Papillomavirus E5: the smallest oncoprotein with many functions

Papillomaviruses (PVs) are established agents of human and animal cancers. They infect cutaneous and mucous epithelia. High Risk (HR) Human PVs (HPVs) are consistently associated with cancer of the uterine cervix, but are also involved in the etiopathogenesis of other cancer types. The early oncoproteins of PVs: E5, E6 and E7 are known to contribute to tumour progression. While the oncogenic activities of E6 and E7 are well characterised, the role of E5 is still rather nebulous. The widespread causal association of PVs with cancer makes their study worthwhile not only in humans but also in animal model systems. The Bovine PV (BPV) system has been the most useful animal model in understanding the oncogenic potential of PVs due to the pivotal role of its E5 oncoprotein in cell transformation. This review will highlight the differences between HPV-16 E5 (16E5) and E5 from other PVs, primarily from BPV. It will discuss the targeting of E5 as a possible therapeutic agent

Innovative 3-D Printing Processing Techniques for Flexible and Wearable Planar Rectennas

This work demonstrates the use of a low-cost, lossy, flexible substrate processed by novel 3-D printing techniques which significantly mitigate its intrinsic losses, thus providing performance comparable to those of traditional substrates. These processing techniques are applied to both microstrip and coplanar waveguide structures; they are first derived theoretically, starting from the electromagnetic theory of modes propagation, then numerically validated by full-wave analysis, and finally experimentally verified. The design of a miniaturized 868 MHz rectenna, adopting a coplanar-fed patch antenna based on the proposed fabrication approach, is presented. By means of nonlinear/electromagnetic co-design, the antenna is directly matched to the rectifier. A 30-dB power range starting from -20 dBm is considered. Direct matching allows to get rid of a dedicated matching network and its associated losses, resulting in a slight efficiency increase and a significant reduction of the overall dimensions. Finally, the 3-Dprinted prototype is presented: the overall rectenna performance proves that design freedom enabled by 3-D printing paves the way to the use of low-cost flexible dielectric materials, even with poor electromagnetic properties, to realize wearable battery-free wireless nodes

Microwave Devices for Wearable Sensors and IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm is currently highly demanded in multiple scenarios and in particular plays an important role in solving medical-related challenges. RF and microwave technologies, coupled with wireless energy transfer, are interesting candidates because of their inherent contactless spectrometric capabilities and for the wireless transmission of sensing data. This article reviews some recent achievements in the field of wearable sensors, highlighting the benefits that these solutions introduce in operative contexts, such as indoor localization and microwave sensing. Wireless power transfer is an essential requirement to be fulfilled to allow these sensors to be not only wearable but also compact and lightweight while avoiding bulky batteries. Flexible materials and 3D printing polymers, as well as daily garments, are widely exploited within the presented solutions, allowing comfort and wearability without renouncing the robustness and reliability of the built-in wearable sensor

An all-in-one dual band blade antenna for ads-b and 5g communications in uav assisted wireless networks

This paper is aimed at the characterization and manufacturing of an SMA coaxial fed com-pact blade antenna with dual frequency characteristics for broadband applications on board of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs). This antenna is linearly polarized, and it combines the benefits of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and 5th Generation (5G) communications in one single element, covering both the 1.030–1.090 GHz and the 3.4–3.8 GHz bands thanks to a bent side and a ‘C’ shaped slot within the radiation element. Starting from the simulation outcomes on an ideal ground plane, the results are here extended to a bent ground plane and on two UAV com-mercial CAD models. Details of manufacturing of the antenna in both aluminium and FR-4 substrate materials are presented. The comparison between measurements and simulations is discussed in terms of return loss, bandwidth, gain, and radiation pattern. Results show an antenna with a low profile and a simple structure that can be employed in various wideband communication systems, suiting future UAV assisted 5G networks while being perfectly compliant with forthcoming ADS-B based Detect-And-Avoid (DAA) technologies in Unmanned Aerial Traffic Management (UTM)

A canine gait analysis protocol for back movement assessment in german shepherd dogs

Objective-To design and test a motion analysis protocol for the gait analysis of adult German Shepherd (GS) dogs with a focus in the analyses of their back movements. Animals-Eight clinically healthy adult large-sized GS dogs (age, 4 ± 1.3 years; weight, 38.8 ± 4.2 kg). Procedures-A six-camera stereo-photogrammetric system and two force platforms were used for data acquisition. Experimental acquisition sessions consisted of static and gait trials. During gait trials, each dog walked along a 6 m long walkway at self-selected speed and a total of six gait cycles were recorded. Results-Grand mean and standard deviation of ground reaction forces of fore and hind limbs are reported. Spatial-temporal parameters averaged over gait cycles and subjects, their mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variance are analyzed. Joint kinematics for the hip, stifle and tarsal joints and their average range of motion (ROM) values, and their 95% Confidence Interval (CI) values of kinematics curves are reported. Conclusions and Clinical Relevance-This study provides normative data of healthy GS dogs to form a preliminary basis in the analysis of the spatial-temporal parameters, kinematics and kinetics during quadrupedal stance posture and gait. Also, a new back movement protocol enabling a multi-segment back model is provided. Results show that the proposed gait analysis protocol may become a useful and objective tool for the evaluation of canine treatment with special focus on the back movement

Scoring pleurisy in slaughtered pigs using convolutional neural networks

Diseases of the respiratory system are known to negatively impact the profitability of the pig industry, worldwide. Considering the relatively short lifespan of pigs, lesions can be still evident at slaughter, where they can be usefully recorded and scored. Therefore, the slaughterhouse represents a key check-point to assess the health status of pigs, providing unique and valuable feedback to the farm, as well as an important source of data for epidemiological studies. Although relevant, scoring lesions in slaughtered pigs represents a very time-consuming and costly activity, thus making difficult their systematic recording. The present study has been carried out to train a convolutional neural network-based system to automatically score pleurisy in slaughtered pigs. The automation of such a process would be extremely helpful to enable a systematic examination of all slaughtered livestock. Overall, our data indicate that the proposed system is well able to differentiate half carcasses affected with pleurisy from healthy ones, with an overall accuracy of 85.5%. The system was better able to recognize severely affected half carcasses as compared with those showing less severe lesions. The training of convolutional neural networks to identify and score pneumonia, on the one hand, and the achievement of trials in large capacity slaughterhouses, on the other, represent the natural pursuance of the present study. As a result, convolutional neural network-based technologies could provide a fast and cheap tool to systematically record lesions in slaughtered pigs, thus supplying an enormous amount of useful data to all stakeholders in the pig industry

Ripening effect on the concentration of polyfunctional thiol precursors in 'Gew\ufcrztraminer

The effect of ripeness on the concentration of polyfunctional thiol precursors was investigated in 'Gew\ufcrztraminer' juices in two vintages characterised by very different climate conditions. An incremental trend of glutathionyl-3-mercaptohexan-1-ol and cysteinyl-3-mercaptohexan-1-ol during ripening was observed. The increase in the last phase of maturation was noticeable in both vintages. The concentration of 4-S-glutathionyl-4-methylpentan-2-one and 4-S-cysteinyl-4-methylpentan-2-one was confirmed to be low in 'Gew\ufcrztraminer', although the latter was found at quantifiable levels in a couple of samples. The management of the harvest date appears to be highly important in order to exploit the potential grapefruit-like note related to polyfunctional thiols of little aromatic 'Gew\ufcrztraminer' wines, particularly in case of challenging vintage years