What Empathy Can(not) Do. An Inquiry into the Epistemic Possibilities and Limits of Empathic Imagination.

In my dissertation, I am going to argue that empathy is a cognitive process through which we imagine another\u2019s first-person perspective in a given situation. Empathy aims at providing empathizers with an insight into \u201cwhat it feels like\u201d to be in somebody else\u2019s shoes. I call this phenomenon phenomenal insight. In light of this account, I am going to show some of empathy\u2019s major epistemic possibilities and limits. The dissertation is so structured. In Chapter I, I will engage with the literature devoted to the definition of empathy. From this debate, I extrapolate a pattern of basic features that are shared by most accounts. I then introduce the definition of empathy I will be dealing with throughout the present work. In Chapter II, I engage with the view that regards empathy as capable of providing us with an understanding of other people's reasons for action, where reasons are to be taken as constituted by a belief-desire couple. I criticize the belief-desire model and argue for the inclusion of emotions as full-right reason-giving states. I show how emotions' main source of motivation can be found in the way in which they are phenomenally experienced by subjects. I then argue for phenomenal insight as a way to grasp the reason-giving dimension of emotional states. Attached to this chapter I put an Appendix in which I explore more in detail how it is possible for us to first-personally imagine emotional states. In Chapter III, I argue that what can be empathically imagined is bound to the kind of individuals we are, i.e. to our preferences, values, dispositions, etc. When trying to imagine other people's perspectives, traces of our \u201cselves\u201d can be found in what and how we imagine. I use the case of \u201cimaginative resistance\u201d as a vivid example of this phenomenon. I further defend my claims by resorting to some relevant empirical work in social psychology and neuroscience. In Chapter IV, I engage with the debate on transformative experiences (TEs). TEs could, indeed, be interpreted as highlighting major limits of our imaginative capabilities due to the kind of selves we are. The stock of experiences we had constrains our capability to conjure up the relevant imaginings about experiences we did not personally undergo. At the same time, the kind of \u201cself\u201d we are impedes us to fully appreciate a different self\u2019s perspective. In Chapter V, I show how the challenges to empathy explored in the previous chapter can be counterbalanced. This allows me to show some surprising features of empathy that are seldom discussed in contemporary literature, namely the possibility to learn via empathy and the possibility to change via empathy. On the one hand, I show how empathy, by stretching our imagination, can provide us with phenomenal insight into experiences we did not actually undergo. On the other hand, I show how empathy, by exposing ourselves to new perspectives, can change us as individuals

Oral piercing and oral diseases: a short time retrospective study.

Body piercing indicates the puncturing of a part of the body in which jewelry may be worn. In recent years, oral piercing is increasingly popular especially among young people. Body piercing has to be considered as a surgical procedure to all intents and purposes and, as such, has to be performed only by qualified personnel able to assure high standards of professionalism in facilities subject to sanitary inspections. The aim of the present work is to verify what risks patients may be exposed to and what complications may occur after a healthcare professional performs oral piercing. Our retrospective study includes 108 patients (74 males and 34 females) aged between 14 and 39 years, who had oral piercing done 12±4 months earlier. All the patients underwent clinical examination to reveal the possible presence of late complications. After piercing, none of the 108 patients developed widespread complications. Although all patients said they had followed the piercers' instructions, 96% of them reported postoperative local complications such as bleeding within 12 hours of piercing (90%), perile-sional edema for 3±2 days after piercing surgery (80%), and persistent mucosal atrophy (70%). © Ivyspring International Publisher

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma affecting the tongue: Unusual intra-oral location

Introduction. The expression non Hodgkin lymphoma is used to cover a wide group of lymphoid neoplasias unrelated to Hodgkin's disease, due to the huge histological variety and the tendency to affect organs and tissues that does not physiologically contain lymphoid cells. The intraoral location is not frequent (3 - 5 percent of cases) and the initial manifestations of the disease rarely take place here. Case presentation. We describe the case of a 73 years old Italian caucasian male who came to our attention with a tongue lesion. The clinical manifestation was macroglossia and bleeding, probably deriving from the tongue-bite injuries. The patient had been complaining of dyspnea for 48 hours. Conclusion. A tongue affected by non-Hodgkin's lymphoma rarely occurs. In spite of this, this possibility should always be considered for the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant lesions affecting such area. A rapid diagnostic assessment, together with an adequate histopathologic verification, are indeed essential to improve the management and the prognosis of this disease. © 2011 Inchingolo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

The Role of Tropomyosin and Cardiac Myosin Binding Protein-C in Modulating Thin Filament Activity

