Promuovere le character skills degli studenti liceali aiutandoli a costruire il loro progetto di vita professionale

In May 2023, the first phase of intervention research conducted at a Sicilian high school ended. Students (n. 115) participated in a thirtyhour PCTO, with twelve hours dedicated to a university-based teaching module, four hours to expressive writing training, four hours to four guidance interviews and twelve hours to the construction of a digital portfolio. This aimed to improve their self-efficacy, self-image and decision-making skills, which influence the maturation process of their professional life project, including the choice of education and profession, and the degree of clarity of ideas about this choice. The methodology used significantly improved the three character skills studied and the degree of clarity of ideas about the educational-professional choice

Local anaesthesia efficacy as postoperative analgesia for open shoulder instability surgery. a prospective randomised controlled study

Background and objectives: The aim of present study was to evaluate for the first time, the clinical effect of local anaesthetic infiltration as postoperative analgesia in open shoulder surgery for anterior-inferior instability. The comparison of the local infiltration and interscalenic brachial plexus block to a control group test the local anaesthetic efficacy in this surgery. Methods: 78 patients scheduled for open shoulder surgery were enrolled and randomly assigned to one of three groups: local infiltration anaesthesia (LIA), interscalenic brachial plexus block (IBPB) and control (C). All patients received standardized general anaesthesia and all injections were performed with the same dose and volume of anaesthetic. The number boluses delivered by a PCA pump applied at the end of surgery and the visual analogue score (VAS) at 0, 2, 4, 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours after intervention were recorded. A patient satisfaction score was also assessed. Results: Mean bolus consumption of the rescue analgesic, compared to C, was significantly less both in the LIA and IBPB groups (P<0.05). The IBPB group showed VAS scores that were significantly better than C group at all time points (P<0.05). The VAS scores for LIA group were clinically comparable to IBPB, and only at the 2 and 6 hours, postoperative time points there were no significant differences found in respect to the C group. IBPB and LIA showed comparable patient satisfaction scores. Conclusion: The local anaesthetic infiltration as postoperative analgesia appears to be a clinically valid alternative, statistically comparable to IBPB, with no clinical meaningful adverse effects

Duration reproduction in regular and irregular contexts after unilateral brain damage: Evidence from voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping and atlas-based hodological analysis

It has been proposed that not completely overlapping brain networks support interval timing depending on whether or not an external, predictable temporal cue is provided during the task, aiding time estimation. Here we tested this hypothesis in a neuropsychological study, using both a topological approach – through voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM), that assesses the relation between continuous behavioral scores and lesion information on a voxel-by-voxel basis – and a hodological approach, using an atlas-based tractography. A group of patients with unilateral focal brain lesions and their matched controls performed a duration reproduction task assessing time processing in two conditions, namely with regularly spaced stimuli during encoding and reproduction (Regular condition), and with irregularly spaced stimuli during the same task (Irregular condition). VLSM analyses showed that scores in the two conditions were associated with lesions involving partly separable clusters of voxels, with lower performance only in the Irregular condition being related to lesions involving the right insular cortex. Performance in both conditions correlated with the probability of disconnection of the right frontal superior longitudinal tract, and of the superior and middle branches of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus. These findings suggest that the dissociation between timing in regular and irregular contexts is not complete, since performance in both conditions relies on the integrity of a common suprasecond timing network. Furthermore, they are consistent with the hypothesis that tracking time without the aid of external cues selectively relies on the integration of psychophysiological changes in the right insula

Peculiar body representation alterations in hemineglect:a case report

We report the case of FP affected by personal and extrapersonal neglect and a body representation deficit characterized by delusional ideas. When FP performed the human figure, he placed body parts to the left, despite his extrapersonal neglect. Differently, when he performed the car figure, he placed all parts to the right, in line with his deficit. Comparing FP with a small patient group with the same clinical features without delusional ideas about body emerged that he was the only one to suffer from a specific body representation deficit characterized by a lack of body ownership sense

