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Questo contributo descrive il formato del “seminario di ricerca” come metododidattico per avvicinare gli studenti della triennale alla ricerca empirica. Dopoun approfondimento delle riflessioni alla base di questa forma didattica, cisoffermeremo sulla struttura prototipica di un seminario di ricerca esplicitan-do in particolare le diverse fasi della ricerca empirica. Intendiamo presentarecon questo contributo una possibilità per conciliare l’acquisizione di metodie strumenti della linguistica con lo sviluppo di competenze chiave e interdisci-plinari (organizzazione autonoma del lavoro, tecniche di presentazione ecc.).

Die vorliegende Untersuchung, die im Rahmen des vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds geförderten Projekts «What’s up Switzerland» durchgeführt wurde, geht der Frage nach, wie sich Nutzer im Hinblick auf Abweichungen von der Standardorthographie positionieren. Auf Basis einer online realisierten Umfrage wird ermittelt, ob Einschätzungen über Normabweichungen vom medialen Kontext (z.B. mobile Nachrichtendienste oder Postings auf Facebook), vom Alter der Teilnehmenden oder von der verwendeten Sprache abhängen. Die Studie zeigt auf, dass die Fehlertoleranz erwartungsgemäss mit höherem Öffentlichkeitscharakter und höherem Grad and Formalität sinkt. Darüber hinaus sind aber auch je nach Alter und je nach Erstsprache unterschiedliche Haltungen in Bezug auf das Einhalten orthographischer Normen erkennbar. Hierbei scheinen vor allem sprachspezifische Unterschiede eine Rolle zu spielen, da Sprecher der romanischen Sprachen Französisch und des Italienisch besonders hohe Erwartungen an die Einhaltung orthographischer Normen zu haben scheinen. Diese erhöhte Normsensibilität wird auch in einem intensiven Selbst- und Fremdkorrekturverhalten reflektiert, wobei gerade auch jüngere Teilnehmende besonders aktiv sind. Insgesamt zeigt die Studie auf, dass die mobile schriftbasierte Kommunikation entgegen einer weitverbreiteten Meinung nicht zwingend eine höhere Toleranz gegenüber normvernachlässigender Schriftlichkeit mit sich bringt.

This article deals with the question of the connection between grammaticalized categories and specific patterns of information organization in the verbalization of events. Following studies on macrostructural planning principles, we examine, on the basis of the retellings of a film, the role of typological categories such as pro-drop and word order in determining core features in information organization. With respect to the latter, we put special emphasis on information selection and information packaging. The comparison of Italian and French intends to display patterned differences between two typologically close languages with respect to information organization. Thus, this article seeks to reveal subtle but systematic differences between the two languages that provide insights into how relevant information is structured.

The Na+/Ca2+ exchanger 1 (NCX1), which is highly expressed in the hippocampus, cortex, and amygdala, regulates Akt1 phosphorylation. Since Akt1 is part of the PTEN/Akt1/CREB signaling pathway, which participates in synaptic plasticity and long-term memory, we investigated whether NCX1 expression/activity might also be involved in some hippocampal-dependent learning and memory processes. To test this hypothesis, we used two genetically-modified mice to selectively overexpress (NCX1.4over) or downregulate (NCX1ko) NCX1 in hippocampal, cortical, and amygdala neurons and a newly synthesized selective NCX1 stimulating compound, named CN-PYB2. Both NCX1.4over and CN-PYB2-treated mice showed increased phosphorylated CaMKII levels in the hippocampus and improved long-term spatial learning and memory performance. By contrast, NCX1ko mice displayed a decrease in both. In addition, both NCX1.4over and CN-PYB2-treated mice also displayed an increase in context-dependent anxiety. Altogether, these results demonstrate that neuronal NCX1 participates in hippocampal-amygdala memory consolidation and promote anxiety behavior.

