The use of Rough Set and Spatial Statistic in evaluating the Periurban Fringe

The distinction among urban, peri-urban and rural areas inside a territory represents a classical example of uncertainty in land classification. The transition among the three classes is not much clear and can be described with Sorites Paradox, considering the residential buildings and the settlements. Peri-urban fringe can be considered as a transition zone between urban and rural areas, as an area with its own intrinsic organic rules, as a built area without formal organisation or as an abandoned rural area contiguous to urban centres. In any case, concepts as density of buildings, services and infrastructures or the degree of rural, residential and industrial activities, will lead to uncertainty in defining classes, due to the uncertainty in combining some properties. One of the methods which can be utilized is the rough sets theory, which represents a different mathematical approach to uncertainty capturing the indiscernibility. The definition of a set is connected to information knowledge and perception about phenomena. Some phenomena can be classified only in the context of the information available about them. Two different phenomena can be indiscernible in some contexts and classified in the same way (Pawlak 83). The rough sets approach to data analysis hinges on two basic concepts, the lower approximation which considers all the elements that doubtlessly belong to the class, and the upper approximation which includes all the elements that possibly belong to the class. The rough sets theory furthermore takes into account only properties which are independent. This approach has been tested in the case of study of Potenza Province. This area, located in Southern Italy, is particularly suitable to the application of this theory, because it includes 100 municipalities with different number of inhabitants, quantity of services and distance from the main road infrastructures.

Bleomycin-induced trans lipid formation in cell membranes and in liposome models

Cell cultures of NTera-2 cells incubated with bleomycin and liposomes as biomimetic models of cell membranes were used for examining some novel aspects of drug-metal induced reactivity with unsaturated lipids under oxidative conditions. In cell cultures, bleomycin was found for the first time to cause the formation of trans fatty acids. The chemical basis of this transformation was ascertained by liposome experiments, using bleomycin-iron complexes in the presence of thiol as a reducing agent that by incubation at 37 °C gave rise to the thiyl radical-catalysed double bond isomerisation of membrane phospholipids. The effect of oxygen and reagent concentrations on the reaction outcome was studied. An interesting scenario of free radical reactivity is proposed, which can be relevant for understanding the role of membrane lipids in antitumoral treatments and drug carrier interaction.Fil: Cort, Aysegul. Akdeniz University. Faculty of Medicine; Turquía. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; ItaliaFil: Ozben, Tomris. Akdeniz University. Faculty of Medicine; TurquíaFil: Sansone, Anna. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; ItaliaFil: Barata Vallejo, Sebastian. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; Italia. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Departamento de Química Orgánica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Chatgilialoglu, Chryssostomos. Demokritos National Centre For Scientific Research; GreciaFil: Ferreri, Carla. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche; Itali

Effetti dell'impianto all'etonogestrel sul dolore pelvico, sulla qualità della vita e sull'attività sessuale in pazienti affette da endometriosi: studio multicentrico, prospettico e osservazionale

Obiettivo primario I progestinici sono impiegati con successo nel trattamento della patologia endometriosica. Il nostro studio valuta i benefici dell’utilizzo dell’impianto a Etonogestrel (ENG) sul dolore pelvico, la qualità della vita e la funzione sessuale nelle donne che richiedono una contraccezione reversibile a lungo termine e presentano cisti ovariche di probabile origine endometriosica. Materiali e metodi Abbiamo arruolato 25 donne che richiedevano una contraccezione con l'impianto al ENG affette da sintomatologia dolorosa con l’evidenza ecografica di cisti endometriosica. Alle pazienti sono stati somministrati una scala analogica (VAS score) per la valutazione della sintomatologia dolorifica (dismenorrea, dispareunia, dischezia e disuria) utilizzando un punteggio VAS (0-10), un questionario Short Form-36 per la determinazione della qualità della vita (QoL) e un questionario finalizzato alla valutazione della funzione sessuale femminile Indice (FSFI) prima di inserire l'impianto (T0) e dopo 6 (T1) e 12 mesi (T2). Risultati Abbiamo riscontrato una diminuzione significativa degli score della scala VAS nei domini della dismenorrea e dispareunia confrontando i punteggi basali con i controlli a 6 e a 12 mesi. Dopo 12 mesi il punteggio nel questionario QoL rappresentante il dolore corporeo, la salute generale, la vitalità, l’attività sociale e i domini di salute mentale sono stati significativamente migliorati. Il punteggio totale del punteggio FSFI è aumentato rispetto al basale sia a 6 che a 12 mesi. In particolare, abbiamo evidenziato un miglioramento significativo del desiderio, della soddisfazione e del dolore già a 6 mesi; il dominio dell'eccitazione è migliorato solo dopo 12 mesi. Dopo 12 mesi di trattamento non ci sono state modifiche nei diametri medi delle cisti endometriosiche ai controlli ecografici seriati. Conclusioni Gli impianti a base di etonogestrel sembrano essere in grado di ridurre il dolore pelvico, migliorare la funzione sessuale e la qualità della vita nei pazienti con cisti ovariche di presunta natura endometriosica

Lipid geometrical isomerism: from chemistry to biology and diagnostics.

