Fare rete per affrontare le sfide della ricerca sul "Technology Enhanced Learning"

The paper analyses the case of the Theme Teams, i.e. one of the instruments used by the STELLAR Network of Excellence to contribute to the achievement of its aims, i.e. overcoming the fragmentation of the Technology Enhanced Learning research field and drawing the road map for future research. Qualitative and quantitative data about the way this instrument worked show how even a rather limited budget can be fruitfully used to promote the integration of researchers of different countries, with different backgrounds and approaches and thus overcome the traditional discipline fragmentation.Questo contributo analizza il caso dei Theme Team, uno degli strumenti usati dalla Rete di Eccellenza STELLAR per raggiungere i suoi obiettivi, che includono in particolare il superamento della frammentazione del settore del Technology Enhanced Learning, l\u27identificazione delle principali sfide e la prefigurazione di percorsi per la ricerca futura

Chronic hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans

Summary Objectives The purpose of this study is to present the 'chronic' or 'persistent' form of hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans. Methods From 1998 to 2011, 13 patients were seen in our department with clinically typical hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans that had been present for more than 5 months and that, because of the absence of pruritus, had never been treated. Results The duration of hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans ranged from 5 to 14 months (mean 7.8 months) in these 13 patients (10 males and three females, aged 23–55 years). The infestation was acquired in Brazil (three patients), Jamaica (three patients), Mexico (two patients), Tanzania (two patients), Thailand (two patients), and Martinique (one patient). The infestation was located on the feet in 10 patients; one of these patients also presented tracks on the back and another presented tracks on a knee. The chest (two patients) and thigh (two patients) were also involved. All patients presented with clinically typical hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans: seven patients had one track and six patients had two tracks. Laboratory and instrumental examinations were within the normal range or negative. Histopathological examination revealed edema in the papillary and upper dermis, and a perivascular and perifollicular infiltrate in the upper dermis, consisting mainly of lymphocytes and eosinophils. No larvae were detected. Conclusions This can be considered the 'chronic' or 'persistent' form of hookworm-related cutaneous larva migrans. Some pathogenetic hypotheses are suggested

Formazione a distanza e piccole e medie imprese

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The Distant Horizon: investigating the relationship between social sciences academic research and game development

Research in the social sciences devotes a great amount of attention to investigating the impact of video games on the individual and on society. However, results generated by this research often fail to inform game development. The present study investigated the outreach of research conducted by the academic community by interviewing 30 game developers and 14 researchers, highlighting critical aspects in the relationship between game research and game industry. Specifically, we found that the difference in priorities, speed cycles, and dissemination practices between these two contexts hinder communication. Subsequently, we carried out a focus group for a set of developers and researchers (N=6) with the aim of eliciting recommendation for improving communication between academics and developers. Among the recommendations to emerge were calls to diversify dissemination channels, promote joint conferences and develop research-production partnerships. It was felt such measures could strengthen the influence of research results outside the academic community

A Strategy analysis for genetic association studies with known inbreeding

Background: Association studies consist in identifying the genetic variants which are related to a specific disease through the use of statistical multiple hypothesis testing or segregation analysis in pedigrees. This type of studies has been very successful in the case of Mendelian monogenic disorders while it has been less successful in identifying genetic variants related to complex diseases where the insurgence depends on the interactions between different genes and the environment. The current technology allows to genotype more than a million of markers and this number has been rapidly increasing in the last years with the imputation based on templates sets and whole genome sequencing. This type of data introduces a great amount of noise in the statistical analysis and usually requires a great number of samples. Current methods seldom take into account gene-gene and gene-environment interactions which are fundamental especially in complex diseases. In this paper we propose to use a non-parametric additive model to detect the genetic variants related to diseases which accounts for interactions of unknown order. Although this is not new to the current literature, we show that in an isolated population, where the most related subjects share also most of their genetic code, the use of additive models may be improved if the available genealogical tree is taken into account. Specifically, we form a sample of cases and controls with the highest inbreeding by means of the Hungarian method, and estimate the set of genes/environmental variables, associated with the disease, by means of Random Forest. Results: We have evidence, from statistical theory, simulations and two applications, that we build a suitable procedure to eliminate stratification between cases and controls and that it also has enough precision in identifying genetic variants responsible for a disease. This procedure has been successfully used for the betathalassemia, which is a well known Mendelian disease, and also to the common asthma where we have identified candidate genes that underlie to the susceptibility of the asthma. Some of such candidate genes have been also found related to common asthma in the current literature. Conclusions: The data analysis approach, based on selecting the most related cases and controls along with the Random Forest model, is a powerful tool for detecting genetic variants associated to a disease in isolated populations. Moreover, this method provides also a prediction model that has accuracy in estimating the unknown disease status and that can be generally used to build kit tests for a wide class of Mendelian diseases

