Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory disease typically affecting the joints, but the systemic inflammatory process may involve other tissues and organs. Many extra-articular manifestations ...are recognized, which are related to worse long outcomes. Rheumatoid nodules are the most common extra-articular feature, found in about 30% of patients. Secondary Sjögren's syndrome and pulmonary manifestations are observed in almost 10% of patients, also in the early disease. Active RA with high disease activity has been associated with an increased risk of such features. Male gender, smoking habit, severe joint disease, worse function, high pro-inflammatory markers levels, high titer of rheumatoid factor, and HLA-related shared epitope have been reported as clinical predictors of occurrence of these rheumatoid complications. In addition, there is a little evidence deriving from randomized controlled trials in this field, thus the therapeutic strategy is mainly empiric and based on small case series and retrospective studies. However, considering that these extra-articular manifestations are usually related to the more active and severe RA, an aggressive therapeutic strategy is usually employed in view of the poor outcomes of these patients.
The extra-articular features of RA remain, despite the improvement of joint damage, a major diagnostic and therapeutic challenge, since these are associated with a poor prognosis and need to be early recognized and promptly managed.
The goal of this paper is to offer a unified account of Place as a central theoretical notion across different disciplines. We show that while psychology, geography and other sciences have been ...converging to a unified view of this notion, linguistics still offers a fragmented perspective. Consequently, place names lack a full-fledged analysis that connects this category to the psychological concept of place. We propose to overcome this
impasse
by introducing a multi-modal Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) account of place as a conceptual construct and place concepts as specific instances of this construct. We show that current variants of DRT permit us to model place names and their senses, i.e., the meaning(s) that individuals associate with
Sydney
. We then model non-linguistic place concepts, i.e., the mental representation(s) that individuals can have of the city carrying this name. We present a model of the relation between linguistic meaning and conceptual content via the notion of anchoring relations applied to place. We pair this formal treatment with a morpho-syntactic account of place names building on current generative syntax treatments of proper names. Once we have a morpho-syntactic and semantic model of place names, we use a frame semantics treatment to account for lexical relations among place names. We test the overarching model on a set of recalcitrant problems afflicting current linguistic and multi-disciplinary treatments of place. These are the grammatical complexity and lexical content of place names, place concepts and their networks, and inter-subjective, communicative models of place in discourse. By solving these problems, our account integrates several frameworks (DRT, conceptual analysis, generative syntax, frame semantics) and connects several disciplines (linguistics, psychology, geographic information science, communication models) via a novel, multi-modal account of place. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and empirical import of these results.
The goal of this article is to offer new empirical evidence regarding the grammatical and semantic properties of Italian spatial prepositions, and to provide a theoretical account based on this ...evidence. We show that Italian has four grammatical types of prepositions (simple, complex, contracted and uncontracted), and three semantic types (geometric, projective and region prepositions). By studying the syntactic distribution of prepositions and the phrases they form with measure phrases (e.g.,
‘ten meters’) we argue that a non-isomorphic (i.e., not one-to-one) relation between grammatical and semantic type emerges. Region and geometric prepositions form phrases that block the presence of measure phrases (e.g.,
‘ten meters beside the wall’), whereas projective prepositions license them (e.g.,
‘ten meters behind the wall’). We show that previous accounts postulate a type of symmetry that leads to problematic predictions regarding these patterns. We then propose an alternative account based on the Lexical Syntax framework that models the data via a feature-matching mechanism.
Abstract
The goal of this paper is to offer a theoretical analysis of chorophorics, a recently proposed pro-formal category
that can refer either to “places”, or to locations as arguments of spatial ...relations. It is suggested that chorophorics are a
common category that displays heterogeneous morphological properties but homogeneous syntactic distribution and semantic
interpretation. Evidence supporting this argument is offered via eight genetically unrelated languages. The evidence shows that at
least three different types of chorophorics can be individuated across languages: chorophorics as a sub-type of prepositions, of
case-marked nouns or of postpositions. A formal account is offered, based on a Lexical Syntax analysis. The account shows that
chorophorics share a similar distribution with prepositional phrases and receive their “place” sense from their distribution in
discourse contexts.
Chorophorics in the Aquilan Dialect Ursini, Francesco‐Alessio; Long, Haiping
Studia linguistica,
August 2020, 2020-08-00, 20200801, Letnik:
74, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article outlines the properties of chorophorics (“spatial pronouns”) in the Italian dialect Aquilan. It is shown that chorophorics (e.g. pe'nfronte ‘to in front (of the ground)’) display similar ...morphological properties to spatial prepositions (e.g. ‘nfronte alla machina ‘in front of the car’). However, they differ in their syntactic distribution and their semantic interpretation in intra‐ and inter‐clausal structures, because of their anaphoric nature. An outline of the data is offered, and an analysis of chorophorics’ lexical and anaphoric potentials is defined via a minimal fragment of Discourse Representation Theory combined with a Lexical Syntax account. The article also offers general considerations on the nature of chorophorics and the relevance of dialectal data on cross‐linguistic research.
