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6° Congresso nazionale FIMUA, Modena 12-14 settembre 2002

This study explored the influence of five multicultural personality traits (i.e., Cultural Empathy, Open-Mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability, Flexibility) in predicting management styles (i.e., Integrating, Obliging, Compromising, Dominating, Avoiding) adopted by teachers from five European countries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain) to deal with intercultural conflict that may arise within classes with and between students. Potential differences according to socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., Gender, Age, Working Seniority, Country of belonging) were also examined. Data from 589 secondary school teachers indicated that teachers who were more open-minded reported greater adoption of Integrating and Obliging styles when managing intercultural conflicts with and between students; while teachers who were less culturally empathic and flexible were more likely to adopt the Dominating style, and those who possess lower social initiative and flexibility were more likely to adopt the Avoiding style. Teachers who possess lower levels of emotional stability showed greater adoption of the Obliging style. Differences across socio-demographic characteristics were also found. Findings provided evidence to develop interventions aiming to foster effectiveness in classroom management of intercultural conflicts by underlining how multicultural personality may influence teachers’ ways to act and adjust to the educational demands of the increasingly multicultural school environment.

Despite research progresses, the chance to accurately predict the risk for diabetic nephropathy (DN) is still poor. So far, the first evidence of DN is micro-albuminuria, which is detected only 10–20 years after the onset of diabetes. Our goal is to develop new predictive tools of nephropathy starting from urine, which can be easily obtained using noninvasive procedures and it is directly related to kidney. Since it is reasonable to suppose that, in predisposed patients, the mechanisms leading to nephropathy start acting since the diabetes onset, urine from children with recent diagnosis of type 1 diabetes was subjected to proteomic analysis in comparison to age-matched controls. Targeted confirmation was performed on children with a longer history of diabetes using Western Blotting and applying a urinary lipidomic approach. To definitively understand whether the observed alterations could be related to diabetic nephropathy, urine from diabetic adults with or without albuminuria was also examined. For the first time, lipid metabolisms of prostaglandin and ceramide, which are significantly and specifically modified in association with DN, are shown to be already altered in children with a recent diabetes diagnosis. Future studies on larger cohorts are needed to improve the validity and generalizability of these findings. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD011183 Submission details: Project Name: Urinary proteomics by 2DE and LC-MS/MS. Project accession: PXD011183 Project DOI: https://doi.org/10.6019/PXD011183 Significance Nephropathy is a very common diabetic complication. Once established, its progression can only be slowed down but full control or remission is achieved in very few cases, thus posing a large burden on worldwide health. The first evidence of diabetic nephropathy (DN) is micro-albuminuria, but only 30% of patients with micro-albuminuria progress to proteinuria, while in some patients it spontaneously reverts to normo-albuminuria. Thus, there is clear need for biomarkers that can accurately predict the risk to develop DN. Herein, by applying proteomic and lipidomic approaches on urine samples, we show that alteration of prostaglandin and ceramide metabolisms specifically occurs in association with DN. Interestingly, we demonstrate that the modification of these metabolic pathways is an early event in diabetic patients, suggesting the identified changed proteins as possible predictive biomarkers of diabetes-induced renal function decline.

Aim\ud \ud Basing on the Demands‐Resources and Individual‐Effects (DRIVE) Model developed by Mark and Smith in 2008, the study aims to propose and test a multi‐dimensional model that combines work characteristics, individual characteristics, and work–family interface dimensions as predictors of nurses' psychophysical health.\ud Methods\ud \ud Self‐report questionnaires assessing work characteristics (effort; rewards; job demands; job control; social support), individual characteristics (socio‐demographic characteristics; coping strategies; Type A behavioral pattern; Type D personality), work–family interface dimensions (work–family interrole conflict; job and life satisfaction), and health outcomes (psychological disease; physical disease) were completed by 450 Italian nurses. Logistic regression analyses and Hayes' PROCESS tool were used to test the proposed model by exploring main, moderating and mediating hypotheses.\ud Results\ud \ud Findings confirmed the proposed theoretical framework including work characteristics, individual characteristics, and work–family interface dimensions as significant predictors of nurses' psychophysical disease. Specific main, moderating and mediating effects were found, providing a wide set of multiple risks and protective factors.\ud Conclusions\ud \ud The study allowed a broader understanding of nurses' work‐related stress process, providing a comprehensive tool for the assessment of occupational health and for the definition of tailored policies and interventions in public healthcare organizations to promote nurses' wellbeing.

In the last years tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) has become a leading technology used for neonatal screening purposes. Newborn screening by MS/MS on dried blood spot samples (DBS) has one of its items in methionine levels: the knowledge of this parameter allows the identification of infant affected by homocystinuria (cystathionine β-synthase, CBS, deficiency) but can also lead, as side effect, to identify cases of methionine adenosyltransferase (MAT) type I/III deficiency.We started an expanded newborn screening for inborn errors of metabolism in Campania region in 2007. Here we report our ten years experience on expanded newborn screening in identifying patients affected by hypermethioninemia. During this period we screened approximately 77,000 infants and identified two cases: one case of classical homocystinuria and one patient affected by defect of MAT I/III. In this paper we describe these patients and their biochemical follow-up and review the literature concerning worldwide newborn screening reports on incidence of CBS and MAT deficiency. Keywords: Newborn screening, Hypermethioninemia, MAT I/III deficiency, CBS deficiency

An analytical relationship between current density and applied electric field in reversed field pinch (RFP) plasmas has been derived in the framework of the kinetic dynamo theory, that is assuming a radial field-aligned momentum transport caused by the magnetic field stochasticity. This Ohm{close_quote}s law yields current density profiles with a poloidal current density at the edge which can sustain the magnetic field configuration against resistive diffusion. The dependence of the loop voltage on plasma current and other plasma parameters for RFP experiments has been obtained. The results of the theoretical work have been compared with experimental data from the RFX experiment, and a good agreement has been found. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}