L’oralité avec impertinence

RésuméSe fondant sur deux projets de recherche, l’un mené à Samoa (Samoa occidentale), l’autre dans plusieurs cours de jazz d’une université américaine, cet article propose une comparaison des attitudes complexes et en apparence contradictoires des membres de chaque communauté vis-à-vis de l’écrit et de l’oral. Leur « positionnement négatif » par rapport à l’usage de l’écrit dans certains contextes peut s’expliquer comme faisant partie d’un ensemble de stratégies adoptées par les membres les plus anciens et les plus expérimentés de la communauté pour résister à l’écriture vue comme une menace pour le savoir et les valeurs esthétiques, morales et sociales traditionnelles.AbstractDrawing from two research projects, one carried out in (Western) Samoa and the other in a jazz program in a US university, the article compares the complex and apparently contradictory attitudes that members of each community have toward literacy and orality. It is argued that their common negative stance toward the use of literacy in certain contexts can be explained as part of a set of strategies adopted by more senior and more experienced members of the community to resist the threat posed by literacy to traditional knowledge and traditional aesthetic, moral, and social values

A linguagem como cultura na antropologia norte-americana: três paradigmas

O estudo da linguagem como cultura na antropologia norte-americana reúne um conjunto de práticas diferentes, muitas vezes não inteiramente compatíveis, que podem ser compreendidas por meio da identificação de três paradigmas historicamente relacionados. Enquanto o primeiro paradigma, iniciado por Franz Boas, focava predominantemente na documentação, descrição gramatical e classificação (especialmente das línguas nativas americanas) e estava centrado na relatividade linguística, o segundo paradigma, desenvolvido nos anos 1960, tomou proveito de novas tecnologias de gravação e novos desenvolvimentos teóricos para examinar o uso da linguagem em contexto, introduzindo novas unidades de análise, tais como o evento da fala. Embora fosse considerado parte da antropologia em geral, o segundo paradigma configurou uma distância intelectual em relação ao resto da antropologia. O terceiro paradigma, com seu foco na formação da identidade, narratividade e ideologia, constitui uma nova tentativa de conexão com o resto da antropologia, estendendo os métodos linguísticos ao estudo de usos previamente identificados em outros (sub)campos. Embora cada novo paradigma reduza a influência e o apelo do anterior, os três paradigmas persistem hoje. O confronto de suas diferenças constitui uma contribuição para a disciplina. Palavras-chave: paradigma de pesquisa; história da antropologia nos EUA; linguística antropológica; antropologia linguística

Radial Basis Function for Breast Lesion Detection from MammoWave Clinical Data

Recently, a novel microwave apparatus for breast lesion detection (MammoWave), uniquely able to function in air with 2 antennas rotating in the azimuth plane and operating within the band 1-9 GHz has been developed. Machine learning (ML) has been implemented to understand information from the frequency spectrum collected through MammoWave in response to the stimulus, segregating breasts with and without lesions. The study comprises 61 breasts (from 35 patients), each one with the correspondent output of the radiologist's conclusion (i.e., gold standard) obtained from echography and/or mammography and/or MRI, plus pathology or 1-year clinical follow-up when required. The MammoWave examinations are performed, recording the frequency spectrum, where the magnitudes show substantial discrepancy and reveals dissimilar behaviours when reflected from tissues with/without lesions. Principal component analysis is implemented to extract the unique quantitative response from the frequency response for automated breast lesion identification, engaging the support vector machine (SVM) with a radial basis function kernel. In-vivo feasibility validation (now ended) of MammoWave was approved in 2015 by the Ethical Committee of Umbria, Italy (N. 6845/15/AV/DM of 14 October 2015, N. 10352/17/NCAV of 16 March 2017, N 13203/18/NCAV of 17 April 2018). Here, we used a set of 35 patients. According to the radiologists conclusions, 25 breasts without lesions and 36 breasts with lesions underwent a MammoWave examination. The proposed SVM model achieved the accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of 91%, 84.40%, and 97.20%. The proposed ML augmented MammoWave can identify breast lesions with high accuracy

Breast lesion detection through MammoWave device: microwave images’ parameters

MammoWave is a microwave imaging device for breast lesions detection, which operates using two (azimuthally rotating) antennas without any matching liquid. Images, subsequently obtained by resorting to Huygens Principle, are intensity maps, representing the homogeneity of tissues’ dielectric properties. In the paper: “Breast lesion detection through MammoWave device: empirical detection capability assessment of microwave images’ parameters”, we propose to generate, for each breast, a set of conductivity weighted microwave images by using different values of conductivity in the Huygens Principle imaging algorithm. Next, microwave images’ parameters, i.e. features, are introduced to quantify the non-homogenous behaviour of the image. This data set contains such features. We empirically verify on 103 breasts that a selection of these features may allow distinction between breasts with no radiological finding (NF ) and breasts with radiological findings (WF), i.e. with lesions which may be benign or malign. Statistical significance was set at p <0.05. We obtained single features Area Under the receiver operating characteristic Curves (AUCs) spanning from 0.65 to 0.69. In addition, an empirical rule-of-thumb allowing breast assessment is introduced using a binary score S operating on an appropriate combination of features. Performances of such rule-of-thumb are evaluated empirically, obtaining a sensitivity of 74%, which increases to 84% when considering dense breasts only

