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Le riflessioni di questo capitolo hanno l’obiettivo di esplorare le forme della cosiddetta «quarta generazione dell’editoria» in Italia. Questa indagine rientra nello studio sociologico dell’immaginario, una dimensione chiave nel costruire la realtà sociale e orientare l’azione di soggetti e istituzioni culturali. Lo studio dell’immaginario è qui declinato sia rispetto ai medium della comunicazione sia a partire dagli oggetti della cultura materiale che ne sono il principale tramite. Attraverso un dialogo a più voci con le diverse professioni della filiera del libro, si approfondiranno i significati che, da ciascuna prospettiva, sono attribuiti ai mutamenti in atto. I dati alla base di questa riflessione provengono da 18 interviste semi-strutturate condotte come attività di ricerca nell’ambito del progetto Book Batch One. Le interviste, per un totale di 19 persone intervistate, ci hanno fornito il punto di viste delle principali figure della filiera editoriale italiana: grandi, medi e piccoli gruppi editoriali, distribuzione, biblioteche, librerie, comunicazione, intermediazione, realtà associative e studiosi della materia. Nel tentativo di ridurre la complessità del fenomeno, l’analisi sarà ricondotta agli aspetti materiali e immateriali dell’editoria, qui intesi come concetti relazionali, che si influenzano e ridefiniscono reciprocamente. In primo luogo, verranno approfonditi gli immaginari, ovvero il sistema di significati attribuiti alle dinamiche editoriali attuali. Successivamente, l’universo simbolico sarà fatto dialogare con le strategie imprenditoriali delle diverse figure coinvolte, per verificare come i due aspetti si intersecano nel modellare le molteplici dinamiche della filiera.

Ranking is required for many real applications, such as search, personalisation, recommendation, and filtering. Recent research has focused on developing reliable ranking algorithms that maintain fairness in their outcomes. However, only a few consider multiple protected groups since this extension introduces significant challenges. While useful in the research sector, considering only one binary sensitive feature for handling fairness is inappropriate when the algorithm must be deployed responsibly in real-world applications. Our work is built on top of Multinomial FA*IR, a Fair Top-k ranking with multiple protected groups, which we extend to provide users the option to balance fairness and utility, adapting the final ranking accordingly. Our experimental results show that alternative better solutions overlooked by Multinomial FA*IR may be found through our approach without violating fairness boundaries. The code of the implemented solution and the experiments are publicly available to the community as a GitHub repository.

Web search engines influence perception of social reality by filtering and ranking information. However, their outputs are often subjected to bias that can lead to skewed representation of subjects such as professional occupations or gender. In our paper, we use a mixed-method approach to investigate presence of race and gender bias in representation of artificial intelligence (AI) in image search results coming from six different search engines. Our findings show that search engines prioritize anthropomorphic images of AI that portray it as white, whereas non-white images of AI are present only in non-Western search engines. By contrast, gender representation of AI is more diverse and less skewed towards a specific gender that can be attributed to higher awareness about gender bias in search outputs. Our observations indicate both the need and the possibility for addressing bias in representation of societally relevant subjects, such as technological innovation, and emphasize the importance of designing new approaches for detecting bias in information retrieval systems.

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical outcome of DiscoGel chemonucleolysis for symptomatic disc herniation in patients who fail conservative treatment. Material(s) and Method(s): Consecutive patients with symptomatic disc herniation confirmed on MRI who failed conservative management for at least 6 months were included. Visual analogue scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) scores, and analgesic use were recorded at baseline, and 12 months after treatment. Multidetector CT (MDCT) was performed at baseline, and 12 months after treatment to assess for DiscoGel extravasation and alteration in treated disc volume. In a unique long-term subgroup analysis of 31 patients, telephonic follow-up was performed utilizing VAS and ODI parameters 7 years after the procedure. Result(s): A total of 87 disc herniations were treated in 71 patients; majority (54%) were treated at L4/5 and L5/S1. VAS score of 8 before treatment was reduced to 3 at 12 months after treatment (p = 0.0001); ODI score of 51 before treatment was reduced to 15 at 12 months after treatment (p = 0.0001). Analgesic use of 70.4% was reduced to 29.6% after treatment. There were no symptomatic procedural complications; MDCT revealed 1 asymptomatic peri-neural DiscoGel extravasation. In the 31 subjects that underwent telephonic follow-up the VAS and ODI parameters maintained their values without statistically significant differences when compared with the 12-month follow-up. Conclusion(s): Patients with symptomatic disc herniation who failed conservative treatment and were treated with DiscoGel chemonucleolysis achieved significant gains in pain relief and reduced disability without symptomatic complication. DiscoGel chemonucleolysis is a feasible, minimally invasive technique for treatment of symptomatic disc herniation.Copyright © 2018

