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During the education emergency, teachers’ leadership was indicative of their capacity to stay resilient and innovative in a changed educational environment. This study analyses their capacity to act as leaders and to promote equity in relation to the specific aspects of the French and Italian school systems. A pool of 16 interviews constitutes a unique case study of teacher leadership for equity under similar contextual conditions. Teacher leadership encountered very similar limitations in both countries. The education emergency per se represented an opportunity for some teachers to explore innovative equitable approaches, different from their actual practices and pedagogical cultures, as well as more professional dialogue. The margins for empowerment proved to be both of an instructional and of a transformative type. In particular, in systems with weak senior leadership and flat organisational structures, the margins for empowerment are at the classroom level. In such cases, a certain amount of collaboration and, quite often, hidden pedagogical innovation occurs in schools where school leadership and the wider organisational culture may offer some support. In fact, informal leadership is most often facilitated by certain conditions in terms of resources, school leadership and professional cultures.

Le soutien à l’autonomie des mineurs isolés étrangers constitue un angle mort du système d’accueil mis en place en Italie. La conception même de ce qu’est ou devrait être la protection de l’enfance étrangère en danger et les logiques d’assistanat et d’infantilisation qui la soustendent concourent à leur isolement, sinon à leur mise à l’écart. En Lombardie, une expérience originale d’accueil et d’accompagnement montre toute l’importance et les enjeux de l’émancipation de ces jeunes adultes en devenir.

Epithelial Ovarian Cancer (EOC) “cholinic phenotype”, characterized by increased intracellular phosphocholine content sustained by over-expression/activity of choline kinase-alpha (ChoKα/CHKA), is a metabolic cellular reprogramming involved in chemoresistance with still unknown mechanisms. By stable CHKA silencing and global metabolic profiling here we demonstrate that CHKA knockdown hampers growth capability of EOC cell lines both in vitro and in xenotransplant in vivo models. It also affected antioxidant cellular defenses, decreasing glutathione and cysteine content while increasing intracellular levels of reactive oxygen species, overall sensitizing EOC cells to current chemotherapeutic regimens. Natural recovering of ChoKα expression after its transient silencing rescued the wild-type phenotype, restoring intracellular glutathione content and drug resistance. Rescue and phenocopy of siCHKA-related effects were also obtained by artificial modulation of glutathione levels. The direct relationship among CHKA expression, glutathione intracellular content and drug sensitivity was overall demonstrated in six different EOC cell lines but notably, siCHKA did not affect growth capability, glutathione metabolism and/or drug sensitivity of non-tumoral immortalized ovarian cells. The “cholinic phenotype”, by recapitulating EOC addiction to glutathione content for the maintenance of the antioxidant defense, can be therefore considered a unique feature of cancer cells and a suitable target to improve chemotherapeutics efficacy.

In the last decades, Europe has been through important socio-economic changes and has seen an important influx of incoming immigrants and migrant workers. The paper presents on the case of Italian society, aiming to underline the impact that foreign incoming communities have on the traditional Italian system. The approach of intercultural learning will be introduced, arguing that responsible services supported by communication strategies can strengthen social cohesion and enable the creation of a sustainable hybrid culture. The main question asked is how designers can contribute with their expertise in this process? The argument will be sustained by presenting the case of a service design course in which Master level students from Politecnico di Milano had to work with local NGO's that offer various services to foreigners. The objective of the course was to develop services to support the intercultural dialog. The conclusion explains how traditional cultures have to open up to incoming changes in order to become sustainable. In this respect, the starting point in preventing cultural clashes is to educate the young generation how to negotiate the balance between local cultural heritage and foreign influences through intercultural dialogue.

Background: Aberrant choline metabolism has been proposed as a novel cancer hallmark. We recently showed that epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) possesses an altered MRS-choline profile, characterised by increased phosphocholine (PCho) content to which mainly contribute over-expression and activation of choline kinase-alpha (ChoK-alpha). Methods: To assess its biological relevance, ChoK-alpha expression was downmodulated by transient RNA interference in EOC in vitro models. Gene expression profiling by microarray analysis and functional analysis was performed to identify the pathway/functions perturbed in ChoK-alpha-silenced cells, then validated by in vitro experiments. Results: In silenced cells, compared with control, we observed: (I) a significant reduction of both CHKA transcript and ChoK-alpha protein expression; (II) a dramatic, proportional drop in PCho content ranging from 60 to 71%, as revealed by 1H-magnetic spectroscopy analysis; (III) a 35–36% of cell growth inhibition, with no evidences of apoptosis or modification of the main cellular survival signalling pathways; (IV) 476 differentially expressed genes, including genes related to lipid metabolism. Ingenuity pathway analysis identified cellular functions related to cell death and cellular proliferation and movement as the most perturbed. Accordingly, CHKA-silenced cells displayed a significant delay in wound repair, a reduced migration and invasion capability were also observed. Furthermore, although CHKA silencing did not directly induce cell death, a significant increase of sensitivity to platinum, paclitaxel and doxorubicin was observed even in a drug-resistant context. Conclusion: We showed for the first time in EOC that CHKA downregulation significantly decreased the aggressive EOC cell behaviour also affecting cells' sensitivity to drug treatment. These observations open the way to further analysis for ChoK-alpha validation as a new EOC therapeutic target to be used alone or in combination with conventional drugs.