Case report: Coxiella burnetii endocarditis in the absence of evident exposure

Q fever is a worldwide zoonotic disease caused by Coxiella burnetii. In humans, it can manifest clinically as an acute or chronic disease and endocarditis, the most frequent complication of chronic Q fever is associated with the greatest morbidity and mortality. We report a severe case of endocarditis in a 55-year-old man with a history of aortic valve replacement affected by monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), and living in a non-endemic area for C. burnetii. After two episodes of fever of unknown origin (FUO), occurring 2 years apart and characterized by negative blood cultures, a serological diagnosis of Q fever endocarditis was performed even though the patient did not refer to possible past exposure to C. burnetii. Since people with preexisting valvular heart disease, when infected with C. burnetii, have reported a 40% risk of Q fever endocarditis, clinicians should maintain a high index of suspicion for infective endocarditis in all patients with FUO even when the exposure to C. burnetii appears to be unlikely

Studi di linguistica slava. Nuove prospettive e metodologie di ricerca

The present paper examines the Russian discourse markers мол and дескать as Renarrative markers that generally are considered conventional means to indicate information sources. Etymologically, they derive from verba dicendi. In this paper, relying on a large amount of occurrences taken from Russian Italian bilingual corpus composed by the author, a qualitative analysis of their semantics is carries out. They can express different meanings: referring to someone else's text with accurate or inaccurate quoting, pointing to their information source, expressing doubts about the reliability of transmitted information, interpreting gestures through verbal means and sometimes have contact-establishing and intensifying functions. The survey allows to affirm that these markers indicate evidentiality, because they create a distance between the information and the person which communicates this information and make an important contribution to evaluate the truthfulness of a proposition

Targeting SIRT1 Rescues Age- and Obesity-Induced Microvascular Dysfunction in Ex Vivo Human Vessels

ackground: Experimental evidence suggests a key role of SIRT1 (silent information regulator 1) in age- and metabolic-related vascular dysfunction. Whether these effects hold true in the human microvasculature is unknown. We aimed to investigate the SIRT1 role in very early stages of age- and obesity-related microvascular dysfunction in humans. Methods: Ninety-five subjects undergoing elective laparoscopic surgery were recruited and stratified based on their body mass index status (above or below 30 kg/m2) and age (above or below 40 years) in 4 groups: Young Nonobese, Young Obese, Old Nonobese, and Old Obese. We measured small resistance arteries' endothelial function by pressurized micromyography before and after incubation with a SIRT1 agonist (SRT1720) and a mitochondria reactive oxygen species (mtROS) scavenger (MitoTEMPO). We assessed vascular levels of mtROS and nitric oxide availability by confocal microscopy and vascular gene expression of SIRT1 and mitochondrial proteins by qPCR. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay was employed to investigate SIRT1-dependent epigenetic regulation of mitochondrial proteins. Results: Compared with Young Nonobese, obese and older patients showed lower vascular expression of SIRT1 and antioxidant proteins (FOXO3 [forkhead box protein O3] and SOD2) and higher expression of pro-oxidant and aging mitochondria proteins p66Shc and Arginase II. Old Obese, Young Obese and Old Nonobese groups endothelial dysfunction was rescued by SRT1720. The restoration was comparable to the one obtained with mitoTEMPO. These effects were explained by SIRT1-dependent chromatin changes leading to reduced p66Shc expression and upregulation of proteins involved in mitochondria respiratory chain. Conclusions: SIRT1 is a novel central modulator of the earliest microvascular damage induced by age and obesity. Through a complex epigenetic control mainly involving p66Shc and Arginase II, it influences mtROS levels, NO availability, and the expression of proteins of the mitochondria respiratory chain. Therapeutic modulation of SIRT1 restores obesity- and age-related endothelial dysfunction. Early targeting of SIRT1 might represent a crucial strategy to prevent age- and obesity-related microvascular dysfunction. Keywords: aging; endothelial cells; microcirculation; mitochondria; obesity; sirtuin

Giving an Account of One’s Pain in the Anthropological Interview

In this paper, I analyze the illness stories narrated by a mother and her 13-year-old son as part of an ethnographic study of child chronic pain sufferers and their families. In examining some of the moral, relational and communicative challenges of giving an account of one’s pain, I focus on what is left out of some accounts of illness and suffering and explore some possible reasons for these elisions. Drawing on recent work by Judith Butler (Giving an Account of Oneself, 2005), I investigate how the pragmatic context of interviews can introduce a form of symbolic violence to narrative accounts. Specifically, I use the term “genre of complaint” to highlight how anthropological research interviews in biomedical settings invoke certain typified forms of suffering that call for the rectification of perceived injustices. Interview narratives articulated in the genre of complaint privilege specific types of pain and suffering and cast others into the background. Giving an account of one’s pain is thus a strategic and selective process, creating interruptions and silences as much as moments of clarity. Therefore, I argue that medical anthropologists ought to attend more closely to the institutional structures and relations that shape the production of illness narratives in interview encounters

Movement from the double object construction is not fully symmetrical

A movement asymmetry arises in some languages that are otherwise symmetrical for both A- and A-bar movement in the double object construction (DOC), including Norwegian, North-West British English, and a range of Bantu languages including Zulu and Lubukusu: a Theme object can be A-bar-moved out of a Recipient (Goal) passive, but not vice versa. Our explanation of this asymmetry is based on phase theory, more specifically a stricter version of the Phase Interpretability Condition proposed by Chomsky (2001). The effect is that, in a Theme passive, a Recipient object destined for the C-domain gets trapped within the lower V-related phase by movement of the Theme. The same effect is observed in Italian, a language in which only Theme passives are possible. Moreover, a similar effect is also found in some Bantu languages in connection with object marking/agreement: object agreement with the Theme in a Recipient passive is possible, but not vice versa. We show that this, too, can be understood within the theory that we articulate