Extra-virgin olive oil phenols block cell cycle progression and modulate chemotherapeutic toxicity in bladder cancer cells

Epidemiological data indicate that the daily consumption of extra‑virgin olive oil (EVOO), a common dietary habit of the Mediterranean area, lowers the incidence of certain types of cancer, in particular bladder neoplasm. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antiproliferative activity of polyphenols extracted from EVOO on bladder cancer (BCa), and to clarify the biological mechanisms that trigger cell death. Furthermore, we also evaluated the ability of low doses of extra‑virgin olive oil extract (EVOOE) to modulate the in vitro activity of paclitaxel or mitomycin, two antineoplastic drugs used in the management of different types of cancer. Our results showed that EVOOE significantly inhibited the proliferation and clonogenic ability of T24 and 5637 BCa cells in a dose‑dependent manner. Furthermore, cell cycle analysis after EVOOE treatment showed a marked growth arrest prior to mitosis in the G2/M phase for both cell lines, with the subsequent induction of apoptosis only in the T24 cells. Notably, simultaneous treatment of mitomycin C and EVOOE reduced the drug cytotoxicity due to inhibition of ROS production. Conversely, the co‑treatment of T24 cells with paclitaxel and the polyphenol extract strongly increased the apoptotic cell death at each tested concentration compared to paclitaxel alone. Our results support the epidemiological evidence indicating that olive oil consumption exerts health benefits and may represent a starting point for the development of new anticancer strategies

Non-visible penetrating brain trauma: a case report

Objective: One of the most frequent causes of death and acquired disability in the pediatric population is the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). TBI is secondary to falls, road traffic and vehicle collisions, child abuse and assaults. Penetrating brain injury is a severe form of traumatic brain injury. Blunt head injury is more frequent than TBI in children, but the second one carries a poor prognosis and a worse outcomes. Case Presentation: We report a pediatric case of penetrating craniofacial trauma, caused by a pencil in to the eye, and the successful of multidisciplinary management. Conclusion: Traumatic head injuries in children are frequently seen in the emergency ward, but the penetrating head injuries are unusual in young children. This case shows the importance of the 'first golden hour' after head trauma. The collaboration between team members, added to a promptly and invasive strategy, allowed to reduce neurological sequelae

Study of an emergency situation using 2D and 3D simulation models

Safety in motorway tunnels has become a critical issue in the last years, especially after the accident happened in 1999 inside the Mont Blanc tunnel, causing 39 deaths and several dozens of intoxications and wounded people. After this tragic event, the European Union imposed stricter regulations and procedures for emergency situations inside road tunnels longer than 1000 m. According to this situation, the authors propose the use of M&S (Modeling and Simulation) in order to manage a tunnel evacuation after a fire exploding in consequence to an accident, taking into account a series of significant factors like the road signs position (new criteria have been introduced with new regulation), but also human factors which significantly affect the procedure outcome. First a 2-D simulation model has been developed using Java™ Software, in which the user can analyze the behavior of the people escaping and the dynamics of the fire exploded and, consequently, assess the effectiveness of all the emergency procedures and infrastructures. In particular, regarding the state variables related to the human behavior, the model takes into account the main aspects of PECS (Physical Emotional Cognitive Social) reference models, in which physical, emotional, cognitive and social factors have to be studied. The model presented in this work is in fact quite similar to the one described by (Schmidt, 2000), called “Adam’s World” where Adam, a primitive man, lives in an environment having food sources where he can replenish his energy level, but also traps and danger points to be avoided in order not to consume his energy faster. The aim of the two models is the same: first of all preserve life and health, but the great difference between Schmidt’s model and the authors’ one is that in Adam’s World the social aspect is missing (Adam live alone in his world), while in the evacuation model social aspects can significantly affect the individual’s decisions. Upstream of the evacuation model, a weighted analysis needs to be considered, in fact the individual has to operate different choices considering several aspects, like health or goods preservation, familiar aspects, panic and so on. For this reason a suitable methodology has been detected: the Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP), implemented by the American mathematician Thomas Saaty, which introduced this technique for Multi-Criteria Analysis. After the considerations on the individuals behavior based on the results of the analysis, the evacuation model and its results are described and analyzed in the following sections and, in the final part of the paper, a description of a 3-D tunnel model devoted to study in particular smoke dynamics is provided, thus it is possible to evaluate the impact of the smoke on the flow of the people escaping from the tunnel

Simultaneous sampling of vapor and particle-phase carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on functionalized glass fiber filters

The sampling of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmosphere is often performed on filters, which retain only aerosol particles, disregarding the vapor fraction; after the filter, an adsorbent (e.g., polyurethane foam, PUF, or styrene/divinylbenzene, XAD) is sometimes used for sampling vapors not retained from the filter. However, the use of an adsorbent may lead to many disadvantages: contaminations, analysis time and costs, and size problems when developing automated or personal samplers. In this work, a functionalized glass fiber filter for the simultaneous sampling of aerosol particles and vapor fraction is presented for the sampling of PAHs in air. A low sampling efficiency was observed for 3 ring PAHs, but all carcinogenic PAHs (according to IARC) were totally retained on functionalized filters. On the other hand, a comparison with normal filter sampling was performed, and results obtained confirm that > 10% of benzo(a)pyrene can be lost from normal filters. Together with size reduction, another advantage of the functionalized filter is an enhancement in the extraction and purification recovery. © Taiwan Association for Aerosol Research

Ontology-based data integration in EPNet: Production and distribution of food during the Roman Empire

Semantic technologies are rapidly changing the historical research. Over the last decades, an immense amount of new quantifiable data have been accumulated, and made available in interchangeable formats, in social sciences and humanities, opening up new possibilities for solving old questions and posing new ones. This paper introduces a framework that eases the access of scholars to historical and cultural data about food production and commercial trade system during the Roman Empire, distributed across different data sources. The proposed approach relies on the Ontology-Based Data Access (OBDA) paradigm, where the different datasets are virtually integrated by a conceptual layer (an ontology) that provides to the user a clear point of access and a unified and unambiguous conceptual view