In many languages, it is possible to describe the location of any entity with respect to a landmark object without specifying the exact place that the locatum occupies (e.g. English
in
). Such ...vocabulary items usually contrast with items that belong to the same categories but have more restricted senses (e.g.
in
). Thus, the degree of “abstractness” that such spatial case markers can convey usually depends on the organization of the lexicon and grammar of spatial terms in each language. The goal of this paper is to explore these properties across a small sample of languages and offer an account of this variation that is connected to previous theories of spatial case markers (e.g. adpositions). Our key proposal is that the morpho-syntactic structure of spatial case markers and their phrases can license a clear division of labour between functional and lexical spatial senses. However, intermediate solutions blurring categories and semantic boundaries are shown to be possible. We formalize this proposal via a fragment of Lexical Syntax, and show that degrees of distinction between ‘functional’ and ‘lexical’ sense types and categories can be modelled via a unified account.
The goal of this paper is to offer an analysis of urbanonyms, names for urban places, and show how this analysis can inform a conceptual taxonomy of urban places via the cultural lens of language. To ...reach this goal, the paper offers a classification of Italian urbanonyms (e.g., Via Nazionale "National Street") based on data extraction from the Pagine Gialle directory, and a taxonomy of place concepts. This classification is obtained via a lexicographic analysis of extracted terms and their sense relations. A discussion of place concepts unique to cities across Italy is offered, as proof of the importance of cultural and linguistic facets. The paper concludes by discussing how these results can inform research on place ontologies across disciplines.
Metformin (
) is a synthetic derivative of guanidine, isolated from the extracts of
, a plant with a prominent antidiabetic effect. Since its discovery more than 50 years ago, metformin represents a ...worldwide milestone in treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). Recent evidence in humans indicates novel pleiotropic actions of metformin which span from its consolidated role in T2D management up to various regulatory properties, including cardio- and nephro-protection, as well as antiproliferative, antifibrotic, and antioxidant effects. These findings, together with ground-breaking studies demonstrating its ability to prolong healthspan and lifespan in mice, provided the basis for defining metformin as a potential
molecule. Moreover, emerging
and
evidence support the novel hypothesis that metformin can exhibit immune-modulatory features. Studies suggest that metformin interferes with key immunopathological mechanisms involved in systemic autoimmune diseases, such as the T helper 17/regulatory T cell balance, germinal centers formation, autoantibodies production, macrophage polarization, cytokine synthesis, neutrophil extracellular traps release, and bone or extracellular matrix remodeling. These effects may represent a powerful contributor to antiaging and anticancer properties exerted by metformin and, from another standpoint, may open the way to assess whether metformin can be a candidate molecule for clinical trials involving patients with immune-mediated diseases. In this article, we will review the available preclinical and clinical evidence regarding the effect of metformin on individual cells of the immune system, with emphasis on immunological mechanisms related to the development and maintenance of autoimmunity and its potential relevance in treatment of autoimmune diseases.
The goal of this paper is to offer an analysis on how Italian places act as key narrative units in Japanese manga. Building on a quantitative and qualitative corpus study, the paper investigates how ...culturally salient locations are embedded in these narratives. It is first shown that authors develop salient locations (“places”) as distinct entities playing key roles within narrative structures. It is then shown that these representations of places follow principles of cultural relevance, popularity, historical and geographical faithfulness. This is the case because authors creating manga set in Italy share knowledge and appreciation of Italian places and their cultural import with readers. These results are framed in a theory of geo-criticism and in a possible worlds analysis of places in fiction, hereby extended to graphic narratives.
In the present study, we aimed to evaluate whole-body insulin sensitivity in systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients and to compare the results with controls with no autoimmune rheumatic disease (non-ARD) ...and with patients affected by rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
In all patients and controls, oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed according to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations. Plasma glucose and insulin concentrations were measured at time 0 and then after 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes. Whole-body insulin sensitivity (ISI), insulinogenic index (IGI), oral disposition index (ODI), and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were estimated accordingly.
A total of 41 SSc patients were evaluated and, for comparison, 41 individuals with RA and 82 non-ARD control patients were recruited. OGTT yielded a proportion of normotolerant individuals among SSc patients higher than in RA controls (p = 0.040) but lower than in the non-ARD group (p = 0.028). The ISI was significantly higher in SSc patients compared with RA controls (p <0.001) and with non-ARD patients (p <0.001). Significant differences emerged also when analysing the HOMA-IR, which was lower in SSc patients than in RA (p <0.001) and non-ARD (p <0.001) groups. Additionally, IGI was lower in SSc patients compared with RA (p = 0.011) and with non-ARD controls (p <0.001), whereas ODI was not significantly different between groups.
Interestingly, we found that SSc patients are more insulin sensitive than those with RA and even than individuals without inflammatory diseases. In contrast, no significant difference was found in terms of β-cell function.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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