Apprendimento sociale, narrazione e costruzione della realtà

In La narrazione nello sviluppo del bambino Dolores Rollo descrive gli effetti pedagogici delle attività di lettura condivisa di libri tra madre e offre una rassegna di studi sulle principali caratteristiche di questo fenomeno che possono influire sullo sviluppo del linguaggio, della cognizione e delle emozioni nella prima infanzia. Rollo ritiene necessarie ulteriori indagini, per comprendere più in profondità le caratteristiche dei libri che possono promuovere al meglio lo sviluppo infantile. Inoltre, l’autrice suggerisce come possa essere rilevante indagare popolazioni a sviluppo atipico, come quelle affette da Disturbo dello Spettro Autistico, in cui le abilità socio-comunicative sono compromesse. In questo commento intendiamo suggerire come la comprensione dei processi di attenzione condivisa possa trarre beneficio delle ricerche condotte dalle neuroscienze sociali, al fine di chiarire il ruolo centrale dei network neurali nelle capacità di condivisione dell’attenzione per lo sviluppo linguistico, l’apprendimento, l’acquisizione della Teoria della Mente e del senso di sé.In La narrazione nello sviluppo del bambinoDolores Rollo describes the pedagogical potential of mother-child bookreading activities review-ing the literature on the specific characteristics of this phenomenon that might influence the development of language, cognition, emotions and early literacy in infancy. Rollo suggests that further research is need-ed to better define which aspects of the bookreading activities best promote children’s development. Moreover, she suggests that it might be of interest to investigate the social deficits in children withatypi-cal development, e.g. withAutism Spectrum Disorders. In our opinion, the understanding of joint atten-tion processes might benefit from research in developmental social neuroscience that might contribute to clarifyingthe pivotal role of neural networks supporting joint attentionin the development of language, cognition, Theory of Mind and the sense of self

Galaxy Evolution in the Cluster Abell 85: New Insights from the Dwarf Population

We present the first results of a new spectroscopic survey of the cluster Abell 85 targeting 1466 candidate cluster members within the central $\sim$1 deg$^2$ of the cluster and having magnitudes $m_r < 20.5$ using VIMOS/VLT and HYDRA/WIYN. A total of 520 galaxies are confirmed as either relaxed cluster members or part of an infalling population. A significant fraction are low mass; the median stellar mass of the sample is $10^{9.6} M_{\odot}$, and 25% have stellar masses below $10^9 M_{\odot}$ (i.e. 133 dwarf galaxies). We also identify seven active galactic nuclei (AGN), four of which reside in dwarf host galaxies. We probe the evolution of star formation rates, based on H$\alpha$ emission and continuum modeling, as a function of both mass and environment. We find that more star forming galaxies are observed at larger clustercentric distances, while infalling galaxies show evidence for recently enhanced star forming activity. Main sequence galaxies, defined by their continuum star formation rates, show different evolutionary behavior based on their mass. At the low mass end, the galaxies have had their star formation recently quenched, while more massive galaxies show no significant change. The timescales probed here favor fast quenching mechanisms, such as ram-pressure stripping. Galaxies within the green valley, defined similarly, do not show evidence of quenching. Instead, the low mass galaxies maintain their levels of star forming activity, while the more massive galaxies have experienced a recent burst.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Spitzer observations of Abell 1763 - I: infrared and optical photometry

We present a photometric analysis of the galaxy cluster Abell 1763 at visible and infrared wavelengths. Included are fully reduced images in r', J, H, and Ks obtained using the Palomar 200in telescope, as well as the IRAC and MIPS images from Spitzer. The cluster is covered out to approximately 3 virial radii with deep 24um imaging (a 5? depth of 0.2 mJy). This same field of 40' by 40' is covered in all four IRAC bands as well as the longer wavelength MIPS bands (70 and 160um). The r' imaging covers 0.8 deg2 down to 25.5 magnitudes, and overlaps with most of the MIPS field of view. The J, H, Ks images cover the cluster core and roughly half of the filament galaxies, which extend towards the neighboring cluster, Abell 1770. This first, in a series of papers on Abell 1763, discusses the data reduction methods and source extraction techniques used for each dataset. We present catalogs of infrared (IR) sources (with 24 and/or 70um emission) and their corresponding emission in the optical (u', g', r', i', z'), and Near- to Far-IR (J, H, Ks, IRAC, and MIPS 160um). We provide the catalogs and reduced images to the community through the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA).Comment: 25 pages, 16 figure

Starburst Galaxies in Cluster-feeding Filaments Unveiled by Spitzer

We report the first direct detection with Spitzer of galaxy filaments. Using Spitzer and ancillary optical data, we have discovered two filamentary structures in the outskirts of the cluster Abell 1763. Both filaments point toward Abell 1770, which lies at the same redshift as Abell 1763 (z = 0.23), at a projected distance of ~13 Mpc. The X-ray cluster emission is elongated along the same direction. Most of the far-infrared emission is powered by star formation. According to the optical spectra, only one of the cluster members is classified as an active galactic nucleus. Star formation is clearly enhanced in galaxies along the filaments: the fraction of starburst galaxies in the filaments is more than twice than that in other cluster regions. We speculate that these filaments are feeding the cluster Abell 1763 by the infall of galaxies and galaxy groups. Evidence for one of these groups is provided by the analysis of galaxy kinematics in the central cluster region

