186 research outputs found
Fractional De Giorgi classes and applications to nonlocal regularity theory
No full textWe present some recent results obtained by the author on the regularity of solutions to nonlocal variational problems. In particular, we review the notion of fractional De Giorgi class, explain its role in nonlocal regularity theory, and propose some open questions in the subject.</p
FUTURE PERSPECTIVES IN NON-ADVANCED AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION: FROM MULTIMODAL IMAGING APPROACH TO ESTABLISHING CORE OUTCOME MEASURES
No full textLa degenerazione maculare legata all'età (AMD) è la principale causa di perdita della vista nei paesi sviluppati e la sua prevalenza è destinata a crescere con l’aumento dell'aspettativa di vita. Questa tesi di dottorato si pone di studiare lo stadio precoce della malattia, durante la quale la capacità visiva è in gran parte preservata. Un eventuale trattamento precoce dell’AMD, con lo scopo di rallentarne la progressione, potrebbe evitare il declino visivo conseguente alla sua cronicizzazione.
Dopo un capitolo introduttivo dedicato ad una revisione della letteratura sull'AMD non avanzata, il primo studio clinico esplora il ruolo dell'imaging multimodale nella rilevazione precoce dell'invecchiamento retinico in soggetti sani, utilizzando una tecnica innovativa e non invasiva chiamata “retromode”. I risultati indicano che il retromode è in grado di identificare un numero significativamente maggiore di depositi sottoretinici (DLD) rispetto alla fotografia convenzionale del fondo oculare. Tuttavia, è importante evidenziare che questi DLD non si associano a biomarcatori di patologia, poiché la loro quantità aumenta fisiologicamente con l’età.
Il secondo studio valuta l'accuratezza e la riproducibilità di diverse modalità di imaging nel delineare l’area maculare interessata dalle pseudodrusen reticolari (RPD). I risultati indicano che la combinazione della tomografia a coerenza ottica (OCT) e riflettanza nel vicino infrarosso (NIR) rappresenta il metodo più affidabile per la rilevazione delle RPD.
Il terzo studio esamina la relazione tra il pigmento maculare (MPOV) e lo spessore dei singoli strati retinici, rilevando una correlazione con lo strato nucleare esterno (ONL). Si ipotizza che il ONL possa in un futuro fungere da biomarcatore per la valutazione dei livelli di pigmento maculare. Tuttavia, saranno necessari ulteriori dati per chiarire il legame tra AMD e MPOV.
Infine, è stato condotta un’analisi Delphi per stabilire un consenso tra un gruppo di esperti internazionali sugli outcome minimi da rilevare nella AMD non avanzata. Questo processo ha lo scopo finale di sviluppare un registro internazionale dedicato alla AMD non avanzata, che permetterà la raccolta di dati real life per migliorare la comprensione della progressione naturale della malattia e facilitare lo studio di potenziali interventi terapeutici.
Nel complesso, i risultati presentati in questa tesi offrono una solida base scientifica per un futuro approccio alla gestione dell’AMD non avanzata.Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in developed countries, and its prevalence is expected to rise due to increasing life expectancy. This doctoral dissertation focuses on the earlier stage of the disease, known as non-advanced AMD, during which vision is largely preserved. There is growing evidence that this stage should be targeted for early treatment to manage this chronic condition effectively.
Following a comprehensive literature review of non-advanced AMD, the first study explores the role of multimodal imaging in the early detection of retinal aging, using a novel, non-invasive technique called retromode imaging. The findings indicate that retromode imaging detects significantly more drusen-like deposits (DLDs) than conventional fundus photography in the maculae of healthy individuals. Importantly, these DLDs were not associated with pathological changes, as their frequency increased with normal aging.
The second study assesses the accuracy and reproducibility of imaging modalities in delineating reticular pseudodrusen (RPD) areas. The results identify the combined use of structural optical coherence tomography (OCT) and near-infrared reflectance (NIR) as the most reliable method for RPD detection.
The third study investigates the relationship between macular pigment optical volume (MPOV) and retinal layer thickness, suggesting that outer nuclear layer (ONL) thickness could serve as a biomarker for macular pigment levels. However, the need for further research into the effects of AMD on MPOV is emphasized.
Finally, a Delphi consensus process was employed to establish a minimum set of outcome measures for non-advanced AMD, paving the way for the development of an international, web-based registry. This registry will enable the collection of real-world data to enhance understanding of the disease’s natural progression and facilitate the evaluation of potential therapeutic interventions.
Overall, the findings presented in this dissertation provide a foundation for future research and clinical innovations aimed at earlier intervention and improved patient outcomes
Literary Collaboration in Late Victorian Britain
No full textThe focus of the present thesis is the phenomenon of literary collaboration for fiction-writing during a period when it was particularly widespread: from 1870 to the end of the Victorian age. Collaboration in novel writing had been practised sporadically since the eighteenth century, but the late nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented expansion, probably as the result of an increasingly composite and competitive literary market. Around 1890, it became a literary fashion, so much so that almost all popular novelists of the time experienced it at least once. However popular, virtually all coauthored novels soon plunged into oblivion. The present research seeks the causes for such decline in the very context of these novels' production and reception, exploring how coauthorship was a controversial practice since its very beginning. Indeed, the sharing of textual spaces and the dispersion of authority complicated deep-seated, post-Romantic notions of authorship and textuality; within collaborative writing, the author turned into something different from what Victorians were accustomed to imagining.