Lipidomics, the discipline regarding chemical and metabolic lipid fates in living organisms, has brought about a successful innovation to lipid research. Expansion of trans lipid research can be easily foreseen in analytics, chemical mechanisms, liposome and oil technology, lipidomics, and diagnostics. Innovative fields can also include the design of molecular switches, taking advantage of the different sensitivity of trans- and cis-containing membranes to physical and chemical stimuli, as well as the determination of biological and pharmacological strategies based on the tunable molecular interactions produced by the exchange of the natural cis with the unnatural trans geometry. The presence of trans lipids in membranes also has a profound influence on temperature sensitivity as tested by insertion of a probe sensitive to the lipid environment, such as cis-parinaric acid, using accurate stopped-flow fluorescence measurements

Reinitiation of protein synthesis in Escherichia coli can be induced by mRNA cis-elements unrelated to canonical translation initiation signals

AbstractIn Eubacteria, de novo translation of some internal cistrons may be inefficient or impossible unless the 5′ neighboring cistron is also translated (translational coupling). Translation reinitiation is an extreme case of translational coupling in which translation of a message depends entirely on the presence of a nearby terminating ribosome. In this work, the characteristics of mRNA cis-elements inducing the reinitiation process in Escherichia coli have been investigated using a combinatorial approach. A number of novel translational reinitiation sequences (TRSs) were thus identified, which show a wide range of reinitiation activities fully dependent on a translational coupling event and unrelated to the presence/absence of secondary structure or mRNA stability. Moreover, some of the isolated TRSs are similar to intercistronic sequences present in the E. coli genome

Incidence of uterine rupture in second-trimester abortion with gemeprost alone compared to mifepristone and gemeprost

OBJECTIVES: To compare uterine rupture rates in women having a medical abortion receiving gemeprost alone to those receiving mifepristone plus gemeprost. STUDY DESIGN: We reviewed the records of women undergoing medical abortion at 13 0/7-23 6/7 weeks from January 2007 to December 2014 at a single center in Italy. Prior to January 2011, we used gemeprost 1 mg vaginally every 3 h up to a maximum of five doses. After January 2011, we added mifepristone 200 mg orally 24 h prior to the same gemeprost protocol. The primary outcome of the study was the incidence of uterine rupture. We compared the outcome between women receiving gemeprost alone with the combination of gemeprost and mifepristone. RESULTS: One thousand and sixty-one (58.5%) and 753 (41.5%) women underwent medical abortion in the gemeprost-alone and the gemeprost/mifepristone groups, respectively. Five (0.47%) uterine ruptures occurred in the gemeprost and four uterine ruptures occurred in the gemeprost/mifepristone groups, respectively (0.53%) (p=.89). All uterine ruptures occurred in women with prior cesarean delivery. CONCLUSIONS: We rep orted no difference in the incidence of uterine rupture between the gemeprost-alone and gemeprost and mifepristone groups. IMPLICATIONS: Uterine rupture is a rare complication of second-trimester medical abortion with gemeprost. Use of mifepristone prior to gemeprost does not affect this risk

Biomimetic Models of Radical Stress and Related Biomarkers

The biological consequences of free radical production is the central subject of a very lively scientific debate, focusing on the estimation of the type and extent of damage, as well as the efficiency of the protective and repair systems. When studying free radical based chemical mechanisms, it is very important to establish biomimetic models, which allow the experiments to be performed in a simplified environment, but suitably designed to be in strict connection with cellular conditions. The biomimetic modeling approach has been coupled with physical organic chemistry methodologies and knowledge of free radical reactivity. Molecular basis of important processes have been identified, building up molecular libraries of products concerning unsaturated lipids, sulfur-containing proteins and nucleic acids, to be developed as biomarkers. Ongoing projects in our group deal with lipidomics, genomics and proteomics of free radical stress and some examples will be described