ARUd’A (Università “G. d’Annunzio CHIETI -PESCARA)
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Decrease in hosptial admission for heart failure during years 2018-23 in a Southern Italian Region
No full textHeart failure (HF) is a chronic disease with a high prevalence. Worldwide, this disease affects 2-3% of the population, with significantly higher numbers in the elderly and an incidence that doubles for each decade starting from the age of 45. It is considered one of the main public health issue, not only in relation to its morbidity and mortality, but also for its significant impact on health services. In Italy, HF represents the third cause of hospitalization in the general population, but it is the first in subjects over 65 years of age; furthermore, HF is associated with an in-hospital mortality of 5-7%. The aim of the study was to evaluate the hospitalization rate for heart failure in the Abruzzo region, Italy, from 2018 to 2023. Data related to hospital admissions were extracted from the hospital discharge record of the Abruzzo region, considering all admissions performed during the years 2018-2023 among patients aged over 18 years. Patients admitted for cardiac surgery or other surgical conditions were excluded. The rate was standardized by age and gender and the time trend in hospital admissions was evaluated with joint-point regression analysis, estimating the average annual percentage change (AAPC) with relative 95% confidence interval. During the study period 27.247 admissions were recorded. Patients aged over 74 years were most affected, representing the 72% of all HF hospitalizations. Between 2018 and 2023, a decrease in the rate was observed, with a variation from 4.38 cases/1,000 to 2.85 cases/1,000. Considering the entire study period, a statistically significant reduction was recorded (AAPC:-9.1%; 95%CI -15.3; -2.5). The reduction in the rate of hospitalization for HF indirectly demonstrates an improvement in the care of this condition. Despite this result, HF remains an important public health issue, which for a correct management requires a multidisciplinary approach. Key messages • It was observed a decreasing trend in hospitalizations for heart failure during years 2018-23. • HF remains an important public health issue
Protective factors against technostress in secondary school teachers
No full textReliance on innovative learning and teaching methodologies based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is continuously growing in educational institutions. However, using ICTs requires up-to-date knowledge, digital skills, and flexible adaptation to technological changes and challenges. These demands can lead teachers to experience technostress, undermining their ability to cope with emerging technologies and fully exploit their potential. This is particularly true for teachers who lack appropriate emotion regulation strategies and digital proficiency. In the present study, we investigated technostress creators among secondary school teachers, evaluating the predictive role of cognitive emotion regulation and the mediating role of self-efficacy in digital competencies. Notably, adaptive and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies were distinguished to clarify their distinct contributions to teachers’ psychological experience of technostress creators. Mediation analyses highlighted a direct effect of maladaptive strategies on the experience of technostress creators, whereas adaptive strategies exerted an indirect effect through self-efficacy in digital competencies. Maladaptive emotion regulation was positively associated with higher levels of technostress creators, whereas adaptive emotion regulation was positively associated with self-efficacy in digital competencies. Self-efficacy in digital competencies, in turn, was negatively associated with the experience of technostress creators. These findings provide evidence for implementing not only emotion regulation-based but also digital self-efficacy-based interventions to mitigate teachers’ technostress
SARS-CoV-2 ORF3a accessory protein is a water-permeable channel that induces lysosome swelling
No full textORF3a, the most abundantly expressed accessory protein of SARS-CoV-2, plays an essential role in virus egress by inactivating lysosomes through their deacidification. However, the mechanism underlying this process remains unclear. While seminal studies suggested ORF3a being a cation-selective channel (i.e., viroporin), recent works disproved this conclusion. To unravel the potential function of ORF3a, here we employed a multidisciplinary approach including patch-clamp electrophysiology, videoimaging, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, and electron microscopy. Preliminary structural analyses and patch-clamp recordings in HEK293 cells rule out ORF3a functioning as either viroporin or proton (H+) channel. Conversely, videoimaging experiments demonstrate that ORF3a mediates the transmembrane transport of water. MD simulations identify the tetrameric assembly of ORF3a as the functional water transporter, with a putative selectivity filter for water permeation that includes two essential asparagines, N82 and N119. Consistent with this, N82L and N82W mutations abolish ORF3a-mediated water permeation. Finally, ORF3a expression in HEK293 cells leads to lysosomal volume increase, mitochondrial damage, and accumulation of intracellular membranes, all alterations reverted by the N82W mutation. We propose a novel function for ORF3a as a lysosomal water-permeable channel, essential for lysosome deacidification and inactivation, key steps to promote virus egress
Peer collaboration or hierarchy? The epistemic reliability of Wikipedia needs both
No full textPurpose
Our paper aims to address an open question in the scientific literature about Wikipedia: the structural logic behind two seemingly contradictory trends – peer-leveraged crowdsourcing and gatekeeping of core participation.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the complete dataset of the English, Spanish, and Italian versions of Wikipedia (2001–2020), we analyzed metrics such as the number of articles, creations, or edits performed by users. We calculated their distributions, adapted the Gini index to measure participation inequalities and employed network science methods to understand user-edit interactions.
