Perception of social support by individuals with diabetes mellitus and foot ulcers

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the perception of social support and the relationship of sociodemographic, clinical and metabolic control variables in individuals with diabetes mellitus and foot ulcers in an outpatient unit. METHODS: A quantitative cross-sectional approach was carried out using a social support network inventory. RESULTS: Participants had a high perception of social support; family and health professionals were identified as the main support sources. Fasting plasma glucose values were directly related with social support. CONCLUSION: Family members were identified as the main support source, which emphasizes their importance in the health care process.

Safety by design: production of engineering surface modified nanomaterials

This PhD thesis focused on nanomaterial (NM) engineering for occupational health and safety, in the frame of the EU project “Safe Nano Worker Exposure Scenarios (SANOWORK)”. Following a safety by design approach, surface engineering (surface coating, purification process, colloidal force control, wet milling, film coating deposition and granulation) were proposed as risk remediation strategies (RRS) to decrease toxicity and emission potential of NMs within real processing lines. In the first case investigated, the PlasmaChem ZrO2 manufacturing, the colloidal force control applied to the washing of synthesis rector, allowed to reduce ZrO2 contamination in wastewater, performing an efficient recycling procedure of ZrO2 recovered. Furthermore, ZrO2 NM was investigated in the ceramic process owned by CNR-ISTEC and GEA-Niro; the spray drying and freeze drying techniques were employed decreasing NM emissivity, but maintaining a reactive surface in dried NM. Considering the handling operation of nanofibers (NFs) obtained through Elmarco electrospinning procedure, the film coating deposition was applied on polyamide non-woven to avoid free fiber release. For TiO2 NF the wet milling was applied to reduce and homogenize the aspect ratio, leading to a significant mitigation of fiber toxicity. In the Colorobbia spray coating line, Ag and TiO2 nanosols, employed to transfer respectively antibacterial or depolluting properties to different substrates, were investigated. Ag was subjected to surface coating and purification, decreasing NM toxicity. TiO2 was modified by surface coating, spray drying and blending with colloidal SiO2, improving its technological performance. In the extrusion of polymeric matrix charged with carbon nanotube (CNTs) owned by Leitat, the CNTs used as filler were granulated by spray drying and freeze spray drying techniques, allowing to reduce their exposure potential. Engineered NMs tested by biologists were further investigated in relevant biological conditions, to improve the knowledge of structure/toxicity mechanisms and obtain new insights for the design of safest NMs.

Privacy By Design e Data Protection Officer: aspetti normativi e buone prassi nel trattamento dei dati personali.

La Tesi tratta i concetti di Privacy e Protezione dei Dati personali, contestualizzandone il quadro normativo e tecnologico con particolare riferimento ai contesti emergenti rappresentati – per un verso – dalla proposta di nuovo Regolamento generale sulla protezione dei dati personali (redatto dal Parlamento Europeo e dal Consiglio dell’Unione Europea), – per un altro – dalla metodologia di progettazione del Privacy by Design e – per entrambi – dalla previsione di un nuovo attore: il responsabile per la protezione dei dati personali (Privacy Officer). L’elaborato si articola su tre parti oltre introduzione, conclusioni e riferimenti bibliografici. La prima parte descrive il concetto di privacy e le relative minacce e contromisure (tradizionali ed emergenti) con riferimento ai contesti di gestione (aziendale e Big Data) e al quadro normativo vigente. La seconda Parte illustra in dettaglio i principi e le prassi del Privacy by Design e la figura del Privacy Officer formalmente riconosciuta dal novellato giuridico. La terza parte illustra il caso di studio nel quale vengono analizzate tramite una tabella comparativa minacce e contromisure rilevabili in un contesto aziendale.

