Microwave tomography enhanced GPR surveys in Centaur's Domus, Regio VI of Pompeii, Italy

The archaeological area of Pompeii (Naples, Italy) is worldwide known as one of the most remarkable examples of a Roman Empire town, but its origins are prior to the Roman age and there is a huge archeological interest in discovering the history of the forma urbis. With respect to this framework, the paper presents results achieved by Microwave Tomography enhanced Ground Penetrating Radar surveys carried out in the Centaur's Domus - Regio VI, one of the most ancient housing area of Pompeii. The GPR prospections aimed at addressing and driving the archeological excavation campaign performed in this area in October 2010. The results of the stratigraphic assays are herein taken into account to assess the reliability of the achieved tomographic images

Incidence and management of early postoperative complications in lamellar corneal transplantation.

PurposeTo provide a comprehensive review of the incidence, risk factors, and management of early complications after deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (DALK), Descemet stripping automated keratoplasty (DSAEK), and Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK).MethodsA literature review of complications, that can occur from the time of the transplant up to 1 month after the transplant procedure, was conducted. Case reports and case series were included in the review.ResultsComplications in the earliest postoperative days following anterior and posterior lamellar keratoplasty have shown to affect graft survival. These complications include, but are not limited to, double anterior chamber, sclerokeratitis endothelial graft detachment, acute glaucoma, fluid misdirection syndrome, donor-transmitted and recurrent infection, and Uretts-Zavalia syndrome.ConclusionIt is essential for surgeons and clinicians to not only be aware of these complications but also know how to manage them to minimize their impact on long-term transplant survival and visual outcomes

Surfing the web during pandemic flu: availability of World Health Organization recommendations on prevention

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>People often search for information on influenza A(H1N1)v prevention on the web. The extent to which information found on the Internet is consistent with recommendations issued by the World Health Organization is unknown.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a search for "swine flu" accessing 3 of the most popular search engines through different proxy servers located in 4 English-speaking countries (Australia, Canada, UK, USA). We explored each site resulting from the searches, up to 4 clicks starting from the search engine page, analyzing availability of World Health Organization recommendations for swine flu prevention.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Information on hand cleaning was reported on 79% of the 147 websites analyzed; staying home when sick was reported on 77.5% of the websites; disposing tissues after sneezing on 75.5% of the websites. Availability of other recommendations was lower. The probability of finding preventative recommendations consistent with World Health Organization varied by country, type of website, and search engine.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Despite media coverage on H1N1 influenza, relevant information for prevention is not easily found on the web. Strategies to improve information delivery to the general public through this channel should be improved.</p

New Constraints on the Evolution of the Inner Northern Apennines by K-Ar Dating of Late Miocene-Early Pliocene Compression on the Island of Elba, Italy

The Northern Apennines (NA) orogenic wedge formed during Oligocene-Miocene convergence and westward subduction of Adria beneath the European Plate. Extension ensued in the Mid-Late Miocene in response to Adria roll-back, causing opening of the back-arc Northern Tyrrhenian Sea. Whether extension continues uninterrupted since the Mid-Late Miocene or it was punctuated by short-lived compressional events, remains, however, uncertain. We used the K-Ar method to date a set of brittle-ductile and brittle deformation zones from the Island of Elba to contribute to this debate. We dated the low-angle Zuccale Fault (ZF), the Capo Norsi-Monte Arco Thrust (CN-MAT), and the Calanchiole Shear Zone (CSZ). The CN-MAT and CSZ are moderately west dipping, top-to-the-east thrusts in the immediate footwall of the ZF. The CSZ slipped 6.14&nbsp;±&nbsp;0.64&nbsp;Ma (&lt;0.1&nbsp;μm fraction) and the CN-MAT 4.90&nbsp;±&nbsp;0.27&nbsp;Ma ago (&lt;0.4&nbsp;μm fraction). The ZF, although cutting the two other faults, yielded an older age of 7.58&nbsp;±&nbsp;0.11&nbsp;Ma (&lt;0.1&nbsp;μm fraction). The ZF gouge, however, contains an illitic detrital contaminant from the Paleozoic age flysch deformed in its hanging wall and the age thus is a maximum faulting age. Removal of ~1% of a 300-Ma-old contaminant brings the ZF faulting age to &lt;4.90&nbsp;Ma. Our results provide the first direct dating of brittle deformation in the Apennines, constraining Late Miocene-Early Pliocene regional compression. They call for a refinement of current NA geodynamic models in the framework of the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea extension

MALAT1 and HOTAIR long non-coding RNAs play opposite role in estrogen-mediated transcriptional regulation in prostate cancer cells