Compared with normal differentiated cells, cancer cells require a metabolic reprograming to support their high proliferation rates and survival. Aberrant choline metabolism is a fairly new metabolic hallmark reflecting the complex reciprocal interactions between oncogenic signaling and cellular metabolism. Alterations of the involved metabolic network may be sustained by changes in activity of several choline transporters as well as of enzymes such as choline kinase-alpha (ChoK-α) and phosphatidylcholine-specific phospholipases C and D. Of note, the net outcome of these enzymatic alterations is an increase of phosphocholine and total choline-containing compounds, a "cholinic phenotype" that can be monitored in cancer by magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This review will highlight the molecular basis for targeting this pathway in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), a highly heterogeneous and lethal malignancy characterized by late diagnosis, frequent relapse, and development of chemoresistance. Modulation of ChoK-α expression impairs only EOC but not normal ovarian cells, thus supporting the hypothesis that "cholinic phenotype" is a peculiar feature of transformed cells and indicating ChoK-α targeting as a novel approach to improve efficacy of standard EOC chemotherapeutic treatments.

Background: The family-school relationship is a crucial component in achieving the optimum scholastic experience of pupils. Such a relationship is often described in somewhat reductive binary terms of collaboration/non-collaboration. However, the significant presence of families from different cultural backgrounds in Italy since the 1990s demonstrates how multiple types of rapport with schools can generate effective styles of relationship. Infant schools constitute a privileged location where such dynamics can be investigated. Firstly, because they exhibit the highest percentage of families that have moved to Italy from other countries (33.9%); secondly, because they represent the initial stage when school and family first come into contact, playing an “imprinting role” for all subsequent scholastic phases. Based on in-depth interviews with infant school teachers and parents of pupils coming from different backgrounds, this research investigated different factors that influence family-school relations: (1) interpersonal factors, that include listening skills, emotions and relational styles of parents or teachers; (2) structural factors, that are related to the living conditions of families and to the whole social welfare system in Italy; (3) cultural factors, that bring together values, lifestyles and educational cultures of both parents and teachers. Results: The idea regarding the inadequate distinction based on a dichotomy between Italian and migrant families seemed to be confirmed: Italian families and migrant families are characterized by many common features as well as by many inner differentiations. The results of this study suggest that the family-school relationship evolves into a communication framework that encompasses both obstacles and resources. Conclusions: The results of our research suggest that the relationship between parents and teachers in Italian infant schools is influenced by different factors, not only cultural ones. All of these factors are related to both parents and teachers, and they should be taken into account when investigating this topic.

Le comunitŕ religiose di minoranza sono caratterizzate da una forte e dinamica presenza di giovani. Molti di loro appartengono alla cosiddetta seconda generazione dell'immigrazione: sono nati in Italia o giunti da bambini al seguito dei propri genitori, parlano, pensano, sognano in italiano e in questo paese immaginano di costruire il proprio futuro. Allo stesso tempo e senza contraddizione, sono inseriti in una tradizione religiosa che hanno ereditato dalle proprie famiglie, con riti, valori e linguaggi fortemente intrecciati con le culture dei paesi d'origine. Questo articolo - basato su una ricerca in pedagogia interculturale, condotta con metodi etnografici e interviste in pro-fonditŕ presso alcune comunitŕ religiose di minoranza nella cittŕ di Milano - descrive i tratti e le potenzialitŕ comuni alle seconde generazioni e le competenze interculturali che possono sviluppare a contatto con piů riferimenti culturali e linguistici nei propri contesti di vita. A conclusione della riflessione, si auspica che la lezione delle seconde generazioni possa parlare non solo alle comunitŕ religiose di minoranza, ma a tutte quelle realtŕ in cui convivono generazioni diverse per uno scopo comune.

L'articolo indaga come nella società multiculturale si inneschino dinamiche di relazione segnate da vissuti emozionali diversi, che possono aiutare o meno l'incontro interculturale. Paura e compassione appaiono come due emozioni che creano asimmetria e distanza nella relazione interculturale. Occorre promuovere percorsi per la diffusione di vissuti emozionali che favoriscano l'incontro con l'altro, specialmente nei contesti educativi.

