Centro de Documentación de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música
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Thuntai and its place among the Yam languages of Southern New Guinea: insights from preliminary documentation.
No full textOur understanding of the diversity of southern New Guinea’s linguistic landscape has dramatically increased over the last decade, thanks to extensive documentation efforts on several languages of the Yam family (Evans 2012). Recent years have seen the publication of in-depth studies of languages spoken at both sides of the Indonesian-Papua New Guinean border, particularly on Nen (e.g., Evans 2014, 2015, 2017), Komnzo (Döhler 2018), Nama (Siegel 2023), Ngkolmpu (Carroll 2016) or Nmbo (Kashima 2020). Moreover, the unusual morphological features shared by these languages —particularly, their ‘distributed exponence’ (Evans 2015; Carroll 2016)— have attracted considerable attention from linguists interested in morphology and linguistic complexity. However, there are still important gaps in the documentation of other Yam languages, and many questions remain open for comparative analyses of the language family (Evans et al. 2017). In this talk, I will present some features observed in my preliminary documentation of Thuntai (Warta Thuntai at Glottolog; GNT at ISO 639-3), a language of the Tonda subgroup of Yam languages, spoken by around 400 people in the south-western corner of Papua New Guinea. The observations, which build upon (and qualify) Quinn’s (2014) foundational description of the language, will focus on a small number of key phonetic and morphosyntactic features that
either align with or differ from other Yam languages
A Rhetorical Political Analysis of Invective in Donald Trump's UN Address 2025
No full textThis paper seeks to test a theory of political invective through identifying its use within President Trump’s September 2025 speech to the UN General Assembly. Rhetorical Political Analysis is used to identify instances of Aristotle's three methods of persuasion: ethos, referencing good or poor character; pathos, emotional appeals; and logos, logical reasoning. Invective being defined as instances of appeals to pathos used to damage the ethos of political opponents, avoiding logos. Trumps UN speech is used as a high-profile rhetorical event, in a forum mostly expecting civility due to its being a diplomatic event. Providing a “hard case study” where we would not expect invective to be prevalent. Useful in testing the utility of the definition of invective and demonstrating how Trump’s use of it contributes to his unorthodox rhetorical style of literally saying things other politicians would find unsayable
Martial arts striking sports prehabilitation programme (MASS-12): Jump higher, move safer, and feel better
No full textBackground
Martial arts involve cutting, jumping and landing movements known to increase injury risk. Martial artists frequently sustain injuries. Recreational martial arts have yet to implement an evidence-informed prehabilitation programme to prevent these injuries. Here, we evaluate the Martial Arts Striking Sports prehabilitation programme (MASS-12) in a recreational setting.
Methods
Three traditional martial arts warm-ups and two MASS-12 warm-ups were delivered over 2 weeks as a recreational Jiu Jitsu club hall. A coach and seven athletes (five male, two female), ranging in experience from white belt to brown belt, participated. Main Outcome Measures were the Frontal plane projection angle (FPPA), a measure of dynamic knee valgus and Single leg vertical hops (SLVH), a measure of performance.
Results
Over half of recreational athletes reported previous, serious lower limb injuries. Athlete FFPA and SLVH significantly improved (−11.9° to −1.93°, 25.2 vs 27.5 cm, respectively) after the MASS-12. Athletes appreciated the increased feedback and sense of preparedness. The coach found it easy to teach and perceived improvements in performance.
Conclusions
The MASS-12 is easy for coaches to implement; improves lower limb alignment; and is accepted by athletes. A significant improvement on current practices, the MASS-12 should be widely implemented in recreational martial arts
Characterization of extracellular vesicles from primary skin epithelial cells and cell lines from Atlantic salmon
No full textExtracellular vesicle (EV) research in fish, particularly in aquaculture-relevant species, is gaining momentum, with interest in biomarker development, while the availability of in vitro tools to study EV-mediated cellular communication in fish is limited, particularly with respect to primary cell lines. As salmon represents one of the most valuable fish species in global aquaculture, identifying robust biomarkers for fish health monitoring is a high priority. This study introduces a novel in vitro model for EV research in salmon, utilising primary and immune relevant cell lines to closely mimic in vivo conditions. EVs were profiled from primary scale derived keratocyte cells (SKC), in addition to EVs from previously established salmon cell lines (ASK and SSP-9 from salmon head kidney). EV size profiles were identified overall in the 50-450 nm range, with some differences between the cell lines. EV protein cargoes were analyzed by LC-MS/MS alongside associated pathway enrichment, providing insights for roles of EVs in cell-type-specific communication, including immune responses. Notably, the SKC-derived EVs revealed proteins and pathways associated with wound healing, keratinization, and immune defense, highlighting their potential as therapeutic targets. Additionally, shared pathways identified in EVs from all cell lines, included the non-canonical NF-κB pathway and ubiquitination, offering new perspectives into EV-mediated signaling in fish. Our in-vitro model system may provide a translational platform to develope EVs as robust biomarkers of fish health, with potential applications in aquaculture. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
Spectral Evidence for Recent/Ongoing Activity in Mercury’s Praxiteles Basin
No full textMercury’s surface, as revealed by the MESSENGER probe, lacks distinctive absorption features in the visible–near-infrared spectral range, except for hollows that display a 630 nm feature ascribed to sulfides. The general absence of spectral features makes inference of its surface mineralogical composition challenging. We inspected the Praxiteles impact basin with newly photometrically corrected MDIS data, removing the influence of topographic shading in the spectra. We detected an 830 nm absorption feature, spectrally compatible with low Fe content minerals. The morphological and spectral correlations suggest that the 830 nm band is linked to geologically recent, or even ongoing, exposure of material, as well as to the early stage of hollow formation. These results provide insight into the subsurface composition of Mercury and imply a crust material locally more oxidized than previously thought
Investigation of the interplay between autophagy and therapy-induced senescence in thyroid cancer
No full textTherapy-induced senescence (TIS) is a potential outcome of anti-cancer treatments, characterized by a stable cell cycle arrest. Besides this feature, senescent cells are highly metabolically active, and present a specific secretory phenotype. In cancer, senescence acts as a double-edged sword: in facts, although unable to proliferate, senescent cells are active drivers of cancer relapse, aggressiveness and metastasis, through the release of pro-inflammatory factors and the ability to resume proliferation.
