Monoamine transporters in female human reproduction.

The present study explored the gene and protein expression of the monoamine transporters in human endometrium throughout the menstrual cycle, in early decidua and in placentas from normal as well as preeclamptic pregnancies using in-situ hybridization, real time-PCR, immunohistochemistry and primary tissue cultures. Four distinguishable patterns were observed in the endometrium over the menstrual cycle: (1) epithelial expression of norepinephrine transporter (NET) mRNA, (2) Stromal co- expression of vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) and plasma membrane monoamine transporter (PMAT) mRNAs with maximal intensity in the proliferative phase; (3) increasing epithelial expression of VMAT2 mRNA with a maximum in the late secretory phase; (4) stromal expression of extra-neuronal monoamine transporter (EMT) mRNA with a peak in the early secretory phase. The presence of functional EMT and VMAT2 transporter proteins throughout the menstrual cycle was shown by uptake of radiolabelled histamine. A similar expression pattern of monoamine transporters was seen in normal and preeclamptic placentas. In particular, NET mRNA was detected in the chorionic and anchoring villi while EMT mRNA was expressed in scattered cells in placental vessels as well as in intralobular septa cells. Serotonin transporter (SERT) mRNA was mainly detected in the chorionic villi. VMAT2 mRNA was detected in the deeper layers of the placenta bed biopsies in trophoblast cells. A small number of cells in the intima layer of some placental vessels showed mRNA expression of the organic cation transporters 1 and 2 (OCT1 and OCT2). Although the expression pattern was similar, a significantly lower gene expression of NET and EMT was found in placentas obtained from preeclamptic versus normal pregnancies. Our results suggest that monoamine transports may have specific functions in female human reproduction by maintaining adequate levels of extra cellular monoamines. Their presence and dynamic expression suggests an important role during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy. Moreover a defective gene expression or function of the monoamine transporters might be determinant in the onset of preeclampsia and its alteration in the vascular bed. Knowledge of the regulation of monoamine metabolism in the endometrium, decidua and placenta will increase the understanding of infertility problems and may offer new pharmacological approaches to optimise assisted reproduction and treatment of preeclampsia

Innovation and labor in the port industry: A comparison between Genoa and Antwerp

With the advancement of innovation initiatives in the port industry, port labor has fundamentally changed in terms of new tasks, skills required, professional profiles, training, employment relations, work organization, and number of jobs. Current literature often focuses more on the assessment of investments in this particular sector rather than on the evaluation of innovative processes and the interaction with employment issues. In this article, the authors assess the relationship between innovation and employment in the port industry by comparing two distinct case studies—the ports of Antwerp and Genoa—which are characterized by partially common features and different socio-institutional contexts. Based on qualitative research conducted between 2016 and 2019, the comparative study finds that incremental innovative solutions produce a polarized port labor market in both cases, as previous studies assess. Nevertheless, the findings show that, in the case of Antwerp, a mediated and structured bargaining system interacts positively with employment issues and incremental innovative solutions, while in the case of Genoa, a disarticulated and less structured context reflects a weaker ability to influence virtuously the intertwine between innovation and employment

Neuroscience, Accountability and Individual Boundaries

Cognitive neuroscience holds the promise of explaining operations of the mind in terms of the physical operations of the brain. It is claimed that brain imaging technique

KERNEL FEATURE CROSS-CORRELATION FOR UNSUPERVISED QUANTIFICATION OF DAMAGE FROM WINDTHROW IN FORESTS

In this study estimation of tree damage from a windthrow event using feature detection on RGB high resolution imagery is assessed. An accurate quantitative assessment of the damage in terms of volume is important and can be done by ground sampling, which is notably expensive and time-consuming, or by manual interpretation and analyses of aerial images. This latter manual method also requires an expert operator investing time to manually detect damaged trees and apply relation functions between measures and volume which are also error-prone. In the proposed method RGB images with 0.2 m ground sample distance are analysed using an adaptive template matching method. Ten images corresponding to ten separate study areas are tested. A 13 7 13 pixels kernel with a simplified lin ear-feature representation of a cylinder is applied at different rotation angles (from 0\ub0 to 170\ub0 at 10\ub0 steps). The higher values of the normalized cross-correlation (NCC) of all angles are recorded for each pixel for each image. Several features are tested: percentiles (75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 99, max) and sum and number of pixels with NCC above 0.55. Three regression methods are tested, multiple regression (mr), support vector machines (SVM) with linear kernel and random forests. The first two methods gave the best results. The ground-truth was acquired by ground sampling, and total volumes of damaged trees are estimated for each of the 10 areas. Damaged volumes in the ten areas range from 3c1.8 7 102 m3 to 3c1.2 7 104 m3. Regression results show that smv regression method over the sum gives an R-squared of 0.92, a mean of absolute errors (MAE) of 255 m3 and a relative absolute error (RAE) of 34% using leave-one-out cross validation from the 10 observations. These initial results are encouraging and support further investigations on more finely tuned kernel template metrics to define an unsupervised image analysis process to automatically assess forest damage from windthrow

