Metaphors we lie by: our ‘war’against COVID-19

In this paper, we discuss the influence of war as a metaphor in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. After an introduction to the traditional analysis of the war metaphor, we address the social consequences of using this metaphor, a topic that has been widely debated with regard to public communication in the context of COVID-19. We pay particular attention to a theory that many intellectuals have raised: the possibility that the use of the metaphor in this context is harmful to a democratic society because it may lead citizens to accept limited civil liberties and authoritarian policies. After presenting the extensive literature on the use of the war metaphor before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the final section of the paper, we analyse experimental evidence of the effects of this metaphor. In the conclusion, we hint at open questions and suggest that the current evidence does not support claims of direct liberticidal influence

UNASUR health: experiences and debates at the end of a cycle

La creación del Consejo de Salud Suramericano (CSS o UNASUR Salud) abrió un espacio político e institucional innovador para el debate regional en esta materia. Bajo el impulso del gobierno de Brasil, UNASUR Salud y el Instituto Suramericano de Gobierno en Salud (ISAGS) promovieron la discusión sobre un pensamiento sanitario regional y el establecimiento de políticas comunes. No obstante, pese al vigor inicial y a algunos logros parciales, el CSS ya mostraba señales de estancamiento cuando la llegada al poder de gobiernos antitéticos al tipo de regionalismo promovido por la UNASUR terminaría exacerbando los problemas internos, quedándose desarmado a mediados de 2019. Así, cuando la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) declaró al Covid-19 como pandemia en marzo de 2020, UNASUR Salud ya no tenía capacidad de respuesta. El artículo propone un recuento de la trayectoria del Consejo de Salud apoyado en la revisión de documentación oficial y literatura especializada; busca destacar críticamente logros y limitaciones del CSS haciendo hincapié en el rol de Brasil y; finalmente, abre el debate sobre la falta de respuestas comunes entre los gobiernos suramericanos frente a la pandemia del Covid-19.The South American Health Council (CSS, by its acronym in Spanish, or UNASUR Health) opened an innovative political and institutional space on health issues at a regional scale. Driven by the Brazilian government, UNASUR Health and the South American Institute of Government on Health (ISAGS, by its acronym in Spanish) promoted debates about a regional thinking and common policies on this subject. Nevertheless, despite some initial dynamism and achievements, the CSS had already been showing a slowdown when the coming to power of governments antithetical to UNASUR exacerbated its internal problems. UNASUR Health finally came to a virtual end by mid-2019. Consequently, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 as a pandemic in March 2020, UNASUR Health had no capacity to take action. Drawing on official documents and specialized literature, this paper offers an analysis of the CSS. It highlights the achievements and deficiencies of UNASUR Health, stressing the role of the Brazilian government. Lastly, it opens the discussion regarding the lack of a common response to the Covid-19 pandemic among the South American governments.Instituto de Integración Latinoamerican

Synthesis and Characterization of New Lithium and Boron Based Metal Organic Frameworks with NLO Properties for Application in Neutron Capture Therapy

In this work, we synthetized and characterized new crystalline materials with theranostic properties, i.e., they can be used both as bio-sensors and for "drug delivery". The two solid crystalline compounds studied are Metal Organic Frameworks and have formulas Li[(C6H12O6)2B]\ub72H2O and Li[(C4H2O6)2B]\ub75.5H2O. They can be synthetized both with natural isotopes of Li and B or with 6Li and 10B isotopes, that can be explored for Neutron Capture Therapy (NCT) for anti-cancer treatment. The presence of chiral organic molecules, such as mannitol and tartaric acid, provides the NLO property to the crystals and thus their capability to generate the Second Harmonic, which is useful for applications as bio-sensors. The two compounds were characterized with X-ray Diffraction and the Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) responses were estimated by theoretical calculations, and the results were compared with experimental measurements of powdered samples. In order to test the behavior of such compounds under thermal neutron irradiation, we preliminary exposed one of the two compounds in the e_LiBANS facility at the Torino Physics Department. Preliminary results are reported

Biovision project-team: Biological vision: integrative models and vision aid systems for visually impaired people

International audienc

Can patients with central field loss perform head pointing in a virtual reality environment?

International audienceIntroduction: Virtual Reality (VR) headsets are raising more and more interest from the low-vision research community since they offer a promising framework for low-vision aids and rehabilitation protocols. However, the study of VR accessibility to low vision is still in its early stages and designing efficient user interfaces for low-vision users remains an open challenge. Head pointing (a common way to interact with the world in VR environments) may represent a promising option for patients with Central Field Loss (CFL) who lose the ability to direct their gaze efficiently towards a target. Yet, little is known about the actual head-pointing capacities of CFL patients.Discussion: The purpose of the current study is to evaluate whether patients with CFL are able to perform precise head-pointing tasks in VR. 49 patients with binocular CFL, aged 34 to 97 (mean = 77±13), were tested with an Oculus Go headset in a very simple VR environment (grey background). At the beginning of each block, a head-contingent reticle was displayed in a specific location in front of the patient. A total of 9 reticle locations were tested either in the center of the visual field or with a 7° offset. At each trial, a target appeared in the visual field and patients were instructed to move their head to position the reticle precisely onto the target. Targets were black circles (1° to 3° diameter) randomly presented in five fixed positions (center or top, right, bottom, left at 18° of eccentricity). On average, patients were able to use their head to position the reticle precisely onto the target 94% of the time. Individual differences emerged, with a significant drop in pointing speed performance for specific reticle locations.Conclusions: Our preliminary results show that patients with CFL are able to perform accurately precise head-pointing tasks. This represents a fundamental step towards the design of efficient and user-friendly visual aids and rehabilitation tools using VR. For instance, head pointing could provide an ergonomic framework to design user interfaces that require precise pointing abilities to perform item selection. Similarly, one can imagine designing head-contingent pointing exercises that will drive the rehabilitation process while limiting straining of the eyes

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio