Astrophysicists and physicists as creators of ArXiv-based commenting resources for their research communities. An initial survey

This paper conveys the outcomes of what results to be the first, though initial, overview of commenting platforms and related 2.0 resources born within and for the astrophysical community (from 2004 to 2016). Experiences were added, mainly in the physics domain, for a total of 22 major items, including four epijournals, and four supplementary resources, thus casting some light onto an unexpected richness and consonance of endeavours. These experiences rest almost entirely on the contents of the database ArXiv, which adds to its merits that of potentially setting the grounds for web 2.0 resources, and research behaviours, to be explored. Most of the experiences retrieved are UK and US based, but the resulting picture is international, as various European countries, China and Australia have been actively involved. Final remarks about creation patterns and outcome of these resources are outlined. The results integrate the previous studies according to which the web 2.0 is presently of limited use for communication in astrophysics and vouch for a role of researchers in the shaping of their own professional communication tools that is greater than expected. Collaterally, some aspects of ArXiv s recent pathway towards partial inclusion of web 2.0 features are touched upon. Further investigation is hoped for.Comment: Journal article 16 page

Challenging the Evidence Base: The Impact of Teen Pregnancy Prevention Curricula on Disconnected Youth

Rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections are substantially higher for youth in foster care, juvenile detention, homeless shelters and substance use rehabilitation facilities. However, these "disconnected youth" face multiple barriers in accessing sexual health information. This study uses data from a multi-site federally funded project to examine the usefulness and effectiveness of teen pregnancy prevention evidence based programs (EBPs) with youth in high risk setting

Blogging astrophysics, shaping the self. Content-mediated Identity negotiation and peer group adjustment in a sample of astrophysicists’ blogs

This working paper was uploaded on SocArXiv on October 4th, 2021. As at April 26th, 2022 it was downloaded 55 times and got 166 views (source: SocArXiv).Research blogging has received a rather good amount of attention from the scholarly literature, but not in the domain of astrophysics. In the present paper, three active astrophysicists’ blogs have been chosen from a previously retrieved wider corpus and analyzed against the pivotal theory of identity shaping in an online setting. The study, which is essentially mixed-methods, has built on Susan Herring’s definition of computer-mediated conversation and focusses on content analysis as well as on content-based interaction (comments and replies per subject). Special care was taken on ensuring bloggers’ and commenters’ anonimity, in compliance with the British Psychological Society Ethics Guidelines. These blogs’ conversational capacity has emerged and the hypothesis of some degree of professional identity negotiation results to be confirmed, with implications on the invisible colleges. The context is that of an interdisciplinary, provisional junction between ground-based linguistic fieldwork in a 2.0 online setting and the search for appropriate theoretical frameworks about unconscious or semi-conscious aims of communication in a scholarly environment

Arxiv-based commenting resources by and for astrophysicists and physicists: an initial survey

This paper results to be the first, though absolutely initial, overview of commenting platforms and other web 2.0 resources which were born for and within the astrophysical research community, from 2004 to 2016. Additional experiences, chiefly in the physics domain, were added for a total of twenty-one tools, inclusive of four items in the specific area of epijournals – plus four supplementary resources which have been simply mentioned or anyway much more synthetically described due to their specific features –, thus casting some light onto an unexpected richness and consonance of endeavours. These experiences rest on the contents of the pioneering database ArXiv, which adds to its universally recognized merits that of setting the grounds for web 2.0 resources, and research behaviours, to be put in place

Patterns of neuropsychological impairment in MCI patients with small subcortical infarcts or hippocampal atrophy

We investigated whether MCI patients with hippocampal atrophy or multiple subcortical infarcts demonstrate neuropsychological patterns and markers considered typical of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and of vascular dementia (VD), respectively. An extensive neuropsychological battery, including tests of memory, visual-spatial and executive functions, language, attention, praxis and psychomotor speed, was administered to 36 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients with hippocampal atrophy and 41 MCI patients with multiple subcortical infarcts. Both groups of MCI patients were very mildly impaired and well matched in terms of MMSE scores. A clear, disproportionately severe, episodic memory disorder was observed in MCI patients with hippocampal atrophy. A less specific neuropsychological profile, consisting of impairment on an Action Naming task that is sensitive to frontal lobe lesions, was observed in MCI patients with multiple subcortical infarcts. In MCI patients, a disproportionately severe episodic memory impairment strongly points to an Alzheimer's type brain pathology, whereas the prevalence of executive deficits and other frontal lobe symptoms are a much weaker diagnostic marker of small vessel subcortical disease. (JINS, 2008, 14, 611–619.