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Sous l’influence du New Public Management, le medico-social et l’Education Nationale readaptent leur modele d’intervention en faveur d’une societe inclusive. Cette volonte de renforcer l’action publique pour un accompagnement au plus proche des besoins des enfants et des familles a pu susciter aupres des professionnels des sentiments paradoxaux. La mutualisation, des moyens et des competences, reconnue comme une promesse d’innovation par les Autorites de Controle et de Tarification, inscrit au sein meme de l’ecole republicaine une proximite imposee. Les missions du travail educatif et pedagogique peuvent parfois etre percues par les differents protagonistes comme culturellement opposees. Pour le management, une indispensable identification commune est a organiser pour favoriser l’implication et la securite des individus. Les identites de metier, responsabilisees dans la co-creation de valeur, peuvent ainsi preserver la liberte ontologique de chacun a construire sa pratique.

Electromagnetic metamaterials (MMs) are composite structures that allow one to potentially develop unique and innovative microwave, millimetre wave, and optical devices due to their unusual physical properties. In this process, their electromagnetic characterization plays a fundamental role. Various procedures have been proposed to accomplish this task, but the Nicolson-Ross-Weir (NRW) method still appears to be the most commonly adopted one even though it is afflicted by the severe issue of branch ambiguity. In this paper, we have demonstrated that rigorously, as the branch ambiguity can be entirely overcome through the analytic continuation of a specific analytic logarithm element along the path determined in the complex plane by the scattering parameters of an MM under analysis. Furthermore, the underlying relationship between analytic continuation, phase unwrapping approach, implemented through a procedure devised by Oppenheim and Schafer for the homomorphic treatment of signals (hereafter named PUNWOS), and the Kronig-Kramers relation has been discussed and enlightened, demonstrating the full equivalence among the methods. To clarify this aspect, a couple of numerical examples is presented. The results discussed in this study open the possibility of employing the vast theoretical equipment developed in the phase unwrapping field to achieve the retrieval of MMs’ effective parameters when the NRW method is applicable.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a novel treatment option for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. To facilitate translation into clinical practice, we interviewed parents of children who have experienced experimental tDCS. A grounded theory approach using open, axial, and selective coding provided seven emergent themes for acceptability: tDCS provides hope for parents, safety tolerability and side effects of tDCS versus medication, burden of treatment, education and trust with care providers, cost and coverage, unestablished tDCS efficacy versus established medication effectiveness, perceived compliance of tDCS versus medication. Results suggest tDCS is acceptable but depends on evidence of effectiveness and regular availability.

Steel plates bi-axially loaded are characterized by mechanical deformations whose 2D image representations are very difficult to achieve. In this work, the authors propose an innovative approach based on eddy current techniques for obtaining 2D electrical maps to assess the mechanical integrity of a steel plate. The procedure, also exploiting fuzzy similarity computations, translates the problem of the assessment of the mechanical integrity of a steel plate into a suitable classification problem. The results obtained by this proposed procedure show performances comparable to those provided by well-established soft computing approaches with a higher computational complexity.

The α-, β- and γ-synucleins are small soluble proteins expressed in the nervous system of mammals and evolutionary conserved in vertebrates. After being discovered in the cartilaginous fish

Experimental evidence suggests that environmental stress conditions can alter the expression of BDNF and that the expression of this neurotrophin influences behavioural responses in mammalian models. It has been recently demonstrated that exposure to 34 °C for 21 days alters the brain proteome and behaviour in zebrafish. The aim of this work was to investigate the role of BDNF in the nervous system of adult zebrafish under control and heat treatment conditions. For this purpose, zebrafish from three different genotypes (wild type, heterozygous BDNF

