enclosure, in which they were housed for 2 (second youngest individual) to 25 years (oldest chimpanzee), to a 2500 m2 enclosure (in which the youngest chimpanzee was born), and their space use was evaluated in terms of subgroup space use in the enlarged enclosure. Chimpanzees are naturally social and thus I examined group instead of individual spacing. Chimpanzee subgroups, which comprised 2 or more chimpanzees, consistently restricted their space use in the enlarged enclosure to the size of their old enclosure, choosing their positions within the enclosure based on the presence of shade availability. Striped mouse space use was evaluated in terms of individual space use because striped mice from the mesic grasslands of South Africa are solitary living. Individual striped mice were placed into an enlarged arena (200 cm x 15 cm x 100 cm; L x H x B) after being restricted in a smaller cage (36.5 cm x 20.5 cm x 15 cm) for 60 days and their space use and distance travelled were measured against the area of their old housing. The space use of restricted striped mice was evaluated against a control group. The striped mice from the restricted group restricted their space use to the size of their original housing, with those having a shy personality showing more restricted space use than bold individuals. Woodlouse and cockroach space use was evaluated in same sex pairs, as woodlice and cockroaches tend to form aggregations naturally. Both species were originally housed in an 8 cm2 area for 14 days and their space use in an enlarged arena of 154 cm2 was evaluated and compared against control groups of both species. Woodlice restricted their movements within the size of their original housing, with previously restricted males restricting the area used and previously restricted females restricting the distances travelled. While male cockroaches travelled shorter distances than females, the cockroaches did not spatially restrict their movements in the enlarged arena, indicating that they may be displaying a rebound effect. My study demonstrated that previous experience in restricted housing does have an effect on subsequent space use in an enlarged area. This notion of previous experiences influencing later experiences is the foundation of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is the passive response to mostly aversive stimuli in which an organism has no control over the outcome of the situation and thus gives up after repeated failure. Learned helplessness appears to be a plausible explanation for the space restriction in chimpanzees, striped mice and woodlice, as these three species restricted their space use based on the previous experience of less available space. Chimpanzees and striped mice had higher occurrences of restricted movements compared to woodlice, indicating that learned helplessness with respect of space use maybe graded according to neuronal complexity. I conclude that providing additional space may not address the welfare concerns of captive animals, because more space did not disrupt earlier spatial restriction. However, the implications of exposure to restricted space needs to be considered for all species in captive environments, especially animals in release programs, as exposure to restricted space may contribute to the expression of learned helplessness, with space use in an enlarged area being influenced by previous restrictions

Temperature‑induced changes in dough elasticity as a useful tool in defining the firmness of cooked pasta

Semolina with high protein content and strong gluten is recognized as the best raw-material for pasta-products with a good cooking quality, while little consideration has been given to semolina dough elasticity when heating is applied. In this research, a new technique was developed by adapting the Glutograph (Brabender GmbH&Co., Duisburg, Germany) to measure the changes in elasticity induced by heating on a sheeted dough. The information obtained by this procedure was related to the firmness of cooked pasta. Starting from semolina of four durum wheat varieties with differences in protein quantity and quality, dough samples were prepared in a Farinograph at a hydration level of 35 %. Each dough was sheeted by a home-made pasta machine, obtaining disks of 5 cm diameter and 2.1 mm thickness. Stretching (10 s) and relaxation (30 s) cycles were applied repeatedly during the test time, while dough temperature was increased from 30 to 90 °C at 1.2 °C/min. For each peak recorded, stretching and recovery values were calculated and plotted against sample temperature. Both stretching and recovery curves were integrated and the loss of elasticity was calculated. Results showed as high elasticity loss during heating is related to low firmness of the related cooked pasta

Development of the multilingual semantic annotation system

This paper reports on our research to generate multilingual semantic lexical resources and develop multilingual semantic annotation software, which assigns each word in running text to a semantic category based on a lexical semantic classification scheme. Such tools have an important role in developing intelligent multilingual NLP, text mining and ICT systems. In this work, we aim to extend an existing English semantic annotation tool to cover a range of languages, namely Italian, Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese, by bootstrapping new semantic lexical resources via automatically translating existing English semantic lexicons into these languages. We used a set of bilingual dictionaries and word lists for this purpose. In our experiment, with minor manual improvement of the automatically generated semantic lexicons, the prototype tools based on the new lexicons achieved an average lexical coverage of 79.86% and an average annotation precision of 71.42% (if only precise annotations are considered) or 84.64% (if partially correct annotations are included) on the three languages. Our experiment demonstrates that it is feasible to rapidly develop prototype semantic annotation tools for new languages by automatically bootstrapping new semantic lexicons based on existing ones

Gastaut type-idiopathic childhood occipital epilepsy and childhood absence epilepsy: a clinically significant association?

