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Scotland’s Branches: Language, Literature and Culture across Time
No full textThere is something uncanny about Scotland’s capacity to rely on its past in order to build its future, while being well-grounded in the present. It was in Scotland that the first historical novels reinvented the past at the onset of the nineteenth century, and even at the turn of the twenty-first century worldwide audiences are captivated by a book and TV series, Outlander, which centres on a story of time travel initiated in Scotland. Nor does this capacity only apply to literature, as Scottish culture also features the same characteristics, and indeed Scotland’s linguistic history has developed both independently and in close connection with the variation and changes observed south of the border.
In addition, Scotland’s role in a European context that is going to be affected by Brexit is likely to be viewed in light of at least two key factors: the country’s historical relationship with the Continent, which dates from before the Union of the Crowns; and its ruling party’s aim to regain independence so as to re-join the EU – an aim that also has its roots firmly planted in the past but which looks to the future.
Starting from these observations, in this collection of essays we aim to draw attention to genres and texts that bear witness to the various ways in which Scottish literature, language and culture have constantly branched out into the future, while constantly acknowledging the significance of the past. Contributions focus on drama, translation, and historical discourse.
There is something uncanny about Scotland’s capacity to rely on its past in order to build its future, while being well-grounded in the present. It was in Scotland that the first historical novels reinvented the past at the onset of the nineteenth century, and even at the turn of the twenty-first century worldwide audiences are captivated by a book and TV series, Outlander, which centres on a story of time travel initiated in Scotland. Nor does this capacity only apply to literature, as Scottish culture also features the same characteristics, and indeed Scotland’s linguistic history has developed both independently and in close connection with the variation and changes observed south of the border.
In addition, Scotland’s role in a European context that is going to be affected by Brexit is likely to be viewed in light of at least two key factors: the country’s historical relationship with the Continent, which dates from before the Union of the Crowns; and its ruling party’s aim to regain independence so as to re-join the EU – an aim that also has its roots firmly planted in the past but which looks to the future.
Starting from these observations, in this collection of essays we aim to draw attention to genres and texts that bear witness to the various ways in which Scottish literature, language and culture have constantly branched out into the future, while constantly acknowledging the significance of the past. Contributions focus on drama, translation, and historical discourse.
There is something uncanny about Scotland’s capacity to rely on its past in order to build its future, while being well-grounded in the present. It was in Scotland that the first historical novels reinvented the past at the onset of the nineteenth century, and even at the turn of the twenty-first century worldwide audiences are captivated by a book and TV series, Outlander, which centres on a story of time travel initiated in Scotland. Nor does this capacity only apply to literature, as Scottish culture also features the same characteristics, and indeed Scotland’s linguistic history has developed both independently and in close connection with the variation and changes observed south of the border.
In addition, Scotland’s role in a European context that is going to be affected by Brexit is likely to be viewed in light of at least two key factors: the country’s historical relationship with the Continent, which dates from before the Union of the Crowns; and its ruling party’s aim to regain independence so as to re-join the EU – an aim that also has its roots firmly planted in the past but which looks to the future.
