Publications by authors named "Vincenza Ferrara"

Background: Medical humanities can contribute positively to clinical practice and medical education. Therefore, in many countries, medical schools have been progressively incorporating medical humanities into their curriculum. In Italy, only a few medical schools offer a variety of medical humanities courses, often as elective.

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The qualitative dimensions of visible features in space can be captured by connecting spatial configurations arranged in a variety of different ways to diverse . By conceptual spaces, we intend mental concepts describing specific spatial configurations present in a geographical area, defined by the contextual relationships among their constitutive elements. This paper presents a new supervised post-classification method allowing the extraction of semantically complex spatial objects from a single image of the Earth as, for instance, diverse conceptual spaces referring to multiple dimensions of land use (temporal, cultural, social, etc.

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Phytoliths can be used to reconstruct human-nature dynamics over the long term (from decennial to centennial and millennial time scales) and may capture activities that cannot be reconstructed through other proxies. Phytoliths consist of fossil biogenic silica (BSi), formed in plant organs and then released into the soil with plant decay. When working in environmental contexts where the phytolith signal is highly diluted, as is the case in environments with a long history of land use, animal-plant interactions and open woody environments, the extraction of phytoliths remains a challenge.

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Art experience is not solely the observation of artistic objects, but great relevance is also placed on the environment in which the art experience takes place, often in museums and galleries. Interestingly, in the last few years, the introduction of some forms of virtual reality (VR) in museum contexts has been increasing. This has solicited enormous research interest in investigating any eventual differences between looking at the same artifact either in a real context (e.

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Seasonal cycles in plants and animals drive key timings of human practices in an agrosystem like the best time for harvest, planting, or pruning. Within the framework of historical phenological studies, we attempt a reconstruction of the olive ( L.) phenology along millennia.

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: The purpose of this study was to measure the effect that a learning method using art, such as Visual Thinking Strategies, can have on nursing students and residents in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine; we also aimed to improve skills of observation, communication, empathy and collaboration with the patient and other team members, and evaluate the impact on quality of life, burnout and positivity. : The experimentation was based on administering a form (written assessment) before and after the intervention, to measure the impact of the method on improving some useful skills for the nursing and medical professions by inserting one image of an artistic type and the other of a clinical type, and asking participants to answer basic questions on the VTS method. Students participated in groups of eight in 90-min sessions for four meetings in the classroom and one at the museum, on a weekly basis.

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Scientific literature demonstrated the impairment in cognitive/executive functions and pragmatic language in SLE patients, potentially involving also asymptomatic subjects. The present study focuses on the assessment in an SLE cohort of emotional intelligence, which is an ability regulated by the network of the executive functions, cognitive abilities involved in the initiation, planning, organization, and regulation of achievement-oriented behaviors: with emotional. Thus, emotional intelligence, defined as the ability to reason with emotions, was evaluated in a SLE cohort diagnosed according to the 1997 American College of Rheumatology criteria.

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Neurocutaneous syndromes are a group of genetic disorders affecting the skin, the central and peripheral nervous system, and the eye with congenital abnormalities and/or tumors. Manifestations may also involve the heart, vessels, lungs, kidneys, endocrine glands and bones. When people with these disorders are portrayed in works of art, physicians have speculated on possible diagnoses.

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