Epithelial Ovarian Cancer (EOC) remains the leading cause of death in women with gynecologic malignancies, due to late diagnosis and early relapse associated with development of chemoresistance. We recently reported alterations of the choline-metabolite magnetic resonance spectral (MRS) profile in EOC cells, characterized by an increase content of phosphocholine (PCho). A multidisciplinary approach revealed that one of the more relevant changes was a significant increase of Choline Kinase (ChoK) activity (consistent with an increased protein and alpha-isoform mRNA expression) in cancer cells as compared to the normal counterpart. ChoK catalyzes the phosphorylation of choline to yield PCho as the first step in the biosynthesis of phosphatidylcholine, required for mammalian cell structural stability and proliferation. ChoK has been extensively related to cell proliferation being at the cross-roads of signalling pathways related to mitogenesis and survival and a prognostic role for ChoK in some cancer types has been described. Aim of the study is the evaluation of the biological relevance of ChoK expression and activity to define its possible role as a non-invasively detectable EOC biomarker and druggable target. We specifically silenced ChoK-alpha expression by transient RNA interference in two different EOC cell lines and evaluated the biological effects. Following ChoK-alpha silencing we observed a 70% reduction of mRNA and protein expression with a similar reduction in PCho accumulation as assessed by HMRS analysis. The ChoK-alpha silencing was accompanied by 20% inhibition of cell growth and similar percentage of cells blocked in the G1-phase of cell cycle. By transcriptome analysis we found CyclinA, related to regulation of cell cycle progression, and cytokines genes (IL-6 and IL-8) related to inflammation and EOC aggressiveness among the most relevant co-repressed genes, whereas among the most up-regulated genes we found Acyl-CoA synthetase and Osteoprotegerin. These observations suggest ChoK-alpha involvement in cell proliferation and survival. Evaluation of the biological effects of long-term Chok-alpha silencing by lentiviral transduction, together with concurrent inhibition of relevant survival signaling pathway (PI3K/AKT) or other enzymes involved in PCho metabolism (PC-PLC) is currently ongoing. To evaluate its possible role as prognostic biomarker, ChoK-alpha mRNA and protein expression is currently being analyzed on well characterized retrospective EOC case materials. The assessment of biological and prognostic relevance of choline metabolites might significantly contribute in the identification of new non-invasive diagnostic modalities and in the development of new targeted therapeutic approaches. (Partially supported by AIRC) Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4076. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-4076

Marina Bagnoli 1,§ , Loris De Cecco 1,§ , Anna Granata 1 , Roberta Nicoletti 1 , Edoardo Marchesi 1 , Paola Alberti 1 , Barbara Valeri 2 , Massimo Libra 3 , Mattia Barbareschi 4 , Francesco Raspagliesi 5 , Delia Mezzanzanica 1,# , Silvana Canevari 1,# 1 Depts. of Experimental Oncology and Molecular Medicine, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy 2 Department of Pathology and Oncologic Surgery, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy 3 Department of General Pathology, University of Catania, Italy 4 Department of Pathology, Ospedale Santa Chiara, Trento, Italy 5 Department of Oncologic Surgery, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy § equally contributing first authors # equally contributing last authors Received: December 23, 2011; Accepted: December 30, 2011; Published: December 31, 2011; Keywords: advanced-stage ovarian cancer, early relapse, microRNA profiling, miR-506, cisplatin, miR-513a-5p, miR-513b Correspondence: Silvana Canevari, email: // // Abstract A major challenge in advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is prediction of chemoresistant relapse. Our aim was to identify a microRNA (miRNA) signature associated with early relapse in advanced-stage EOC patients. miRNA expression was assessed by microarray profiling in training ( n = 55 ) and test ( n = 30 ) sets selected on the basis of time to relapse (TTR), followed by internal quantitative reverse transcriptase-PCR validation on a set of 45 consecutive cases unselected for clinical response and external in silico validation on publicly available datasets. Thirty-two differentially expressed miRNAs in early vs. late relapsing patients were identified in the training set. In the test set, 8 of these, belonging to a cluster located on chrXq27.3, were down-modulated in early relapsing patients. Hierarchical clustering of the internal validation set according to chrXq27.3 miRNA expression associated low miRNA expression with shorter TTR (log-rank P=0.00074 , HR 2.44). The cluster was an independent prognostic factor in both internal and external validation sets. Forced expression of chrXq27.3-cluster selected miRNAs in human EOC cellular models was associated to reduction of cell proliferation and increased sensitivity to cisplatin. The role of down-modulation of the chrXq27.3 miRNA cluster in early relapse of advanced-stage EOC patients and its association to a reduced sensitivity to chemotherapeutic treatments warrant further investigation.