Children's comprehension of distributive universal quantification

Our study explores why children are prone to assign a wider range of interpretations to sentences with distributive universal quantifiers each and everythan adults. Musolino (2009) proposed that children are more permissive than adults because they are prone to assign quantifier spreading interpretations to universally quantified sentences. Our results support the alternative hypothesis that children are more permissive because they are prone to assign cumulative interpretations to universally quantified sentences in a wider range of contexts than adults. Our results reveal that both children and adults assign cumulative interpretations to sentences with universally quantified objects (Three cowboys are pulling every horse), but children also tend to assign cumulative interpretations to sentences with universally quantified subjects (Every cowboy is pulling two horses). We show that children perform similarly with sentences with universally quantified NPs and sentences with numerical NPs (Three cowboys are pulling two horses). We argue that children are more permissive than adults because they are less likely than adults to perceive singular subject-verb agreement as a cue to distributive interpretation. We present a formal semantic model to explain our findings and discuss the implications of our model for recent acquisition research. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK and PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTOR Cascade Inhibitors: How Mutations Can Result in Therapy Resistance and How to Overcome Resistance

The Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK and PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTOR cascades are often activated by genetic alterations in upstream signaling molecules such as receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK). Integral components of these pathways, Ras, B-Raf, PI3K, and PTEN are also activated/inactivated by mutations. These pathways have profound effects on proliferative, apoptotic and differentiation pathways. Dysregulation of these pathways can contribute to chemotherapeutic drug resistance, proliferation of cancer initiating cells (CICs) and premature aging. This review will evaluate more recently described potential uses of MEK, PI3K, Akt and mTOR inhibitors in the proliferation of malignant cells, suppression of CICs, cellular senescence and prevention of aging. Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK and Ras/PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTOR pathways play key roles in the regulation of normal and malignant cell growth. Inhibitors targeting these pathways have many potential uses from suppression of cancer, proliferative diseases as well as aging

ECMO for COVID-19 patients in Europe and Israel

Since March 15th, 2020, 177 centres from Europe and Israel have joined the study, routinely reporting on the ECMO support they provide to COVID-19 patients. The mean annual number of cases treated with ECMO in the participating centres before the pandemic (2019) was 55. The number of COVID-19 patients has increased rapidly each week reaching 1531 treated patients as of September 14th. The greatest number of cases has been reported from France (n = 385), UK (n = 193), Germany (n = 176), Spain (n = 166), and Italy (n = 136) .The mean age of treated patients was 52.6 years (range 16–80), 79% were male. The ECMO configuration used was VV in 91% of cases, VA in 5% and other in 4%. The mean PaO2 before ECMO implantation was 65 mmHg. The mean duration of ECMO support thus far has been 18 days and the mean ICU length of stay of these patients was 33 days. As of the 14th September, overall 841 patients have been weaned from ECMO support, 601 died during ECMO support, 71 died after withdrawal of ECMO, 79 are still receiving ECMO support and for 10 patients status n.a. . Our preliminary data suggest that patients placed on ECMO with severe refractory respiratory or cardiac failure secondary to COVID-19 have a reasonable (55%) chance of survival. Further extensive data analysis is expected to provide invaluable information on the demographics, severity of illness, indications and different ECMO management strategies in these patients

Scalar Ordering of Italian Quantifiers

Are Italian native speakers able to order the quantifiers: alcuno, molto, nessuno, parecchio, poco, qualche, tanto and tutto on a magnitude scale?