Virtual Ontogeny of Cortical Growth Preceding Mental Illness

Background: Morphology of the human cerebral cortex differs across psychiatric disorders, with neurobiology and developmental origins mostly undetermined. Deviations in the tangential growth of the cerebral cortex during pre/perinatal periods may be reflected in individual variations in cortical surface area later in life. Methods: Interregional profiles of group differences in surface area between cases and controls were generated using T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging from 27,359 individuals including those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and high general psychopathology (through the Child Behavior Checklist). Similarity of interregional profiles of group differences in surface area and prenatal cell-specific gene expression was assessed. Results: Across the 11 cortical regions, group differences in cortical area for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, and Child Behavior Checklist were dominant in multimodal association cortices. The same interregional profiles were also associated with interregional profiles of (prenatal) gene expression specific to proliferative cells, namely radial glia and intermediate progenitor cells (greater expression, larger difference), as well as differentiated cells, namely excitatory neurons and endothelial and mural cells (greater expression, smaller difference). Finally, these cell types were implicated in known pre/perinatal risk factors for psychosis. Genes coexpressed with radial glia were enriched with genes implicated in congenital abnormalities, birth weight, hypoxia, and starvation. Genes coexpressed with endothelial and mural genes were enriched with genes associated with maternal hypertension and preterm birth. Conclusions: Our findings support a neurodevelopmental model of vulnerability to mental illness whereby prenatal risk factors acting through cell-specific processes lead to deviations from typical brain development during pregnancy

YEAST: The Design of a Cooperative Interactive Story Telling and Gamebooks Environment

Sharing knowledge and creativeness is one of the fulfilled potentials of IT. The light hearted dimension of this so called \u201ccollective intelligence\u201d is furthermore enforced by the arising Web 2.0 technologies together with the possibilities of massive multimedia employment. Interactive Story Telling is an example of such an assumption. This paper presents a system gathering IST, multimedia presentations and role game features to allow the creation and the modification of digital tales on an open easy-to-use environment

Making the Tree Fall Sound: Reporting Web Accessibility with the VaMoL\ue0 Monitor

The sheer banality of stating the Web as wide deeply impacts on any aim to control it or regulate it or, again, improve it on the strength of some principles and best practices. This is the case of Web accessibility. Whenever Public institutions, according to the law in force, have to provide strategies for Web accessibility promotion and surveillance, they always have to face a diverse, rapidly varying and endless scenario of pages and services over the Net. And it happens at every level: from regions to countries, from Public health to universities. Reports which come from automatic, in time monitoring of such a wide realm, represent a suitable solution to make any intervention and prevention effective and efficient. This paper presents the VaMoL\ue0 project, which has been issued to integrate a monitor and a validator of the Web accessibility, according to the Italian Law. By using such tools, evaluations of two different samples of Italian Public administrations Web sites were conducted and their results are illustrated in the following