La produzione culturale in una società multiculturale : agenti sociali, pratiche e linguaggi

In the last ten years, studies on cultural production have dramatically increased in number and in the variety of issues embraced. The focus on production instead of consumption gives more opportunities to study the intertwined processes involving institutions, discourses, media, social agents, material culture and practices. This editorial introduces briefly the essays presented in this issue, which includes contributions analysing the cultural construction of a neighbourhood and the relative feeling of belonging, the cultural construction of the category of \u2018music festival\u2019 and the relative practices, a study on Italian radio dramas, and two essays focusing on as many specific fields of cultural production \u2013 literature and the arts. The distinctive quality of this monographic issue of LCM lies in its multidisciplinary approach and in the complementarity of the articles it features

Development and Clinical Evaluation of MatrixMANDIBLE Subcondylar Plates System (Synthes).

In this article, authors report the different steps of development and clinical validation of MatrixMANDIBLE Subcondylar Plates (Synthes, Soletta, Switzerland), a specialized osteosynthesis system developed by Synthes during the past 4 years. Between 2009 and 2013, a total of 62 patients were treated for subcondylar and condylar neck fractures via a preauricular or retromandibular/transparotid approach. The MatrixMANDIBLE Subcondylar Plates System consists of a Trapezoidal Plate, a three-dimensional (3D) 4-hole 1.0-mm plate for smaller fracture areas, the Lambda Plate, a 7-hole 1.0-mm linear plate whichmimics the twominiplates technique, and the Strut Plate, a 3D 1.0-mm plate with great versatility of employment. All devices satisfy the principles of a functionally stable osteosynthesis as stated by Champy et al. None of the plates broke and no macroscopic condylar displacement was noted on radiological follow-up. Clinical and functional parameters assessed at 6 months postoperative (mandibular range of motion, pain, dental occlusion) were almost restored. MatrixMANDIBLE Subcondylar Plates System (Synthes) has proved to provide sufficient mechanical stiffness and anatomically accurate fracture reduction to avoid major postoperative drawbacks of subcondylar and condylar neck fracture

detection of hepatitis c virus rna in saliva from chronically hcv infected patients

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Clinical Relevance of Liver Involvement in the Clinical Course of Systemic Sclerosis

Liver involvement in systemic sclerosis (SSc) is rare. We evaluated the prevalence of liver fibrosis and hepatic autoimmunity in SSc patients in a retrospective observational cohort (97 SSc or mixed connective tissue disease with sclerodermic manifestations patients undergoing transient elastography, evaluating liver stiffness (LS) and controlled attenuation parameter (CAP), due to clinical indications along with biochemistry assessments and major antibodies associated to liver autoimmunity). Among them, 11 had LS ≥ 7.5 kPa and 5 showed an LS compatible with cirrhosis (LS ≥ 12.5 kPa). Predictors of LS ≥ 7.5 fibrosis were alcohol consumption (>14 or >7 alcoholic units/week for men and women, respectively), waist circumference (>102 or >88 cm for men and women, respectively), elevated alkaline phosphatase, and anti-La and anti-mitochondrial antibody (AMA) positivity. Six patients had CAP values compatible with severe steatosis (≥280 dB/m). Waist circumference, body mass index and diabetes mellitus were significant predictors of steatosis. Out of 97 patients, 19 were positive for AMA, 4 for anti-Sp100, 1 for anti-Gp210 and 7 were diagnosed with primary biliary cholangitis. Among SSc patients, hepatic fibrosis biomarkers and AMA prevalence are relatively high, suggesting the opportunity of performing a transient elastography and a screening for hepatic autoimmunity at diagnosis and/or during disease progression

PERIODONTITIS AND EARLY MORTALITY IN ADULTS WITH KIDNEY FAILURE TREATED WITH HEMODIALYSIS: A MULTINATIONAL OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

Introduction and Aims: Periodontitis is associated with cardiovascular mortality in the general population and adults with chronic diseases, however prognostic data for periodontitis in the setting of kidney failure are sparse. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether periodontitis was prognostic for all-cause and cardiovascular-related death in adults with kidney failure. Methods: ORALD is a multinational cohort study in adults with kidney failure treated with haemodialysis in Europe (France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain) and Argentina. Periodontitis was measured at baseline according to the World Health Organization Community Periodontal Index. The outcomes were all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Analyses were conducted using a fixed-effect Cox proportional hazards analysis and additionally using a random effects model fitted using shared frailty to account for clustering within countries. Results: Periodontitis was evaluable in 3338 dentate participants of which 1355 (40.6%) had moderate to severe periodontitis. During 6150 person-years of follow-up, 650 deaths occurred of which 325 were cardiovascular. In multivariable analyses, moderate to severe periodontitis was associated with a lower hazard of all-cause (HR 0.76, 95% confidence interval 0.64 to 0.90) and cardiovascular (0.69, 0.54 to 0.87) mortality. There was evidence of decreasing mortality risks with more severe periodontal disease (P≤0.001 for trend). However, when analyses accounted for clustering of participants within countries, the associations between periodontitis and all-cause (0.92, 0.75 to 1.11) and cardiovascular (0.83, 0.63 to 1.09) mortality were not significant. Similar results were observed in analyses restricted to participants with 12 or more teeth and when competing risks for cardiovascular death were considered. Conclusions: Unlike in the general population, there is limited evidence that periodontitis is independently associated with increased all-cause or cardiovascular mortality in adults with kidney failure

Internal alignment and position resolution of the silicon tracker of DAMPE determined with orbit data

The DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is a space-borne particle detector designed to probe electrons and gamma-rays in the few GeV to 10 TeV energy range, as well as cosmic-ray proton and nuclei components between 10 GeV and 100 TeV. The silicon-tungsten tracker-converter is a crucial component of DAMPE. It allows the direction of incoming photons converting into electron-positron pairs to be estimated, and the trajectory and charge (Z) of cosmic-ray particles to be identified. It consists of 768 silicon micro-strip sensors assembled in 6 double layers with a total active area of 6.6 m$^2$. Silicon planes are interleaved with three layers of tungsten plates, resulting in about one radiation length of material in the tracker. Internal alignment parameters of the tracker have been determined on orbit, with non-showering protons and helium nuclei. We describe the alignment procedure and present the position resolution and alignment stability measurements