Infective Endocarditis: what is changed in Epidemiology and Prophylaxis

This article shows the most recent opinions in the literature, concerning the epidemiology and prophylaxis of infective endocarditis (I.E.). They are also defined the basic principles of the previous guidelines and the reasons for their comprehensive reformulation. The article finally illustrates the new recommendations for prophylaxis of IE

ACROSS THE CHAIN. DOCK LABOUR SYSTEMS IN THE EUROPEAN PORTS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON TWO CONTAINER TERMINALS

The main purpose of this study is to provide a comparative analysis on dock labour systems in two European ports, focusing in particular on the container global industry. The research aims at analysing the impact of the market players\u2019 strategies along the maritime-logistics chain on dock labour dynamics in the last years, stressing the role of the institutional, material and structural constraints. By comparing two distinct case studies, the study aims to answer the following research questions: 1. How is the search for economies of scale achieved by market players along the maritime-logistics chain shaping port labour systems, schemes and work organizations in the European ports? 2. To what extent do terminal operating companies respond to the constraints driven by market players, European policies and national regulations, in order to maximize the performance of dock labour in two distinct ports/container terminals? The observation of the entire logistics chain characterizes the peculiar approach of this study. This approach fosters an analysis not only of the dynamic and complex structure of the maritime supply chain, but also of the background tendencies occurring in the overall dimension in which ports are situated, and hence the variety of dock labour systems. The focus on the container handling and the labour that incorporates it underlines the triple nature of the maritime-logistics chain, given the function of the intermodal transport unit. Consequently, this study argues that an \u201cintermodal gaze\u201d is required to grasp the main trends concerning labour in the pivotal link of the maritime-logistics chain. The empirical findings gathered during the fieldworks in the ports of Genoa and Antwerp are presented and discussed. The empirical evidence shows how in the Belgian case shipping companies vertically integrated with global terminal operators, particularly in the container business, demand direct employment for a significant number of their own workers, whereas casual workers are increasingly deployed during periods of peak demand. This setting in principle does not differ from the Italian case. Besides the different business models, dock labour schemes and arrangements, port employers in both cases hire a large part of the dockworkers daily, via \u201cinformal agreements\u201d, on an almost continual basis. In addition, the changing dynamics caused by exogenous factors are provoking a higher deployment of casual workers in Genoa, whereas in Antwerp this trend could further increase in the future, with the new possibility given by the ongoing port reform (after the infringement procedure sent by the European Union to the Belgian government, concerning the port labour system). The strategic action of the main players along the maritime-logistics chain is modifying the working mechanisms of both port labour systems, altering the matching of labour supply and demand, opening up new decision-making prospects for transnational terminal operating companies. In this frame, dock labour policies to date have not been carried out, except for de-regulation processes, mainly driven at supranational level and then acquired at national level. In other words, the organizational models of labour in the ports selected seem to be undermined by the processes of globalization, cutthroat competition along the entire logistics chain, and Europeization of the port labour policies. The comparative analysis displays to what extent the de-structuring processes of the organizational patterns are crossing the ports / container terminals analysed, besides the constraints partially common among the cases and partially specific to each of them. Significant dynamics, notwithstanding the institutional path dependencies and the specific global production networks, occur similarly in both the ports observed. The homogeneous pressures, however, engage with the history at national and local level, the institutional structures and practices that dictate the differences among the cases. This in turn reveals a process in which, as this study hypothesizes, such differences are more and more converging towards a commonly variegated trajectory. Beyond the different dock labour scheme and work organization, a similar division \u2013 or fragmentation \u2013 between permanent and casual workforce has been observed. Moreover, the dock labour systems and schemes compared in this study are differently managed but commonly affected by exogenous and endogenous pressures along the maritime-logistics chain. Furthermore, by looking at the port performance indicators, it has been possible to compare the terminal productivity (linked to the costs) of one cargo handling company operating in both ports, besides the significant differences among the container terminals analyzed (e.g dimension, equipment, etc). Despite the limited data availability, this comparative analysis explores how terminal operating companies behave for maximizing labour productivity in light of the dock labour schemes and regulations in two distinct environments. In short, it turns out that terminal operating companies involved in container handling apply the tariff to their customers starting from the Cash Cost per Box as parameter. The Cash Cost per Box (CCPB) is the indicator that represents how much a container handling company spends only in terms of out-of-pocket costs for each volume unit handled. In this cost structure, labour composes the main value in both cases. Being labour cost the main value, the lower amount of CCPB in the Belgian case with respect to the Italian case is mainly \u2013 but not exclusively \u2013 due to a lower number of workforce employed to handle one container with respect to the Italian case. The amount of workforce per container handled, determined also by different social relations of production in the ports selected, is the key aspect to set a proper comparison between the ports/terminals, linking the productivity indicators to the cost structure. Furthermore, it has been assessed the difference of the wages in both ports (and the distribution in terms of occupational contexts), which are lower in the Italian case and higher in the Belgian case. These findings show that, in a certain sense, the occupational port labour system in the Italian case remunerates more people by distributing lower wages, whereas in the Belgian case it remunerates less people by distributing higher wages. However, the incidence of labour cost does not changes so much in both contexts, but tends to be similar, being the difference mainly a matter of labour quotas differently distributed (and socially produced). Paradoxically, the organization of port labour in Antwerp replicated in Genoa would require, in theory, as a preliminary condition, the exclusion of a certain amount of workforce currently employed in the port operations. The main difference therefore concerns the greater or lower socialization of costs. In turn, these settings have an impact on terminal productivity, the Gross Crane Rate, due to several factors (i.e. labour force composition, work organization at quayside, terminal layout, endogenous and exogenous factors, terminal facilities, capacity, economies of scale, gang system, motivation and structural constraints, etc.). Following the previous reasoning, the empirical findings show that in Genoa the social equilibrium is given by a lower productivity compared to the Belgian case, acknowledged by the port actors involved in order to keep higher workforce in the port operations. The port labour system in Genoa absorbs more work than in the port of Antwerp, but at the same time, the model is less efficient in terms of performances