Knowledge Economy and Regional Innovation Policy Milieu

The emergence of the knowledge economy has resulted in a new definition of regional policy milieu. Under the current EU policy framework the concepts of region and city are the result of an inductive, exploratory cognitive process. Interpreting, assessing and designing successful territorial milieux constitute a methodological challenge for analysts. This paper discusses the methodological capacity of a hybrid theoretical approach to discovery and design of smart specialization. Analysis of strategic network formation (why the network takes a particular form) demonstrates the competitive positioning of specific homogeneous communities within the global value chain and can be considered central to the regional policy milieu. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabella normale"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;

Prospects of the use of nanofluids as working fluids for organic Rankine cycle power systems

The search of novel working fluids for organic Rankine cycle power systems is driven by the recent regulations imposing additional phase-out schedules for substances with adverse environmental characteristics. Recently, nanofluids (i.e. colloidal suspensions of nanoparticles in fluids) have been suggested as potential working fluids for organic Rankine cycle power systems due to their enhanced thermal properties, potentially giving advantages with respect to the design of the components and the cycle performance. Nevertheless, a number of challenges concerning the use of nanofluids must be investigated prior to their practical use. Among other things, the trade-off between enhanced heat transfer and increased pressure drop in heat exchangers, and the impact of the nanoparticles on the working fluid thermophysical properties, must be carefully analyzed. This paper is aimed at evaluating the prospects of using nanofluids as working fluids for organic Rankine cycle power systems. As a preliminary study, nanofluids consisting of a homogenous and stable mixture of different nanoparticles types and a selected organic fluid are simulated on a case study organic Rankine cycle unit for waste heat recovery. The impact of the nanoparticle type and concentration on the heat exchangers size, with respect to the reference case, is analyzed. The results indicate that the heat exchanger area requirements in the boiler decrease around 4 % for a nanoparticle volume concentration of 1 %, without significant differences among nanoparticle types. The pressure drop in the boiler increases up to 18 % for the same nanoparticle concentration, but this is not found to impact negatively the pump power consumption.</p

HomoMINT: an inferred human network based on orthology mapping of protein interactions discovered in model organisms

BACKGROUND: The application of high throughput approaches to the identification of protein interactions has offered for the first time a glimpse of the global interactome of some model organisms. Until now, however, such genome-wide approaches have not been applied to the human proteome. RESULTS: In order to fill this gap we have assembled an inferred human protein interaction network where interactions discovered in model organisms are mapped onto the corresponding human orthologs. In addition to a stringent assignment to orthology classes based on the InParanoid algorithm, we have implemented a string matching algorithm to filter out orthology assignments of proteins whose global domain organization is not conserved. Finally, we have assessed the accuracy of our own, and related, inferred networks by benchmarking them against i) an assembled experimental interactome, ii) a network derived by mining of the scientific literature and iii) by measuring the enrichment of interacting protein pairs sharing common Gene Ontology annotation. CONCLUSION: The resulting networks are named HomoMINT and HomoMINT_filtered, the latter being based on the orthology table filtered by the domain architecture matching algorithm. They contains 9749 and 5203 interactions respectively and can be analyzed and viewed in the context of the experimentally verified interactions between human proteins stored in the MINT database. HomoMINT is constantly updated to take into account the growing information in the MINT database

Analytical aspects of diterpene alkaloid poisoning with monkshood.

A sensitive and specific method for aconitine extraction from biological samples was developed. Aconitine, the main toxic alkaloid from plants belonging to Aconitum species (family Ranunculaceae), was determined in plant material by an external standard method, and by a standard addition calibration method in biological fluids. Described here is one fatal case and five intoxications of accidental aconitine poisoning following the ingestion of aconite mistaken for an edible grass, Aruncus dioicus (Walt.) Fernald, "mountain asparagus", and Cicerbita alpina (L.) Wallroth. The aconitine content in urine was in the range 2.94 μg/mL (dead patient) – 0.20 μg/mL (surviving patients), which was almost two to four times higher than that in plasma

Nuove tecniche di prospezione archeologica mediante strumenti multifrequenza

EnIn this work we present some results obtained in a measurement survey performed with a stepped frequency Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). The GPR and the survey at hand have been conceived for archaeological purposes.The stepped frequency GPR has been developed by the Italian Research Consortium CO.RI.S.T.A. in the framework of the ARCHEO project, founded by Italian M.U.R.S.T. The system can work within a large bandwidth and both in ungated and gated mode. It is equipped with a positioning system able to move the transmitting and receiving antennas of the GPR independently on each other and to place them automatically and in a precise fashion. The GPR has been tested first in laboratory of CO.RI.S.T.A., then in a controlled site, and finally in the real archaeological site of Cales, near Capua (Southern Italy), preventively and appositely studied by a team of archaeologists. The final results obtained in the field have been coherent with a previous prospecting performed at Cales and have individuated some new further buried targets, whose nature is still unknown at the moment