Predicting right-wing authoritarianism via personality and dangerous world beliefs: Direct, indirect, and interactive effects.

In an Italian sample (N=483, 78.23% women, mean age = 27.61 years old), we used structural equation modeling with latent variables and interactions to analyze the direct, indirect, and interactive effects exerted on right-wing authoritarianism by the Big Five factors of personality and by dangerous world beliefs. Openness, Neuroticism, and Conscientiousness exerted direct effects on right-wing authoritarianism; the first two relationships were partially mediated by dangerous world beliefs. Most importantly, the relationship between dangerous world beliefs and right-wing authoritarianism was moderated by Openness: dangerous world beliefs significantly influenced right-wing authoritarianism solely for participants high in Openness. Limitations and possible developments of this research are discussed. \ua9 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Mitochondrion at the Crossroad Between Nutrients and Epigenome.

Epigenetic profile is the link between the regulation of nuclear gene expression and the environment. The most important factors capable of significantly affecting the cellular environment are the amount and quality of nutrients available. Mitochondria are both involved in the production of some of the molecules capable of directly affecting the epigenome and have a critical role in the conversion of nutrients into usable energy. Carbohydrate and fats are converted into ATP, acetyl-CoA, SAM, and NADH. These high-energy substrates are, in turn, capable of driving the epigenetic profile. We describe substances capable of affecting this mechanism. On the other hand, nutritional interventions capable of reducing calories or significantly impairing the normal Acetyl-CoA production or the SAM-SAH ratio also impact chromatin methylation and histone modification, suggesting a critical role of mitochondria on nutrient-dependent epigenetic profile

Use of near infrared spectroscopy for assessment of beef quality traits

Chemical and physical traits and fatty acid composition of meat samples from 148 Piemontese beef samples were predicted by near infrared spectroscopy. Coefficients of determination in calibration (R2) ranged between 0.44 and 0.99 for chemical composition and between 0.02 and 0.98 for fatty acid (FA) profile, being in general more accurate for the major FA. The calibration results gave inaccurate prediction for cholesterol and collagen content and for most physical traits, such as Warner-Bratzler shear force, cooking loss, drip loss, colour (L, a, b) and pH

Longevity: Lesson from model organisms

Research on longevity and healthy aging promises to increase our lifespan and decrease the burden of degenerative diseases with important social and economic effects. Many aging theories have been proposed, and important aging pathways have been discovered. Model organisms have had a crucial role in this process because of their short lifespan, cheap maintenance, and manipulation possibilities. Yeasts, worms, fruit flies, or mammalian models such as mice, monkeys, and recently, dogs, have helped shed light on aging processes. Genes and molecular mechanisms that were found to be critical in simple eukaryotic cells and species have been confirmed in humans mainly by the functional analysis of mammalian orthologues. Here, we review conserved aging mechanisms discovered in different model systems that are implicated in human longevity as well and that could be the target of anti-aging interventions in human

mtDNA analysis of the human remains buried in the sarcophagus of Federico II

The sarcophagus containing the remains of Federico II, located in the Cathedral of Palermo (Sicily, Italy), was opened on 1998 to perform a multidisciplinary survey [1]. Next to the remains of Federico II and in close contact with them were laying two other skeletons belonging, according to historical records, to Pietro II di Aragona and to an anonymous person (“The Third Individual”), probably a woman. The bones appeared severely deteriorated. Chemical analysis performed on bone samples excluded that the bodies underwent some kind of embalming process. The analysis of mtDNA from bone samples taken from the three skeletons was successful in only one of the two labs involved. The HVR1-mtDNA sequence (region: from nt 16,035 to nt 16,395), obtained from the bone samples of Federico II and “The Third Individual” appear identical but bear double peaks at the same nucleotide positions, suggesting mixing (i.e. contamination) of different mtDNA types. The HVR1 sequence obtained from the bone sample of Pietro II di Aragona does not present double peaks and differ from the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) at six nucleotide positions. Cloning experiment of the Federico II amplicon demonstrated that the mixed mtDNA types are only two: one identical to CRS, the other identical to the sequence of Pietro II di Aragona. A reconstruction of these data are proposed in the Discussion. Due to the problematic context in which this study was carried out (mixed and deteriorated biological material, failure to replicate results in two different labs), our results and reconstruction can only be offered on a tentative basis. It is hoped that the data presented in this study will reveal useful, for future comparison, if further molecular genetics research will be carried out on the royal dynasties that ruled Sicily in the early centuries of the past millennium

THE BEHAVE APPLICATION: AN EVIDENCE-BASED TOOL TO MANAGE SOCIAL EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOURAL DIFFICULTIES

