La Qualità dei corsi di studio: una prospettiva glocale

La qualità della didattica universitaria è un tema complesso che occupa una posizione cruciale nel panorama nazionale, europeo ed internazionale. L’assicurazione/valutazione della qualità viene definita anche come: “un’attività di ricerca sociale applicata, realizzata nell’ambito di un processo decisionale, in maniera integrata con le fasi di programmazione, progettazione e intervento”1. Un processo, dunque, che si muove nella direzione di rendere la qualità leggibile, evidente e identificabile, mediante l’individuazione, come vedremo, di determinati indicatori, parametri, requisiti. Nel presente contributo verranno anzitutto presi in considerazione i documenti internazionali più rilevanti che rappresentano un significativo punto di riferimento, in quanto tratteggiano lo scenario dello Spazio Europeo dell’istruzione superiore. Pertanto, una particolare attenzione verrà dedicata al documento presentato da ENQA (Associazione Europea per l’Assicurazione della qualità dell’Istruzione Superiore) nel 2005 alla Conferenza di Bergen – Parametri e linee guida per l’assicurazione della qualità nello Spazio Europeo dell’Istruzione Superiore. In questa prospettiva la valutazione della didattica universitaria richieda l’utilizzo di approcci integrati, che sappiano interpretare le numerose variabili in campo e la loro interdipendenza, in una visione sistemica che, in un’ottica educativa, ponga l’accento sulla centralità del processo formativo che si sviluppa nei corsi di studio. Nella seconda parte del saggio saranno esplorate alcune linee operative di analisi dei corsi di studio possibili nell’ambito dell’Ateneo Turritano ed in particolare della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, nella consapevolezza che: “valutare la qualità significa ri-leggere la realtà intrattenendo una conversazione riflessiva con la prassi al fine di costruire conoscenza e significato e generare il cambiamento attraverso l’attribuzione continua di senso e la negoziazione dei significati”2. Obiettivo del contributo è la delineazione di piste operative praticabili orientate –in modo non acritico- nella prospettiva del mainstream (internazionale) in materia

A Dialog on the First 20 Years of PML Research and the Next 20 Ahead

This introductory article has been written in the form of a conversation between Pier Paolo Pandolfi, Director of the Cancer Center of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and Rosa Bernardi, a former post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Pandolfi, now principal investigator at San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, Italy. We have chosen this atypical review format because we want to offer to our readers a more direct and personal perspective on the first 20 years of research over the promyelocytic leukemia gene. This article begins as an interview, but soon transforms into a dialog where we exchange our thoughts on a number of issues around the past, present, and future research over the biology of PML. We were particularly keen on emphasizing the aspects that we find most interesting or challenging, therefore, we warn our readers that this will not be a comprehensive essay but rather a very personal view of what has been, is, and will be exciting and interesting in the PML world, in our opinion

No Evidence for Dark Energy Dynamics from a Global Analysis of Cosmological Data

We use a variant of principal component analysis to investigate the possible temporal evolution of the dark energy equation of state, w(z). We constrain w(z) in multiple redshift bins, utilizing the most recent data from Type Ia supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations, the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, galaxy clustering, and weak lensing data. Unlike other recent analyses, we find no significant evidence for evolving dark energy; the data remains completely consistent with a cosmological constant. We also study the extent to which the time-evolution of the equation of state would be constrained by a combination of current- and future-generation surveys, such as Planck and the Joint Dark Energy Mission.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Giving blood: a new role for CD40 in tumorigenesis

CD40 was initially identified as a receptor expressed by B cells that is crucial for inducing an effective adaptive immune response. CD40 was subsequently shown to be expressed by endothelial cells and to promote angiogenesis. New data now show that in tumor-prone transgenic mice, CD40-mediated neovascularization is essential for early stage tumorigenicity. This suggests, at least in this mouse model, that CD40 has an important role in the angiogenic process that is coupled to carcinogenesis, a finding that could lead to novel therapeutic opportunities

PII: S0962-8924(01)02127-4

The mouse is an ideal model system for studying the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of human cancer. The generation of transgenic and gene-knockout mice has been instrumental in determining the role of major determinants in this process, such as oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes. In the past few years, modeling cancer in the mouse has increased in its complexity, allowing in vivo dissection of the fundamental concepts underlying cooperative oncogenesis in various tumor types. In this review, we discuss how this transition has been facilitated, providing relevant examples. We also review how, in the post-genome era, novel methodologies will further accelerate the study of multi-step tumorigenesis in the mouse

INVESTIGATING ECOLOGICAL AND PHYLOGENETIC CONSTRAINTS IN HIPPOPOTAMIDAE SKULL SHAPE

Hippopotamidae are a group of large-sized mammals of interest for testing evolutionary traits in time and space. Variation in skull shape within Hippopotamidae is here investigated by means of shape analysis (Geometric Morphometrics) and modern statistical approaches. Two-dimensional shape analysis is applied to dorsal and lateral views of extant and extinct Hippopotamidae species sufficiently preserved to allow their morphology to be captured by landmark and semi-landmark digitization. The results show that Hippopotamus gorgops and H. antiquus display similar shapes, while Hexaprotodon palaeindicus falls within the morphospace occupied by H. amphibius, suggesting similar morphology. The cranial shape of the Sicilian hippopotamus (H. pentlandi) still resembles that of H. amphibius in lateral view, suggesting that adaptation to the insular domain was yet not fully attained. Madagascan hippopotamuses (H. madagascariensis and H. lemerlei) are close to the pygmy hippo, Choeropsis liberiensis, in PC1 values; nevertheless, the cranial shape of the Madagascan hippos seems not to be closely related to the cranial shape of C. liberiensis. Despite the morphological convergences within the group, while cranial shape in Hippopotamidae is phylogenetically structured, this does not hold for size. Although further investigations are needed to test the influence of ecological and palaeoecological parameters on the general shape to provide additional information for understanding Hippopotamidae evolution and adaptation, the present study provides an insight into the evolutionary framework of Hippopotamidae

Synergy against PML-RARa: targeting transcription, proteolysis, differentiation, and self-renewal in acute promyelocytic leukemia

Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) is a hematological malignancy driven by a chimeric oncoprotein containing the C terminus of the retinoic acid receptor-a (RARa) fused to an N-terminal partner, most commonly promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML). Mechanistically, PML-RARa acts as a transcriptional repressor of RARa and non-RARa target genes and antagonizes the formation and function of PML nuclear bodies that regulate numerous signaling pathways. The empirical discoveries that PML-RARa–associated APL is sensitive to both all-trans-retinoic acid (ATRA) and arsenic trioxide (ATO), and the subsequent understanding of the mechanisms of action of these drugs, have led to efforts to understand the contribution of molecular events to APL cell differentiation, leukemia-initiating cell (LIC) clearance, and disease eradication in vitro and in vivo. Critically, the mechanistic insights gleaned from these studies have resulted not only in a better understanding of APL itself, but also carry valuable lessons for other malignancies