We assessed the neurocognitive correlates of auditory executive attention in low socioeconomic status 9–12-year-old children—with and without training in a social music program (OrKidstra). Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during an auditory Go/NoGo task utilizing 1100 Hz and 2000 Hz pure tones. We examined Go trials, which required attention, tone discrimination and executive response control. We measured Reaction Times (RTs), accuracy and amplitude of relevant ERP signatures: N100-N200 complex, P300, and Late Potentials (LP). Children also completed a screening test for auditory sensory sensitivity and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) to assess verbal comprehension. OrKidstra children had faster RTs and larger ERP amplitudes to the Go tone. Specifically, compared to their comparison counterparts, they showed more negative-going polarities bilaterally for N1-N2 and LP signatures across the scalp and larger P300s in parietal and right temporal electrodes; some enhancements were lateralized (i.e., left frontal, and right central and parietal electrodes). Because auditory screening yielded no between-group differences, results suggest that music training did not enhance sensory processing but perceptual and attentional skills, possibly shifting from top-down to more bottom-up processes. Findings have implications for socially based music training interventions in school, specifically for socioeconomically disadvantaged children.

Neuroinflammation represents a central feature in the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The resident innate immune cells of the brain are the principal players in neuroinflammation, and their activation leads to a defensive response aimed at promoting β-amyloid (Aβ) clearance. However, it is now widely accepted that the peripheral immune system—by virtue of a dysfunctional blood–brain barrier (BBB)—is involved in the pathogenesis and progression of AD; microglial and astrocytic activation leads to the release of chemokines able to recruit peripheral immune cells into the central nervous system (CNS); at the same time, cytokines released by peripheral cells are able to cross the BBB and act upon glial cells, modifying their phenotype. To successfully fight this neurodegenerative disorder, accurate and sensitive biomarkers are required to be used for implementing an early diagnosis, monitoring the disease progression and treatment effectiveness. Interestingly, as a result of the bidirectional communication between the brain and the periphery, the blood compartment ends up reflecting several pathological changes occurring in the AD brain and can represent an accessible source for such biomarkers. In this review, we provide an overview on some of the most promising peripheral biomarkers of neuroinflammation, discussing their pathogenic role in AD.

Infections caused by Acinetobacter baumannii represent a major concern for intensive care unit (ICU) patients. However, the epidemiology of these infections among COVID-19 patients has not been fully explored. The aims of this study were (i) to characterize the clonal spread of A. baumannii among COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU of the Umberto I hospital of Rome during the first year of the pandemic and (ii) to identify risk factors for its acquisition. Isolates were analysed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, and a multivariable regression model was constructed. Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. Overall, 193 patients were included, and 102 strains were analysed. All isolates had highly antibiotic-resistant profiles and derived from two genotypes. The cumulative incidence of A. baumannii acquisition (colonization or infection) was 36.8%. Patients with A. baumannii had higher mortality and length of stay. Multivariable analysis showed that previous carbapenem use was the only risk factor associated with A. baumannii acquisition (aOR: 4.15, 95% CI: 1.78–9.64). We documented substantial A. baumannii infections and colonization and high levels of clonal transmission. Given the limited treatment options, effective prevention and containment strategies to limit the spread of A. baumannii should be implemented.

In the last few years, the interactions among competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) have been recognized as a key post-transcriptional regulatory mechanism in cell differentiation, tissue development, and disease. Notably, such sponge phenomena substracting active microRNAs from their silencing targets have been recognized as having a potential oncosuppressive, or oncogenic, role in several cancer types. Hence, the ability to predict sponges from the analysis of large expression data sets (e.g. from international cancer projects) has become an important data mining task in bioinformatics. We present a technique designed to mine sponge phenomena whose presence or absence may discriminate between healthy and unhealthy populations of samples in tumoral or normal expression data sets, thus providing lists of candidates potentially relevant in the pathology. With this aim, we search for pairs of elements acting as ceRNA for a given miRNA, namely, we aim at discovering miRNA-RNA pairs involved in phenomena which are clearly present in one population and almost absent in the other one. The results on tumoral expression data, concerning five different cancer types, confirmed the effectiveness of the approach in mining interesting knowledge. Indeed, 32 out of 33 miRNAs and 22 out of 25 protein-coding genes identified as top scoring in our analysis are corroborated by having been similarly associated with cancer processes in independent studies. In fact, the subset of miRNAs selected by the sponge analysis results in a significant enrichment of annotation for the KEGG32 pathway “microRNAs in cancer” when tested with the commonly used bioinformatic resource DAVID. Moreover, often the cancer datasets where our sponge analysis identified a miRNA as top scoring match the one reported already in the pertaining literature.