Improved Semileptonic Form Factor Calculations in Lattice QCD

We investigate the computational efficiency of two stochastic based alternatives to the Sequential Propagator Method used in Lattice QCD calculations of heavy-light semileptonic form factors. In the first method, we replace the sequential propagator, which couples the calculation of two of the three propagators required for the calculation, with a stochastic propagator so that the calculations of all three propagators are independent. This method is more flexible than the Sequential Propagator Method but introduces stochastic noise. We study the noise to determine when this method becomes competitive with the Sequential Propagator Method, and find that for any practical calculation it is competitive with or superior to the Sequential Propagator Method. We also examine a second stochastic method, the so-called ``one-end trick", concluding it is relatively inefficient in this context. The investigation is carried out on two gauge field ensembles, using the non-perturbatively improved Wilson-Sheikholeslami-Wohlert action with N_f=2 mass-degenerate sea quarks. The two ensembles have similar lattice spacings but different sea quark masses. We use the first stochastic method to extract ${\mathcal O}(a)$-improved, matched lattice results for the semileptonic form factors on the ensemble with lighter sea quarks, extracting f_+(0)

Costruire il proprio progetto di vita professionale al liceo: un ponte per l’università

Con questo contributo, si vogliono presentare i primi risultati di una ricerca-intervento biennale avviata nel mese di dicembre 2022 presso il Liceo Ginnasio “Francesco Scaduto” (indirizzo “Scienze Umane”) di Bagheria con l’intento di migliorare in 118 studenti di 16-17 anni, la positività dell’immagine del “sé” attuale, la percezione della propria autoefficacia generale, la capacità decisionale ed il grado di chiarezza della scelta universitaria mediante la partecipazione a quattro tipi di attività previste da un PCTO (Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e l’Orientamento) afferente al PNRR (INVESTIMENTO 1.6: “Orientamento attivo nella transizione scuola-università”): una esperienza di didattica universitaria in un ambito disciplinare affine agli insegnamenti previsti dal curriculum degli studi del liceo delle scienze umane (12 ore dall’1 al 20 dicembre 2022) per conoscere come si insegna all’università; quattro sessioni mensili di scrittura espressiva di 30 minuti ciascuna (da dicembre 2022 a marzo 2023) per chiarirsi lo stato attuale dei propri interessi, attitudini, competenze, motivazioni, obiettivi formativo-professionali e condizionamenti percepiti; quattro colloqui mensili di orientamento (da dicembre 2022 a marzo 2023) per chiarirsi gradualmente che cosa vorrebbero e potrebbero fare dopo la maturità liceale; la costruzione di un portfolio digitale (12 ore nel mese di marzo 2023) per approfondire la consapevolezza del percorso di orientamento fatto fino a quel momento nell’ambito del PCTO. Le sessioni di scrittura espressiva, i colloqui di orientamento e la costruzione del portfolio digitale sono a cura di una équipe costituita da cinque studentesse universitarie frequentanti il primo anno del corso di laurea magistrale in Scienze Pedagogiche (cross-age tutoring), opportunamente formate per svolgere le predette attività. I dati che si stanno raccogliendo in questa prima annualità della ricerca saranno confrontati con quelli che si ricaveranno dallo stesso gruppo di studenti liceali al termine della seconda annualità del progetto. Si ipotizza che, al termine della ricerca-intervento, almeno il 75% degli studenti effettuerà una scelta formativa-universitaria coerente con il proprio progetto di vita professionale

Statistical image processing for the detection of dermoscopic criteria

An image based system implementing a well-known diagnostic method is disclosed for the automatic detection of melanomas as support to clinicians. The software procedure is able to recognize automatically the skin lesion within the digital image, measure morphological and chromatic feature, carry out a suitable classification for the detection of structural dermoscopic criteria provided by the 7-Point Check List. Experimental results about the adoption of statistical techniques applied to the border detection, feature extraction and classification as well as the resulting diagnostic score are described with reference to a large image set. Copyright © 2011 by the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO) All rights reserved