Findings
Our analysis confirms significant disparities in content generation and engagement, emphasizing content editing. However, we demonstrate that these differences coexist with extensive collaboration. Specifically, our findings reveal that disparities in participation levels and collaborative editing complement each other. Curatorial leadership by a central group of contributors is extremely collaborative, while occasional contributors intervene flexibly in specific contexts.
Originality/value
High participation levels do not necessarily equate to high engagement. Our analysis shows that the inequalities in agency characterizing Wikipedia’s creation and editing process stem from a high barrier to curatorship. This inequality fosters the self-selection of highly committed editors, whose sustained efforts underpin large-scale collaboration. Such collaboration, in turn, encourages new contributors to make occasional yet valuable interventions. This interplay between sustained curatorial efforts and flexible participation is a cornerstone of Wikipedia’s success
Assessment of Vaccine Literacy in People Affected by Multiple Sclerosis: A Cross-Sectional Study From Italy
No full textBackground: Vaccine literacy (VL) is an individual's ability to obtain, understand, and use information related to vaccines to make informed health decisions. This concept is strongly correlated with vaccine hesitancy, which is common among people with multiple sclerosis (MS). The study aims to assess VL in people with MS. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2023 to September 2023 at the MS Policlinic of Bari. A structured questionnaire of 10 questions from the European Health Literacy Survey Consortium covered vaccination behavior, beliefs, trust, and perceived risks, and 4 questions from the Health Literacy Population Survey 2019-2021 Vaccine (HLS19-VAC) tool covered access, understanding, evaluation, and application of vaccination information. Results: There were 157 respondents (mean age, 34.77 years; 86.4% women; 90.4% with relapsing-remitting MS). Fewer than half (41.4%) had a high school diploma, 73.9% were employed, and 93% were satisfied with nursing care. The HLS19-VAC questionnaire results revealed high vaccination adherence (99%) but mixed beliefs about vaccine safety and efficacy. Trust in vaccines was generally high, though VL scores were lower. Significant correlations were found between VL and education level. Conclusions: Findings from this study reveal high vaccination adherence and trust among people with MS, but VL remains low, leading to misconceptions and hesitancy. Interventions tailored to age and education level offered by health care providers, especially MS nurses, are essential to improve VL and reduce vaccine hesitancy
Record of seismic slip in carbonates: Insights from the Venere Fault during the 1915 Avezzano earthquake (Mw 7.0), Central Italy
No full textThe Mw 7.0 Avezzano earthquake in the Abbruzzo region of Italy claimed ∼33,000 lives on January 13, 1915 making it one of the worst disasters in modern Italian history. The main rupture occurred along the Venere Fault, characterized by a polished, locally shiny, or powdery fault mirror showing extensive downdip striations, slickensides, and local reddish iron-oxide/hydroxide stains. The layer immediately below the mirror is a carbonate ultracataclasite that locally grades into an unconsolidated carbonate gouge. This type of carbonate fault mirror typically forms through two distinct synkinematic processes: i) intense frictional heating causing decarbonation, or ii) progressive grain-size reduction during slip at seismic velocities. In either case, friction drops substantially after initial displacement. The first process also results in intense fault pressurization followed by subsequent drastic drop in normal stress. Despite recent advances, the switch from high-friction/low slip velocity to low-friction/high slip velocity conditions in carbonate is still not fully understood. The Venere Fault, characterized by proven friction at seismic slip velocity, provides an ideal setting to investigate the nature and extent of dynamic weakening processes in carbonate faults. We use the high temperature sensitivity of iron oxide/hydroxide assemblages, and their