Inhibitory effects of thought substitution in the think/no-think task: evidence from independent cues

When people try not to think about a certain item, they can accomplish this goal by using a thought substitution strategy and think about something else. Research conducted with the think/no-think (TNT) paradigm indicates that such strategy leads subsequently to forgetting the information participants tried not to think about. The present study pursued two goals. First, it investigated the mechanism of forgetting due to thought substitution, contrasting the hypothesis by which forgetting is due to blocking caused by substitutes with the hypothesis that forgetting is due to inhibition (using an independent cue methodology). Second, a boundary condition for forgetting due to thought substitution was examined by creating conditions under which the generation of appropriate substitutes would be impaired. In two experiments, participants completed a TNT task under thought substitution instructions in which either words or pseudo-words were used as original cues and memory was assessed with original and independent cues. The results revealed forgetting in both original and independent cue tests, supporting the inhibitory account of thought substitution, but only when cues were words, and not when they were non-words, pointing to the ineffectiveness of a thought substitution strategy when original cues lack semantic content

The measurement of segregation sensitive spatial income deprivation

We develop dominance criteria to assess the patterns of residential ethnic segregation and urban income deprivation across neighborhoods of a city. The results combine aggregate information on inequality and residential segregation within neighborhoods and disparities across neighborhoods in average incomes. We use this methodology to investigate the dynamic of these phenomena in the cities of Chicago and in New York from 1990 to 2012

Rising educational attainment and opportunity equalization: Evidence from France.

Educational policies are widely recognized as the means par excellence to equalize opportunities among children with different social and family backgrounds and to promote intergenerational mobility. In this paper we focus on the French case and we apply the opportunity equalization criterion proposed by Andreoli, Havnes and Lefranc (2019) for evaluating the effect of rising compulsory schooling requirements in secondary education. Our results show that such education expansion has a limited redistributive effects on students earnings distribution. Nonetheless, we provide evidence of opportunity equalization among groups of students dened by family background circumstances

Clinical Relevance of Blood Glucose Concentration and Hyperglycemia Management in Neurocritical Care Patients

AbstractIn patients admitted to a neurocritical care (NCC) unit, management of blood glucose concentration (BGC) is a challenging clinical task. Several studies have shown that episodes of hypo- and hyperglycemia and high BGC variability are associated with poor short- and long-term outcomes. Optimal BGC target-range and BGC management in NCC patients have dramatically evolved in the past decades and new insulin infusion and adequate nutrition protocols are now available. The aim of this narrative review is to report the state-of-the-art on clinical relevance on BGC and hyperglycemia management in NCC patients

CD20-depleting therapy in autoimmune diseases: from basic research to the clinic

Perosa F, Prete M, Racanelli V, Dammacco F (University of Bari Medical School, Bari, Italy). CD20-depleting therapy in autoimmune diseases: from basic research to the clinic (Review). J Intern Med 2010; 267: 260-277. The B lymphocyte-associated antigen CD20 is becoming an important immunotherapy target for autoimmune diseases, although its biological function has not been defined. Besides rheumatoid arthritis, growing experience with B cell-depleting therapy indicates that it may be effective in Sjögren's syndrome, dermatomyositis-polymyositis, systemic lupus erythematosus and some types of vasculitides. However, controlled clinical trials are still lacking for some of these indications. Infection has not been seen as a major limitation to this therapy, but reports of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in an extremely small number of patients are of concern. Here, we review the therapeutic actions of anti-CD20 antibodies, and the recent and ongoing clinical trials with CD20-depleting therapy in autoimmune diseases. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Nutritional modulation of the gut microbiome in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) represents a potentially curative strategy for many oncological and non-oncological diseases, but it is associated with marked morbidity and mortality. The disruption of gut microbiota (GM) eubiosis has been linked to major allo-HSCT complications, including infections and acute graft vs. host disease (aGvHD), and correlates with mortality. This increasing knowledge on the role of the GM in the allo-HSCT procedure has led to fascinating ideas for modulating the intestinal ecosystem in order to improve clinical outcomes. Nutritional strategies, either by changing the route of nutritional supplementation or by administering specific molecules, are increasingly being considered as cost- and risk-effective methods of modulating the GM. Nutritional support has also emerged in the past several years as a key feature in supportive care for allo-HSCT recipients, and deterioration of nutritional status is associated with decreased overall survival and higher complication rates during treatment. Herein we provide a complete overview focused on nutritional modulation of the GM in allo-HSCT recipients. We address how pre transplant diet could affect GM composition and its ability to withstand the upsetting events occurring during transplantation. We also provide a complete overview on the influence of the route of nutritional administration on the intestinal ecosystem, with a particular focus on the comparison between enteral and parenteral nutrition (PN). Moreover, as mounting evidence are showing how specific components of post-transplant diet, such as lactose, could drastically shape the GM, we will also summarize the role of prebiotic supplementation in the modulation of the intestinal flora and in allo-HSCT outcomes