Subjective indices related to speech transmission in classrooms - an appraisal

Speech intelligibility is a subjective performance index defined as the percentage of a message understood correctly. Often the results of speech intelligibility tests would suggest that conditions are acceptable, with Intelligibility Score (IS) of the order of 90% or more, however even if the intelligibility is so good, speech transmission performance may not be satisfactory. Subjective ratings of the Listening Easiness Score (LES) provide an alternative approach. A total of 2176 intelligibility tests were administered in a primary school to 272 pupils, yielding an useful data set of 1912 values. The Speech Transmission Index (STI) was also measured for each test setting in seven different positions in the laboratory classroom used for the test. Both IS and LES are inherently bounded, and their data distributions exhibit a significant accumulation of scores in the upper part, mainly for IS. The resulting truncation problem have been addressed in order to allow meaningful comparison between indices

Potenzialità del telerilevamento laser scanner aereo per la classificazione delle coperture forestali in funzione della forma di governo

In questo studio è stata valutata la potenzialità del telerilevamento laser scanner aereo (ALS) per classificare le forme di governo forestale in un bosco misto di latifoglie. La metodologia applicata prevede l’utilizzo del modello digitale delle chiome (CHM) ottenuto da dati ALS e l’impiego di procedure automatizzate per la segmentazione object-oriented delle immagini telerilevate. La classificazione delle forme di governo si basa sulle metriche estratte dal CHM. I risultati ottenuti indicano che la media delle altezze e il coefficiente di variazione delle altezze estratti dal CHM sono utili per distinguere i boschi governati a ceduo da quelli governati a fustaiaIn this study aerial laser scanning (ALS) data has been tested to classify coppice stands and high forest stands in a mixed broadleaved forest. The method is based on a canopy height model (CHM) obtained from ALS data. Forest stands have been delineated using a object-oriented approach. The polygons have been classified into coppices and high forests based on the metrics derived from CHM. Our results indicate that the mean of the heights and the coefficient of variation of the heights extracted from CHM are useful to discriminate coppices from high forests.L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.asita.i

Mycobacterium leprae: A historical study on the origins of leprosy and its social stigma

This article aims to investigate about the social stigma and the prejudice of society towards the patients with leprosy, but also to understand how this infectious disease has largely influenced human lifestyle and evolution analyzing the evolution of its treatments from past empirical treatments to actual multidrug therapy (MDT). References on leprosy were extensively searched in literature using PubMed, Web of Science, Medline, Springer link and Elsevier’s (EMBASE.com) databases, but also in medical, religious and archaeological books. Leprosy’s spread all around the world following human paths of migration from the African Continent to the Asian one and to Europe, instead its appearance in the New Continent is more recent. Wars, unhygienic conditions, social and health inequality created conditions for its spread since prehistorical times, and existing health disparities contributed to unequal morbidity and mortality, before its gradual decline after the Middle Ages due to the raise of other worse pandemics. Starting from Renaissance, a deeper knowledge on its pathophysiological mechanisms brought an increasingly advanced combined surgical and pharmacological treatment, but still in modern times many efforts have been made to erase its social stigma, changing its name in “Hansen’s disease” included