Trajectories of learning approaches during a full medical curriculum: impact on clinical learning outcomes.

Background No consensus exists on whether medical students develop towards more deep (DA) or surface learning approaches (SA) during medical training and how this impacts learning outcomes. We investigated whether subgroups with different trajectories of learning approaches in a medical students’ population show different long-term learning outcomes. Methods Person-oriented growth curve analyses on a prospective cohort of 269 medical students (Mage=21years, 59 % females) traced subgroups according to their longitudinal DA/SA profile across academic years 1, 2, 3 and 5. Post-hoc analyses tested differences in academic performance between subgroups throughout the 6-year curriculum until the national high-stakes licensing exam certifying the undergraduate medical training. Results Two longitudinal trajectories emerged: surface-oriented (n = 157; 58 %), with higher and increasing levels of SA and lower and decreasing levels of DA; and deep-oriented (n = 112; 42 %), with lower and stable levels of SA and higher but slightly decreasing levels of DA. Post hoc analyses showed that from the beginning of clinical training, deep-oriented students diverged towards better learning outcomes in comparison with surface-oriented students. Conclusions Medical students follow different trajectories of learning approaches during a 6-year medical curriculum. Deep-oriented students are likely to achieve better clinical learning outcomes than surface-oriented students

Measurement invariance of TGMD-3 in children with and without mental and behavioral disorders

This study evaluated whether the Test of Gross Motor Development 3 (TGMD-3) is a reliable tool to compare children with and without mental and behavioural disorders across gross motor skill domains. A total of 1075 children (aged 3-11 years), 98 with mental and behavioural disorders and 977 without (typically developing), were included in the analyses. The TGMD-3 evaluates fundamental gross motor skills of children across two domains: locomotor skills and ball skills. Two independent testers simultaneously observed children’s performances (agreement over 95%). Each child completed one practice and then two formal trials. Scores were recorded only during the two formal trials. Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis tested the assumption of TGMD-3 measurement invariance across disability groups. According to the magnitude of changes in Root Mean Square Error of Approximation and Comparative Fit Index between nested models, the assumption of measurement invariance across groups was valid. Loadings of the manifest indicators on locomotor and ball skills were significant (p < .001) in both groups. Item Response Theory analysis showed good reliability results across locomotor and the ball skills full latent traits. The present study confirmed the factorial structure of TGMD-3 and demonstrated its feasibility across normally developing children and children with mental and behavioural disorders. These findings provide new opportunities for understanding the effect of specific intervention strategies on this population

Mixture Risk Assessment of Complex Real-Life Mixtures—The PANORAMIX Project

Humans are involuntarily exposed to hundreds of chemicals that either contaminate our environment and food or are added intentionally to our daily products. These complex mixtures of chemicals may pose a risk to human health. One of the goals of the European Union’s Green Deal and zero-pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment is to tackle the existent gaps in chemical mixture risk assessment by providing scientific grounds that support the implementation of adequate regulatory measures within the EU. We suggest dealing with this challenge by: (1) characterising ‘real-life’ chemical mixtures and determining to what extent they are transferred from the environment to humans via food and water, and from the mother to the foetus; (2) establishing a high-throughput whole-mixture-based in vitro strategy for screening of real-life complex mixtures of organic chemicals extracted from humans using integrated chemical profiling (suspect screening) together with effect-directed analysis; (3) evaluating which human blood levels of chemical mixtures might be of concern for children’s development; and (4) developing a web-based, ready-to-use interface that integrates hazard and exposure data to enable component-based mixture risk estimation. These concepts form the basis of the Green Deal project PANORAMIX, whose ultimate goal is to progress mixture risk assessment of chemicals.Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, the Green Deal project PANORAMIX Grant Agreement No. 10103663

The relationship between alcohol use and long-term cognitive decline in middle and late life: a longitudinal analysis using UK Biobank