Looking at the effectiveness of an earth science unit designed using the Understanding by Design process

This report shares my efforts in developing a solid unit of instruction that has a clear focus on student outcomes. I have been a teacher for 20 years and have been writing and revising curricula for much of that time. However, most has been developed without the benefit of current research on how students learn and did not focus on what and how students are learning. My journey as a teacher has involved a lot of trial and error. My traditional method of teaching is to look at the benchmarks (now content expectations) to see what needs to be covered. My unit consists of having students read the appropriate sections in the textbook, complete work sheets, watch a video, and take some notes. I try to include at least one hands-on activity, one or more quizzes, and the traditional end-of-unit test consisting mostly of multiple choice questions I find in the textbook. I try to be engaging, make the lessons fun, and hope that at the end of the unit my students get whatever concepts I‘ve presented so that we can move on to the next topic. I want to increase students‘ understanding of science concepts and their ability to connect understanding to the real-world. However, sometimes I feel that my lessons are missing something. For a long time I have wanted to develop a unit of instruction that I know is an effective tool for the teaching and learning of science. In this report, I describe my efforts to reform my curricula using the “Understanding by Design” process. I want to see if this style of curriculum design will help me be a more effective teacher and if it will lead to an increase in student learning. My hypothesis is that this new (for me) approach to teaching will lead to increased understanding of science concepts among students because it is based on purposefully thinking about learning targets based on “big ideas” in science. For my reformed curricula I incorporate lessons from several outstanding programs I‘ve been involved with including EpiCenter (Purdue University), Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), the Master of Science Program in Applied Science Education at Michigan Technological University, and the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL). In this report, I present the methodology on how I developed a new unit of instruction based on the Understanding by Design process. I present several lessons and learning plans I‘ve developed for the unit that follow the 5E Learning Cycle as appendices at the end of this report. I also include the results of pilot testing of one of lessons. Although the lesson I pilot-tested was not as successful in increasing student learning outcomes as I had anticipated, the development process I followed was helpful in that it required me to focus on important concepts. Conducting the pilot test was also helpful to me because it led me to identify ways in which I could improve upon the lesson in the future.

Clocking the social mind by identifying mental processes in the IAT with electrical neuroimaging

Why do people take longer to associate the word “love” with outgroup words (incongruent condition) than with ingroup words (congruent condition)? Despite the widespread use of the implicit association test (IAT), it has remained unclear whether this IAT effect is due to additional mental processes in the incongruent condition, or due to longer duration of the same processes. Here, we addressed this previously insoluble issue by assessing the spatiotemporal evolution of brain electrical activity in 83 participants. From stimulus presentation until response production, we identified seven processes. Crucially, all seven processes occurred in the same temporal sequence in both conditions, but participants needed more time to perform one early occurring process (perceptual processing) and one late occurring process (implementing cognitive control to select the motor response) in the incongruent compared with the congruent condition. We also found that the latter process contributed to individual differences in implicit bias. These results advance understanding of the neural mechanics of response time differences in the IAT: They speak against theories that explain the IAT effect as due to additional processes in the incongruent condition and speak in favor of theories that assume a longer duration of specific processes in the incongruent condition. More broadly, our data analysis approach illustrates the potential of electrical neuroimaging to illuminate the temporal organization of mental processes involved in social cognition.

Loss of social behaviors by Myxococcus xanthus during evolution in an unstructured habitat

Social behaviors are often targets of natural selection among higher organisms, but quantifying the effects of such selection is difficult. We have used the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus as a model system for studying the evolution of social interactions. Changes in the social behaviors of 12 M. xanthus populations were quantified after 1,000 generations of evolution in a liquid habitat, in which interactions among individuals were continually hindered by shaking and low cell densities. Derived lineages were compared with their ancestors with respect to maximum growth rate, motility rates on hard and soft agar, fruiting body formation ability, and sporulation frequency during starvation. Improved performance in the liquid selective regime among evolved lines was usually associated with significant reductions in all of the major social behaviors of M. xanthus. Maintenance of functional social behaviors is apparently detrimental to fitness under asocial growth conditions.

Nature knows best: An amazing reaction cascade is uncovered by design and discovery

The Daphniphyllum alkaloids are a group of highly complex polycyclic alkaloids. Examination of the structures if several members of this family of natural products led to a hypothesis about their mode of biosynthesis (depicted in Scheme SI). Based on this hypothetical biosynthetic pathway, a laboratory synthesis was designed that incorporated as a key transformation the novel one-pot transformation of dialdehyde 24 to pentacyclic unsaturated amine 25. This process turned out to be an exceptionally efficient way to construct the pentacyclic nucleus of the Daphniphyllum alkaloids. However, a purely fortuitous discovery, resulting from accidental use of methylamine rather than ammonia, led to a great improvement in the synthesis and suggests an even more attractive possible biosynthesis.