The experiential nature of ELF reformulations in the multimodal representations of modern and ancient sea-odysseys

This chapter explores the latest stage of a research project carried out at the University of Salento, which aims to investigate the effects of emotions on the positive reconsideration of mass migrations and intercultural socialization. In particular, this study illustrates the linguistic and multimodal strategies of production of four videos that are informed by an unbiased discursive frame for the multimedia representations of sea-journeys. In these clips, the linguistic and audiovisual associations between samples of Western and Non-Western migration narratives are meant to assist viewers in acknowledging that travelers from past and present times experience shared emotions and feelings when leaving their native countries in search for better life conditions. The activation of this perlocutionary effect is pursued by means of hybridizations between written and oral accounts of sea-voyages and between ‘epic movie’, ‘mockumentary’ and ‘journalistic interview’ genres. Narrations are retextualized into ‘experiential reformulations’ that resort to modern variations of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in order to underline, through their structural and phonetic characteristics, the dramatic and life-threatening nature of migrations. The audiovisual composition mixes factual and cinematic properties so as to attract envisaged viewers’ attention and then induce, in them, the positive reconsideration of the objects of representation. After detailing the main phases of experiential reformulation and illustrating the multimodal composition of the four videos, this chapter comments on the results of a reception study of the multimedia research products, in order to enquire into the empirical reception of genre and text hybridization, as well as into the accessibility level of the ELF variations that represent the verbal dimension of the videos

Modern and ancient migrants’ narratives through ELF. An Experiential-Linguistic project in Responsible Tourism

Abstract – This article explores the emotional experience of Italian seaside resorts whose geographical position in the Southern Mediterranean coasts has always determined their destiny as places of hospitality and hybridization of languages and cultures. A Cognitive-pragmatic Model of Experiential Linguistics (Lakoff, Johnson 1999; Langacker 1991; Sweetser 1990) and some strategies of Experiential Place Marketing (Hosany, Prayag 2011; Jani, Han 2013; Prayag et al. 2013) will be employed to ‘emotionally promote’ Responsible Tourism (Lin et al. 2014; Ma et al. 2013) in order to enquire into the effects of emotions upon the tourists’ experience of the holiday as a path towards their ‘personal and cultural growth’. The case study illustrated in this article represents precisely an instance of ELF communication developing from tourists’ and migrants’ appraisal of: (a) the contemporary non-Western migrants’ dramatic sea-voyage narratives reported in their ELF variations (Guido 2008, 2012), and (b) the epic narratives of Mediterranean ‘odysseys’ towards ‘utopian places’ belonging to the Western cultural heritage, translated from Ancient Greek and Latin into ELF. The subjects of this case study under analysis are tourists playing the role of ‘intercultural mediators’ with migrants in one of the seaside resorts of Salento affected by migrant arrivals. To facilitate tourists’ and migrants’ processes of ‘experiential embodiment’ of past and present dramatic sea voyages, they will be introduced to an ‘Ethnopoetic analysis’ (Hymes 1994, 2003) of two corpora of modern and ancient oral journey narratives – the former collected during ethnographic fieldworks in reception centres for refugees, and the latter including extracts from Homer’s Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. The purpose is to make tourists and migrants play the roles of ‘philologists’ and ‘ethnographers’ as they realize how such ancient and modern oral narratives are experientially organized into spontaneous ‘verse structures’ reproducing the sequences and rhythms of human actions and emotions in response to the traumatic experience of violent natural phenomena which, through the use of ergative syntactic structures (Talmy 1988), become metaphorically personified as objects and elements endowed with an autonomous, dynamic force capable of destroying the human beings at their mercy. The Ethnopoetic analysis and translation, together with the subsequent multimodal rendering of such journey narratives into ‘premotional videos’ for place-marketing purposes (Kress 2009), aim at making both tourists and migrants aware of their common experiential roots, as well as of the socio-cultural values of the different populations that have produced them

Management of pheochromocytoma during pregnancy from diagnosis to laparoscopic adrenalectomy. A case report and review of literature

INTRODUCTION: Pheochromocytoma is an endocrine tumour of chromaffin cells. It can be diagnosed either sporadically or in the context of hereditary syndromes (e.g. Von Hippel Lindau, Neurofibromatosis type 1 and multiple neuroendocrine neoplasia type 2). During pregnancy, its frequency is very low (about 0,007%). This tumour causes paroxysmal hypertension in 0,1-0,6% pregnant women, because of an overproduction of catecholamines. If undiagnosed and nontreated, it's associated with high maternal and fetal mortality (40-50%). We report the case of a 30-year-old female diagnosed with pheochromocytoma during pregnancy at week 31 of gestation. In a multidisciplinary team made of surgeons, gynaecologists, anaesthetists, geneticists and endocrinologists we evaluated the case and according to literature, we choose a surgical approach after childbirth: performing a laparoscopic right adrenalectomy. DISCUSSION: In pregnancy, pheochromocytoma is a rare clinical condition. Gold standard treatment is laparoscopic adrenalectomy. However, the optimum timing of surgery is a challenge. CONCLUSION: Timely diagnosis of pheochromocytoma in pregnant women with hypertension and appropriate therapeutic management can lead to improve maternal, fetal and neonatal outcomes. The multidisciplinary team is necessary to recognize the symptoms and to adopt the right pre - and post - operative treatment. Laparoscopic adrenalectomy after delivery is safe and feasible even though the surgical procedure should be performed by an experienced surgeon. KEY WORDS: Pheochromocytoma, Pregnancy, Laparoscopic adrenalectomy and pregnancy, Management of pheochromocytoma, Laparoscopic adrenalectomy, Adrenalectomy, Pregnancy and pheochromocytoma

