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 (n = 35; age‐match), and those aged 9 (n = 40) and 7 (n = 37; language similar) also participated as comparisons. Outcomes & Results: For Semantic Choices, children with specific language impairment performed significantly more poorly than 9‐ and 11‐year‐olds, 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 11‐year‐old peers, but not poorer than 9‐ and 7‐year‐olds, 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 non‐significant 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

USe of seakeeping simulation capabilities in the preliminary phase of the design of multihull vessels

Thesis (S.M. in Ocean Systems Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 190-193).Seakeeping analysis is a fundamental part of the design process of a ship. Due to its complexity, seakeeping analysis is usually completed in a late stage of the design process. Although this approach can be successfully used for monohull vessels, it is not optimal in designing more innovative hull forms, due to the high degree of uncertainty of the seakeeping performances of these vessels. The recent interest in multihull vessels poses a problem to the naval architecture world as little is known about such hull forms and a limited number of design tools is available to analyze them. These concerns led to the development of the I-Marine Seakeeping Analysis Toolbox that aims to help students and naval architects alike understand the importance of seakeeping analysis and the seakeeping capabilities of multihull vessels. The Toolbox includes five different seakeeping programs suitable for the analysis of multihull vessels and is accessible through a web interface. The integrated nature of I-Marine strongly facilitates the usage of the programs, making it a great educational tool to learn seakeeping analysis without any previous programming knowledge.(cont.) This thesis shows that a tool such as I-Marine could be effectively used in calculating the seakeeping capabilities of multihulls and successfully integrated in the preliminary design of a vessel, leading to numerous advantages such as a higher efficiency in the design process, a reduction in the risk of designing multihulls, and an expansion of the design envelope.by Cosimo Malesci.S.M.in Ocean Systems Managemen

A measurement-based analysis of the interaction among MAC, network and application layers in wireless sensor networks

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-83).There have been a number of recent proposals for link and network-layer protocols in the sensor networking literature, each of which claims to be superior to other approaches. However, a proposal for a networking protocol at a given layer in the stack is typically evaluated in the context of a single set of carefully selected protocols at other layers, as well as a particular network topology and application workload. Because of the limited data available about interactions between different protocols at various layers of the stack, it is difficult for developers of sensor network applications to select from amongst the range of alternative sensor networking protocols. This thesis attempts to remedy this situation by evaluating the interaction between several protocols at the MAC and network layers and measuring their performance in terms of end-to-end throughput and loss on a large, real-world TinyOS and Mica2 mote-based tested. We report on different combinations of protocols using different application workloads and power-management schemes. This thesis analyzes the effects of various services provided by the different protocols, such as link-level retransmission, neighborhood management, and link-quality estimation. Our analysis suggests some common sources of poor performance that developers may experience during real-life deployments; based on this experience, we propose a set of design principles and lessons for the designers of future interfaces and services in TinyOS.by Umberto Malesci.M.Eng

Lack of mutation at codon 531 of SRC in advanced colorectal cancers from Italian patients

A truncating mutation (C to T transition) at codon 531 of the human protooncogene c-src, possibly accounting for the activation of c-src tyrosine kinase, has been recently identified in a subset of advanced colorectal cancer from North-American patients. However, two subsequent studies have failed to confirm the occurrence of SRC 531 mutation in colorectal cancers from North-European and Asiatic patients, raising the hypothesis that the genetic activation of src in colon cancer might be restricted to patients belonging to specific ethnic groups. We investigated a large series of colorectal cancers from Italian patients (155 cases) with a high prevalence of liver metastasis (43%). Using a PCR-RFLP assay, the occurrence of a SRC 531 mutation was ruled out in all the investigated specimens of primary tumours and/or metastases. Our results demonstrate that SRC Gln531AMB plays no role in the development or in the progression of colorectal cancer among Italian patients. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.co

Bimodal strategy for excellent audiological rehabilitation in a subject with a novel nonsense mutation of the SLC26A4 gene: A case report

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Prognostic and Predictive Cross-Roads of Microsatellite Instability and Immune Response to Colon Cancer

