Pulses for healthy and sustainable food systems: The effect of origin on market price

Pulses are widely acknowledged for their high nutritional value due to high protein content, low content in calories, and low glycemic index; they are a good alternative to animal proteins thus offering a considerable number of social, environmental, and health benefits. Despite pulses being widely acknowledged as healthy and sustainable food, in mainly European countries, consumption is growing but still lower than the recommended level, production is unprofitable in comparison to the current market prices level, and a reduction in harvested area has led to a strong dependence on import for pulses supply. Pulses are particularly fitting to the feature of local food because they can be suitably grown in any context, even in the most complex areas, and consumer interest and awareness of food origin has strongly increased in recent years. Lentils were selected as a case study in this paper that aims to define which features are effective on market price and, in particular, the role of origin declaration on label plays in defining the market price and how the origin attributes may enhance market price and farms competitiveness. The methodological tool for this investigation is the hedonic price model, useful to explain the effects of attributes of pulses affecting the market price. Results contribute to a better understanding of the pulse market, emphasizing that the “origin declaration” on label may have a positive effect on market price

Determining the optimal piecewise constant approximation for the nonhomogeneous Poisson process rate of Emergency Department patient arrivals

Modeling the arrival process to an Emergency Department (ED) is the first step of all studies dealing with the patient flow within the ED. Many of them focus on the increasing phenomenon of ED overcrowding, which is afflicting hospitals all over the world. Since Discrete Event Simulation models are often adopted to assess solutions for reducing the impact of this problem, proper nonstationary processes are taken into account to reproduce time–dependent arrivals. Accordingly, an accurate estimation of the unknown arrival rate is required to guarantee the reliability of results. In this work, an integer nonlinear black–box optimization problem is solved to determine the best piecewise constant approximation of the time-varying arrival rate function, by finding the optimal partition of the 24 h into a suitable number of not equally spaced intervals. The black-box constraints of the optimization problem make the feasible solutions satisfy proper statistical hypotheses; these ensure the validity of the nonhomogeneous Poisson assumption about the arrival process, commonly adopted in the literature, and prevent mixing overdispersed data for model estimation. The cost function of the optimization problem includes a fit error term for the solution accuracy and a penalty term to select an adequate degree of regularity of the optimal solution. To show the effectiveness of this methodology, real data from one of the largest Italian hospital EDs are used

Phytochemical data parallel morpho-colorimetric variation in Polygala flavescens DC

Phytochemical data, integrated with other sources of information, represent a valuable tool helping to solve different kinds of taxonomic problems in plant systematics. In the present study, a comparative investigation, in order to clarify the systematic relationships of the three subspecies currently recognized within the Italian endemic Polygala flavescens, was carried out. Preliminarily, a morphometric and colorimetric analysis, in order to test the degree of morphological distinctiveness among the taxa, was performed. Then, a phytochemical analysis based both on volatile and non-volatile compounds was obtained. Concerning the morpho-colorimetric analysis, our results confirm most of the characters as useful to discriminate the three subspecies. In addition, some volatile and non-volatile compounds are good taxonomic markers. Morpho-colorimetric variation is clearly paralleled by phytochemical results, confirming the value of this kind of data to infer relationships in plant systematics. Based on these results, we support a taxonomic treatment at subspecific level for the involved taxa. Finally, based on the most significant morphological characters, a revision of herbarium specimens allowed to redefine the distribution pattern of the three subspecies. Accordingly, the range of P. flavescens subsp. maremmana is limited to Mt. Argentario (southern Tuscany) only. A key is also reported for the identification of the three subspecies

Notch-mediated induction of N-cadherin and α 9-integrin confers higher invasive phenotype on rhabdomyosarcoma cells

