Antiproliferative activity of lichen extracts on murine myeloma cells

In the present study we report some preliminary results concerning the evaluation of antiproliferative activity on murine myeloma cells (P3X63-Ag8.653) of crude extracts of two common lichen species, Evernia prunastri and Xanthoria parietina. The results were evaluated by means of the MTT [3-(4,5- dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide] test, which is commonly used to assess the activity of living cells through mitochondrial dehydrogenases. They indicated that extracts of E. prunastri had no effect, while those of X. parietina significantly affected murine myeloma cell proliferation, with a reduction down to 75% for methanolic extracts. This opens perspectives for deeper investigations extended also to other mammalian cell lines

Template-Based Generation of Multimedia Presentations

Data-centered approaches to multimedia presentation design and implementation can be developed by extending methodologies and technologies common in text-based applications. A multimedia report is a multimedia presentation built on a set of data returned by one or more queries to multimedia repositories, integrated according to a template with appropriate spatial layout and temporal synchronization, and coherently delivered to a user for browsing. We discuss the problem of defining templates for such multimedia reports with a focus on media coordination and synchronization. Multimedia presentations can be automatically generated according to the template by instantiating it on actual data instances. An XML language describes the spatial layout and the temporal constraints of the media objects. An authoring system and a player have been implemented

The new classmate: An exploration of how CoVid-19 affected primary schools activities in Italy

Among all the others, one of the groups of persons most affected by the restrictions applied to contrast Corona-Virus spread is surely represented by children. In particular, closing school has been an action applied by several countries (195 at the beginning of April 2020), involving 1,600,000,000 students all over the world. In Italy, distance learning activities have been adopted all over the country, at each educational stage, but with substantial differences (i.e., in terms of modalities and digital platforms). With the aim of investigating the most adopted technologies, didactic methodologies, as well as the impact on schools population, we have involved families of more than 1,000 Italian students, asking them to fill a survey. This paper presents the analysis of the results we have obtained, focusing on a delicate group of students: the ones attending primary schools, where kids learn fundamental knowledge and basic skills