Complete positivity and thermodynamics in a driven open quantum system

While it is well known that complete positivity guarantees the fulfilment of the second law of thermodynamics, its possible violations have never been proposed as a check of the complete positivity of a given open quantum dynamics. We hereby consider an open quantum micro-circuit, effectively describable as a two-level open quantum system, whose asymptotic current might be experimentally accessible. This latter could indeed be used to discriminate between its possible non-completely positive Redfield dynamics and a completely positive one obtained by standard weak-coupling limit techniques, at the same time verifying the fate of the second law of thermodynamics in such a context.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, LaTe

Characterizing historical transformation trajectories of the forest landscape in Rome's metropolitan area (Italy) for effective planning of sustainability goals

With the aim at developing a landscape dynamics framework for environmental planning and management and testing the effectiveness of protected areas in achieving the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations sustainability goals, we characterized the historical transformation trajectories of forest area changes from 1936 to 2010 in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital (Italy). Remote sensing-based products coupled with landscape pattern metrics and fragmentation analysis have been implemented, comparing different historical forest maps. The results show a remarkable forest area gain – from 17.6% to 25.5% – thanks to 68,299 ha of recently established forest. Statistical descriptors showed that the highest relative gain occurred in mountain zones, confirming a wide European forest recovery pattern in marginal areas from past deforestation and overexploitation. Deforestation mainly occurred in the flat and hilly areas where almost 26,000 ha of forests were lost since 1936. In summary, two main forest landscape dynamics were reconstructed: (I) the increase of forest cover fragmentation in the lowland areas; and (II) the rise in the forest area in the interior sectors of the mountain landscape, mainly within protected areas. Restoring the forest ecosystem's bioecological integrity has been highlighted as an urgent action for biodiversity conservation and carbon mitigation. In lowland areas, the study revealed the urgent need to establish new protected areas and rewilding spaces as landscape metrics are relatively below the sustainability targets for healthy forest ecosystems. The proposed framework can be used for testing the effectiveness of environmental planning and management in other forest landscapes to achieve the Agenda 2030 goals

Phytochemical and biological characterization of dry outer scales extract from Tropea red onion (Allium cepa L. var. Tropea)–A promising inhibitor of pancreatic lipase

Background: Allium cepa L. var. Tropea is typically cultivated in Calabria (Italy) and it is certified as “Cipolla Rossa di Tropea Calabria-PGI” (Tropea red onion). The use of clinically available anti-obesity drugs such as Orlistat is being gradually dismissed due to their side-effects and this has encouraged the search for alternative inhibitors of intestinal lipases such as phytochemicals showing less side-effects. In this study we aimed to evaluate for the first time the anti-obesity potential of the hydroalcoholic extract from the dry outer scales of Tropea red onion by the assesment of its capacity to inhibit pancreatic lipase. Its possible mechanism of action was also studied with planar lipid membranes (PLMs) surrogate of intestinal membranes. Methods: Specialized metabolites in the extract were determined by GC–MS, HPLC-DAD, HPLC-UV-DAD and HPLC-HRMS analyses. Inhibition of pancreatic lipase was studied in vitro against crude lipase Type II from porcine pancreas. PLMs used in the electrophysiology measurements were made up of DOPS:DOPE:POPC. Results: The extract contained quercetin-4′-O-glucoside, quercetin and quercetin-3,4′-O-diglucoside as the most abundant phenolics. Among apolar constituents, γ-sitosterol, linoleic and stearic acids were dominant. The lipase inhibitory effect of the extract had an IC50 value equal to 0.77±0.03 mg/mL (positive control, IC50 = 0.018 mg/mL). The electrophysiological study demonstrated that the extract is able to incorporate into PLMs and to form transient channel-like events Conclusions: Taken altogether, the results allow us to suggest that the hydroalcoholic extract from the dry outer scales of Tropea red onion could prevent lipid ester hydrolysis and it has a protective effect against phospholipase as found for interfacially active compounds

