Local partnerships for the development of coastal regions: A review of Fisheries Local Action Groups with focus on the Mediterranean

In the last programming period of the European Maritime Fisheries Fund, Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) have been in charge of meeting the objectives of Union Priority 4, aimed at boosting territorial cohesion and employment in European coastal areas. These local partnerships have hence received support for the elaboration of local development strategies that should promote both territorial and sectorial projects, balancing the interests of the different stakeholders involved. This article provides for a literature review of the scientific contributions on FLAGs, organizing the main findings according to the six dimensions of the Porter’s Diamond Model in the context of the cluster analysis on coastal communities’ competitiveness. Moreover, by focusing on FLAGs from Italy, Spain and France, the paper discusses the orientation towards sectoral and territorial interests in the Mediterranean. It emerges that while the literature has mostly emphasized their territorial functions, FLAGs ‒ especially those in areas with relatively higher incidence of employment in fisheries-related sectors ‒ have prior-itized projects of sectorial scope

Inclusion of new 5-fluorouracil amphiphilic derivatives in liposome formulation for cancer treatment

Correction for 'Inclusion of new 5-fluorouracil amphiphilic derivatives in liposome formulation for cancer treatment' by M. Petaccia et al., Med. Chem. Commun., 2015, 6, 1639–1642

Capacidad antimicrobiana de fitoproteasas autóctonas sobre cepas bacterianas patógenas de importancia clínica y alimentaria

Los productos naturales y las drogas relacionadas son usados en el tratamiento del 87% de las enfermedades que afectan al hombre inclusive en las infecciones bacterianas, en cáncer y en desórdenes inmunológicos. Es así que muchos países en desarrollo basan su medicina popular en compuestos obtenidos a partir de plantas. A diferencia de los animales, las plantas carecen de sistema inmunológico y la respuesta inmunitaria de ellas comprende mensajeros químicos sistémicos que se distribuyen por toda la planta. En los últimos años se ha reportado el aislamiento de diferentes tipos de proteínas vegetales con actividad antimicrobiana, entre ellas quitinasas, β-1,3-glucanasas, defensinas, tioninas, inhibidores de proteasas e incluso enzimas proteolíticas (Rojas et al., 2006). En consecuencia, la búsqueda de nuevas fuentes de agentes antimicrobianos se hace imprescindible, dado el creciente aumento de la resistencia de microorganismos a los antibióticos tradicionales. En este contexto, la investigación en compuestos biológicamente activos de origen natural resulta de gran interés. Se ha observado que algunas proteasas están involucradas en procesos de inhibición del crecimiento bacteriano (Guevara et al., 2004) y es por eso que el objetivo de este trabajo es determinar la capacidad antimicrobiana in vitro de dos endopeptidasas autóctonas frente a distintas cepas patógenas de importancia clínica y alimentaria. Se purificaron los extractos crudos de látex de frutos de Araujia hortorum y de frutos maduros de Salpichroa origanifolia. La actividad antimicrobiana de las fracciones purificadas fue ensayada sobre cepas seleccionadas de Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescen y Kebsiella pneumoniae. El ensayo in vitro se realizó incubando las proteasas en medio de cultivo líquido (caldo tripteína soja) a 37ºC frente a las distintas cepas bacterianas. El seguimiento de la cinética de crecimiento bacteriano en ausencia o en presencia del compuesto antimicrobiano se realizó midiendo la turbidez a 650 nm durante 20 hs de incubación, en un espectrofotómetro GeneQuant. El porcentaje de inhibición se calculó como el cociente entre las mediciones de DO con y sin peptidasa. Como conclusión podemos afirmar que las endopeptidasas cisteínicas presentes en Araujia hortorum (araujaína) demostraron actividad antimicrobiana frente Salmonella enteritidis (90% de inhibición) y en menor grado frente a Escherichia coli (25%). En el caso de las aspartil peptidasas de Salpichroa origanifolia (salpichroína), se observó un 95% de inhibición frente a cepas de Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Serratia marcescens y en menor grado de Escherichia coli (75%). Estos resultados podrían contribuir al desarrollo de nuevos agentes antimicrobianos en el área de salud, además de tener aplicación en la industria de los alimentos y/o en el sector agronómico.Centro de Investigación de Proteínas Vegetale

Targeting the scaffolding role of LSD1 (KDM1A) poises acute myeloid leukemia cells for retinoic acid–induced differentiation

