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Recensione a J. Dicker, "La catastrofica visita allo zoo", Milano, La nave di Teseo, 2025, pp. 272
No full text“La catastrofica visita allo zoo” di Joël Dicker è un thriller che si presta a una pluralità di letture e riflessioni, non ultima un’interpretazione in chiave educativa. Attraverso le domande di un gruppo di ragazzini speciali, questo romanzo affronta i temi della democrazia, della differenza, dell’intergenerazionalità e dell’inclusione, offrendo illuminanti esempi di come i bambini articolino la realtà in una loro maniera originale, che rivela aspetti della vita solo apparentemente banali e fa emergere punti di vista anticonformisti, offrendo spunti di umoristica pensosità
Effects of Fascial Manipulation® on urinary symptoms: A case report
No full textBackground: Pelvic floor dysfunction (PFD) is prevalent post-childbirth, with urinary incontinence (UI) affecting approximately 30 % of women. Although pelvic floor muscle training is widely recognized as the first-line treatment for UI, emerging research underscores the significance of fascial tissue on pelvic floor muscle function. The fascia surrounding the pelvic diaphragm shares an intrinsic relationship with the abdomen, pelvis, lumbar region, and lower limb. In this sense, fascial restrictions in any of these segments may contribute to the development of UI. Fascial Manipulation® (FM®), is a method targeting fascial restrictions across the body and has shown promise in treating musculoskeletal and pelvic conditions. Given the potential influence of fascial dysfunction in PFD, this case explores the application of FM® to address UI symptoms. Case presentation: A Japanese 36-year-old woman with UI symptoms that worsen six months post-partum. Two weeks after a vaginal delivery, she consulted a urologist due to increased urinary frequency and urgency, which was disrupting her sleep. At that time, she underwent a five-week program of pelvic floor muscle training, with no improvement in UI symptoms, prompting her to seek alternative treatment. A 72-h bladder diary was used to assess patient's voiding pattern, including daytime and nighttime urine frequency. Symptom severity and her distress symptoms were evaluated using the Overactive Bladder Symptom Score (OABSS) and Core Lower Urinary Tract Symptom Score (CLSS) questionnaires, respectively. Pelvic floor displacement was measured via ultrasound imaging. Additionally, movement specific tests and palpation, based on Stecco's Fascial Manipulation® (FM®) method, identified points of tissue densification. Pain intensity was measured using the 10-point Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). During the specific movement tests assessment, the patient complained about right knee pain and restricted dorsiflexion of the right ankle. Palpation revealed tissue densifications in the medial ankle and knee, posterior knee, right hip, bilateral pelvic region, and the area of the lower abdominal muscles. The patient underwent a single session of the FM® method, involving deep friction of the identified densification points. Follow-up assessments included a reassessment of the 72-h bladder diary, OABSS, and CLSS questionnaires one month after the intervention. Ultrasound images and the specific movement tests, with VAS score, were performed immediately after intervention and one month later. Results: One month after the treatment, the 72-h Bladder Diary indicated a reduction in urination frequency from 10 to 13 times/day to 6 times/day, and nighttime frequency from 2 to 3 times/night to 1 time/night. Questionnaire scores reflected significant improvement, with OABSS severity decreasing from 7 to 1, and CLSS distress reducing from 6 to 1. Immediately after the treatment the ultrasound imaging showed an increase in pelvic floor muscle elevation from 4 to 7 mm., which was maintained, at 7 mm., one month later. The patient reported an improvement in the specific movement tests, being able to squat without pain in the right knee, with zero on the VAS scale. One month later, the patient could sit upright without pain (VAS from 6 to 0) in the right knee. Conclusion: Fascial Manipulation may reduce urinary frequency and urgency by releasing abnormal tension on the bladder via the internal fascia. Recognizing fascial influences on the whole body could be an effective strategy for treating these symptoms
Interactive, computer-based, and situated design for innovative formative assessment approaches
Get PDFSocial and teamwork skills are essential for today’s teachers, yet their assessment in authentic contexts is challenging. This study presents the design, development and validation of an innovative computer-based test, designed to assess collaborative and teamwork skills in preprimary and primary school teachers and referred to as the ‘CoTeSt’ (Collaborative and Teamwork Skill test). Based on Situated Action Theory, the test immerses participants in realistic team interactions using conversational agents within a narrative framework. Teachers are asked to solve problems, collaborate with virtual colleagues, and provide feedback. The test consists of 20 dichotomously scored items in both multiple-choice and short answer, and it was administered to 139 Italian teachers. Test validation involved qualitative and quantitative methods, confirming that the items actually assess the skills they were assumed to evaluate. Post-test interviews and group discussions highlighted the tool’s user-fri..
