Iron chelating properties of Eltrombopag: Investigating its role in thalassemia-induced osteoporosis

Chronic blood transfusions are responsible to cause iron overload, which leads to several complications to end organs and osteoporosis. Iron chelation is needed to remove iron excess and to contain bone-mass loss. Deferasirox is the most recent oral iron chelator that prevents transfusion related iron overload complications. Recently Eltrombopag (ELT) iron chelating properties are emerging. ELT is an agonist at Thrombopoietin receptor, used in treatment of thrombocytopenia. We tested ELT and Deferasirox in iron overloaded osteoclasts from thalassemic patients and donors measuring intracellular iron, TRAP expression and osteoclast activity. We confirmed ELT iron chelation capacity also in bone tissue and a synergic effect when used with Deferasirox. Moreover, having demonstrated its effects on osteoclast activity, we suggest for the first time that ELT could ameliorate bone tissue’s health reducing bone mass loss

Acquired hemophagocytic syndrome: comment to the case report

No abstract availabl

The Role of Maintenance Operator in Industrial Manufacturing Systems: Research Topics and Trends

Maintenance contributes to gaining high business performance, guarantees system availability and reliability as well as safe and sustainable operations. Maintenance activity effectiveness depends on competences and the skills of operators whose performance strongly affects maintenance and production operations. The research field of human issues in industrial maintenance was deeply addressed in the literature; however, the current industrial paradigm, which focusses on the integration of new technologies in conventional manufacturing operations to support human performance, sheds light on new challenges for enterprises and opportunities for research in this field. While some literature reviews in the field of human errors and human factors are available, no study investigated the main topics, research trends and challenges related to the role of maintenance operators in manufacturing systems. This paper addresses the current state-of-the-art role of maintenance operators in manufacturing systems, providing an overview of the main studies. A systematic literature review was carried out to identify significant papers. Then, a topic modelling algorithm was used to detect the main topics of the selected papers to provide the research trends of the subject. The identified topics provided interesting research insights on the human role in industrial maintenance. Research trends and further research opportunities were defined

The Role of Fast and Deep PSA Response in Castration-sensitive Prostate Cancer

Background: Outcomes of castration-sensitive prostate cancer (CSPC) have improved owing to new therapies and early treatment, previously reserved for castration-resistant disease (CRPC). Prostatic-specific antigen (PSA) remains the most used marker to follow-up patients under treatment, but only limited data are available about the prognostic role of its changes over time and the impact of response to subsequent therapies. This analysis aims to assess the prognostic role of the magnitude and velocity of PSA response in CSPC and describe how this may affect the outcome to subsequent treatment outcomes in CRPC. Patients and methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on patients with de novo CSPC referring to six oncology centers in Italy. Clinical and pathological features were recorded. PSA response (PSA50), defined as a decrease > 50% compared to baseline, PSA velocity (PSAv), defined as any decrease in PSA levels over time and the deep and fast PSA response (4mPSA50), defined as the PSA response reached within the threshold of 4 months from the beginning of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) have been evaluated for their impact on survival. Survivals were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared across groups using the log-rank test. Cox proportional-hazard models, stratified according to baseline characteristics, were used to estimate hazard ratios for overall survival (OS). Results: A totals of 94.4% of patients had PSA50, which was correlated to longer OS compared to patients without PSA50 (56.0 vs. 14.8 months; p<0.001). The median PSAv was 6.9 (ng/dl)/month, which was predictive for longer OS: Each decrease of 1 (ng/dl)/month was able to improve OS by 0.2% (HR=0.998, 95%CI=0.997-1.000; p=0.008). A total of 47.9% of patients reached 4mPSA50, with a median OS and progression-free survival (PFS) to ADT-based therapy of 101.0 and 23.4 months compared to 41.9 and 11.0 months for those who did not (p<0.001), respectively. The independent prognostic role of 4mPSA50 was retained even when evaluated in multivariable analysis adjusted for other baseline characteristics and early docetaxel for CSPC. In CRPC, 4mPSA50 evaluated during CSPC retains its prognostic role even if it does not predict a different outcome between patients treated with abiraterone/enzalutamide or taxanes. Conclusion: Achieving a deep and fast PSA response correlates with a better outcome in patients with de novo mCSPC, also positively influencing the prognosis of the subsequent first-line therapy for CRPC disease

Production of lead metal by molten-salt electrolysis with energy-efficient electrodes

