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Semantic and inferencing abilities in children with communication disorders
Background: Semantic and inferencing abilities have not been fully examined in children with communication difficulties.
Aims: To investigate the inferential and semantic abilities of children with communication difficulties using newly designed tasks.
Methods & Procedures: Children with different types of communication disorder were compared with each other and with three groups of typically developing children: those of the same chronological age and two groups of younger children. In total, 25 children aged 11 years with specific language impairment and 22 children, also 11 years of age, with primary pragmatic difficulties were recruited. Typically developing groups aged 11 (nâ=â35; ageâmatch), and those aged 9 (nâ=â40) and 7 (nâ=â37; language similar) also participated as comparisons.
Outcomes & Results: For Semantic Choices, children with specific language impairment performed significantly more poorly than 9â and 11âyearâolds, whilst the pragmatic difficulties group scored significantly lower than all the typically developing groups. Borderline differences between specific language impairment and pragmatic difficulties groups were found. For inferencing, children with communication impairments performed significantly below the 11âyearâold peers, but not poorer than 9â and 7âyearâolds, suggesting that this skill is in line with language ability. Six children in the pragmatic difficulties group who met diagnosis for autism performed more poorly than the other two clinical groups on both tasks, but not statistically significantly so.
Conclusions: Both tasks were more difficult for those with communication impairments compared with peers. Semantic but not inferencing abilities showed a nonâsignificant trend for differences between the two clinical groups and children with pragmatic difficulties performed more poorly than all typically developing groups. The tasks may relate to each other in varying ways according to type of communication difficulty
Interdisciplinary contribution to the protection plan of the fortified old town of Cagliari (ITALY)
The present article illustrates an interdisciplinary methodology for the protection of fortified old towns and the management of their possible future transformation. Specifically, the study has developed a process of investigation to support the identification, assessment and conservation of material evidences related to the urban walls inside old towns. The disciplinary fields involved in the research are mainly history, drawing and restoration, supported by diagnostics on materials and structures, urban planning and sustainable design. The testing area is the walled city of Cagliari, a typical Mediterranean fortified settlement, highly stratified with a wide chronology of structures and interesting military constructive techniques. The research develops a working structure for the reasoned collection of contributions belonging from different disciplinary fields. The complex set of information implements a detailed knowledge plan conceived as a vulnerable risk map. Landscape and visual perceptions of the surrounding environment are also considered. The complex mosaic of interdisciplinary knowledge has been the basis for the proposal of effective policies for protection in order to forecast, guide and control possible transformative scenarios. Contemporarily, the management plan includes some strategic actions for the fruition and enhancement of the walled perimeter, such as new touristic paths or entertainment and sporting areas. Criteria and methodology resulting from this article seem to be easily applicable to other contexts, especially in the Mediterranean settlements
Vertical ridge augmentation with Ti-reinforced dense polytetrafluoroethylene (d-PTFE) membranes or Ti-meshes and collagen membranes: 3-year results of a randomized clinical trial
BackgroundThe present study aimed to evaluate hard and soft tissue parameters around implants placed in augmented posterior mandible, comparing Ti-reinforced d-PTFE membranes with Ti-meshes covered with collagen membranes, after 3 years of follow-up. Materials and MethodsForty eligible patients were randomly assigned to group A (Ti-reinforced d-PTFE membrane) or group B (mesh covered with collagen membrane) for vertical ridge augmentation (VRA) and simultaneous implants. Implants were evaluated using specific peri-implant parameters for bone and soft tissues: probing pocket depth (PPD), modified plaque index (mPI), bleeding on probing (BoP), modified gingival index (mGI), thickness of keratinized tissue (tKT), width of keratinized tissue (wKT), fornix depth (FD), peri-implant bone level (PBL), interproximal bone peaks (IBP), marginal bone loss (MBL), interproximal bone loss (IBL). ResultsA total of 28 patients with 79 implants were evaluated after 3 years of follow-up. The mean value of MBL was 0.70 mm (group A = 0.73 mm; group B = 0.71 mm), while mean IBL was 0.54 mm (group A = 0.64 mm; group B = 0.40 mm). The treatment with meshes resulted not inferior to PTFE and their clinical results appeared similar. A strong correlation between PBL and IBP was confirmed. Both study groups showed an increase of tKT and wKT values. ConclusionIn the posterior mandible, VRA using both techniques provides stable PBLs up to 3 years. A correct soft tissue management and a strict professional oral hygiene protocol play a crucial role on peri-implant health over time