Starting from these observations, in this collection of essays we aim to draw attention to genres and texts that bear witness to the various ways in which Scottish literature, language and culture have constantly branched out into the future, while constantly acknowledging the significance of the past. Contributions focus on drama, translation, and historical discourse
Respiratory long COVID in aged hamsters features impaired lung function post-exercise with bronchiolization and fibrosis
No full textLong-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection affect millions of people and strain public health systems. The underlying pathomechanisms remain unclear, necessitating further research in appropriate animal models. This study aimed to characterize the trajectory of lung regeneration over 112 days in the male hamster model by combining morphological, transcriptomic and functional readouts. We demonstrate that in the acute phase, SARS-CoV-2 Delta-infected, male, aged hamsters show a severe impairment of lung function at rest. In the chronic phase, similar impairments persisted up to 7 weeks post-infection but were only evident after exercise on a rodent treadmill. The male hamster model recapitulates chronic pulmonary fibrotic changes observed in many patients with respiratory long COVID, but lacks extra-pulmonary long-term lesions. We show that sub-pleural and interstitial pulmonary fibrosis as well as alveolar bronchiolization persist until 112 dpi. Interestingly, CK8+ alveolar differentiation intermediate (ADI) cells are becoming less prominent in the alveolar proliferation areas from 28 dpi on. Instead, CK14+ airway basal cells and SCGB1A1+ club cells, expressing cell proliferation markers, mainly populate alveolar bronchiolization areas at later time-points. We postulate that pulmonary fibrosis and SCGB1A1+ club cell-rich areas of alveolar bronchiolization represent potential risk factors for other diseases in long-COVID survivors
Shared reading aloud fosters intelligence: Three cluster-randomized control trials in elementary and middle school
No full textStorytelling played a crucial role in human evolution. To this day, through stories humans gain declarative and procedural knowledge, and learn the skills that support learning itself. Research shows that reading stories to children enhances their reading and language skills. Does it also enhance their intelligence? To answer this question, we conducted three (N = 626, 254, 195) longitudinal, cluster-randomized control trials in Italian elementary and middle schools. Over a 4-month period, for half of the participants 1 h/day of standard, active language instructional activities were substituted with reading-aloud of stories by a teacher. Compared to those who kept doing language instructional activities, read-aloud condition children showed a stronger increase on two measures of intelligence focusing on knowing things and thinking skills. This result, which emerged in three independent trials conducted in different regions of Italy, suggests avenues for easily scalable interventions to improve children's intelligence
State of the Art of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Unresectable Pancreatic Cancer: A Comprehensive Systematic Review
Full text linkCharacterization of adhesion in lithium-ion battery electrodes with laser-textured current collectors
No full textExternal Validation of the GRade, Age, Nodes and Tumor (GRANT) Score for Patients with Surgically Treated Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma
No full textIntroduction
Stratifying the risk of recurrence for surgically treated papillary renal cell carcinoma (pRCC) could be challenging. Prognostic models are crucial for patient counselling and individualized surveillance. The GRANT score is one of the models suggested by guidelines to predict prognosis of surgically treated pRCC. This study aims to externally validate the GRANT score using a three-risk group stratification in a large cohort of pRCC patients.
Materials and Methods
The present analysis utilized retrospective data from pRCC patients who underwent radical or partial nephrectomy. The GRANT score parameters included tumor grade, age, pathological T-stage, and N-stage. Patients were stratified into three risk groups (0-1 vs 2 vs 3-4 risk factors). Cancer-specific survival (CSS) was assessed using the Kaplan-Meier method, and differences between groups were evaluated using the log-rank test. Harrell's c-index was used to measure model accuracy, and restricted mean survival time (RMST) was calculated for up to 120 months.
Results
A total of 1942 patients were included. The median follow-up was 64.6 months. At 60 months, CSS was 93.2% (95%CI 91.7%-94.6%) for group 1, 60.8% (95%CI 54.0%-78.6%) for group 2, and 26% (95%CI 15.7%-42.9%) for group 3, with significant differences between each group (p < 0.001). The median CSS was not reached for group 1 (95%CI NR-NR), 86.0 months in group 2 (95%CI 65-NR), and 22.8 months in group 3 (95%CI 16.4-48.0). The c-index for CSS was 0.732. The RMST at 120 months was 113.3 months for group 1, 75.9 months for group 2, and 56.6 months for group 3, with a statistically significant difference (p < 0.001).
