Educazione interculturale

L’immigration est un thème nouveau pour l’Italie. Mais l’expérience cruciale de la diversité italienne et d’une unité patiemment conquise met en valeur l’éducation interculturelle et la formation à la compréhension et au respect de la différence

L’homopaternité en Italie, ou quand une « nouvelle parentalité » devient un cas national

En Italie, Nichi Vendola s’est affirmé ces dernières années comme l’une des personnalités politiques les plus influentes de la gauche et comme un acteur irremplaçable de la cause homosexuelle. Au mois de février 2016, il annonce que son compagnon et lui-même sont devenus pères d’un enfant, né aux États-Unis grâce à une gestation pour autrui. Quelques minutes après cette annonce, le « cas Vendola » occupe le premier plan des médias et réseaux sociaux italiens, lesquels relatent en même temps les discussions autour d’un projet de loi portant sur les unions civiles et qui devrait, entre autres, autoriser l’adoption d’un enfant, y compris par un couple homosexuel. Dans cet article, nous nous proposons de faire émerger, sur la base d’un corpus constitué de textes publiés en ligne après l’annonce de cette naissance, les modalités linguistiques qui connotent et orientent le champ de représentations, au sens sociologique du terme, dans lequel s’affrontent, aussi bien au niveau idéologique que sur le plan culturel et (bio)éthique, des positions opposées, voire inconciliables à l’égard de la filiation.In recent years, Nichi Vendola has emerged as one of the most influent politicians of the left party in Italy as well as an irreplaceable player in the homosexual community rights. In February 2016, he announced that his companion and himself became fathers of a child born in the United States thanks to surrogacy. Just a few minutes after this announcement, the « Vendola case » was at the forefront of the Italian media and social networks, which relate at the same time the debates about the draft of an Act on civil unions. This Act allow, inter alia, the adoption of a child, including by same sex couples. On the basis of a body of online texts published after the announcement of the birth, we propose to highlight language procedures that connote the field of representations, in the sociological sense of the term. In this field of representations, both on an ideological, cultural and (bio)ethics level, opposite even irreconcilable positions with regard to the parental affiliation clash

A Roadmap for HEP Software and Computing R&D for the 2020s

Particle physics has an ambitious and broad experimental programme for the coming decades. This programme requires large investments in detector hardware, either to build new facilities and experiments, or to upgrade existing ones. Similarly, it requires commensurate investment in the R&D of software to acquire, manage, process, and analyse the shear amounts of data to be recorded. In planning for the HL-LHC in particular, it is critical that all of the collaborating stakeholders agree on the software goals and priorities, and that the efforts complement each other. In this spirit, this white paper describes the R&D activities required to prepare for this software upgrade.Peer reviewe

Operationalizing mild cognitive impairment criteria in small vessel disease: The VMCI-Tuscany Study

Introduction Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) prodromic of vascular dementia is expected to have a multidomain profile. Methods In a sample of cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) patients, we assessed MCI subtypes distributions according to different operationalization of Winblad criteria and compared the neuroimaging features of single versus multidomain MCI. We applied three MCI diagnostic scenarios in which the cutoffs for objective impairment and the number of considered neuropsychological tests varied. Results Passing from a liberal to more conservative diagnostic scenarios, of 153 patients, 5% were no longer classified as MCI, amnestic multidomain frequency decreased, and nonamnestic single domain increased. Considering neuroimaging features, severe medial temporal lobe atrophy was more frequent in multidomain compared with single domain. Discussion Operationalizing MCI criteria changes the relative frequency of MCI subtypes. Nonamnestic single domain MCI may be a previously nonrecognized type of MCI associated with SVD