Purpose To evaluate the midterm clinical and radiologic outcome of percutaneous interspinous process spacer (IPS) treatment for neurogenic intermittent claudication (NIC) in patients who fail conservative treatment. Methods Consecutive patients with NIC, lumbar spinal stenosis confirmed on magnetic resonance imaging, failure of conservative management for at least 6 months, and treatment with percutaneous IPS were included. Visual analog scale (VAS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) scores were recorded at baseline, 1 month, 1 year and 3 years after treatment. Spinal canal and foraminal cross-sectional areas were calculated from multidetector computed tomography at baseline and 1 year. Results There were 80 patients treated with 94 IPS devices; 83% of patients received a single IPS; 78% of IPS devices were placed at L4-L5. An IPS dislocation was the single periprocedural major complication. VAS score of 8.1 +/- 2 before treatment was reduced to 4.4 +/- 2 at 1 month after treatment (P =.0001); ODI score of 23.3 +/- 10 before treatment was reduced to 11.7 +/- 8.5 at 1 month after treatment (P =.0001). These significant reductions were durable at 1-year and 3-year follow-up evaluations (P <.01). Spinal canal and foraminal cross-sectional area increased by 15% at 1 year (P =.0001). Conclusions Patients with NIC who failed conservative treatment and were treated with percutaneous IPS achieved significant gains in pain relief and reduced disability that remained durable at 3-year clinical follow-up evaluation. This outcome was accompanied by significant increases in spinal canal and foraminal cross-sectional areas at the treated level.Copyright © 2015 SIR.

BACKGROUND: Neonatal death in full-term infants who suffer from perinatal asphyxia (PA) is a major subject of investigation, since few tools exist to predict patients at risk of ominous outcome. We studied the possibility that urine S100B measurement may identify which PA-affected infants are at risk of early postnatal death. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: In a cross-sectional study between January 1, 2001 and December 1, 2006 we measured S100B protein in urine collected from term infants (n = 132), 60 of whom suffered PA. According to their outcome at 7 days, infants with PA were subsequently classified either as asphyxiated infants complicated by hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy with no ominous outcome (HIE Group; n = 48), or as newborns who died within the first post-natal week (Ominous Outcome Group; n = 12). Routine laboratory variables, cerebral ultrasound, neurological patterns and urine concentrations of S100B protein were determined at first urination and after 24, 48 and 96 hours. The severity of illness in the first 24 hours after birth was measured using the Score for Neonatal Acute Physiology-Perinatal Extension (SNAP-PE). Urine S100B levels were higher from the first urination in the ominous outcome group than in healthy or HIE Groups (p<0.001 for all), and progressively increased. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed a significant correlation between S100B concentrations and the occurrence of neonatal death. At a cut-off >1.0 microg/L S100B had a sensitivity/specificity of 100% for predicting neonatal death. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Increased S100B protein urine levels in term newborns suffering PA seem to suggest a higher risk of neonatal death for these infants.

BACKGROUND: Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is associated with perinatal mortality and with neurologic damage from intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). We investigated whether S100B, a neural protein found in high concentrations after cell injury in the nervous system, is increased in serum of women whose pregnancies are complicated by IUGR and whose newborns develop IVH. We also explored the prognostic accuracy of maternal serum S100B for IVH in the newborn. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study of 106 pregnancies complicated by IUGR, including a subgroup (n = 26) who developed IVH after birth, and 212 unaffected pregnancies matched for gestational age. Ultrasound examination, Doppler velocimetry patterns (in the utero-placental vessels and middle cerebral artery), and maternal blood collection were performed before birth; cerebral ultrasound and neurologic examinations were performed after birth. RESULTS: S100B was higher (P <0.001) in IUGR pregnancies complicated by IVH than in those that were not and in controls. At a cutoff of 0.72 microg/L, sensitivity was 100% [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 87%-100%] and specificity was 99.3% (97.5%-99.9%) for prediction of IVH (area under the ROC curve, 0.999). The prevalence of IVH was 8.2% in the whole study population, 93% (95% CI, 83.6%-100%) in those with maternal S100B >0.72 microg/L, and 0% (0%-2.5%) in those with maternal S100B <0.72 microg/L. CONCLUSION: For prediction of IVH, measurements of maternal S100B may be useful at times before clinical, laboratory, and ultrasound patterns can identify risk of IVH.

OBJECTIVES: We sought to verify the association between maternal intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) and neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and to determine how bile acids levels alter the risk of developing neonatal RDS. METHODS: We extracted data from our divisional database about all of the newborns born during the years 2000-2004. We compared 77 neonates born from pregnancies complicated by ICP with 427 neonates in the same range of gestational age born from noncomplicated pregnancies. We studied maternal bile acids levels immediately before delivery in mothers with ICP and measured bile acid levels during the first 24 hours of life in their newborns. RESULTS: The incidence of RDS in newborns from cholestatic pregnancies was twice that the reference population (28.6% vs 14%). The multivariate analysis showed that the risk of RDS in these newborns was approximately 2.5 times higher than in control infants. Within the ICP group, maternal and neonatal bile acid levels of infants affected by RDS were not significantly higher than those of healthy infants. The multivariate analysis showed that a low gestational age was the most important risk factor, but the probability of respiratory distress syndrome also increased by 2 per thousand for every additional micromole of the interaction term "neonatal by maternal bile acids level." CONCLUSIONS: Maternal ICP is significantly associated with the occurrence of RDS in the newborn. We hypothesize that bile acids can produce surfactant depletion in the alveoli reverting the reaction of phospholipase A2. This hypothesis could potentially be confirmed by bronchoalveolar lavage study.