Urban Poverty : Measurement Theory and evidence from American cities,

We characterize axiomatically a new index of urban poverty that i) captures aspects of the incidence and distribution of poverty across neighborhoods of a city, ii) is related to the Gini index and iii) is consistent with empirical evidence that living in a high poverty neighborhood is detrimental for many dimensions of residents' well-being. Widely adopted measures of urban poverty, such as the concentrated poverty index, may violate some of the desirable properties we outline. Furthermore, we show that changes of urban poverty within the same city are additively decomposable into the contribution of demographic, convergence, re-ranking and spatial eects. We collect new evidence of heterogeneous patterns and trends of urban poverty across American metro areas over the last 35 years

Understanding trends and drivers of urban poverty in American cities

Urban poverty arises from the uneven distribution of poor populations across neighborhoods of a city. We study the trend and drivers of urban poverty across American cities over the last 40 years. To do so, we resort to a family of urban poverty indices that account for features of incidence, distribution, and segregation of poverty across census tracts. Compared to the universally-adopted concentrated poverty index, these measures have a solid normative background. We use tract-level data to assess the extent to which demographics, housing, education, employment, and income distribution affect levels and changes in urban poverty. A decomposition study allows to single out the effect of changes in the distribution of these variables across cities from changes in their correlation with urban poverty. We find that demographics and income distribution have a substantial role in explaining urban poverty patterns, whereas the same effects remarkably differ when using the concentrated poverty indices

Cholangiocarcinoma disease modelling through patients derived organoids

Cancer organoids are 3D phenotypic cultures that can be established from resected or biopsy tumour samples and can be grown as mini tumours in the dish. Flourishing evidence supports the feasibility of patient derived organoids (PDO) from a number of solid tumours. Evidence for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) PDO is still sparse but growing. CCA PDO lines have been established from resected early stage disease, advanced cancers and highly chemorefractory tumours. Cancer PDO was shown to recapitulate the 3D morphology, genomic landscape and transcriptomic profile of the source counterpart. They proved to be a valued model for drug discovery and sensitivity testing, and they showed to mimic the drug response observed in vivo in the patients. However, PDO lack representation of the intratumour heterogeneity and the tumour-stroma interaction. The efficiency rate of CCA PDO within the three different subtypes, intrahepatic, perihilar and distal, is still to be explored. In this manuscript we will review evidence for CCA PDO highlighting advantages and limitations of this novel disease model

Evolutionary Grad-Shafranov Equation for a Toroidal Plasma

We describe the evolution of a plasma equilibrium having a toroidal topology in the presence of constant electric resistivity. After outlining the main analytical properties of the solution, we reproduce the essential features of a scenario for the upcoming Italian experiment Divertor Tokamak Test Facility, with a good degree of accuracy. Although the theoretical lifetime is of the order of $10^4\,$s, we observe a macroscopic change in plasma volume on a timescale comparable to the predicted duration of the plasma discharge. In the final part of the work, we compare our self-consistent solution to the more common Solov'ev one, and to a family of nonlinear configurations.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure