Teachers' Burnout Profile- Risk and protective factors

Background: Burnout syndrome represents a factual risk for school teachers during their career. Several factors have been analyzed as stress sources enabled to menace teachers’ general well-being; nevertheless, protective factors mostly related to their personal resources may differently characterize teachers’ profiles. Objectives: The current study aimed to define different teachers’ profiles based on their burnout levels and attitudes towards job (i.e., job satisfaction, self-efficacy, attitudes toward professional growth, collective efficacy, positive and negative emotions, and hedonic balance). attitudes towards job Methods: Participants were 266 school teachers (F=69.1%) ranging from 26 to 65 years old (M=48.95; SD=8.31), with teaching experience ranged from 1 to 41 years (M=21.72; SD=10.36). Data were collected by three self-report questionnaires: Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, Attitudes towards job questionnaires, School Collective efficacy. Results: Cluster analysis approach showed two distinct teacher’s profiles named at-risk and non at-risk teachers. Main differences were due to burnout levels, attitudes toward job and extra-mansions at work. No differences were found related to teachers’ socio-demographic characteristics and their years of experience. Conclusions: The two teachers’ profiles resulting from the cluster analysis show several similarities, including collective efficacy and job satisfaction levels. Results are discussed in relation as to how teachers’ positive emotions towards their job can work as protective factors against the risk of burnou

Galaxy Formation and Evolution. II. Energy Balance, Star Formation and Feed-back

In this paper we present a critical discussion of the algorithms commonly used in N-body simulations of Galaxy Formation to deal with the energy equation governing heating and cooling, to model star formation and the star formation rate, and to account for energy feed-back from stars. First, we propose our technique for solving the energy equation in presence of heating and cooling, which includes some difference with respect to the standard semi-implicit technique. Second, we examine the current criteria for the onset of the star formation activity. We suggest a new approach, in which star formaiton is let depend on the total mass density - baryonic (gas and stars) and dark matter - of the system and on the metal-dependent cooling efficiency. Third, we check and discuss the separate effects of energy (and mass) feed-back from several sources - namely supernovae, stellar winds from massive stars, and UV flux from the same objects. All the simulations are performed in the framework of the formation and evolution of a disk galaxy. We show that the inclusion of these physical phenomena has a signigicant impact on the evolution of the galaxy model.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, to be pubblished in MNRA

“PED/PEA-15 regulates wound healing and angiogenesis by affecting cytoskeletal organization and cell motility: a model for diabetic complications”

Failure in wound healing is a common feature of diabetes mellitus which severely affects morbidity and mortality. We evaluated wound healing in the skin of transgenic mice (TgPED) over-expressing ped/pea-15, a gene over-expressed in patients with type 2 diabetes.Up to four days after the injury, the distance between wound edges was 3-fold higher in TgPED mice compared to their wild-type littermates (Wt). TgPED mice also presented significantly reduced granulation tissue formation as compared to Wt. Moreover, the wounded skin of TgPED exhibited also a reduced content of activated fibroblasts, collagen fibres and an increased detection of infiltrated inflammatory cells. These histological alterations were accompanied, in TgPED speciments, by an increased production of inflammatory cytokines and a defect of neo-angiogenesis process. Then we isolated endothelial cells and fibroblasts from TgPED and Wt mice, mainly involved in the formation of the granulation tissue, the first regenerative tissue that closes the skin gap. Endothelial cells and skin fibroblasts isolated from TgPED and Wt mice showed reduced healing ability in scratch wound healing assays compared to control cells. Furthermore, in time-lapse experiments, TgPED fibroblasts displayed about 2-fold lower velocity and diffusion coefficient, as compared with Wt. These changes were accompanied by reduced spreading and decreased formation of stress fibres and focal adhesion plaques. At molecular level, TgPED fibroblasts displayed decreased RhoA membrane content and increased cytosolic abundance of phosphorylated ERK1/2. Inhibition of ERK1/2 activity by PD98059 restored RhoA membrane translocation, cytoskeleton organization and cell motility and almost completely rescued wound healing ability of TgPED fibroblasts and can be expanded to endothelial cells. Interestingly, fibroblasts isolated from ped/pea-15 null mice (KO) displayed an increased motility and spreading compared to control cells. These results strongly support a role of PED/PEA-15 in the regulation of cell motility during skin wound healing. Moreover, the control exerted by PED/PEA-15 on cell migration is not restricted to fibroblasts. Considering the different known cellular function of PED/PEA-15 in a chronic disorder such as diabetes, the observation that PED/PEA-15 regulates cellular motility and skin wound healing in TgPED mice may suggest these mice as model to study the role of PED/PEA-15 in diabetic complications

A victim of King Philip's war (1675-76), Mary Rowlandson and the account of her captivity

An analysis of Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative

Da Anne Hutchinson a Hester Prynne: donne sotto accusa nell’America di Hawthorne

1This essay examines Nathaniel Hawthorne’s literary treatment of the legal battle between religious dissident Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643) and the Puritan establishment of Massachusetts in his early piece “Mrs. Hutchinson” (1830) and in his masterpiece The Scarlet Letter (1850). In “Mrs. Hutchinson,” Hawthorne utilized the story of a woman whom Puritan authorities labeled an ‘antinomian’ (i.e. ‘an opponent of the law’) as a jumping-off point to decry the presence of women in the public sphere in his own time. In particular, Hawthorne sounded the alarm about the growing number of women writers who, in his view, represented a menace to the creation of a strong American literature. Simultaneously troubled and fascinated by Hutchinson, Hawthorne chose her as a model for his heroine Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. In this novel Anne Hutchinson in a sense re-lives as Hester Prynne, whose confrontation with the Boston magistracy and clergy, especially in the first chapters, closely recalls the civil and religious trials brought against her predecessor.openopenBuonomo, LeonardoBuonomo, Leonard

The Americanization of a Bigot: From "Till Death Us Do Part" to "All in the Family"

Este ensayo analiza las similitudes y diferencias entre la comedia televisiva británica till death us do part (1965-68, 1972-75) y su adaptación americana, all in the family (1971-79). Tras hacer una breve historia de la génesis de estos programas, se ce

Showing the World: Chicago’s Columbian Exposition in American Writing

This essay examines a representative sample of the substantial body of writing which emerged from Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. This compelling literary legacy is one aspect of that otherwise widely studied event that has so far received only scant critical attention. It is the author’s belief that through a close reading of these texts we can gain precious insights into a defining moment of the American experience, one that signaled the emergence of the United States as a major player on the international stage. The writers under consideration – ranging from canonical (William Dean Howells), to popular (Frances Hodgson Burnett), minor (Julian Hawthorne), and forgotten (Clara Louise Burnham) – had recourse to different literary genres, approaches, and registers to recreate, and comment on, the ways in which the United States presented itself to the world and how it interacted with, and responded to, the foreign delegations participating in the exposition. Although varying greatly from one another in terms of style, scope, and ambition, these works all testify quite eloquently to the significance of the Columbian Exposition as an occasion for national soul-searching and identity construction. They are illuminating interpretations of a crucial phase in American history, one marked by unresolved racial tension (the dark heritage of the Civil War) and massive foreign immigration, when the United States was endeavoring to come to terms with its new role as a political, economic, and cultural power