Altres ajuts: This work was supported by grants from Institut Català d'Oncologia (ICO), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (RD06/0020/1021 and PI11/00740), Fundació la Marató de TV3, Asociación Española Contra el Cáncer, Fundació SMALL and Fundació A. BOSCH.Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the commonest type of soft-tissue sarcoma in children. Patients with metastatic RMS continue to have very poor prognosis. Recently, several works have demonstrated a connection between Notch pathway activation and the regulation of cell motility and invasiveness. However, the molecular mechanisms of this possible relationship remain unclear. The Notch pathway was manipulated pharmacologically and genetically. The mRNA changes were analysed by quantitative PCR and protein variations by western blot and immunofluorescence. Finally, the capabilities of RMS cells to adhere, heal a wound and invade were assessed in the presence of neuronal cadherin (N-cadherin)- and α 9-integrin-blocking antibodies. Cells treated with γ -secretase inhibitor showed lower adhesion capability and downregulation of N-cadherin and α 9-integrin. Genetic manipulation of the Notch pathway led to concomitant variations in N-cadherin and α 9-integrin. Treatment with anti-N-cadherin-blocking antibody rendered marked inhibition of cell adhesion and motility, while anti- α 9-integrin-blocking antibody exerted a remarkable effect on cell adhesion and invasiveness. Neuronal cadherin and α 9-integrin are postulated as leading actors in the association between the Notch pathway and promotion of cell adhesion, motility and invasion, pointing to these proteins and the Notch pathway itself as interesting putative targets for new molecular therapies against metastases in RMS

The dog as an animal model for bladder and urethral urothelial carcinoma: comparative epidemiology and histology

Despite the recent approval of several novel agents for patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC), survival in this setting remains poor. As such, continued investigation into novel therapeutic options remains warranted. Pre clinical development of novel treatments requires an animal model that accurately simulates the disease in humans. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the dog as an animal model for human UC. A total of 260 cases of spontaneous, untreated canine primary urethral and urinary bladder UC, were epide¬miologically and histologically assessed and classified based on the current 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) tumor classification system. Canine data was compared with human data available from scientific literature. The mean age of dogs diagnosed with UC was 10.22 years (range, 4 15 years), which is equivalent to 60 70 human years. The results revealed a high association between UC diagnosis with the female sex [odds ratio (OR) 3.51; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.57 4.79; P<0.001], surgical neutering (OR 4.57; 95% CI 1.87 11.12; P<0.001) and breed (OR 15.11 for Scottish terriers; 95% CI 8.99 25.41; P<0.001). Based on the 2016 WHO tumor (T), node and metastasis staging system, the primary tumors were characterized as T1 (38%), T2a (28%), T2b (13%) and T3 (22%). Non papillary, flat subgross tumor growth was strongly associated with muscle invasion (OR 31.00; P<0.001). Irrespective of subgross growth pattern, all assessable tumors were invading beyond the basement membrane compatible with infiltrating UC. Conventional, not further classifiable infiltrating UC was the most common type of tumor (90%), followed by UC with divergent, squamous and/or glandular differentiation (6%). Seven out of the 260 (2.8%) cases were classified as non urothelial based on their histological morphology. These cases included 5 (2%) squamous cell carci¬nomas, 1 (0.4%) adenocarcinoma and 1 (0.4%) neuroendocrine tumor. The 2 most striking common features of canine and human UC included high sex predilection and histological tumor appearance. The results support the suitability of the dog as an animal model for UC and confirm that dogs also spontaneously develop rare UC subtypes and bladder tumors, including plasmacytoid UC and neuroendocrine tumor, which are herein described for the first time in a non experimental animal species

Response of microchannel plates to single particles and to electromagnetic showers

We report on the response of microchannel plates (MCPs) to single relativistic particles and to electromagnetic showers. Particle detection by means of secondary emission of electrons at the MCP surface has long been proposed and is used extensively in ion time-of-flight mass spectrometers. What has not been investigated in depth is their use to detect the ionizing component of showers. The time resolution of MCPs exceeds anything that has been previously used in calorimeters and, if exploited effectively, could aid in the event reconstruction at high luminosity colliders. Several prototypes of photodetectors with the amplification stage based on MCPs were exposed to cosmic rays and to 491 MeV electrons at the INFN-LNF Beam-Test Facility. The time resolution and the efficiency of the MCPs are measured as a function of the particle multiplicity, and the results used to model the response to high-energy showers.Comment: Paper submitted to NIM