The far-infrared/submillimeter properties of galaxies located behind the Bullet cluster

The Herschel Lensing Survey (HLS) takes advantage of gravitational lensing by massive galaxy clusters to sample a population of high-redshift galaxies which are too faint to be detected above the confusion limit of current far-infrared/submillimeter telescopes. Measurements from 100–500 μm bracket the peaks of the far-infrared spectral energy distributions of these galaxies, characterizing their infrared luminosities and star formation rates. We introduce initial results from our science demonstration phase observations, directed toward the Bullet cluster (1E0657-56). By combining our observations with LABOCA 870 μm and AzTEC 1.1 mm data we fully constrain the spectral energy distributions of 19 MIPS 24 μm-selected galaxies which are located behind the cluster. We find that their colors are best fit using templates based on local galaxies with systematically lower infrared luminosities. This suggests that our sources are not like local ultra-luminous infrared galaxies in which vigorous star formation is contained in a compact highly dust-obscured region. Instead, they appear to be scaled up versions of lower luminosity local galaxies with star formation occurring on larger physical scales

The Herschel Lensing Survey (HLS): Overview

The Herschel Lensing Survey (HLS) will conduct deep PACS and SPIRE imaging of ∼40 massive clusters of galaxies. The strong gravitational lensing power of these clusters will enable us to penetrate through the confusion noise, which sets the ultimate limit on our ability to probe the Universe with Herschel. Here we present an overview of our survey and a summary of the major results from our science demonstration phase (SDP) observations of the Bullet cluster (z = 0.297). The SDP data are rich and allow us to study not only the background high-redshift galaxies (e.g., strongly lensed and distorted galaxies at z = 2.8 and 3.2) but also the properties of cluster-member galaxies. Our preliminary analysis shows a great diversity of far-infrared/submillimeter spectral energy distributions (SEDs), indicating that we have much to learn with Herschel about the properties of galaxy SEDs. We have also detected the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect increment with the SPIRE data. The success of this SDP program demonstrates the great potential of the Herschel Lensing Survey to produce exciting results in a variety of science areas

Deep Herschel view of obscured star formation in the Bullet cluster

We use deep, five band (100–500 μm) data from the Herschel Lensing Survey (HLS) to fully constrain the obscured star formation rate, SFR_(FIR), of galaxies in the Bullet cluster (z = 0.296), and a smaller background system (z = 0.35) in the same field. Herschel detects 23 Bullet cluster members with a total SFRFIR = 144±14 M_☉ yr^(-1). On average, the background system contains brighter far-infrared (FIR) galaxies, with ~50% higher SFRFIR (21 galaxies; 207 ± 9 M_☉ yr^(-1)). SFRs extrapolated from 24 μm flux via recent templates (SFR_(24 µm)) agree well with SFRFIR for ~60% of the cluster galaxies. In the remaining ~40%, SFR24 µm underestimates SFR_(FIR) due to a significant excess in observed S_(100)/S_(24) (rest frame S_(75)/S_(18)) compared to templates of the same FIR luminosity

Dalbavancin and Selected Comparison Agents Tested Against Indicated Gram-positive Isolates in European Medical Centers (Italy): Results from the DECIDE Program

tetracycline (96.4%) and gentamicin (99.3%). Staphylococci included MRSA (35.7%) and MR-CoNS (68.4%); and MRSA isolates were resistant to levofloxacin (96%) and erythromycin (74%). All clindamycin-susceptible SA had inducible resistance. Dalbavancin (MIC90; 0.047mg/L) was 10-fold more potent than vancomycin (MIC90; 0.5mg/L) against BHS. Erythromycin susceptibility was 82% with a 25% inducible clindamycin resistance. Conclusions: The DECIDE study demonstrated in UK and Ireland that dalbavancin has excellent activity and was more potent when directly compared to vancomycin. Dalbavancin was active against all MRSA, although the current susceptibility profiles for other antimicrobial classes tested were of great concern, particularly inducible clindamycin resistance (100%). Monitoring dalbavancin activity should be continued as this newer long-acting agent is introduced into EU clinical practice

Spitzer 70 Micron Source Counts in GOODS-North

We present ultradeep Spitzer 70 μm observations of GOODS-North (Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey). For the first time, the turnover in the 70 μm Euclidean-normalized differential source counts is observed. We derive source counts down to a flux density of 1.2 mJy. From the measured source counts and fluctuation analysis, we estimate a power-law approximation of the faint 70 μm source counts of dN/dS ∝ S^−1.6, consistent with that observed for the faint 24 μm sources. An extrapolation of the 70 μm source counts to zero flux density implies a total extragalactic background light (EBL) of 7.4 ± 1.9 nW m^−2 sr^−1. The source counts above 1.2 mJy account for about 60% of the estimated EBL. From fluctuation analysis, we derive a photometric confusion level of σc = 0.30 ± 0.15 mJy (q = 5) for the Spitzer 70 μm band