Neurogenic Bowel Dysfunction Changes after Osteopathic Care in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injuries: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Neurogenic bowel dysfunction (NBD) indicates bowel dysfunction due to a lack of nervous control after a central nervous system lesion. Bowel symptoms, such as difficulties with evacuation, constipation, abdominal pain and swelling, are experienced commonly among individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). Consequentially, individuals with SCI experience a general dissatisfaction with the lower perceived quality of life (QoL). Several studies have demonstrated the positive effects of manual therapies on NBD, including Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT). This study aimed to explore OMT effects on NBD in individuals with SCI compared with Manual Placebo Treatment (MPT). Methods: The study was a double-blind randomized controlled trial composed of three phases, each one lasting 30 days (i: NBD/drugs monitoring; ii: four OMT/MPT sessions; iii: NBD/drug monitoring and follow-up evaluation). Results: the NBD scale, the QoL on worries and concerns sub-questionnaire, and the perception of abdominal swelling and constipation significantly improved after treatments compared to baseline only for individuals who underwent OMT. Conclusion: These preliminary results showed positive effects of OMT on bowel function and QoL in individuals with SCI, but further studies are needed to confirm our results

Compliance of clinical microbiology laboratories with recommendations for the diagnosis of bloodstream infections

In 2014, the Italian Working Group for Infections in Critically Ill Patient of the Italian Association of Clinical Microbiologists updated the recommendations for the diagnostic workflow for bloodstream infections (BSI). Two years after publication, a nationwide survey was conducted to assess the compliance with the updated recommendations by clinical microbiology laboratories. A total of 168 microbiologists from 168 laboratories, serving 204 acute care hospitals and postacute care facilities, were interviewed during the period January\u2013October 2016 using a questionnaire consisting of nineteen questions which assessed the level of adherence to various recommendations. The most critical issues were as follows: (a) The number of sets of blood cultures (BC) per 1,000 hospitalization days was acceptable in only 11% of laboratories; (b) the minority of laboratories (42%) was able to monitor whether BCs were over or under-inoculated; (c) among the laboratories monitoring BC contamination (80%), the rate of contaminated samples was acceptable in only 12% of cases;(d) the Gram-staining results were reported within 1 hr since BC positivity in less than 50% of laboratories. By contrast, most laboratories received vials within 2\u20134 hr from withdrawal (65%) and incubated vials as soon as they were received in the laboratory (95%). The study revealed that compliance with the recommendations is still partial. Further surveys will be needed to monitor the situation in the future

A segmented Hybrid Photon Detector with integrated auto-triggering front-end electronics for a PET scanner

We describe the design, fabrication and test results of a segmented Hybrid Photon Detector with integrated auto-triggering front-end electronics. Both the photodetector and its VLSI readout electronics are custom designed and have been tailored to the requirements of a recently proposed novel geometrical concept of a Positron Emission Tomograph. Emphasis is put on the PET specific features of the device. The detector has been fabricated in the photocathode facility at CERN

Early stage sinkhole formation in the acque albule basin of central Italy from geophysical and geochemical observations

Sinkhole occurrence along the Tyrrhenian margin of the Central Apennines is of great importance for applied research, land management and civil protection. This study reports on GPS-altimetry magnetic, gravity, geoelectric, seismic, and soil gas measurements of a rapidly developing sinkhole near the Guidonia military airport. The measurements revealed an elliptical 2-m depression elongated 220 m in the NNE-SSW direction with the minor axis of 110 m. In spring of 2013, two vertical cavities formed in the eastern and northeastern flanks of the depression whose depths and shapes are rapidly evolving with the formation of widespread fracturing along the same side. The geophysical observations image the developing sinkhole to a depth of some 50 m, the presence of the Travertino lithotype around the depression (down to at least 40 m), and the lack of this lithotype below the lowered area. The sinkhole's evolution appears to be structurally controlled by local and regional faulting. These results are useful for designing further geophysical, geotechnical and geochemical studies to monitor the sinkhole's evolution and to assess the hazard it presents in densely urbanized area.Published36-477A. Geofisica di esplorazioneJCR Journalreserve