Navigating the Cognitive Labyrinth When Thinking in a Foreign Language: Social Norms, Response Bias, Mouse Tracking, and Metacognition
No full textThis thesis investigates the impact of the Foreign Language Effect (FLE) on decision-making across four psychological domains: social norms, acquiescence, moral reasoning, and meta-reasoning. Through a series of experimental studies, it explores how reasoning in a foreign language influences social perceptions, cognitive processes, emotional responses, and metacognitive experiences, particularly in contexts involving lies, acquiescence, moral dilemmas, and self-monitoring during decision-making. The findings reveal that participants are more likely to conform to social norms and exhibit acquiescence in their native language, while foreign language use tends to increase utilitarian decision-making in morally complex scenarios, often reducing emotional engagement and promoting deliberation. However, foreign language use also introduces cognitive disfluency, leading to greater cognitive load, slower decision times, and more complex mouse trajectories of decisions. An additional and alternative hypothesis for this effect could be metacognitive, diminished feeling of rightness (FOR) prompts increased deliberation but does not always lead to more accurate or optimal decisions. By integrating social, cognitive, and metacognitive dimensions, this thesis provides a comprehensive understanding of the FLE and its potential to influence human behavior in an increasingly globalized world
New approach to enhance multi-material computed tomography reconstructions by selecting the optimal combination of scanning orientations for multiple scan fusion
No full textThe use of multi-positional X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT) has been shown to reduce metal artifacts when scanning multi-material assemblies. However, its effectiveness heavily relies on the choice of scan orientations to fuse. This paper presents a novel approach to determine the optimal combination of scan positions by taking a small number of simulated projections and deriving projection-based metrics to estimate the quality of the resulting data fusion. Two regression models, linear and Random Forest, were used and compared for prediction of the optimal combination. Results on an adaptation from an industrial case study showed that, while both models provide predictions that are well correlated to the actual ranked values on the test data (Spearman's ρ of 0.841 for the linear model and 0.964 for the Random Forest), the Random Forest model performed better than the linear model on all the proposed evaluation metrics, and consistently ranked high quality combinations among its top predictions. These results highlight the effectiveness of the approach in finding optimal combinations of scan positions with little input data, providing a time-efficient solution for improving XCT reconstruction of multi-material objects
Singularity of Maternal Affectivity: vulnerability factors for mother-infant interaction in the interplay between mind, brain, and body
Get PDFThe quality of parenting that a child receives is one of the most important environmental factors
influencing developmental outcomes. Thus, knowing vulnerability factors and related underlying
mechanisms to adequate caregiving has fundamental clinical implications, informing effective
preventive and intervention programs. Using a theoretical and empirical framework which
acknowledges the complex and dynamic interplay between neurobiological, psychological, and
behavioral processes, the present doctoral thesis aims to expand knowledge on variables which could
contribute to explain inter-individual differences in observed parenting behaviors, with a specific
focus on the role of emotion dysregulation as a vulnerability factor. Particularly, the presence of a
lifetime history of two different disorders, which have been extensively related to impairments in
diverse components of the emotional process, namely depression and somatization, will be used as
doorways for exploring the impact of maternal affect dysregulation in originating at-risk
developmental trajectories. More specifically, a life history of a disorder of affect regulation allows
us to explore the role of trait-like rather than state-like emotion regulation difficulties. This aspect
takes on particular relevance since the transition to motherhood is a period of increased vulnerability
associated with high rates of onset or relapse of perinatal mental health disorders, while these kinds
of vulnerability factors typically receive less attention in primary care contexts.
