198 research outputs found

    Atopic dermatitis and atopic march: which link?

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    There is a long standing debate on the atopic march in childhood. The natural progression of allergic manifestations may be considered as comorbidities, which occur more frequently in a specific evolutive age. On the other hand, the natural history of allergies in children may follow trajectories that may be heterogeneous. The effects of atopic march in clinical practice have also been reported

    Moraxella catarrhalis evades neutrophil oxidative stress responses providing a safer niche for nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae

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    Moraxella catarrhalis and nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) are pathogenic bacteria frequently associated with exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), whose hallmark is inflammatory oxidative stress. Neutrophils produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) which can boost antimicrobial response by promoting neutrophil extracellular traps (NET) and autophagy. Here, we showed that M. catarrhalis induces less ROS and NET production in differentiated HL-60 cells compared to NTHi. It is also able to actively interfere with these responses in chemically activated cells in a phagocytosis and opsonin-independent and contact-dependent manner, possibly by engaging host immunosuppressive receptors. M. catarrhalis subverts the autophagic pathway of the phagocytic cells and survives intracellularly. It also promotes the survival of NTHi which is otherwise susceptible to the host antimicrobial arsenal. In-depth understanding of the immune evasion strategies exploited by these two human pathogens could suggest medical interventions to tackle COPD and potentially other diseases in which they co-exist

    Opportunities and challenges for data physicalization

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    Physical representations of data have existed for thousands of years. Yet it is now that advances in digital fabrication, actuated tangible interfaces, and shape-changing displays are spurring an emerging area of research that we call Data Physicalization. It aims to help people explore, understand, and communicate data using computer-supported physical data representations. We call these representations physicalizations, analogously to visualizations -- their purely visual counterpart. In this article, we go beyond the focused research questions addressed so far by delineating the research area, synthesizing its open challenges and laying out a research agenda

    Aging affects attunement in perceiving length by dynamic touch

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    Earlier studies have revealed age-dependent differences in perception by dynamic touch. In the present study, we examined whether the capacity to learn deteriorates with aging. Adopting an ecological approach to learning, the authors examined the process of attunement—that is, the changes in what informational variable is exploited. Young and elderly adults were trained to perceive the lengths of unseen, handheld rods. It was found that the capacity to attune declines with aging: Contrary to the young adults, the elderly proved unsuccessful in learning to detect the specifying informational variables. The fact that aging affects the capacity to attune sets a new line of research in the study of perception and perceptual-motor skills of elderly. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for the ongoing discussions on the ecological approach to learning

    Vocal imitations and the identification of sound events

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    International audienceIt is commonly observed that a speaker vocally imitates a sound that she or he intends to communicate to an interlocutor. We report on an experiment that examined the assumption that vocal imitations can e ffectively communicate a referent sound, and that they do so by conveying the features necessary for the identifi cation of the referent sound event. Subjects were required to sort a set of vocal imitations of everyday sounds. The resulting clusters corresponded in most of the cases to the categories of the referent sound events, indicating that the imitations enabled the listeners to recover what was imitated. Furthermore, a binary decision tree analysis showed that a few characteristic acoustic features predicted the clusters. These features also predicted the classi fication of the referent sounds, but did not generalize to the categorization of other sounds. This showed that, for the speaker, vocally imitating a sound consists of conveying the acoustic features important for recognition, within the constraints of human vocal production. As such vocal imitations prove to be a phenomenon potentially useful to study sound identifi cation

    Reenacting sensorimotor features of drawing movements from friction sounds

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    International audienceEven though we generally don't pay attention to the friction sounds produced when we are writing or drawing, these sounds are recordable, and can even evoke the underlying gesture. In this paper, auditory perception of such sounds, and the internal representations they evoke when we listen to them, is considered from the sensorimotor learning point of view. The use of synthesis processes of friction sounds makes it possible to investigate the perceptual influence of each gestures parameter separately. Here, the influence of the velocity profile on the mental representation of the gesture induced by a friction sound was investigated through 3 experiments. The results reveal the perceptual relevance of this parameter, and particularly a specific morphology corresponding to biological movements, the so-called 1/3-power law. The experiments are discussed according to the sensorimotor theory and the invariant taxonomy of the ecological approach

    The Role of Motor Learning in Spatial Adaptation near a Tool

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    Some visual-tactile (bimodal) cells have visual receptive fields (vRFs) that overlap and extend moderately beyond the skin of the hand. Neurophysiological evidence suggests, however, that a vRF will grow to encompass a hand-held tool following active tool use but not after passive holding. Why does active tool use, and not passive holding, lead to spatial adaptation near a tool? We asked whether spatial adaptation could be the result of motor or visual experience with the tool, and we distinguished between these alternatives by isolating motor from visual experience with the tool. Participants learned to use a novel, weighted tool. The active training group received both motor and visual experience with the tool, the passive training group received visual experience with the tool, but no motor experience, and finally, a no-training control group received neither visual nor motor experience using the tool. After training, we used a cueing paradigm to measure how quickly participants detected targets, varying whether the tool was placed near or far from the target display. Only the active training group detected targets more quickly when the tool was placed near, rather than far, from the target display. This effect of tool location was not present for either the passive-training or control groups. These results suggest that motor learning influences how visual space around the tool is represented

    Narrative review on the management of moderate-severe atopic dermatitis in pediatric age of the Italian Society of Pediatric Allergology and Immunology (SIAIP), of the Italian Society of Pediatric Dermatology (SIDerP) and of the Italian Society of Pediatrics (SIP)

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    Currently, there are a few detailed guidelines on the overall management of children and adolescents with moderate-severe atopic dermatitis. AD is a complex disease presenting with different clinical phenotypes, which require an individualized and multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, appropriate interaction between primary care pediatricians, pediatric allergists, and pediatric dermatologists is crucial to finding the best management strategy. In this manuscript, members of the Italian Society of Pediatric Allergology and Immunology (SIAIP), the Italian Society of Pediatric Dermatology (SIDerP), and the Italian Society of Pediatrics (SIP) with expertise in the management of moderate-severe atopic dermatitis have reviewed the latest scientific evidence in the field. This narrative review aims to define a pathway to appropriately managing children and adolescents with moderate-severe atopic dermatitis
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