Muscle contraction is a finely tuned mechanism involving cyclical interactions between actin and myosin, regulated by calcium through troponin and tropomyosin and modulated by myosin binding protein-C. Genetic mutations of the proteins involved in such complex mechanism can thus lead to potential life threatening diseases, such as Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM). Although being mostly asymptomatic, HCM affects 1 in 500 people, ultimately leading to poor prognosis and sudden death, thought to occur through the impairment of relaxation during diastole. In this thesis I present the experiments conducted to improve our current understanding of the molecular mechanism behind HCM, specifically on the role of tropomyosin and myosin binding protein-C in modulating thin filament activation and relaxation. Using a single molecule approach, we first visualised fluorescent myosin binding to reconstituted thin filaments and examined their dynamics in the presence of the tropomyosin HCM causing E180G mutation, demonstrating a shift of the thin filament activation state towards the closed state, facilitating myosin binding at low calcium, and a reduction of the thin filament regulatory unit. We then looked at the dynamics of very highly concentrated clusters of myosin, showing how the sudden collapse of these active regions cannot be explained by normal relaxation mechanisms, thus suggesting an alternative mechanistic role for tropomyosin and how its mutations could lead to impaired relaxation in HCM. Finally, we turned our focus on N-terminal fragments of cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C) and study their role in thin filament activation, by looking at how they affect acto-myosin interactions. We found that only the presence of the whole cMyBP-C N-terminus was able to promote acto-myosin interactions at low Ca2+ or repressing them at high Ca2+. Moreover, by looking at the dynamics of the fragments, we were able to determine that cMyBP-C possesses a two steps binding mechanism to actin, leading us to define its mechanism by which it activates the thin filament

Non-syndromic multiple supernumerary teeth in a family unit with a normal karyotype: Case report

Introduction. Hyperdontia is an odontostomatologic anomaly characterized by an excess in tooth number. It seems to occur more often in patients with hereditary factors concerning this anomaly: this case represents a rare form of hyperdontia, with bilateral multiple supernumerary teeth, with evident penetrance of the phenotype in the family unit engaged in the present study. The karyotype determination excludes a pathogenesis on chromosomal basis. Case report. A 30 years old patient came to our observation with five impactedteet h (1. 8, 2. 8, 3.8, 4.7 and 4.8), as well as with the presence of an impacted supernumerary tooth (distomolar 4. 9). The patient was suggested to allow us to perform a radiologic screening to his two sisters aged 17 and 13 years. The X-ray photography showedt hat the elder sister had nine impacted teeth; these were 1. 8 - 1.9 - 2.8 - 2.9 - 2.10 - 3.8 - 3.9 - 4.8 - 4.9; while the youngest sister had four impacted teeth, that is 1.8 - 1.9 - 2.8 - 2.9. Conclusions. The value of the present caser report can be used as a paradigm for the assessment of the hereditary factors predisposing the onset of hyperdontia, and for the consequent management by oral surgeon of family units in which the odontostomatologic anomaly was detected without any syndromicforms. © Ivyspring International Publisher

Surgical treatment of depressed scar: A simple technique

Scar formation is a process consequent to the healing of soft tissues after a trauma. However, abnormal or disturbed collagen production can cause anomalies of the cutaneous surface and textural irregularities. In the presence of a depressed scar in deep tissue, we began to use a new simple technique. In the presence of adherent scars, a small incision is performed so that an undermining scissor can enter inside. The entire cicatricial area is undermined on a subcutaneous plane which, by separating the deep scar from the superficial one, completely frees it from the present adhesions so that the existing depression is totally eliminated. In order to avoid the recreation of relapses, stitches formed in a U-shape are made in Nylon or Monocril 2-3/0 are made with a large needle and are placed close together so that a wide aversion is achieved at the margins of the scar and a deep wound closure is obtained by adhering to the undermined tissue. These stitches will then be removed about 2 weeks later. © Ivyspring International Publisher

O3 – prizadevanja na področju medicinske informatike za e-zdravstveno regijo

The Open Three (O3) Consortium is promoting the adoption of Open Source in e-health on regional, European and World-wide levels. This project aims to contribute to the development of e-health through the study of Healthcare Information Systems and the contemporary proposal of new concepts, designs and solutions for the management of health data in an integrated environment of hospitals, Regional Health Information Organizations and citizens (home-care, mobile-care and ambient assisted living). Some concrete technical solutions in the field of medical informatics are presented in this paper. The applications presented are the heart of the Radiology information system, which is open to other health institutions, thus forming a basis for the realization of e-health integration. The formation of a genuine e-health region is just one step forward.Konzorcij Odprti trije (O3) si prizadeva za sprejetje odprtega vira v e-zdravstvu na regionalnem, evropskem in svetovnem nivoju. Projekt si prizadeva prispevati k razvoju e-zdravstva s pomočjo preučevanja informacijskega sistema zdravstvenega varstva ter sodobnih predlogov novih zasnov, načrtov in rešitev za upravljanje z zdravstvenimi podatki v integriranem okolju bolnišnic, regionalnih organizacijah zdravstvene informatike in pri državljanih (v domači negi, mobilni negi in v primeru bivanja z asistenco v okolju). V prispevku so prikazane nekatere konkretne tehnične rešitve na področju medicinske informatike. Prikazane aplikacije so bistvo radiološkega informacijskega sistema, ki je odprt drugim zdravstvenim institucijam in tako predstavlja temelj za realizacijo e-zdravstvene integracije. Tako je oblikovanje prave e-zdravstvene regije oddaljeno le še za korak

Why Are We Here? On the (Philosophical) Value of Documents

What does a philosopher do with documents? The most natural answer to this question would probably be that philosophers, as writers, produce documents. What would appear as less intuitive, though, is a philosopher producing documents about documents. But philosophy—and in particular ontology—has always been interested in what there is out there in the world. And documents are a peculiar class of objects, the stuff the world is filled with. This year, the Annual Meeting of the Document Academy has been hosted by a philosophy department for the first time: by the Department of Philosophy of the University of Turin. This editorial introduces the proceedings from this meeting