La migrazione italiana nella Svizzera tedesca vanta una lunga tradizione che registra una prima ondata migratoria alla fine dell’ottocento a causa dei vari progetti ferroviari che hanno interessato la Svizzera. La seconda ondata avviene negli anni sessanta e settanta in cui migranti italiani, con un grado d’istruzione generalmente basso, forniscono una manodopera significativa per l’industria e la gastronomia. Nel corso della seconda ondata migratoria si sono verificati diversi fenomeni linguistici descritti e studiati dall’italianistica svizzera. Dal 2007 assistiamo a una terza ondata migratoria che differisce notevolmente dalla prima più che altro a causa del grado d’istruzione generalmente più alto di alcuni migranti, definiti dai media italiani “cervelli in fuga”. Questo articolo illustra quali fenomeni linguistici stanno interessando questo nuovo gruppo di migranti e quali sono le differenze o similitudini rispetto al gruppo di migranti che lo ha preceduto., Die italienische Migration in die Deutschschweiz hat eine lange Geschichte, die bereits Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts eine erste Einwanderungswelle hervorbringt - insbesondere im Zuge der grossen Eisenbahnbauprojekte der Schweiz. Im kollektiven Gedächtnis sind jedoch überwiegend Bilder in Schwarz-Weiss aus den sechziger und siebziger Jahren abgespeichert. Diese Bilder erzählen Geschichten von jungen Männern, die mit einem Pappkoffer in der Hand in Basel, Bern oder Zürich aus dem Zug steigen, um ausserhalb des strukturschwachen Italiens ihr Glück zu suchen. Im Gepäck haben sie nicht nur einen Arbeitsvertrag, Pläne und Erwartungen, sondern auch ihre Sprache, meist ausschliesslich einen italienischen Dialekt. Dieser ist in der ersten Zeit in der Schweiz meist ihre einzige sprachliche Ressource.

Due to the economic crisis in Italy during the nineties and the beginning of the new millennium, a new wave of migration has taken place, pushing Italians to leave the country and to head – again – towards Germany. The major difference with respect to former migrations in the sixties and seventies lies in the fact that many new migrants are often highly educated and have a high sociocultural background. These attributes caused the establishment of the term "Cervelli in fuga" – brains on the run. These sociocultural premises imply a relatively wide linguistic repertoire among these new migrants, which often includes not only English and French but sometimes German too. The following article analyzes how the "cervelli in fuga" build up their social networks and how these networks are tied to their linguistic habits.

Nowadays functional ingredients have a significant potential for improving current low fish meal (FM) aquafeed formulation in sustaining growth and enhancing animal robustness for Mediterranean aquaculture. Among them, nucleotides (NT) and nucleic acids (NA) drew attention for their application in the last two decades. NT are organic molecules involved in many life-supporting pathways, and are the building blocks of NA, which stand as genetic repositories. NT are naturally present in organic ingredients, and among them FM is known to be one of the highest NT sources. When this NT source is seriously limited, fish might be under the minimum NT requirements, especially in fast growing life stages of carnivorous species. Hence, a trial on European sea bass juveniles was carried out, testing two dietary FM levels (FM10, FM20 as 10% and 20% FM, respectively) supplemented with 500 mg kg-1 yeast-originate NT or NA dose over 80 days. Thereafter, fish were exposed to one week of sub-optimal thermal and dissolved oxygen condition (30°C and 4.0 mg/L O2) to further explore the effect of NT and NA inclusion on immune response and gut microbiome alteration. At the end of the growth period NT increased feed intake at both FM dietary levels. FM20 combined with NA and NT further improved growth performance, enhancing lipid efficiency and increased anti-inflammatory TGF-β. After sub-optimal environmental conditions both NT and NA exerted prebiotic functions on gut microbiome by promoting beneficial lactic acid bacteria such as Weissella and Leuconostoc. At the same time NT in 10% FM diet increased the abundance of Bacillus taxon. In conclusion, the combination of NT/NA included at 500 mg kg-1 was able to promote growth when included in 20% FM level, assuming higher nutritional NT requirement when combined with 10% FM. On the other hand, NT/NA added in 10% FM upregulate proinflammatory IL-1β and favor beneficial gut bacterial taxa.

Since the discovery of the three isoforms of the Na+/Ca2+ exchanger, NCX1, NCX2 and NCX3 in 1990s, many studies have been devoted to identifying their specific roles in different tissues under several physiological or pathophysiological conditions. In particular, several seminal experimental works laid the foundation for better understanding gene and protein structures, tissue distribution, and regulatory functions of each antiporter isoform. On the other hand, despite the efforts in the development of specific compounds selectively targeting NCX1, NCX2 or NCX3 to test their physiological or pathophysiological roles, several drawbacks hampered the achievement of these goals. In fact, at present no isoform-specific compounds have been yet identified. Moreover, these compounds, despite their potency, possess some nonspecific actions against other ion antiporters, ion channels, and channel receptors. As a result, it is difficult to discriminate direct effects of inhibition/activation of NCX isoforms from the inhibitory or stimulatory effects exerted on other antiporters, channels, receptors, or enzymes. To overcome these difficulties, some research groups used transgenic, knock-out and knock-in mice for NCX isoforms as the most straightforward and fruitful strategy to characterize the biological role exerted by each antiporter isoform. The present review will survey the techniques used to study the roles of NCXs and the current knowledge obtained from these genetic modified mice focusing on the advantages obtained with these strategies in understanding the contribution exerted by each isoform.