For these reasons, selectively targeting TIS cells is crucial to avoid their harmful effects. This strategy may become particularly important for those aggressive tumors that currently lack effective therapeutic options, like aggressive dedifferentiated thyroid tumors, such as poorly differentiated and anaplastic thyroid carcinomas. To this purpose, identifying targetable characteristics of TIS cells, conserved across different tumors and inducers, is essential for the development of new senotherapeutics. TIS is often associated with variations and abnormalities of autophagy, a catabolic process exploited by cells to degrade and repurpose macromolecules and organelles, and to rewire their metabolism under stress. The aim of this PhD project was to investigate the interplay between autophagy and therapy-induced senescence in thyroid cancer cells.
To induce TIS, several thyroid cancer cell lines of different histotypes were treated with either CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib or ionizing radiation (IR). We demonstrated that TIS thyroid cancer cells develop highly heterogenous senescent phenotypes, based both on the cell line and the senescence inducer. Further, TIS thyroid cancer cells do not always exhibit a sufficient enlargement of the lysosomal compartment to sustain autophagy function. Indeed, we identified two distinct phenotypes, autophagy-proficient and autophagy-deficient TIS cells, based on lysosomal content. The deficiency in lysosomal biogenesis is driven by the inability of transcription factor EB (TFEB), this process’ master regulator, to properly enter and remain inside the nucleus. The disruption of the autophagic flux leads to the accumulation of SQSTM1/p62, not only the most widely known selective autophagy receptor, but also a signaling hub for the regulation of pathways like mTOR, NFκB and Nrf2. In autophagy-deficient models, SQSTM1/p62 accumulation is associated with the activation of both NFκB and Nrf2. In contrast to autophagy-proficient cells, that are highly sensitive to the senolytic potential of chloroquine (CQ), these Nrf2-activated cells display a higher tolerance to oxidative stress, making them resistant to the senolytic activity of CQ. Despite these contrasting results, CQ treatment shows promising effects also as a senomorphic agent, as shown by its ability to prevent senescence escape and diminish stemness markers in the CQ-insensitive senescent cell line. Moreover, CQ effectively changes the secretory phenotype of TIS cells, as shown by the significant changes in their paracrine effects on the parental cell line.
Finally, to deepen the characterization of the autophagy/lysosomal-related secretory routes during TIS, we analyzed proteomics datasets and uncovered a coordinated upregulation of proteins involved in secretory autophagy and lysosomal exocytosis, particularly in IR-TIS cells, regardless of autophagic functionality.
In conclusion, these findings suggest that during therapy-induced senescence the functionality of the autophagic flux varies due to significant differences in the lysosomal biogenesis machinery. This influences the accumulation of several protein receptors that may also act as signaling hubs, such as SQSTM1/p62, and shapes both cell-intrinsic survival pathways and, likely, the senescence-associated secretory phenotype. Together, these results indicate multiple targetable features of TIS thyroid cancer cells and highlight the senolytic/senomorphic potential of lysosomal inhibition in these tumors
Explainable AI Approach to Compare Predictive Drivers of Student Success for Disabled and Non-Disabled Learners
No full textThe pursuit of equity in education, including on-line learning, demands tools that not only predict student outcomes but also explain the distinct factors driving success for different populations. This study employs an Explainable AI (XAI) framework to move beyond prediction and uncover the differential drivers of academic success. Using the Open University Learning Analytics Dataset (OULAD), we trained a Random Forest model and applied SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values for a comparative analysis. Our findings reveal several divergence between students with disabilities and students without disabilities. We demonstrate that XAI is critical for designing equitable support systems, enabling educators to tailor strategies that address the unique learning pathways and challenges faced by students with disabilities