Anticancer activities of fatty acids and their heterocyclic derivatives
Traditional chemotherapy relies on the premise that rapidly proliferating cancer cells are more likely to be killed by a cytotoxic agent, but in reality, the long-standing problem of chemotherapy is the lack of tumor-specific treatments. Apart from the impact on tumor cells, the drugsâ major limitation is their severe adverse side effects on normal cells and tissues. Nutritional and epidemiological studies have indicated that cancer progression is correlated with the consumption of fatty acids, but the exact mechanisms still remain unknown. In the first part of our review, we discussed the beneficial effects of free fatty acids (saturated and unsaturated) on the progress of carcinogenesis in different tumor cell lines. We presented various mechanisms proposed in the literature, which explain the possible impact on the cells metabolism. The second part describes modifications of different fatty acids with existing anticancer drugs and heterocyclic moieties by condensation reactions. Such conjugations increased the tissue selectivity and made chemotherapy potentially more effective and less toxic in in vivo and in vitro studies. This fatty acid modifications, which change the activity of compounds, their uptake selectivity and alter drug delivery methods, may be the key to unlocking true medical potential of fatty acids
Sequent Calculus in the Topos of Trees
Nakano's "later" modality, inspired by G\"{o}del-L\"{o}b provability logic,
has been applied in type systems and program logics to capture guarded
recursion. Birkedal et al modelled this modality via the internal logic of the
topos of trees. We show that the semantics of the propositional fragment of
this logic can be given by linear converse-well-founded intuitionistic Kripke
frames, so this logic is a marriage of the intuitionistic modal logic KM and
the intermediate logic LC. We therefore call this logic
. We give a sound and cut-free complete sequent
calculus for via a strategy that decomposes
implication into its static and irreflexive components. Our calculus provides
deterministic and terminating backward proof-search, yields decidability of the
logic and the coNP-completeness of its validity problem. Our calculus and
decision procedure can be restricted to drop linearity and hence capture KM.Comment: Extended version, with full proof details, of a paper accepted to
FoSSaCS 2015 (this version edited to fix some minor typos
Coarse Grained Density Functional Theories for Metallic Alloys: Generalized Coherent Potential Approximations and Charge Excess Functional Theory
The class of the Generalized Coherent Potential Approximations (GCPA) to the
Density Functional Theory (DFT) is introduced within the Multiple Scattering
Theory formalism for dealing with, ordered or disordered, metallic alloys. All
GCPA theories are based on a common ansatz for the kinetic part of the
Hohenberg-Kohn functional and each theory of the class is specified by an
external model concerning the potential reconstruction. The GCPA density
functional consists of marginally coupled local contributions, does not depend
on the details of the charge density and can be exactly rewritten as a function
of the appropriate charge multipole moments associated with each lattice site.
A general procedure based on the integration of the 'qV' laws is described that
allows for the explicit construction the same function. The coarse grained
nature of the GCPA density functional implies great computational advantages
and is connected with the O(N) scalability of GCPA algorithms. Moreover, it is
shown that a convenient truncated series expansion of the GCPA functional leads
to the Charge Excess Functional (CEF) theory [E. Bruno, L. Zingales and Y.
Wang, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 91}, 166401 (2003)] which here is offered in a
generalized version that includes multipolar interactions. CEF and the GCPA
numerical results are compared with status of art LAPW full-potential density
functional calculations for 62, bcc- and fcc-based, ordered CuZn alloys, in all
the range of concentrations. These extensive tests show that the discrepancies
between GCPA and CEF are always within the numerical accuracy of the
calculations, both for the site charges and the total energies. Furthermore,
GCPA and CEF very carefully reproduce the LAPW site charges and the total
energy trends.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figure
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