The Psychological Impact of COVID-19 and Restrictive Measures in the World

Background: In a short time, the COVID-19 pandemic turned into a global emergency. The fear of becoming infected and the lockdown measures have drastically changed people's daily routine. The aim of this study is to establish the psychological impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is entailing, particularly with regards to levels of stress, anxiety and depression, and to the risks of developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Methods: The study, carried out with a sample of 1612 subjects distributed in seven countries (Australia, China, Ecuador, Iran, Italy, Norway and the United States), allowed us to collect information about the psychological impact of COVID-19. Results: The findings of this study show that the levels of stress, depression and anxiety, as well as the risks of PTSD, are higher than average in over half of the considered sample. The severity of these disorders significantly depends on gender, type of outdoor activities, characteristics of their homes, eventual presence of infected acquaintances, time dedicated to looking for related information (in the news and social networks), type of source information and, in part, to the level of education and income. Conclusions: We conclude that COVID-19 has a very strong psychological impact on the global population. This appears to be linked to the coping strategies adopted, level of mindful awareness, socio-demographic variables, people's habits and the way individuals use means of communication and information

Semantic Object Prediction and Spatial Sound Super-Resolution with Binaural Sounds

Humans can robustly recognize and localize objects by integrating visual and auditory cues. While machines are able to do the same now with images, less work has been done with sounds. This work develops an approach for dense semantic labelling of sound-making objects, purely based on binaural sounds. We propose a novel sensor setup and record a new audio-visual dataset of street scenes with eight professional binaural microphones and a 360 degree camera. The co-existence of visual and audio cues is leveraged for supervision transfer. In particular, we employ a cross-modal distillation framework that consists of a vision `teacher' method and a sound `student' method -- the student method is trained to generate the same results as the teacher method. This way, the auditory system can be trained without using human annotations. We also propose two auxiliary tasks namely, a) a novel task on Spatial Sound Super-resolution to increase the spatial resolution of sounds, and b) dense depth prediction of the scene. We then formulate the three tasks into one end-to-end trainable multi-tasking network aiming to boost the overall performance. Experimental results on the dataset show that 1) our method achieves promising results for semantic prediction and the two auxiliary tasks; and 2) the three tasks are mutually beneficial -- training them together achieves the best performance and 3) the number and orientations of microphones are both important. The data and code will be released to facilitate the research in this new direction.Comment: Project page: https://www.trace.ethz.ch/publications/2020/sound_perception/index.htm

High toxicity and specificity of the saponin 3-GlcA-28-AraRhaxyl-medicagenate, from Medicago truncatula seeds, for Sitophilus oryzae

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Because of the increasingly concern of consumers and public policy about problems for environment and for public health due to chemical pesticides, the search for molecules more safe is currently of great importance. Particularly, plants are able to fight the pathogens as insects, bacteria or fungi; so that plants could represent a valuable source of new molecules.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>It was observed that <it>Medicago truncatul</it>a seed flour displayed a strong toxic activity towards the adults of the rice weevil <it>Sitophilus oryzae</it> (Coleoptera), a major pest of stored cereals. The molecule responsible for toxicity was purified, by solvent extraction and HPLC, and identified as a saponin, namely 3-GlcA-28-AraRhaxyl-medicagenate. Saponins are detergents, and the CMC of this molecule was found to be 0.65 mg per mL. Neither the worm <it>Caenorhabditis elegans</it> nor the bacteria <it>E. coli</it> were found to be sensitive to this saponin, but growth of the yeast <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</it> was inhibited at concentrations higher than 100 μg per mL. The purified molecule is toxic for the adults of the rice weevils at concentrations down to 100 μg per g of food, but this does not apply to the others insects tested, including the coleopteran <it>Tribolium castaneum</it> and the Sf9 insect cultured cells.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This specificity for the weevil led us to investigate this saponin potential for pest control and to propose the hypothesis that this saponin has a specific mode of action, rather than acting <it>via</it> its non-specific detergent properties.</p