Scritture epistemiche: progettare la didattica intrecciando tradizione e innovazione

The article describes the first year of a project called “Vertical, transpositive and epistemic writings” (Indire and UniTo), whose goal is based on focusing on new forms of writing in the school environment. Over time, the approach to new technologies has oriented the use of various “written” production methods, intertwining different media languages: these are combinations ofwords, sounds, images, already present in the technologies themselves, partly of “scriptural ideas fruit of the creativity of millennials. The project intends to consider the previous thirty years of the web, the actuality and the gap of writing “inside” and “outside” the school in the perspective of a varied and effective capacity for expression. This can happen thanks to a conscious approach and to a fruitful collaboration between students, teachers and the community of the web, through playful, poetic, ironic and autobiographical methods, among others. It is therefore not a “writing workshop”, but a path of awareness of the self and the other that can guide the choices of teachers and students. This path can allow, at the same time, personal/individual development, but also group and community. Media education must therefore undertake to monitor the sudden changes in the expressive behaviors of young people, accompanying these paths aimed at developing media/digitalskills useful for their future life projects.L’articolo descrive il primo anno di un progetto denominato “Scritture verticali, traspositive ed epistemiche” (Indire e UniTo), il cui obiettivo si basa sulla focalizzazione di nuove forme di scrittura in ambito scolastico. L’approccio alle nuove tecnologie ha orientato nel tempo l’utilizzo di varie modalità di produzione “scritta”, intrecciando differenti linguaggi mediali: combinazioni di parole, suoni, immagini in “idee scritturali” generate da nuovi ambienti comunicativi ed dalla creatività dei millennials. Il progetto intende considerare il pregresso di trent’anni di web, l’attualità e il divario della scrittura “dentro” e “fuori” la scuola, nella prospettiva di una variegata ed efficace capacità di espressione. Ciò può avvenire grazie a un approccio consapevole e a una proficua collaborazione tra allievi, insegnanti e nuove strumentazioni, attraverso modalità, tra le altre, ludiche, poetiche, ironiche e autobiografiche. Non si tratta quindi di un “laboratorio di scrittura”, ma di un percorso di consapevolezza del sé e dell’altro che possa orientare le scelte di insegnanti e alunni. Tale percorso può consentire, allo stesso tempo, uno sviluppo personale/individuale, ma anche gruppale e comunitario. La media education si impegna a monitorare i cambiamenti repentini delle condotte espressive dei ragazzi, accompagnando questi percorsi orientati allo sviluppo di competenze mediali/digitali utili ai loro futuri progetti di vita

Vacuum-assisted closure device enhances recovery of critically ill patients following emergency surgical procedures

Introduction: Critically ill surgical patients frequently develop intra-abdominal hypertension (IAH) leading to abdominal compartment syndrome (ACS) with subsequent high mortality. We compared two temporary abdominal closure systems (Bogota bag and vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) device) in intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) control. Methods: This prospective study with a historical control included 66 patients admitted to a medical and surgical intensive care unit (ICU) of a tertiary care referral center (Careggi Hospital, Florence, Italy) from January 2006 to April 2009. The control group included patients consecutively treated with the Bogota bag (Jan 2006-Oct 2007), whereas the prospective group was comprised of patients treated with a VAC. All patients underwent abdominal decompressive surgery. Groups were compared based upon their IAP, SOFA score, serial arterial lactates, the duration of having their abdomen open, the need for mechanical ventilation (MV) along with length of ICU and hospital stay and mortality. Data were collected from the time of abdominal decompression until the end of pressure monitoring. Results: The Bogota and VAC groups were similar with regards to demography, admission diagnosis, severity of illness, and IAH grading. The VAC system was more effective in controlling IAP (P < 0.01) and normalizing serum lactates (P < 0.001) as compared to the Bogota bag during the first 24 hours after surgical decompression. There was no significant difference between the SOFA scores. When compared to the Bogota, the VAC group had a faster abdominal closure time (4.4 vs 6.6 days, P = 0.025), shorter duration of MV (7.1 vs 9.9 days, P = 0.039), decreased ICU length of stay (LOS) (13.3 vs 19.2 days, P = 0.024) and hospital LOS (28.5 vs 34.9 days; P = 0.019). Mortality rate did not differ significantly between the two groups. Conclusions: Patients with abdominal compartment syndrome who were treated with VAC decompression had a faster abdominal closure rate and earlier discharge from the ICU as compared to similar patients treated with the Bogota bag

Cancer immunotherapy:From the lab to clinical applications - Potential impact on cancer centres' organisation

This report covers the Immunotherapy sessions of the 2016 Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI) Oncology Days meeting, which was held on 15th–17th June 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. Immunotherapy is a potential cancer treatment that uses an individual’s immune system to fight the tumour. In recent years significant advances have been made in this field in the treatment of several advanced cancers. Cancer immunotherapies include monoclonal antibodies that are designed to attack a very specific part of the cancer cell and immune checkpoint inhibitors which are molecules that stimulate or block the inhibition of the immune system. Other cancer immunotherapies include vaccines and T cell infusions. This report will summarise some of the research that is going on in this field and will give us an update on where we are at present