The histone demethylase LSD1 is deregulated in several tumors, including leukemias, providing the rationale for the clinical use of LSD1 inhibitors. In acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), pharmacological doses of retinoic acid (RA) induce differentiation of APL cells, triggering degradation of the PML-RAR oncogene. APL cells are resistant to LSD1 inhibition or knockout, but targeting LSD1 sensitizes them to physiological doses of RA without altering of PML-RAR levels, and extends survival of leukemic mice upon RA treatment. The combination of RA with LSD1 inhibition (or knockout) is also effective in other non-APL, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. Nonenzymatic activities of LSD1 are essential to block differentiation, while RA with targeting of LSD1 releases a differentiation gene expression program, not strictly dependent on changes in histone H3K4 methylation. Integration of proteomic/epigenomic/mutational studies showed that LSD1 inhibitors alter the recruitment of LSD1-containing complexes to chromatin, inhibiting the interaction between LSD1 and the transcription factor GFI1

Microbiota derived short chain fatty acids promote histone crotonylation in the colon through histone deacetylases

The recently discovered histone post-translational modification crotonylation connects cellular metabolism to gene regulation. Its regulation and tissue-specific functions are poorly understood. We characterize histone crotonylation in intestinal epithelia and find that histone H3 crotonylation at lysine 18 is a surprisingly abundant modification in the small intestine crypt and colon, and is linked to gene regulation. We show that this modification is highly dynamic and regulated during the cell cycle. We identify class I histone deacetylases, HDAC1, HDAC2, and HDAC3, as major executors of histone decrotonylation. We show that known HDAC inhibitors, including the gut microbiota-derived butyrate, affect histone decrotonylation. Consistent with this, we find that depletion of the gut microbiota leads to a global change in histone crotonylation in the colon. Our results suggest that histone crotonylation connects chromatin to the gut microbiota, at least in part, via short-chain fatty acids and HDACs

Pilot study of the multicentre DISCHARGE trial: image quality and protocol adherence results of computed tomography and invasive coronary angiography (vol 30, pg 1997, 2020)

The original version of this article, published on 16 December 2019, unfortunately contained two mistakes.Cardiovascular Aspects of Radiolog

A new paradigm for the enjoyment and exploitation of cultural heritage based on spatial augmented reality: The case of the Ducal Palace of Urbino

In the last years, museums have begun to apply new technological solutions to manage their exhibits in a more open, inclusive, and creative way, to improve the visitors' experience to respond to the need to expand the audience. The main goal is to face the increasing competition in an economy referred to as the “Experience Economy”. To this end, Augmented Reality technology seems to represent a good solution for museum guide systems, to improve visitors' learning and enjoyment. In this context, the present paper proposes a museum guide system based on Spatial Augmented Reality powered by dynamic projection. The paper describes the overall HW and SW system architecture and reports in detail the developed process adopted to design and implement a museum guide and entertainment application, in the context of the “Studiolo of Federico da Montefeltro” in the Ducal Palace of Urbino. A preliminary survey has been carried out, which involved a total of 79 subjects, aimed at investigating the quality of visitor's experience, aroused by the proposed application, in terms of the “Four Experience Realms” defined by Pine & Gilmore (1998). Results suggest that the proposed application can be used to stage experiences that satisfy the visitors and may help to enable museums into the Experience Economy

A low cost motion analysis system based on RGB cameras to support ergonomic risk assessment in real workspaces

This paper introduces a motion analysis system based on a network of common RGB cameras, which provides the measurement of various angles considered for postural assessment, in order to facilitate the evaluation of the ergonomic indices commonly used for the determination of risk of musculoskeletal disorders of operators in manufacturing workplaces. To enable the tracking of operator postures during the performed tasks, the system exploits the multi person keypoints detection library “OpenPose”. The proposed system has been validated with a real industrial case study regarding a washing machine assembly line. Results suggest how the proposed system supports ergonomists in risk assessment of musculoskeletal disorders through the OCRA index

Emotion-aware ambient intelligence: Changing smart environment interaction paradigms through affective computing

This paper describes the conceptual model and the implementation of an emotion aware system able to manage multimedia contents (i.e., music tracks) and lightning scenarios, based on the user’s emotion, detected from facial expressions. The system captures the emotions from the user’s face expressions, mapping them into a 2D valence-arousal space where the multimedia content is mapped and matches them with lighting color. A preliminary experimentation involved a total of 26 subjects has been carried out with the purpose of assess the system emotion recognition effectiveness and its ability to manage the environment appropriately. Results evidenced several limits of emotion recognition through face expressions detection and opens to several research challenge