Background Using UK Biobank data, this study sought to explain the causal relationship between alcohol intake and cognitive decline in middle and older aged populations. Methods Data from 13 342 men and women, aged between 40 and 73 years were used in regression analysis that tested the functional relationship and impact of alcohol on cognitive performance. Performance was measured using mean reaction time (RT) and intra-individual variation (IIV) in RT, collected in response to a perceptual matching task. Covariates included body mass index, physical activity, tobacco use, socioeconomic status, education and baseline cognitive function. Results A restricted cubic spline regression with three knots showed how the linear (β1 = −0.048, 95% CI: −0.105 to −0.030) and non-linear effects (β2 = 0.035, 95% CI: 0.007–0.059) of alcohol use on mean RT and IIV in RT (β1 = −0.055, 95% CI: −0.125 to −0.034; β2 = 0.034, 95% CI: 0.002–0.064) were significant adjusting for covariates. Cognitive function declined as alcohol use increased beyond 10 g/day. Decline was more apparent as age increased. Conclusions The relationship between alcohol use and cognitive function is non-linear. Consuming more than one UK standard unit of alcohol per day is detrimental to cognitive performance and is more pronounced in older populations

Insights into household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from a population-based serological survey

Understanding the risk of infection from household- and community-exposures and the transmissibility of asymptomatic infections is critical to SARS-CoV-2 control. Limited previous evidence is based primarily on virologic testing, which disproportionately misses mild and asymptomatic infections. Serologic measures are more likely to capture all previously infected individuals. We apply household transmission models to data from a cross-sectional, household-based population serosurvey of 4,534 people ≥5 years from 2,267 households enrolled April-June 2020 in Geneva, Switzerland. We found that the risk of infection from exposure to a single infected household member aged ≥5 years (17.3%,13.7-21.7) was more than three-times that of extra-household exposures over the first pandemic wave (5.1%,4.5-5.8). Young children had a lower risk of infection from household members. Working-age adults had the highest extra-household infection risk. Seropositive asymptomatic household members had 69.4% lower odds (95%CrI,31.8-88.8%) of infecting another household member compared to those reporting symptoms, accounting for 14.5% (95%CrI, 7.2-22.7%) of all household infections

The historical stone architecture in the Ossola valley and Ticino: Appropriate recovery approaches and solutions

Conservation and requalification of mountain vernacular architecture concerns a large area of the whole Alpine arch. Stone constructions are an important heritage both from the cultural, social and real-estate point of view. The paper proposes approaches to conservation and possible solutions developed by the international project Interreg-AlpStone. This study focuses on the traditional constructions located in the area between Italy (Ossola valley) and Switzerland (the canton of Ticino). In order to reuse these buildings it is necessary to ensure safety conditions according to current regulations. To do this and to promote local materials, the project firstly tested the mechanical behavior of the serizzo Formazza stone, largely used in traditional stone balconies. The obtained resistance values provided useful data for the future finding of safe architectonical solutions. Secondly, the project studied how to improve the seismic behavior of the stone buildings without destroying their cultural value. The research project will soon produce a manual providing architectonical guide-lines for appropriate stone buildings conservation

Assessing Test Procedure Effectiveness for Power Devices

The use of power electronics in safety-critical applications requires specific test techniques for these devices. In particular, it is important to adopt some metric for assessing the quality of a given Test Procedure, e.g., by introducing fault models allowing to compute a Fault Coverage (FC) figure for the analog electronics, as already successfully done for digital electronics. In the digital domain the scientific and industrial community has adopted some fault models (e.g., stuck-at) for permanent faults. The use of this model (and others) allows to establish a priori a finite list of possible faults to be considered, to study their effects during the test (i.e., to determine which of these faults are detected) and during the operational phase (e.g., to perform FMEA), and to generate suitable test procedures targeting them. In the analog domain such widely accepted fault models do not exist, although some fault models have been recently proposed and new commercial tools have been introduced to assess the analog fault coverage. The goal of this paper is to focus on power devices and use a possible fault model for analog and mixed-signal circuits resorting to the device equivalent model for evaluating the Power Fault Coverage (PFC) achieved by a test procedure for the Power Device Under Test (PDUT)

Dal rilievo all’ipotesi meta progettuale: un possibile utilizzo delle tecnologie informatiche

Creazione di un archivio informatico sui Portici di Torino, sistema complesso di notevole interesse urbano ed architettonico, cje organizza le indagini d'archivio i rilievi sul posto e consente di redigere la tavola tematica di individuazione degli ambiti nella quale vengono messe in evidenza sia le operazioni urbanistiche a grande, sia gli interventi architettonici e le fasi di realizzazione