Conclusion
The GRANT score effectively stratified surgically treated pRCC patients into three risk groups, demonstrating good prognostic accuracy. This validation supports the GRANT score's utility as a reliable and easy-to-use prognostic tool
The relevance of the evolutionary approach for understanding health and disease of the human body and mind
No full text: Ultimate and proximate levels of analysis offer synergistic explanations can improve the search for causes of disease and their cures. Here we review how several principles of evolutionary biology such as historical contingencies, mismatches, trade-offs, sexual selection and genomic conflict are applied to problems in medicine and psychiatry. The application of evolutionary principles to many other domains of medicine, among them mental disorders, have not received the same reception from preclinical and clinical researchers. The lack of a well-coordinated interdisciplinarity may be one reason for the slow application of evolutionary principles to biomedicine and psychiatry. This is exemplified by the case of ethopharmacology, an evolutionary approach to psychopharmacology strongly proposed and applied by ethologists but apparently unknown to many evolutionary minded scholars. Another reason has to do with the lack of efforts from many medical schools to integrate evolution and its principles in their curriculum studiorum. Interestingly, this Darwinian approach is generating an important evolutionary epistemology for the study of body and human mind health and diseases
An Integrated Building Energy Model in MATLAB
No full textThis paper discusses the development of an Integrated Building Energy Model (IBEM) in MATLAB (R2024b) for a university campus building. In the general context of the development of integrated energy district models to guide the evolution and planning of smart energy grids for increased efficiency, resilience, and sustainability, this work describes in detail the development and use of an IBEM for a university campus building featuring a heat pump-based heating/cooling system and PV generation. The IBEM seamlessly integrates thermal and electrical aspects into a complete physical description of the energy performance of a smart building, thus distinguishing itself from co-simulation approaches in which different specialized tools are applied to the two aspects and connected at the level of data exchange. Also, the model, thanks to its physical, white-box nature, can be instanced repeatedly within the comprehensive electrical micro-grid model in which it belongs, with a straightforward change of case-specific parameter settings. The model incorporates a heat pump-based heating/cooling system and photovoltaic generation. The model’s components, including load modeling, heating/cooling system simulation, and heat pump implementation are described in detail. Simulation results illustrate the building’s detailed power consumption and thermal behavior throughout a sample year. Since the building model (along with the whole campus micro-grid model) is implemented in the MATLAB Simulink environment, it is fully portable and exploitable within a large, world-wide user community, including researchers, utility companies, and educational institutions. This aspect is particularly relevant considering that most studies in the literature employ co-simulation environments involving multiple simulation software, which increases the framework’s complexity and presents challenges in models’ synchronization and validation
Per una nuova soggettività delle donne: Christine de Pizan e la sua paideia contro gli stereotipi misogini
No full textIl contributo si inserisce nell’alveo dei Women’s Studies con l’intento di valorizzare sul piano filosofico-politico la figura di Cristina da Pizzano, o meglio nota come Christine de Pizan che in un periodo complesso di transizione, come fu quello dell’“autunno del Medioevo”, per citare la felice espressione di Johan Huizinga, rappresentò nell’ambito intellettuale, letterario, della teoresi politica, nonché in quello lavorativo-imprenditoriale, un unicum rispetto alle modalità prevalenti in cui all’epoca viveva, e soprattutto era rappresentata in chiave misogina dalla cultura egemonica androcentrico-patriarcale, la maggior parte delle donne. Il contributo focalizza in particolare l’attenzione su alcuni passaggi dell’impegno di Christine de Pizan teso, attraverso la sua riflessione e i suoi scritti sulla natura e sul ruolo delle donne nella società, ad opporsi con inusitato coraggio, anche contro i “dotti” del tempo, alle derive misogine e agli stereotipi di genere di cui era intrisa gran parte della cultura dell’epoca, ormai ben lontana dalle idealizzazioni della figura femminile proprie dell’“amor cortese”. La riflessione critica che Christine de Pizan attuerà sulle rappresentazioni dominanti del genere femminile in chiave misogina e il suo tentativo, soprattutto attraverso la scrittura del Livre de la Cité des Dames, di decostruirle, opponendovi una nuova rappresentazione collettiva, vera e propria forma di paideia, della soggettività delle donne, in quanto attive e protagoniste nella storia e nella società, fanno di questa autrice una pioniera di quei movimenti di donne che tra ’700 e ’800 inizieranno a rivendicare nello spazio pubblico, e quindi anche politico, la necessità di riscrivere la storia declinandola al femminile