Artificial Antigen Presenting Cells With Preclustered anti-CD28/-CD3/-LFA-1 Monoclonal Antibodies Are Highly Effective To Induce The Ex-Vivo Expansion Of Functional Human Antitumor T Cells

Effective adoptive T cell therapy requires the _ex vivo_ generation of functional T lymphocytes with a long lifespan _in vivo_. We evaluated _in vitro_ T cell expansion by artificial antigen presenting cells (aAPC) generated with activating (human anti-CD3), co-stimulating (human anti-CD28) and adhesion (human anti-LFA-1) monoclonal antibodies pre-clustered in microdomains (MDs) held by a liposome scaffold. The co-localization of T cell ligands in MDs and the targeting of an adhesion protein, increasing the efficiency of immunological synapse formations, represent the novelties of our system. These aAPCs allowed increased expansion of polyclonal CD4^+^ and CD8^+^ T cells and of tumor antigen-specific CD8^+^ T cells compared to anti-CD28- and anti-CD3-coated microbeads and to immobilized anti-CD3. These aAPCs allowed the generation of T cells displaying an immunophenotype consistent with long-term _in vivo_ persistence, without increasing the frequency of regulatory T cells. Finally, our aAPCs proved to be suitable for large scale T cell expansion required in immunotherapy trials

Improved Prognostic Prediction in Never-Smoker Lung Cancer Patients by Integration of a Systemic Inflammation Marker with Tumor Immune Contexture Analysis

Almost 25% of lung cancers (LCs) occur in never-smokers. LC inflammatory profile, based on plasma C-reactive protein levels (CRP), predicts mortality, independently by smoking-status. We hypothesized that: CRP could be associated with tumor immune contexture (TIC) in never-smokers and both these two parameters may improve their prognosis. Sixty-eight never-smokers LC patients with high or low CRP were selected. The programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and its ligand (PD-L1), the human leukocyte antigens (HLA-DR and HLA-I), CD8, CD4, CD3, CD33, CD163, and CD68 were evaluated by immunohistochemistry on surgical samples given TIC evaluation. The classification model based on TIC scores was generated by Classification and Regression Tree analysis. Tumor mutational burden was evaluated by targeted next-generation sequencing. Exclusively high CRP (H-CRP) subset showed PD-L1 expression in 35% of LC as well as lower HLA-I and HLA-DR in their stromal cells. CD3, CD4, CD8, HLA-I, HLA-DR tumor cells staining were associated with a "low inflammatory profile" subset. CRP and LC immune profiles drive clinical outcome: 5-year survival 88% against 8% was associated with low and high-risk profiles (p&lt; 0.0001). Clinical outcome prediction in never-smoker LC patients may be improved by both CRP and tumor immune contexture evaluation

A microRNA prognostic signature in patients with diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas through non-Invasive liquid biopsy

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is a neuro-radiologically defined tumor of the brainstem, primarily affecting children, with most diagnoses occurring between 5 and 7 years of age. Surgical removal in DIPGs is not feasible. Subsequent tumor progression is almost universal and no biomarker for predicting the course of the disease has entered into clinical practice so far. Under these premises, it is essential to develop reliable biomarkers that are able to improve outcomes and stratify patients using non-invasive methods to determine tumor profiles. We designed a study assessing circulating miRNA expression by a high-throughput platform and divided patients into training and validation phases in order to disclose a potential signature with clinical impact. Our results for the first time have proved the usefulness of blood-circulating nucleic acids as powerful, easy-to-assay molecular markers of disease status in DIPG. ABSTRACT: Diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) originate in the thalamus, brainstem, cerebellum and spine. This entity includes tumors that infiltrate the pons, called diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPGs), with a rapid onset and devastating neurological symptoms. Since surgical removal in DIPGs is not feasible, the purpose of this study was to profile circulating miRNA expression in DIPG patients in an effort to identify a non-invasive prognostic signature with clinical impact. Using a high-throughput platform, miRNA expression was profiled in serum samples collected at the time of MRI diagnosis and prior to radiation and/or systemic therapy from 47 patients enrolled in clinical studies, combining nimotuzumab and vinorelbine with concomitant radiation. With progression-free survival as the primary endpoint, a semi-supervised learning approach was used to identify a signature that was also tested taking overall survival as the clinical endpoint. A signature comprising 13 circulating miRNAs was identified in the training set (n = 23) as being able to stratify patients by risk of disease progression (log-rank p = 0.00014; HR = 7.99, 95% CI 2.38–26.87). When challenged in a separate validation set (n = 24), it confirmed its ability to predict progression (log-rank p = 0.00026; HR = 5.51, 95% CI 2.03–14.9). The value of our signature was also confirmed when overall survival was considered (log-rank p = 0.0021, HR = 4.12, 95% CI 1.57–10.8). We have identified and validated a prognostic marker based on the expression of 13 circulating miRNAs that can shed light on a patient’s risk of progression. This is the first demonstration of the usefulness of nucleic acids circulating in the blood as powerful, easy-to-assay molecular markers of disease status in DIPG. This study provides Class II evidence that a signature based on 13 circulating miRNAs is associated with the risk of disease progression