magnetic remanence, to estimate frictional heat. Evidence for seismic slip in iron oxides and temperature uniformity along the fault surface have been tested through demagnetization experiments and 1D heat conduction modeling. Our data shows that the fault mirror underwent frictional heating during the 0.8 m slip event, but that this displacement was insufficient to reach pervasive decarbonation. We constrain the peak coseismic temperature along the fault plane to <400 °C through demagnetization experiments and 1D heat conduction modeling. Our results emphasize that coseismic deformation along natural faults is complex and therefore requires complementary field observations at multiple scales in order to encompass a broad range of faulting processes
Dal milieu al museo. Calvino e la tutela del patrimonio
No full textNella raccolta Collezione di sabbia (1984), Italo Calvino orchestra per la prima volta un discorso intorno alla tutela e alla valorizzazione dei beni culturali. L’occasione è quella fornita da alcune mostre che si erano tenute a Parigi, su cui Calvino informa il pubblico italiano dalle colonne del «Corriere della Sera», dal 1974, e della «Repubblica», dal 1976, continuando anche dopo il trasferimento a Roma del 1980. In particolare, l’autore si trova a riflettere sulla nozione di ‘patrimonio’, in coincidenza con l’«année du patrimoine» proclamata in Francia dal Ministre de la Culture et de la Communication, Jean-Philippe Lecat, contestualmente alla creazione di una Mission du patrimoine ethnologique. Lo specifico sguardo etnologico verso i beni culturali, che si ritrova anche nelle ‘esplorazioni’ di Calvino, discende a sua volta dall’onda lunga generata da un documento dell’Unesco, la Convenzione concernente la protezione del patrimonio mondiale culturale e naturale, che nel 1972 mette insieme la protezione della natura e la preservazione dei beni culturali, riconoscendo la necessità di trovare un equilibrio nell’interazione tra esseri umani e ambiente. In Collezione di sabbia, come nei testi coevi raccolti in Palomar, Calvino dimostra una predilezione verso la musealizzazione del patrimonio, sublimato in una enciclopedia di oggetti: dal Musée des Arts et des Traditions Populaires del Bois de Boulogne, indicato come «modello di presentazione museografica», dove le figure umane vengono sostituite da fili di nylon che sostengono i reperti esposti, al Museo dei formaggi in cui il signor Palomar non riesce a orientarsi, esseri umani e paesaggi tendono a scomparire, proprio nei luoghi dove l’approccio etnografico trionfa. Ciò nonostante, Calvino sembra intercettare le tendenze museologiche che fanno passare proprio dall’oggetto la salvaguardia di una civiltà e del suo ambiente di sviluppo storico. Nel contributo che qui si propone si cercherà di fare luce su questa prospettiva, tenendo presente che Calvino indica nella conservazione dei beni culturali il necessario bilanciamento al «gesto istintivo dell’uomo contemporaneo: quello di buttar via»
Come leggere Pride and Prejudice
No full textPubblicato nel 1813, Pride and Prejudice si configura come un classico di fondamentale importante nella tradizione del romanzo inglese, offrendo un’articolata analisi delle tensioni culturali e socioeconomiche che connotano la società della Reggenza. Attraverso una scrittura di raffinata densità stilistica e una sottile ironia, Jane Austen esplora le dinamiche di potere, le gerarchie di classe e le normative di genere, grazie a un discorso narrativo che coniuga introspezione psicologica e critica sociale in un equilibrio di rara profondità.
La dialettica tra orgoglio e pregiudizio, tematizzata attraverso le figure emblematiche di Elizabeth Bennet e Fitzwilliam Darcy, assume valenze simboliche che superano il contesto storico, rivelandosi strumento ermeneutico di rilettura delle identità individuali e delle pratiche sociali. Il romanzo, andando ben oltre la mera rappresentazione del mutamento, esplicita le contraddizioni intrinseche di un’epoca di transizione fra tradizione e modernità.
La persistente centralità di Pride and Prejudice nel dibattito letterario contemporaneo testimonia la capacità austeniana di narrativizzare paradigmi semantici molto importanti per la comprensione delle forme di soggettività e delle strutture di potere