Understanding molecular features of colon cancer has shed light on its pathogenesis and progression. Over time, some of these features acquired clinical dignity and were incorporated in decision making. Namely, microsatellite instability (MSI) due to mismatch repair of defects, which primarily was adopted for the diagnosis of Lynch syndrome, became recognized as the biomarker of a different disease type, showing a less aggressive behavior. MSI tumors harbor high amounts of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) due to their peculiar load in neoantigens. However, microsatellite stable colon cancer may also show high amounts of TILs, and this feature is as well associated with better outcomes. High TIL loads are in general associated with a favorable prognosis, especially in stage II colon cancer, and therein identifies a patient subset with the lowest probability of relapse. With respect to post-surgical adjuvant treatment, particularly in stage III, TILs predictive ability seems to weaken along with the progression of the disease, being less evident in high risk patients. Moving from cohort studies to the analysis of a series from clinical trials contributed to increase the robustness of TILs as a biomarker. The employment of high TIL densities as an indicator of good prognosis in early-stage colon cancers is strongly advisable, while in late-stage colon cancers the employment as an indicator of good responsiveness to post-surgical therapy requires refinement. It remains to be clarified whether TILs could help in identifying those patients with node-positive cancers to whom adjuvant treatment could be spared, at least in low-risk groups as defined by the TNM staging system

The arthropathy of systemic sclerosis

Joint involvement occurs in thirds of SSc patients during the course of the disease, but may be the onset manifestation. Arthralgias, stiffness and tendon sheath involvement constitute the most common clinical findings affecting all joints, but predominantly the fingers, wrists and ankles. The most common radiographic abnormalities in SSc patients are subcutaneous calcinosis and digital tuft resorptions, which are frequently observed at the hands. Juxtaarticular demineralitation, joint space narrowing and erosions also occur and are diagnostic challenges with rheumatoid arthritis. Flexion deformities and tendon friction rubs are more common in dcSSc; arthritis/arthralgias and radiographic abnormalities similarly affect patients from each subset. A recent classification of radiological patterns (inflammatory, degenerative, periarticular fibrotic) pointed out a greater prevalence of the fibrotic pattern at the hands and degenerative pattern at the feet

Epithelial to mesenchymal transition: A challenging playground for translational research. current models and focus on TWIST1 relevance and gastrointestinal cancers

Resembling the development of cancer by multistep carcinogenesis, the evolution towards metastasis involves several passages, from local invasion and intravasation, encompassing surviving anoikis into the circulation, landing at distant sites and therein establishing colonization, possibly followed by the outgrowth of macroscopic lesions. Within this cascade, epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) works as a pleiotropic program enabling cancer cells to overcome local, systemic, and distant barriers against diffusion by replacing traits and functions of the epithelial signature with mesenchymal‐like ones. Along the transition, a full‐blown mesenchymal phenotype may not be accomplished. Rather, the plasticity of the program and its dependency on heterotopic signals implies a pendulum with oscillations towards its reversal, that is mesenchymal to epithelial transition. Cells in intermixed E⇔M states can also display stemness, enabling their replication together with the epithelial reversion next to successful distant colonization. If we aim to include the EMT among the hallmarks of cancer that could modify clinical practice, the gap between the results pursued in basic research by animal models and those achieved in translational research by surrogate biomarkers needs to be filled. We review the knowledge on EMT, derived from models and mechanistic studies as well as from translational studies, with an emphasis on gastrointestinal cancers (GI)

Tinnitus and Neuropsychological Dysfunction in the Elderly: A Systematic Review on Possible Links

Introduction: Tinnitus is a common and disabling symptom often associated with hearing loss. While clinical practice frequently shows that a certain degree of psychological discomfort often characterizes tinnitus suffers, it has been recently suggested in adults as a determining factor for cognitive decline affecting attention and memory domains. The aim of our systematic review was to provide evidence for a link between tinnitus, psychological distress, and cognitive dysfunction in older patients and to focus on putative mechanisms of this relationship. Methods: We performed a systematic review, finally including 192 articles that were screened. This resulted in 12 manuscripts of which the full texts were included in a qualitative analysis. Results: The association between tinnitus and psychological distress, mainly depression, has been demonstrated in older patients, although only few studies addressed the aged population. Limited studies on cognitive dysfunction in aged patients affected by chronic tinnitus are hardly comparable, as they use different methods to validate cognitive impairment. Actual evidence does not allow us with certainty to establish if tinnitus matters as an independent risk factor for cognitive impairment or evolution to dementia. Conclusion: Tinnitus, which is usually associated with age-related hearing loss, might negatively affect emotional wellbeing and cognitive capacities in older people, but further studies are required to improve the evidence