Teachers’ professional development: a cultural matter. How to describe cultural contexts?

International audienceTeachers' professional development in collaborative contexts is a growing trend in Mathematics Education research. Particularly, Japanese Lesson Study has seen a great focus on its dissemination around the world. Research shows that Japanese culture is one of the main reasons that makes Lesson Study effective: understanding Lesson Study means understanding the cultural context in which it originated. We attempt to describe the Japanese and the Italian cultural contexts. Since there exists no consensus on what is essential to analyse in order to understand a cultural context, we present two approaches to this description, and consider some advantages and shortcomings. We hope to sprout discussion on the possibility to create guidelines for describing cultural contexts, shared by the community of researchers in Mathematics Education: awareness of beliefs, identity and practice is a sensitive element for successful mathematics teacher professional development

Disentanglement among vitamins D

Vitamin D is essential for intestinal calcium absorption andtherefore crucial for skeletal health. In addition, its beneficialeffects extend outside bone tissue. The list of putative non-skeletal effects for which vitamin D adequacy is needed rangesfrom diseases at birth to those causing death. Associationsbetween a poor vitamin D status and endometriosis, uterinemyoma, dysmenorrhea, abnormal PAP smear results, and high-risk HPV infection of the cervix have also been described. Just tostay in our days, a possible favorable role of“vitamin D”in mod-ulating SARS-COV-2 infection has been demonstrated by some[1] but not all researchers. However, hypovitaminosis D (a termwe would prefer to indicate both deficiency and insufficiency, inanalogy with other clinical conditions, i.e. hypomagnesemia, hypo-calcemia, hyposideremia) is highly prevalent in the world

Rheumatoid arthritis, bone and drugs: a dangerous interweave

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Epidemiology of tumor-induced osteomalacia in denmark

Tumor-induced osteomalacia (TIO) is a rare, acquired condition of phosphate wasting due to phosphaturic mesenchymal tumors. Because the incidence and prevalence of TIO is unknown, we conducted an observational cohort study using national Danish health registers for the period 2008 to 2018 to obtain such information. The study also aimed to describe the demographics of the TIO population and the prognosis. The operational definition was based on hypophosphatemia or adult osteomalacia diagnoses, combined with prescriptions used in the initial management and procedures consistent with advanced imaging used for locating tumors. The incidence of TIO in Denmark was found to be below 0.13 per 100,000 person years for the total population of the country and 0.10 per 100,000 in adult-onset disease. The prevalence of TIO was estimated to be no more than 0.70 per 100,000 persons for the total population and 0.43 per 100,000 in adults. In 2018, there were a maximum of nine new cases of TIO in Danish adults. Mortality was low but few patients fulfilled the protocol cure criterion during the observation period. TIO has no ICD-10 code and limitations to the study include lack of information on serum biochemistry and on the use of phosphate supplements. Strengths include the use of long-term longitudinal, national hospital and prescription data from a country with universal healthcare. Given the very small patient population with TIO and the known delay to diagnosis and cure, management of patients with suspected TIO should be centralized

Retinal micro-vascular and aortic macro-vascular changes in postmenopausal women with primary hyperparathyroidism

Aim of the study was to evaluate the micro and macro-vascular changes in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) compared to controls. 30 postmenopausal PHPT women (15 hypertensive and 15 normotensive) and 30 normotensive controls underwent biochemical evaluation of mineral metabolism and measurements of arterial stiffness by 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring. Retinal microcirculation was imaged by a Retinal Vessel Analyzer. PHPT patients also underwent bone mineral density measurements and kidney ultrasound. PHPT patients had higher mean calcium and parathyroid hormone values compared to controls. Evaluating macro-vascular compartment, we found higher values of 24 hours-systolic, diastolic blood pressure, aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV) and aortic augmentation index (Aix) in hypertensive PHPT, but not in normotensive PHPT compared to controls. The eye examination showed narrowing arterial and venular diameters of retinal vessels in both hypertensive and normotensive PHPT compared to controls. In hypertensive PHPT, 24 hours systolic blood pressure was associated only with parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels (beta = 0.36, p = 0.04). aPWV was associated with retinal diameter (beta = −0.69, p = 0.003), but not with PTH. Retinal artery diameter was associated with PTH (beta = −0.6, p = 0.008). In the normotensive PHPT, only PTH was associated with retinal artery diameter (beta = −0.60, p = 0.01) and aortic AIx (beta = 0.65, p = 0.02). In conclusion, we found macro-vascular impairment in PHPT and that micro-vascular impairment is negatively associated with PTH, regardless of hypertension in PHPT

Incremento della densità minerale ossea con un secondo ciclo di dodici mesi di romosozumab dopo placebo o denosumab

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