1,721,161 research outputs found
Arsenic Trioxide in hematological malignancies: the new discovery of an ancient drug.
No full textCurrently, Arsenic Trioxide (ATO) is considered the treatment of choice for patients with relapsed acute promyelocytic myclocytic leukemia (APL). Recently, a durable remission with minimal toxicity by single agent ATO or ATO + ATRA in newly diagnosed APL was reported by different groups. These regimens have minimal toxicity and can be administered on an outpatient basis after remission induction, thus they could become a real, less toxic and more economic option to ATRA + anthracyclines in particular in low risk APL, or in patients that cannot undergo chemotherapy because of age or comorbid conditions and in patients that refuse chemotherapy. Significantly, these therapies are a successful attempt to cure a tumoral disease without chemotherapy. The results of clinical trials of ATO administration as single agent in multiple myeloma (MM) and myelodisplastic syndromes (MDS) were encouraging and showed clinical effects but they were not close to APL success. On the contrary, results of clinical trials to treat non-APL acute myeloid leukemia (AML) were disappointing. We suggest that a combination therapy with drugs targeting specific pro-survival molecules or capable to enhance pro-apoptotic pathways may lead to an improvement of ATO efficacy against hematological malignancies, in particular AML. Our pre-clinical studies showed that ATO is capable to induce cell death in acute leukemia cells but the apoptotic function is limited since it can induce also a mechanism of cell defense by activating pro-survival molecules such as MEK-ERK, Bcl-xL, Bcl-2. By combining ATO with specific MEK inhibitors, we demonstrated that the block of MEK-ERK phosphorylation, the induction of Bad de-phosphorylation, and activation of p53AIP1 apoptotic pathway interrupt the pro-survival mechanisms of ATO and kill the leukemic cells by apoptotic synergism. Our results provide an experimental basis for combined or sequential treatment with MEK inhibitors and ATO in AML. The renaissance of ATO as a drug in moderne medicine may be considered, together with ATRA success, a victory of empirical analysis, that had (and has) great impact on Chinese culture. © 2006 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd
Risk Co-De Linguistic Model. A new machine learning-based model for detecting risk-related socio-psychological processes in social media
No full textDistant reading applied to the study of the history of a discipline: Publications trends in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
No full textAlterations of microenvironment in multiple myeloma patients: Interactions between myeloma cells and osteoprogenitor cells
No full textThe Construction of the Concept of Peace in the Discourse of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates.
No full textEpistemic authorities play a key role in co-construction processes that foster the consolidation or contestation of shared meanings, especially when facing controversial and multifaceted issues. This is the case of peace, a seemingly clear issue which is yet instrumentally evoked and used in function of even opposing meanings and practices. Even within peace studies, the debate about what peace is -and consequently about the scope of this scientific domain- has led to more restrictive views (i.e. peace as the opposite of war) and more proactive perspectives (such as those stressing the need for positive approaches, which should foster structural, cultural and direct peace).
In this contribution we present a preliminary study which aimed to investigate whether it is possible to identify with semi-automatic approaches, diverse types of peace within institutional discourses issued by epistemic authorities.
We draw on 1) Bobbio’s classification of pacifism, proposed in 1975, which is situated within a narrow view of peace studies. According to this model, it is possible to distinguish between Instrumental; Institutional and Finalistic approaches to pacifism; and 2) Anderson’s model of peace, proposed in 2004, which suggest to classify peace according to the macro and micro contexts to which it is directed.
The speeches of Nobel Peace Prize laureates from 1960 to 2022 were manually analyzed according to the six categories corresponding to peace types (Bobbio, 1975) and the three levels of context (Anderson, 2004). Moreover, at an exploratory level, this study used topic detection models to observe which types of peace and contexts emerged, their relationship with thematic contents of the speech, their variation over time, and their relationship with individual characteristics of the Nobel laureate (e.g., gender). Finally, the study tested whether the classification system applied allowed for the automatic identification of the categories found. This last step was tested through different machine learning algorithms for classification (e.g., Support-Vector Machines, Random Forest).
By shedding light on these issues, this study aims to enrich our understanding of the complex and dynamic nature of peace as a social construct and provide insights on the diverse approaches to peace and peacebuilding
The crisis tsunami. Social representations of the economic crisis in the Italian press
No full textThis research investigates social representations of the Italian economic crisis conveyed by representative Italian newspapers between 2007 and 2013. Its aim is to highlight the content of those representations as well as their objectification through the use of metaphorical language. More than 6,000 headlines were collected from four widely distributed Italian newspapers: Il Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica, Il Giornale, and Il Manifesto. The texts underwent a lexicometric analysis using the TaLTaC2 software. The results showed that the crisis was represented for the most part as an "illness coming from afar" or as an "inevitable disaster" that was shaped somehow by an "agentic entity". These interpretations elaborated an event about which little or nothing could be done except for to suffer/endure or to try to stem the rising tide. Implications for personal attitudes and agency are also discussed
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