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•The clinical outcome of SARS-CoV-2 infection is largely variable, and with differential age/gender related manifestations.•Some exceptional individuals recover from illness and ...COVID-19 complications in spite of their extreme age (nonagenarians/centenarians).•Studies on genetic and epigenetic factors on longevity trait might characterize the resistance to SARS-CoV-2 infection.•Long-lived Italian people, with multi-omics investigations could identify genetic/epigenetic basis of resistance and pharmacological targets for preventing or reducing viral infection in susceptible individuals.
Like other infectious diseases, COVID-19 shows a clinical outcome enormously variable, ranging from asymptomatic to lethal. In Italy, like in other countries, old male individuals, with one or more comorbidity, are the most susceptible group, and show, consequently, the highest mortality, and morbidity, including lethal respiratory distress syndrome, as the most common complication. In addition, another extraordinary peculiarity, that is a surprising resistance to COVID-19, characterizes some Italian nonagenarians/centenarians. Despite having the typical COVID-19 signs and/or symptoms, such exceptional individuals show a surprising tendency to recover from illness and complications. On the other hand, long-lived people have an optimal performance of immune system related to an overexpression of anti-inflammatory variants in immune/inflammatory genes, as demonstrated by our and other groups. Consequently, we suggest long-lived people as an optimal model for detecting genetic profiles associated with the susceptibility and/or protection to COVID-19, to utilize as potential pharmacological targets for preventing or reducing viral infection in more vulnerable individuals.
It is surprising to observe that China has led the wind turbine price reductions across the world. To explain turbine price changes, the theoretical mechanism applied for technologically advanced ...countries is insufficient to demonstrate the performance of turbine manufacturing from technology adoption to indigenous innovation and during wind curtailment shocks. The paper constructs a multi-factor learning model in the framework of the Cobb-Douglas function to examine the distinctive China turbine price evolution in 1998–2012. The core factors: the learning-by-doing, learning-by-researching, economies of scale in turbine size and quantity and input-price effects of labor, capital, steel and fiberglass/resin, are recognized and qualified in accordance with industrial and market characteristics. The results show that the learning effects are the most important factors associated with the larger turbine price reductions in China and most likely weakened by the price effects of inputs. The scale effects are important to understand the innovative performance uncaptured by learning effects and negative price responses to production adjustments during curtailment shocks. The labor cost is statistically insignificant but geographically important. To strengthen the price and manufacturing competitiveness of turbines in China, policies should be adjusted to maximize benefits from these effects and minimize negative impacts of wind curtailment.
•The wind turbine price evolution in China is examined as the market size expands.•The origin and effects of price drivers are assessed in a modified MFLC model.•The LBR effect stands on a par with LBD for the larger turbine price cut in China.•The scale effects differ in turbine size and quantity and during curtailment shocks.•The price effects of capital and material are most likely to drive up turbine costs.
The researcher examined how end-of-first-year students in a professional practice doctoral program were developing professional identities as educational leaders and educational researchers, ...researching professionals. Data were gathered using two questionnaires and interviews. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed substantial development of identities as leaders and researching professionals. Course and program requirements afforded students with opportunities to advance these skills by 'trying out' and 'practicing' leadership and researcher skills in their workplaces. Such efforts were consistent with possible selves theory in which individuals try on identities, which they practice on a trial basis and refine over time. Regression analyses showed possible selves 'connections to current views of self' and 'congruency with overall identity' were predictive of leadership and researcher identity roles, respectively. Implications for practice including program and course design and student efforts; and implications for research on exploring students' identity changes as educational leaders and researching professionals were discussed.
Based on existential-phenomenological perspectives from Merleau-Ponty and Løgstrup, we examine the significance of rhythm for written language skills. Rhythm is both omnipresent and a difficult ...phenomenon
to explore. Methodologically, the article presents phenomenological descriptions and exemplifications, not least a case study of a secondary school student with written language difficulties. Our intention is to illuminate connections between rhythmic perspectives in movement, speech, working memory and language as prerequisites for the acquisition of written language skills. We conclude that rhythm is an essential aspect of our bodily being, and based on the work of Merleau-Ponty, we are able to bring to light relationships between body, rhythm, and written language skills in ways that would not be possible from a natural scientific point of view. Inspired by Merleau-Ponty's analytical approach and the hermeneutic phenomenology of Ricoeur, we will combine an understanding perspective with both human scientific and natural scientific explanations, into a holistic interpretation. The article thus draws empirically on qualitative descriptions of rhythmic phenomena, and theoretically on perspectives from philosophy of language, developmental psychology and neuropsychology, but they are all interpreted in the light of existential-phenomenological ontology.
Based on existential-phenomenological perspectives from Merleau-Ponty and Løgstrup, we examine the significance of rhythm for written language skills. Rhythm is both omnipresent and a difficult ...phenomenon
to explore. Methodologically, the article presents phenomenological descriptions and exemplifications, not least a case study of a secondary school student with written language difficulties. Our intention is to illuminate connections between rhythmic perspectives in movement, speech, working memory and language as prerequisites for the acquisition of written language skills. We conclude that rhythm is an essential aspect of our bodily being, and based on the work of Merleau-Ponty, we are able to bring to light relationships between body, rhythm, and written language skills in ways that would not be possible from a natural scientific point of view. Inspired by Merleau-Ponty's analytical approach and the hermeneutic phenomenology of Ricoeur, we will combine an understanding perspective with both human scientific and natural scientific explanations, into a holistic interpretation. The article thus draws empirically on qualitative descriptions of rhythmic phenomena, and theoretically on perspectives from philosophy of language, developmental psychology and neuropsychology, but they are all interpreted in the light of existential-phenomenological ontology.