Social Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (SEBD) are a persistent and multiple manifestation of maladaptive behaviours which interfere with the students’ learning, social functioning and development and/or that of their peers. They may become apparent through withdrawn, passive, aggressive or self-injurious tendencies. The prevalence of these disorders is 2-16% of the general population. Children with SEBD, diagnosed or not, are likely to live in social isolation, to receive a poor education, and they risk becoming deviant teenagers, or unemployed adults. A way to approach SEBD with consistent level of educational success is to equip teachers with proper training on practical and proven classroom management strategies, but also with evidence-based tools that can help them to effectively control difficult behaviours with confidence and competence. This contribution presents the web-based BEHAVE application aimed to ease the way for teachers to apply behavioural evidence-based interventions at school. The paper describes the main features of the BEHAVE application: the definition of the behaviour to be observed, the creation and selection of appropriate measures, the collection of behavioural data, and the statistical analysis to evaluate the direction and the power of the effect of the carried-out intervention

THE BASE SYSTEM: A SCHOOL-WIDE POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR SUPPORT TOOL TO FACILITATE EVIDENCE-BASED DIGITAL INTERVENTION PRACTICES

The Positive Behaviour Intervention and Support system is a framework aimed to introduce a change at school-wide level. It promotes a disciplinary system change process, from a reactive punishment- based strategies of specific student misbehaviours to a proactive system, where different behavioural principles such as the modelling and reinforcement of positive prosocial students’ behaviours are applied to improve school values and to create a positive climate. This paper presents the Behavioural Assessment to improve School Environment (BASE) system and the BASE repository. The BASE system supports evidence-based digital intervention practices for stimulating the academic, social, emotional, and behavioural competencies of all students. The BASE repository is a collection of good practices, tools, and instructional contents. Both of the tools are able to support and facilitate, through the use of mobile devices and a web-based responsive system, different prevention and instructional practices at the three-tiers PBS model. At the first level of prevention (Tier 1) the system allows to the school PBS team to define the Expectation Matrix, a set of positive behaviours grouped according to predefined school values and locations. Moreover, the PBS team members are able to define the list of problem behaviours, classifying them in minor and major. The matrix and the list of minor and major problem behaviours are at the base of the development of a screening tool for identifying behavioural risk problems, the Positive Office Referral and the Office Disciplinary Referral tools. At the target prevention level (Tier 2) the BASE application provides the Check-in/Check-out (CICO) tool, as PBIS recommends. It is addressed to a targeted group of students, resulted unresponsive to the Tier I, and implements the practice of ‘Positive reinforcement contingent on meeting behavioural goals’ throughout a reward system. At the intensive prevention level (Tier 3) the system allows users to perform Functional Behaviour Assessment for students considered unresponsive to Tier I and II and to create customized measurement tools for designing single case studies. The measure can be assigned to the observers able to collect data and organize them in phases. A TAU analysis algorithm is applied to the gathered data for showing the effectiveness of intervention. In the BASE application, each student can access to the system with personal credentials and to visualize his significant progresses into a smart dashboard. The BASE repository represents a hub for digital resources collection concerning both theoretical and methodological aspects of the PBIS approach. The Internet users interested to know the European experience of the involved partner schools, and to enlarge their knowledge about the principles to implement the PBIS in their own school, can find a first set of multimedia contents, webinars, collection of good practices gathered during the lifespan of the European Erasmus+ BASE project. The repository facilitates the finding of high-quality contents and represents a learning corner and an important knowledge repository for teachers and health professionals to understand and apply this approach

Association between IGF-1 levels ranges and all-cause mortality: A meta-analysis

The association between IGF-1 levels and mortality in humans is complex with low levels being associated with both low and high mortality. The present meta-analysis investigates this complex relationship between IGF-1 and all-cause mortality in prospective cohort studies. A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Cochrane Library up to September 2019. Published studies were eligible for the meta-analysis if they had a prospective cohort design, a hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for two or more categories of IGF-1 and were conducted among adults. A random-effects model with a restricted maximum likelihood heterogeneity variance estimator was used to find combined HRs for all-cause mortality. Nineteen studies involving 30,876 participants were included. Meta-analysis of the 19 eligible studies showed that with respect to the low IGF-1 category, higher IGF-1 was not associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality (HR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.68–1.05). Dose–response analysis revealed a U-shaped relation between IGF-1 and mortality HR. Pooled results comparing low vs. middle IGF-1 showed a significant increase of all-cause mortality (HR = 1.33, 95% CI = 1.14–1.57), as well as comparing high vs. middle IGF-1 categories (HR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.06–1.44). Finally, we provide data on the association between IGF-1 levels and the intake of proteins, carbohydrates, certain vitamins/minerals, and specific foods. Both high and low levels of IGF-1 increase mortality risk, with a specific 120–160 ng/ml range being associated with the lowest mortality. These findings can explain the apparent controversy related to the association between IGF-1 levels and mortality