Sensory and physico-psychological metaphor comprehension in children with ASD. A preliminary study on the outcomes of a treatment

Recent research into difficulties in figurative language in children with ASD highlighted that it is possible to devise training interventions to overcome these difficulties by teaching specific strategies. This study describes how children with ASD can improve their capability to explain metaphors with a treatment. Two types of metaphors, in the “X is Y” form, were addressed: sensory and physico-psychological. To face the difficulties posed by these metaphors, the adult taught two strategies: inserting the connective “is like” between “X” and “Y”, which transforms the metaphor into a simile; comparing “X” and “Y” by means of thinking maps. Two tests of metaphor comprehension were used, one based on sensory and the other on physico-psychological metaphors. Sixteen 10 year-old children participated into the study, including an experimental group formed by 8 children with ASD (n = 4) which had received the treatment, and a control group (n = 4) which had not, and 8 typically-developing (TD) children. At the post-test, the experimental group significantly outperformed the controls in explaining both types of metaphors, but only in the sensory metaphors did their performances reach TD children’s levels. These results illuminate how clinical treatment can positively influence the developmental trajectories of metaphor comprehension

FRAM for systemic accident analysis: a matrix representation of functional resonance

Due to the inherent complexity of nowadays Air Traffic Management (ATM) system, standard methods looking at an event as a linear sequence of failures might become inappropriate. For this purpose, adopting a systemic perspective, the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) originally developed by Hollnagel, helps identifying non-linear combinations of events and interrelationships. This paper aims to enhance the strength of FRAM-based accident analyses, discussing the Resilience Analysis Matrix (RAM), a user-friendly tool that supports the analyst during the analysis, in order to reduce the complexity of representation of FRAM. The RAM offers a two dimensional representation which highlights systematically connections among couplings, and thus even highly connected group of couplings. As an illustrative case study, this paper develops a systemic accident analysis for the runway incursion happened in February 1991 at LAX airport, involving SkyWest Flight 5569 and USAir Flight 1493. FRAM confirms itself a powerful method to characterize the variability of the operational scenario, identifying the dynamic couplings with a critical role during the event and helping discussing the systemic effects of variability at different level of analysis

El arte de la refundición según Moreto (I): El despertar a quien duerme de Lope de Vega vs. La misma conciencia acusa de Moreto

Que durante el Siglo de Oro la práctica de la «refundición» –nombre genérico– haya sido habitual y extendida bien puede ser, que eso haya que considerarlo un plagio no puede ser. La crítica literaria decimonónica y buena parte de la del siglo XX ha considerado «segundones» y plagiarios a una serie de dramaturgos auriseculares como Moreto, Rojas Zorrilla, Mira de Amescua, Solís, Cubillo, Matos Fragoso, y un largo etcétera, y no dejaba de ser medianamente lógico ese punto de vista de la crítica a la luz de antorchas como Cervantes, Lope de Vega y Calderón, que iluminaban prosa y tablas con luz cegadora. Pero ¿realmente hay que considerar así a todos los que coexistieron con esos tres «monstruos de naturaleza»? La verdad es que incluso los tres grandes tomaron, versionaron, rescribieron e innovaron muchas de las tramas anteriores a ellos, no hay más que mirar al fructífero, aunque a su vez segundón, Matteo Bandello que con sus Novelle tantas ideas brindó a los tres –a pesar de la muy recordada afirmación cervantina en el prólogo a sus Novelas Ejemplares de que las piezas eran suyas «propias, no imitadas ni hurtadas» y de subrayar que su «ingenio las engendró, y las parió su pluma»– así como a Shakespeare y Molière, por salir de nuestras fronteras

On anti-quasi-Sasakian manifolds of maximal rank

We discuss the existence of invariant anti-quasi-Sasakian (aqS) structures of maximal rank on compact homogeneous Riemannian manifolds and on nilpotent Lie groups. In the former case we obtain a non-existence result, while in the latter case we provide a complete classification. We also show that every compact aqS manifold has nonvanishing second Betti number.Comment: 13 page

The Elephant Quantum Walk

We explore the impact of long-range memory on the properties of a family of quantum walks in a one-dimensional lattice and discrete time, which can be understood as the quantum version of the classical "Elephant Random Walk" non-Markovian process. This Elephant Quantum Walk is robustly superballistic with the standard deviation showing a constant exponent, $\sigma \propto t^{3/ 2}$ , whatever the quantum coin operator, on which the diffusion coefficient is dependent. On the one hand, this result indicates that contrarily to the classical case, the degree of superdiffusivity in quantum non- Markovian processes of this kind is mainly ruled by the extension of memory rather than other microscopic parameters that explicitly define the process. On the other hand, these parameters reflect on the diffusion coefficient.Comment: 4 figures, any comments is welcome. Accepted in PR

«Entre bestias anda el juego» o la tradición animalística clásica en Lo fingido verdadero de Lope de Vega.

Sin resume

A Frankel type theorem for CR submanifolds of Sasakian manifolds

summary:We prove a Frankel type theorem for $CR$ submanifolds of Sasakian manifolds, under suitable hypotheses on the index of the scalar Levi forms determined by normal directions. From this theorem we derive some topological information about $CR$ submanifolds of Sasakian space forms

Fertility preservation in ovarian tumours

A considerable number of patients with a cancer diagnosis are of childbearing age and have not satisfied their desire for a family. Despite ovarian cancer (OC) usually occurring in older patients, 3%–14% are diagnosed at a fertile age with the overall 5-year survival rate being 91.2% in women ≤44 years of age when it is found at 1A–B stage. In this scenario, testing the safety and the efficacy of fertility sparing strategies in OC patients is very important overall in terms of quality of life. Unfortunately, the lack of randomised trials to validate conservative approaches does not guarantee the safety of fertility preservation strategies. However, evidence-based data from descriptive series suggest that in selected cases, the preservation of the uterus and at least one part of the ovary does not lead to a high risk of relapse. This conservative surgery helps to maintain organ function, giving patients of childbearing age the possibility to preserve their fertility. We hereby analysed the main evidence from the international literature on this topic in order to highlight the selected criteria for conservative management of OC patients, including healthy BRCA mutations carriers

Klippel-Feil syndrome. When using fiberoptic bronchoscopy guide, a case report

Klippel-Feil syndrome is a rare disease with congenital musculoskeletal condition characterized by faulty segmentation of cervical vertebrae and consists of cervical vertebra fusions with limitation of head movements, short neck and low posterior hairline. In several cases the syndrome is associated with cardiovascular malformations. Patients affected by Klippel-Feil syndrome could be an anesthetic challenge, not only during cardiac surgery. We are presenting a case of Klippel-Feil Syndrome in an adult patient, who was operated on for a pulmonary valve insufficiency in a previously corrected Tetralogy of Fallot Syndrome. We are going to discuss the features of this rare syndrome