In the complex network of nuclear hormone receptors, the long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as critical determinants of hormone action. Here we investigated the involvement of selected cancer-associated lncRNAs in Estrogen Receptor (ER) signaling. Prior studies by Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) Sequencing showed that in prostate cancer cells ERs form a complex with the endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) and that in turn these complexes associate with chromatin in an estrogen-dependent fashion. Among these associations (peaks) we focused our attention on those proximal to the regulatory region of HOTAIR and MALAT1. These transcripts appeared regulated by estrogens and able to control ERs function by interacting with ER\u3b1/ER\u3b2 as indicated by RNA-ChIP. Further studies performed by ChIRP revealed that in unstimulated condition, HOTAIR and MALAT1 were present on pS2, hTERT and HOTAIR promoters at the ERE/eNOS peaks. Interestingly, upon treatment with17\u3b2-estradiol HOTAIR recruitment to chromatin increased significantly while that of MALAT1 was reduced, suggesting an opposite regulation and function for these lncRNAs. Similar results were obtained in cells and in an ex vivo prostate organotypic slice cultures. Overall, our data provide evidence of a crosstalk between lncRNAs, estrogens and estrogen receptors in prostate cancer with important consequences on gene expression regulatio

Differential diagnosis of neurodegenerative dementias with the explainable MRI based machine learning algorithm MUQUBIA

Biomarker-based differential diagnosis of the most common forms of dementia is becoming increasingly important. Machine learning (ML) may be able to address this challenge. The aim of this study was to develop and interpret a ML algorithm capable of differentiating Alzheimer’s dementia, frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies and cognitively normal control subjects based on sociodemographic, clinical, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) variables. 506 subjects from 5 databases were included. MRI images were processed with FreeSurfer, LPA, and TRACULA to obtain brain volumes and thicknesses, white matter lesions and diffusion metrics. MRI metrics were used in conjunction with clinical and demographic data to perform differential diagnosis based on a Support Vector Machine model called MUQUBIA (Multimodal Quantification of Brain whIte matter biomArkers). Age, gender, Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) Dementia Staging Instrument, and 19 imaging features formed the best set of discriminative features. The predictive model performed with an overall Area Under the Curve of 98%, high overall precision (88%), recall (88%), and F1 scores (88%) in the test group, and good Label Ranking Average Precision score (0.95) in a subset of neuropathologically assessed patients. The results of MUQUBIA were explained by the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) method. The MUQUBIA algorithm successfully classified various dementias with good performance using cost-effective clinical and MRI information, and with independent validation, has the potential to assist physicians in their clinical diagnosis

Lopinavir/Ritonavir and Darunavir/Cobicistat in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: Findings From the Multicenter Italian CORIST Study

Background: Protease inhibitors have been considered as possible therapeutic agents for COVID-19 patients. Objectives: To describe the association between lopinavir/ritonavir (LPV/r) or darunavir/cobicistat (DRV/c) use and in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 patients. Study Design: Multicenter observational study of COVID-19 patients admitted in 33 Italian hospitals. Medications, preexisting conditions, clinical measures, and outcomes were extracted from medical records. Patients were retrospectively divided in three groups, according to use of LPV/r, DRV/c or none of them. Primary outcome in a time-to event analysis was death. We used Cox proportional-hazards models with inverse probability of treatment weighting by multinomial propensity scores. Results: Out of 3,451 patients, 33.3% LPV/r and 13.9% received DRV/c. Patients receiving LPV/r or DRV/c were more likely younger, men, had higher C-reactive protein levels while less likely had hypertension, cardiovascular, pulmonary or kidney disease. After adjustment for propensity scores, LPV/r use was not associated with mortality (HR = 0.94, 95% CI 0.78 to 1.13), whereas treatment with DRV/c was associated with a higher death risk (HR = 1.89, 1.53 to 2.34, E-value = 2.43). This increased risk was more marked in women, in elderly, in patients with higher severity of COVID-19 and in patients receiving other COVID-19 drugs. Conclusions: In a large cohort of Italian patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in a real-life setting, the use of LPV/r treatment did not change death rate, while DRV/c was associated with increased mortality. Within the limits of an observational study, these data do not support the use of LPV/r or DRV/c in COVID-19 patients

Differential diagnosis of neurodegenerative dementias with the explainable MRI based machine learning algorithm MUQUBIA

Biomarker-based differential diagnosis of the most common forms of dementia is becoming increasingly important. Machine learning (ML) may be able to address this challenge. The aim of this study was to develop and interpret a ML algorithm capable of differentiating Alzheimer's dementia, frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies and cognitively normal control subjects based on sociodemographic, clinical, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) variables. 506 subjects from 5 databases were included. MRI images were processed with FreeSurfer, LPA, and TRACULA to obtain brain volumes and thicknesses, white matter lesions and diffusion metrics. MRI metrics were used in conjunction with clinical and demographic data to perform differential diagnosis based on a Support Vector Machine model called MUQUBIA (Multimodal Quantification of Brain whIte matter biomArkers). Age, gender, Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) Dementia Staging Instrument, and 19 imaging features formed the best set of discriminative features. The predictive model performed with an overall Area Under the Curve of 98%, high overall precision (88%), recall (88%), and F1 scores (88%) in the test group, and good Label Ranking Average Precision score (0.95) in a subset of neuropathologically assessed patients. The results of MUQUBIA were explained by the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) method. The MUQUBIA algorithm successfully classified various dementias with good performance using cost-effective clinical and MRI information, and with independent validation, has the potential to assist physicians in their clinical diagnosis