Chapter 1 presents a survey of the phenomenon's importance and of its impact on the late Victorian literary marketplace. The following chapter discusses the ten-year long literary partnership of the two English friends Walter Besant and James Rice, who made collaboration popular and whose alliance remained an influential model for the subsequent decades. Chapter 3 analyses another pair of long-term coauthors, the Anglo-Irish cousins Edith Somerville and Violet Martin, who signed their works Somerville and Ross. They coauthored fiction for thirty years, and their complex emotional relationship shaped their literary partnership in meaningful ways. Chapter 4 investigates some examples of one-time collaborative experiences of the 1890s, when the practice was at its peak: H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang; Rhoda Broughton and Elizabeth Bisland; and the collaboration of twenty-four novelists on the sensational 'The Fate of Fenella.' Chapter 5 looks at the discourse that developed in the British press around collaboration: drawing on a corpus of original late Victorian articles and reviews, it tries to shed some light on how the Victorian public reacted to, perceived and represented the act of coauthoring a work of fiction. Some trends are identified, in order to understand which aspects of collaboration particularly struck the Victorian imagination. The heated debate on coauthorship spurred further discussion on wider issues connected with authorship and copyright, both questions of paramount importance in the Victorian age, which are explored in chapter 6. This last part considers the ways in which the author figure emerging from the collaborative process challenged and subverted - even if only temporarily - hegemonic conceptions of author-ity.The focus of the present thesis is the phenomenon of literary collaboration for fiction-writing during a period when it was particularly widespread: from 1870 to the end of the Victorian age. Collaboration in novel writing had been practised sporadically since the eighteenth century, but the late nineteenth century witnessed an unprecedented expansion, probably as the result of an increasingly composite and competitive literary market. Around 1890, it became a literary fashion, so much so that almost all popular novelists of the time experienced it at least once. However popular, virtually all coauthored novels soon plunged into oblivion. The present research seeks the causes for such decline in the very context of these novels' production and reception, exploring how coauthorship was a controversial practice since its very beginning. Indeed, the sharing of textual spaces and the dispersion of authority complicated deep-seated, post-Romantic notions of authorship and textuality; within collaborative writing, the author turned into something different from what Victorians were accustomed to imagining.
Chapter 1 presents a survey of the phenomenon's importance and of its impact on the late Victorian literary marketplace. The following chapter discusses the ten-year long literary partnership of the two English friends Walter Besant and James Rice, who made collaboration popular and whose alliance remained an influential model for the subsequent decades. Chapter 3 analyses another pair of long-term coauthors, the Anglo-Irish cousins Edith Somerville and Violet Martin, who signed their works Somerville and Ross. They coauthored fiction for thirty years, and their complex emotional relationship shaped their literary partnership in meaningful ways. Chapter 4 investigates some examples of one-time collaborative experiences of the 1890s, when the practice was at its peak: H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang; Rhoda Broughton and Elizabeth Bisland; and the collaboration of twenty-four novelists on the sensational 'The Fate of Fenella.' Chapter 5 looks at the discourse that developed in the British press around collaboration: drawing on a corpus of original late Victorian articles and reviews, it tries to shed some light on how the Victorian public reacted to, perceived and represented the act of coauthoring a work of fiction. Some trends are identified, in order to understand which aspects of collaboration particularly struck the Victorian imagination. The heated debate on coauthorship spurred further discussion on wider issues connected with authorship and copyright, both questions of paramount importance in the Victorian age, which are explored in chapter 6. This last part considers the ways in which the author figure emerging from the collaborative process challenged and subverted - even if only temporarily - hegemonic conceptions of author-ity
The Dissolution of the Author in Literary Collaboration: Two Case Studies
No full textThis essay considers the figure of the author within collaborative writing for fiction. My discussion draws on two case studies from the late nineteenth century, a historical moment when literary collaboration witnessed its efflorescence: the collaborative experiences of the Anglo-Irish Edith Somerville with Martin Ross, and of the American Brander Matthews with his various male collaborators. The author-figure promoted in both Somerville’s and Matthews’s metadiscourses challenges and subverts established post-Romantic notions of authorship, according to which the author is a solitary, hypertrophic genius. As a matter of fact, due to the sharing of textual spaces and the dispersal of authorial ownership and control implied in coauthorship, the collaborative author fades away into a diluted, deliberately weakened, blurred and elusive figure: a ghost that, according to coauthors themselves, is – and must remain – concealed behind the text. I therefore suggest that the collaborative trend of the late Victorian period produced an embryonic dismantling of the author – though not systematically theorised and today largely unknown of
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