We present an analysis of the social composition of the UK scientific elite, as represented by Fellows of the Royal Society, in terms of Fellows' social class origins and type of secondary schooling. ...From various sources, we have assembled data for 1691 Fellows, representing 80% of our target population of all Fellows born from 1900 onwards whose scientific careers were spent predominantly in the UK. We find that while these elite scientists come largely from more advantaged class backgrounds, it is professional rather than business or managerial families that are the main source of their recruitment—and, increasingly, such families where a parent is in a STEM occupation. Recruitment from working‐class families has declined and for most recent birth cohorts almost ceased. The scientific elite is thus now more homogeneous as regards the social origins of its members than it was in the second half of the twentieth century. At the same time, little change is evident in the secondary schooling of Fellows. In all birth cohorts, between two‐fifths and a half of all—and over two‐thirds of those from more advantaged class backgrounds—were privately educated, although the proportion attending Clarendon schools would seem low compared with that in other elites. A further finding of interest is that some variation in Fellows' class origins and type of schooling exists across different research fields.
Abstract In a world of increasing linguistic diversity, questions of language use and language ideologies in research interviews are gaining increasing importance. This article reports and reflects ...on language use in research interviews with former refugees in New Zealand and Sweden. In the interviews, multilingual speakers had the option to engage in the host language (English or Swedish, respectively), to bring their own language support person, or to request a professional interpreter. The article suggests that providing these options enabled participants to engage a greater range of linguistic and multimodal resources to create meaning and construct their identities, and also provided opportunities for language learning in the interviews. The article also highlights the importance of acknowledging the role of interpreters in the co‐construction of meaning and what this means for data collection and findings.
Swedish abstract I en värld av ökande språklig mångfald får frågor om språkbruk och språkideologier i forskningsintervjuer allt större betydelse. Denna artikel rapporterar och reflekterar över språkanvändning i forskningsintervjuer med före detta flyktingar i Nya Zeeland och Sverige. I intervjuerna hade flerspråkiga möjlighet att engagera sig i värdspråket (engelska respektive svenska), att ta med sitt eget språkstöd eller att be om en professionell tolk. Artikeln föreslår att tillhandahållandet av dessa alternativ gjorde det möjligt för deltagarna att använda sig av ett större utbud av språkliga och multimodala resurser för att skapa mening och konstruera sina identiteter, och även gav möjligheter till språkinlärning i intervjuerna. Artikeln lyfter också fram vikten av att erkänna tolkarnas roll i samkonstruktionen av mening och vad detta betyder för datainsamling och resultat.
Sociologists have long been interested in the meaning workers derive from their jobs. The issue has garnered increasing academic and policy attention in recent years with the concept of “meaningful ...work,” yet little is known about how social stratification relates to access to it. This paper addresses this issue by exploring how the meaningfulness of jobs—as rated by their incumbents—is stratified across classes and occupations in a national survey of 14,000 working adults in the United Kingdom. It finds modest differentials between classes, with those in routine and manual occupations reporting the lowest levels of meaningfulness and those in managerial and professional occupations and small employers and own account workers reporting the highest levels. Detailed job attributes (e.g., job complexity and development opportunities) explain much of the differences in meaningfulness between classes and occupations, and much of the overall variance in meaningfulness. The main exception is the specific case of how useful workers perceive their jobs to be for society: A handful of occupations relating to health, social care, and protective services which cut across classes stand out from all other occupations. The paper concludes that the modest stratification between classes and occupations in meaningful work is largely due to disparities in underlying job complexity and development opportunities. The extent to which these aspects of work can be improved, and so meaningfulness, especially in routine and manual occupations, is an open, yet urgent, question.
In this article, we argue that folding back is successful when the learners engage in exploratory talk. To support our argument, we sourced data from a Grade 10 mathematics classroom of 54 learners ...who participated in a four-week teaching experiment conducted by the second author. We mainly focused on talks in two groups of learners to address the silence of literature on folding back that alludes to the kind of talk that learners engage in. Data were captured through video recording of learners' interactions as they worked on the tasks in different sessions. We present these data as transcribed extracts of talks that the learners held and synthesise them into stories through Polkinghorne's narrative mode of data analysis, also using a process that Kim referred to as narrative smoothing. Pirie and Kieren's conception of folding back and Wegerif and Mercer's three ways of talking and thinking among learners were used as a heuristic device for synthesising the stories. The narratives illustrate that exploratory talk promotes folding back, where learners build on each other's ideas to develop geometry understanding. Therefore, the significance of this article is that for classrooms that wish to promote growth in understanding through folding back, the type of talk that should be normative is exploratory talk.
With the increasing amounts of UAVs usage, the supervision of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) has become particularly important, and the demand for detecting and following UAVs has grown rapidly. ...Compared with ground targets, UAVs are more difficult to track because of the high speed of the target and the interference caused by the shadow of either a target or a tracker. In addition, the problem of how to research the target when the target leaves the camera’s field of view has not received sufficient attention. In this paper, a shadow recognition algorithm and the detection network of a target based on deep learning are combined to eliminate the interference caused by shadows. Fuzzy control is applied in the process of following and the dynamic characteristics of UAV are considered in obstacle avoidance, which ensures the stability of the UAV for tracking. Finally, a spatial probability distribution algorithm based on Bayesian prediction is proposed for re-searching a lost target, which can rediscover a target after that target is lost. For this work, a UAV experimental platform has been built and the algorithm feasibility is verified through both simulation and a physical experiment.
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