We report an unusual association between idiopathic occipital epilepsy and childhood absence epilepsy in 2 pediatric patients. At first clinical and electroencephalographic evaluation, the patients presented the peculiar signs of idiopathic occipital epilepsy Gastaut type: focal sensory visual seizures, migrainelike symptoms (only in one patient) and unilateral spike–wave discharges over occipital regions. Both children were treated with valproic acid and their seizures were rapidly controlled. After a seizure-free period, the patients presented typical absence with ictal electroencephalographies showing 3 cycles/s generalized and symmetrical spike–wave complexes. We discuss the possible association between these two epileptic syndromes and its common pathophysiological mechanisms

Functional assessment of cancer therapy questionnaire for breast cancer (FACT-B+4): Italian version validation

BACKGROUND: Improvements in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment led to an increased incidence of survivors' rate. The healthcare system has to face new problems related not only to the treatment of the disease, but also to the management of the quality of life after the diagnosis. The aim of this study was to validate the Italian version of the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Breast (FACT-B+4) questionnaire and to evaluate its reliability. METHODS: The questionnaire was administered twice, with an interval of three days between each administration, to a cohort of women of the Breast Surgical Unit, PoliclincoUmberto I. Cronbach's alpha was used as a measure of the internal consistency of the Italian version. RESULTS: The Italian version of the tool was administered to 55 subjects. The Cronbach's alpha for most scores registered values >0.7, both at baseline and at the follow-up analysis, therefore the subscale showed good internal consistency. CONCLUSIONS: The Italian version of FACT-B+4 demonstrated acceptable reliability properties in the Breast Unit patients. The use of this questionnaire seemed to be effective and in line with the results derived from the English and Spanishversions. Internal consistency and validity had similar performance results

Effect of soil tillage and crop sequence on grain yield and quality of durum wheat in Mediterranean areas

Conservation agriculture (CA) can be very strategic in degradation prone soils of Mediterranean environments to recover soil fertility and consequently improve crop productivity as well as the quality traits of the most widespread crop, durum wheat, with reference to protein accumulation and composition. The results shown by two years of data in a medium long-term experiment (7-year experiment; split-plot design) that combined two tillage practices (conventional tillage (CT) and zero tillage (ZT)) with two crop sequences (wheat monocropping (WW) and wheat-faba bean (WF)) are presented. The combination ZT + WF (CA approach) induced the highest grain yields (617 and 370 g m(-2) in 2016 and 2017, respectively), principally due to an increased number of ears m(-2); on the other hand, the lowest grain yield was recorded under CT + WW (550 and 280 g m(-2) in 2016 and 2017, respectively). CA also demonstrated significant influences on grain quality because the inclusion of faba bean in the rotation favored higher N-remobilization to the grains (79.5% and 77.7% in 2017). Under ZT and WF, all gluten fractions (gliadins (Glia), high molecular-weight glutenins (GS), and low molecular-weight GS) as well as the GS/Glia ratio increased. In durum wheat-based farming systems in Mediterranean areas, the adoption of CA seems to be an optimal choice to combine high quality yields with improved soil fertility

Stress management interventions among healthcare workers using mindfulness. A systematic review.

Background: stress among healthcare professionals has gained more and more attention due to the negative consequences on their and patients’ health. As a result of intense working hours, night shifts, responsibilities of care, and emotional contact with patients, healthcare workers experience stressful conditions. Interventions to prevent and manage their wellbeing are needed, in order to reduce the risks of onset of burnout syndrome. Aim: the aim of this systematic review is to analyze how mindfulness courses can improve mental and physical well-being of healthcare workers. Methods: a literature search was conducted in May 2018 using the databases Medline (PubMed), Scopus and Isi Web of Knowledge. Studies were included if they examined mindfulness interventions as possible solutions to manage stress among healthcare workers. Results: fifty-eight articles met the inclusion criteria: 13 of them were clinical trials; 11 were randomized clinical trials; 12 were systematic reviews; 7 were narrative reviews and 15 were observational studies. The studies included showed effectiveness of mindfulness programs in reducing stress, self-compassion, burnout, anxiety and depression. Significant negative association has been observed between MBSR and stress levels (β: −0.60, 95% CI:−5.95 to −4.04, P< 0.001) and mental exhaustion (β:−0.43, 95% CI:−3.30 −1.86, P< 0.001). Clinical trials focused on psychoeducational interventions highlighted decreased burnout scores in intervention group (SDM: -0.38). Conclusion: courses based on mindfulness showed to be effective in improving healthcare workers’ well-being, increasing their quality of life and the productivity outcomes. The evidence derived from this systematic review suggests that these interventions should be included within the work organization in order to be viable tools for promoting self-care and quality of care

Desfolha e nutrição do S no rabanete: crescimento, polifenóis e atividade antiradical

ABSTRACT Experiments were carried out to study patterns of artificial defoliation in radish in combination with sulphur (S) fertilization, to evaluate the contribution of younger and older leaves on plant growth and phenolics accumulation in storage roots. Biomass accumulation and partitioning were related to leaf age, magnitude and timing of the clipping treatments. Older leaves increased biomass production and translocation into the storage organ; besides, they induced higher accumulation of phenolic compounds compared to the younger leaves. The highest S fertilization rate (120 kg ha-1) significantly enhanced the polyphenols accumulation, as well as the antiradical activity. The modulation of S inputs in combination with slightly induced stress from defoliation could effectively enhance the concentration of some important phytochemicals, providing higher nutritionally improved vegetables, without affecting yield