Formation initiale et ouverture internationale : le cas des élèves-ingénieurs

In France, engineering schools, value the international dimension of the students' training course by providing a wide range of foreign languages, by encouraging them to study or to do research abroad. A survey made in an engineering school in Paris and devoted to the students' learning of languages enabled me to get data about their socio-cultural background, their experience of travelling abroad and their attitude towards foreign countries. My study which is based on the answers given to a questionnaire by a group of students of the same year and on interviews with ten of them, will enable me to point out the elements which characterize their specific school experience in the French school system. I will also explain how, at the end of their training, professional requirements can influence their desire to go abroad.Les écoles d'ingénieurs, en France, valorisent l'intégration de la dimension internationale dans le cursus scolaire des élèves, en encourageant, entre autres, un apprentissage diversifié des langues et des expériences d'études ou de recherche à l'étranger. Une enquête effectuée dans une école d'ingénieurs parisienne, et focalisée autour des apprentissages linguistiques des élèves, m'a permis de recueillir des données concernant leur profil socio-culturel, leur pratique du voyage à l'étranger et leur attitude envers l'espace transfrontalier. M'appuyant sur les réponses données à un questionnaire diffusé auprès d'une promotion d'élèves et sur les entretiens menés avec dix d'entre eux, je dégagerai les éléments qui caractérisent la trajectoire spécifique de ces élèves au sein du système éducatif français et indiquerai les modalités selon lesquelles, en fin de parcours, les impératifs d'une culture professionnelle viennent orienter leur aspiration au départ.Paganini Gloria. Formation initiale et ouverture internationale : le cas des élèves-ingénieurs. In: Revue française de pédagogie, volume 129, 1999. L'école pour tous : conditions pédagogiques, institutionnelles et sociales. pp. 53-64

The burden of microstructural damage modulates cortical activation in elderly subjects with MCI and leuko-araiosis. A DTI and fMRI study

The term leuko-araiosis (LA) describes a common chronic affection of the cerebral white matter (WM) in the elderly due to small vessel disease with variable clinical correlates. To explore whether severity of LA entails some adaptive reorganization in the cerebral cortex we evaluated with functional MRI (fMRI) the cortical activation pattern during a simple motor task in 60 subjects with mild cognitive impairment and moderate or severe (moderate-to-severe LA group, n = 46) and mild (mild LA group, n = 14) LA extension on visual rating. The microstructural damage associated with LA was measured on diffusion tensor data by computation of the mean diffusivity (MD) of the cerebral WM and by applying tract based spatial statistics (TBSS). Subjects were examined with fMRI during continuous tapping of the right dominant hand with task performance measurement. Moderate-to-severe LA group showed hyperactivation of left primary sensorimotor cortex (SM1) and right cerebellum. Regression analyses using the individual median of WM MD as explanatory variable revealed a posterior shift of activation within the left SM1 and hyperactivation of the left SMA and paracentral lobule and of the bilateral cerebellar crus. These data indicate that brain activation is modulated by increasing severity of LA with a local remapping within the SM1 and increased activity in ipsilateral nonprimary sensorimotor cortex and bilateral cerebellum. These potentially adaptive changes as well lack of contralateral cerebral hemisphere hyperactivation are in line with sparing of the U fibers and brainstem and cerebellar WM tracts and the emerging microstructual damage of the corpus callosum revealed by TBSS with increasing severity of LA. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Development and psychometric properties of a neuropsychological battery for mild cognitive impairment with small vessel disease: The VMCI-tuscany study

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Vascular cognitive impairment may have a selective neuropsychological profile. We developed a battery for assessing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in patients with small vessel disease (SVD), its applicability, and psychometric properties. METHODS: Among those proposed by the 2006 NINDS-CSN Consensus Conference, we selected tests for which norms based on healthy Italians and equivalent scores methodology were available. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to ascertain the fit of the theoretically assumed dimensions to empirical data and to derive each cognitive dimension compound measures. RESULTS: The entire battery was applied to 146 out of a cohort of 201 patients with MCI and SVD. Most tests showed good applicability. Fifty-five patients, who were older and cognitively more impaired, proved unable to complete the Trail Making Test part B, the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure, and the Stroop test, and were excluded from the analysis. Among the remaining patients, Mini-Mental State Examination proved largely normal, while Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure, Symbol digit modalities test, and Trail Making Test part B were most frequently abnormal. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit of the 4-factor theoretical model to empirical data. Praxis domain resulted in the highest percentage of abnormal performance (65%), followed by Memory and Attention/EF domains (19% and 15%), and Language (8%). CONCLUSIONS: Our battery proved to be comprehensive, robust, and applicable. Attention-executive dysfunction and impaired memory and visuo-constructional abilities, were the prominent features. The assessment of the Consensus Conference, that included Trial Making Test, looks poorly applicable to older and cognitively impaired patients