Following this line of reasoning, Section I of this work is focused on maternal depression. Chapter 1
presents a longitudinal study aimed at investigating trajectories of change of neural response to infant
stimuli in PFC areas across pregnancy and their contribution in explaining potential differences
between mothers with and without a history of depression in the quality of parenting behaviors in the
early postpartum. Section II focuses on maternal persistent somatization. First, since this is a widely
unexplored topic in the literature, Chapter 2 describes a scoping systematic review which attempts to
ascertain the impact of maternal persistent somatization on various aspects of parenting. Once
clarified this aspect and relying on the findings and main limitations that emerged from this study,
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Chapter 3 presents a two-wave exploratory study aimed at expanding the knowledge about the impact
of a history of maternal somatization in the first year of life, while exploring the role of maternal
individual variables, namely emotion dysregulation and coping styles. Finally, Section III is dedicated
to a proposal for intervention. Chapter 4 presents the proof-of-concept and the implementation of an
app-delivered support program aimed at promoting maternal intersubjectivity and sensitive
caregiving based on some of the theoretical and empirical principles that we explored throughout this
dissertation, as well as the study protocol of the work intended to take place to assess the usability of
the smartphone application and preliminary effectiveness of the intervention. Beyond being the
conclusive study of this thesis, it is intended as a starting point to be integrated with findings coming
from the entire presented work. Overall, findings from the empirical studies show the significance of
considering both general emotional competencies underlying early caregiving and disorder-specific
impaired emotional processes, which could contribute to explaining inter-individual differences on
observed parenting behaviors. Future research directions and clinical implications deriving from these
results will be discussed
The presence of sulfonated oligomeric and polymeric procyanidins in red wines impacts the estimated mean degree of polymerisation of condensed tannins by phloroglucinolysis
Get PDFThe calculation of proanthocyanidin mean Degree of Polymerisation (mDP) is a relevant analytical tool for gaining insight into the characteristics of wine. Despite its limitations, it remains an effective method for studying the polymeric forms of proanthocyanidins. Recently, sulfonated monomeric and dimeric flavan-3-ols have been detected in wine, and their main mechanism of formation suggested the formation of even larger sulfonated analogues. This work aimed to explore if aged wines contain sulfonated polymeric proanthocyanidins and how these compounds might impact the calculation of mDP. For this purpose, an experiment based on 4 single cultivar red wines (Sangiovese, Nerello Mascalese, Sagrantino, and Nebbiolo), four levels of SO2 addition (0, 30, 50, and 100 ppm), and two storage conditions (Control and Room Temperature) was realised. The results showed that the epicatechin 4β-sulfonate released after phloroglucinolysis is 10 to 352 times higher than the free homologue, indicating the presence of oligomeric/polymeric sulfonated procyanidins in wine. Incorporating the quantified terminal unit of epicatechin 4β-sulfonate into mDP calculations resulted in a reduction of mDP values by 1 to 36 %. This overestimation of mDP values increases with wine ageing or storage at elevated temperatures
Influence of alloy chemistry and overaging on mechanical properties and corrosion resistance in aluminium crossover alloys
No full textThis study examines the impact of alloy composition and overageing heat treatments on mechanical properties and corrosion behaviour of aluminium crossover alloys, with a particular focus on the AlMgZn(Cu,Ag) system. Mechanical properties were evaluated through hardness and tensile testing, while corrosion resistance was examined in a solution of NaCl through mass loss tests, potentiodynamic polarization (PDP), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Mass loss tests indicated that addition of noble elements (Cu,Ag) has an adverse effect on corrosion resistance, which was further corroborated by PDP and EIS. These observations are not in accordance with effects commonly observed in classical 5xxx and 7xxx alloys, from which the alloy originates. To establish a correlation between mechanical and corrosion properties and the microstructure, scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM,S/TEM) were employed. We resort to characterization techniques to investigate the influence of grain size, texture, grain boundary precipitate, precipitate-free zone, and bulk precipitate characteristics on the observed corrosion response. The results demonstrate that the presence of Cu and Ag primarily weakens the protective oxide layer and creates a galvanic coupling, resulting in increased corrosion currents between matrix and precipitates. Double-step overageing primarily causes precipitate coarsening. While the addition of Cu and Ag can enhance mechanical properties by refining strengthening precipitates, their addition deteriorate corrosion resistance in novel 5xxx/7xxx aluminium crossover alloys
Euclid preparation. The impact of relativistic redshift-space distortions on two-point clustering statistics from the Euclid wide spectroscopic survey
Get PDFMeasurements of galaxy clustering are affected by redshift-space distortions (RSDs). Peculiar velocities, gravitational lensing, and other light-cone projection effects modify the observed redshifts, fluxes, and sky positions of distant light sources. We determined which of these effects leave a detectable imprint on several two-point clustering statistics to be extracted from the Euclid wide spectroscopic survey (EWSS) on large scales. We generated 140 mock galaxy catalogues with the survey geometry and selection function of the EWSS and made use of the LIGER (LIght cones with GEneral Relativity) method to account for a variable number of relativistic RSDs to linear order in the cosmological perturbations. We estimated different two-point clustering statistics from the mocks and used the likelihood-ratio test to calculate the statistical significance with which the EWSS could reject the null hypothesis that certain relativistic projection effects can be neglected in the theoretical models. We find that the combined effects of lensing magnification and convergence imprint characteristic signatures on several clustering observables. Their signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) ranges between 2.5 and 6 (depending on the adopted summary statistic) for the highest-redshift galaxies in the EWSS. The corresponding feature due to the peculiar velocity of the Sun is measured with a S/N of order one or two. The multipoles of the power spectrum from the catalogues that include all relativistic effects reject the null hypothesis that RSDs are only generated by the variation in the peculiar velocity along the line of sight with a significance of 2.9 standard deviations. As a by-product of our study, we demonstrate that the mixing-matrix formalism to model finite-volume effects in the multipole moments of the power spectrum can be robustly applied to surveys made of several disconnected patches. Our results indicate that relativistic RSDs, in particular the contribution from weak gravitational lensing, cannot be disregarded when modelling two-point clustering statistics extracted from the EWSS
