1,354,280 research outputs found
Primo sviluppo metalinguistico in bambini bilingui italiano-inglese. Una ricerca in contesto britannico
No full textThis article presents research into metalinguistic development in Italian-English pre- schoolers. A total sample of 118 children was selected, aged 4 to 5,11 years, all living in London and subdivided into two sub-samples. The bilingual sub-sample was composed of 64 children from Italian families, balanced bilinguals from birth and attending an Italian kindergarten, while the monolingual sub-sample was made up of 54 English-speaking children attending an English kindergarten. Half of the bilinguals, randomly selected, was tested through the Italian version of a battery of metalinguistic tasks, the TAM-1 (Pinto, Candilera 2000), while the other half was tested through the English version of the same test, the MAT-1 (Pinto, Titone, Trusso 1999), as were also the English-speaking monolinguals. Results, obtained by means of a 3 factor Anova (type of language experience, age, gender) show a statistically significant effect of biligualism, but at different levels
Bilingualism in university students: further evidence of metalinguistic benefits
No full textThis empirical study aims at assessing metalinguistic abilities in Italian-English bilinguals compared to both Italian and English monolinguals. 40 University students (age range: 20-29 y.-old), enrolled in humanistic studies, of middle class background, were recruited partly in Italy and partly in UK. They were all administered a subtest of a metalinguistic ability test devised for adults, the subtest Comprehension, existing in Italian and in English version. Results showed significant metalinguistic superiority of bilinguals over monolinguals in the most complex, type of responsesm although English monolinguals outperformed Italian monolinguals. No differences appeared between simultaneous and consecutive bilinguals
Amor Fati
No full textA deeply personal reckoning with family, mental illness, and suicide, Dana Trusso captures the meaning of Nietzsche's armor fati--to love one's fate--through her surreal imagery and longing to heal intergenerational wounds. Lines are drawn from Lars von Trier's Melancholia, Sonic Youth's Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star, and lines she read from her aunt's journals as a child.
The photo is a sculpture of an earth goddess by Jean-Philippe Richard located in the botanical gardens of Èze, France. Nearby is Le Chemin de Nietzsche, a steep hike from the seaside to mountainous ruins that is said to have inspired Thus Spoke Zarathustra
THE GENETICS OF BIPOLAR DISORDER AND THE ROLE OF HETEROZYGOSITY FOR NEURONAL CEROID LIPOFUSCINOSIS
No full textIntroduction. Bipolar Disorder (BD) is an heritable chronic mental disorder causing psychosocial
impairment, affecting patients with depressive/manic episodes. The familial transmission of BD does not
follow any of the simple Mendelian patterns of inheritance, demonstrating the involvement of multiple
susceptibility genes.
Materials and Method. Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) was performed in eight subjects of a large family
counting twelve BD affected people. We selected variants in common between the affected subjects, once
including and once excluding a “borderline” subject with moderate anxiety and traits of obsessive-
compulsive disorder.
Results. Results were in favour of a Digenic model of transmission, with a heterozygous missense variant in
CLN6 resulting in a “borderline” phenotype that if combined with a heterozygous missense variant in ZNF92
is responsible for the more severe BD phenotype. Both rare missense changes are predicted to disrupt the
protein function.
Conclusions. Loss of both alleles in CLN6 causes Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis, a severe progressive
neurological disorder of childhood. Our results indicate that heterozygous CLN6 carriers, previously reported
as healthy, may be susceptible to bipolar disorder late in life. Additional variants, such as that in ZNF92
reported here, may further worsen the phenotype in a setting of digenic disorder. Further investigation on a
larger cohort should be performed in order to better characterize the contribution of each gene
Reduction of steps in the preparation of motile sperm for intrauterine insemination does not reduce efficacy of the procedure: simplified one-step swim-up method versus classic swim-up
No full textBACKGROUND:
Intrauterine insemination (IUI) is a valid treatment for infertility with a cumulative pregnancy rate of >40-90% after 3-10 treatment cycles. We studied the efficacy of a simplified method for motile sperm preparation for IUI.
METHODS:
A prospective clinical trial was performed with 100 couples (male age 33-48 and female 28-37 years) with a 2-8 year history of primary infertility associated with slight oligozoospermia (16/100), oligomenorrhoea (32/100) or unknown (52/100). Motile sperm for IUI were prepared by: (A) the classic World Health Organization self-migration (swim-up) method which includes centrifugation, or (B) a simplified one-step swim-up procedure without centrifugation. Recombinant FSH was used for ovarian stimulation. Depending on the cause of infertility, patients were matched one-to-one at the time of IUI, so that when a total of 100 couples had been treated, 50/100 women received sperm prepared by method A and 50/100 by method B.
RESULTS:
A statistically significant correlation was found between the percentage motile sperm of the original semen sample and the percentage of motile sperm recovered by method A (r = 0.333, P < 0.01) and B (r = 0.400, P < 0.01). A highly significant correlation (r = 0.997, P < 0.001) was found between the two methods.
CONCLUSIONS:
The simplified one-step swim-up method was as effective as the classic swim-up method, but the former was easier and more economical
METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS. THEORY, DEVELOPMENT AND MEASUREMENT INSTRUMENTS
No full textThe book presents an overview on the concept of metalinguistic awareness from a theoretical linguistic, developmental, and applied perspective and then describes three tests for assessing metalinguistic awareness from 4 years-old to adult age
Metalinguistic abilities in Italian-English adult bilinguals . A comparison with Italian-speaking and English-speaking monolinguals.
No full textThis empirical research studies long-term effects of different types of early biligualism on metalinguistic abilities at young adult age. A sample of 40 university students has been recruited and subdivided into a bilingual Italian-English group and a monolingual group, itself subdivided into Italian monolinguals, tested in Italy, and English monolinguals, tested in UK. Students received a metalinguistic ability test specific for adults (TAM-3, Pinto, Iliceto, 2007), existing also in English version. Bilinguals, as a whole, significantly ourperformed monolinguals, and monolinguals of either type performed at very similar level, irrespective of the linguistic version of the test
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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