Decreased Rhes mRNA levels in the brain of patients with Parkinson's disease and MPTP-treated macaques

In rodent and human brains, the small GTP-binding protein Rhes is highly expressed in virtually all dopaminoceptive striatal GABAergic medium spiny neurons, as well as in large aspiny cholinergic interneurons, where it is thought to modulate dopamine-dependent signaling. Consistent with this knowledge, and considering that dopaminergic neurotransmission is altered in neurological and psychiatric disorders, here we sought to investigate whether Rhes mRNA expression is altered in brain regions of patients with Parkinsonâ\u80\u99s disease (PD), Schizophrenia (SCZ), and Bipolar Disorder (BD), when compared to healthy controls (about 200 post-mortem samples). Moreover, we performed the same analysis in the putamen of non-human primate Macaca Mulatta, lesioned with the neurotoxin 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP). Overall, our data indicated comparable Rhes mRNA levels in the brain of patients with SCZ and BD, and their respective healthy controls. In sharp contrast, the putamen of patients suffering from PD showed a significant 35% reduction of this transcript, compared to healthy subjects. Interestingly, in line with observations obtained in humans, we found 27% decrease in Rhes mRNA levels in the putamen of MPTP-treated primates. Based on the established inhibitory influence of Rhes on dopamine-related responses, we hypothesize that its striatal downregulation in PD patients and animal models of PD might represent an adaptive event of the dopaminergic system to functionally counteract the reduced nigrostriatal innervation

Automated Prediction of the Response to Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy in Patients Affected by Rectal Cancer

Simple Summary Colorectal cancer is the second most malignant tumor per number of deaths after lung cancer and the third per number of new cases after breast and lung cancer. The correct and rapid identification (i.e., segmentation of the cancer regions) is a fundamental task for correct patient diagnosis. In this study, we propose a novel automated pipeline for the segmentation of MRI scans of patients with LARC in order to predict the response to nCRT using radiomic features. This study involved the retrospective analysis of T-2-weighted MRI scans of 43 patients affected by LARC. The segmentation of tumor areas was on par or better than the state-of-the-art results, but required smaller sample sizes. The analysis of radiomic features allowed us to predict the TRG score, which agreed with the state-of-the-art results. Background: Rectal cancer is a malignant neoplasm of the large intestine resulting from the uncontrolled proliferation of the rectal tract. Predicting the pathologic response of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy at an MRI primary staging scan in patients affected by locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) could lead to significant improvement in the survival and quality of life of the patients. In this study, the possibility of automatizing this estimation from a primary staging MRI scan, using a fully automated artificial intelligence-based model for the segmentation and consequent characterization of the tumor areas using radiomic features was evaluated. The TRG score was used to evaluate the clinical outcome. Methods: Forty-three patients under treatment in the IRCCS Sant'Orsola-Malpighi Polyclinic were retrospectively selected for the study; a U-Net model was trained for the automated segmentation of the tumor areas; the radiomic features were collected and used to predict the tumor regression grade (TRG) score. Results: The segmentation of tumor areas outperformed the state-of-the-art results in terms of the Dice score coefficient or was comparable to them but with the advantage of considering mucinous cases. Analysis of the radiomic features extracted from the lesion areas allowed us to predict the TRG score, with the results agreeing with the state-of-the-art results. Conclusions: The results obtained regarding TRG prediction using the proposed fully automated pipeline prove its possible usage as a viable decision support system for radiologists in clinical practice

Integrative epigenomics in Sjögren´s syndrome reveals novel pathways and a strong interaction between the HLA, autoantibodies and the interferon signature

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS) is a systemic autoimmune disease characterized by lymphocytic infiltration and damage of exocrine salivary and lacrimal glands. The etiology of SS is complex with environmental triggers and genetic factors involved. By conducting an integrated multi-omics study, we confirmed a vast coordinated hypomethylation and overexpression effects in IFN-related genes, what is known as the IFN signature. Stratified and conditional analyses suggest a strong interaction between SS-associated HLA genetic variation and the presence of Anti-Ro/SSA autoantibodies in driving the IFN epigenetic signature and determining SS. We report a novel epigenetic signature characterized by increased DNA methylation levels in a large number of genes enriched in pathways such as collagen metabolism and extracellular matrix organization. We identified potential new genetic variants associated with SS that might mediate their risk by altering DNA methylation or gene expression patterns, as well as disease-interacting genetic variants that exhibit regulatory function only in the SS population. Our study sheds new light on the interaction between genetics, autoantibody profiles, DNA methylation and gene expression in SS, and contributes to elucidate the genetic architecture of gene regulation in an autoimmune population

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work

Towards a Muon Collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work.Comment: 118 pages, 103 figure