"The U.S. Bureau of Mines investigated electrode designs for electrowinning lead metal from a LiCl-KCl-PbCl2 electrolyte at 450 deg C. The major objective of this investigation was to decrease the energy requirement for lead electrowinning. Electrolysis was performed in a bench-scale cell using several graphite electrode assemblies. Such parameters as electrode spacing, current density, and chlorine gas removal from the anode were investigated in the bench-scale tests. An optimum electrode assembly, termed the sawtooth design, was scaled up and operated at 3,000 and 4,000 A. The sawtooth electrodes operating at 3,000 A produced lead for 0.66 Kw.H/kg. The electrodes were constructed by cutting large triangular grooves in the electrode surfaces. The electrodes were placed together such that the triangular peaks of one electrode projected into the triangular valleys of the other electrode. Chlorine did not build up on the anode with the sawtooth electrodes." - NIOSHTIC-2NIOSHTIC no. 10008548199

Role of STAT3 pathway in genitourinary tumors

The STAT3 is often dysregulated in genitourinary tumors. In prostate cancer, STAT3 activation correlates with Gleason score and pathological stage and modulates cancer stem cells and epithelial-mesenchymal transition. In addition, STAT3 promotes the progression from carcinoma in situ to invasive bladder cancer and modulates renal cell carcinoma angiogenesis by increasing the expression of HIF1α and VEGF. STAT3 is also involved in the response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors sunitinib and axitinib, in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and to second-generation androgen receptor inhibitor enzalutamide in patients with advanced prostate cancer. In this review, we describe the role of STAT3 in genitourinary tumors, thus describing its potential for future therapeutic strategies

KiDS-SQuaD II. Machine learning selection of bright extragalactic objects to search for new gravitationally lensed quasars

Context. The KiDS Strongly lensed QUAsar Detection project (KiDS-SQuaD) is aimed at finding as many previously undiscovered gravitational lensed quasars as possible in the Kilo Degree Survey. This is the second paper of this series where we present a new, automatic object-classification method based on the machine learning technique. Aims. The main goal of this paper is to build a catalogue of bright extragalactic objects (galaxies and quasars) from the KiDS Data Release 4, with minimum stellar contamination and preserving the completeness as much as possible. We show here that this catalogue represents the perfect starting point to search for reliable gravitationally lensed quasar candidates. Methods. After testing some of the most used machine learning algorithms, decision-tree-based classifiers, we decided to use CatBoost, which was specifically trained with the aim of creating a sample of extragalactic sources that is as clean of stars as possible. We discuss the input data, define the training sample for the classifier, give quantitative estimates of its performances, and finally describe the validation results with Gaia DR2, AllWISE, and GAMA catalogues. Results. We built and made available to the scientific community the KiDS Bright EXtraGalactic Objects catalogue (KiDS-BEXGO), specifically created to find gravitational lenses but applicable to a wide number of scientific purposes. The KiDS-BEXGO catalogue is made of approximate to 6 million sources classified as quasars (approximate to 200 000) and galaxies (approximate to 5.7 M) up to r &lt;22(m). To demonstrate the potential of the catalogue in the search for strongly lensed quasars, we selected approximate to 950 "Multiplets": close pairs of quasars or galaxies surrounded by at least one quasar. We present cutouts and coordinates of the 12 most reliable gravitationally lensed quasar candidates. We showed that employing a machine learning method decreases the stellar contaminants within the gravitationally lensed candidates, comparing the current results to the previous ones, presented in the first paper from this series. Conclusions. Our work presents the first comprehensive identification of bright extragalactic objects in KiDS DR4 data, which is, for us, the first necessary step towards finding strong gravitational lenses in wide-sky photometric surveys, but has also many other more general astrophysical applications.</p

Microchemical Investigation of Long-Term Buried Gilded and Silvered Artifacts From Ancient Peru

A large number of metal artifacts with exceptional artistic value of the Moche culture have been found in the tombs of the Lords of Sipán (Lambayeque, Peru) and of the Lady of Cao (El Brujo, Peru) characterized by different burial conditions. Some of the objects, dated around 300–400 AD, are constituted by substrates of Cu- or Ag-based alloys coated by uniformly distributed thin films of precious metal (1–4 microns) that create also polymetallic bicolored surfaces with "gold" and "silver" areas. In order to investigate the corrosion product structure and composition as well as to identify the techniques used to give the gold or silver appearance, an integrated analytical approach has been adopted. The selected complementary methodologies were scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and optical microscopy (OM). The findings reveal that the substrates are mainly composed of Cu-Ag-Au alloys that at the site of Sipán have been almost completely corroded during the burial. Furthermore, the results show that the main aggressive agent is Cl– coming from the soil and that the degradation phenomena were likely enhanced by the galvanic coupling between the precious metal layer and the less noble substrate. The degradation products have formed mainly layered structures containing chloroargyrite (AgCl), cuprite (Cu2O), nantokite (CuCl), and atacamite [CuCl2.3Cu(OH)2] polymorphs. These latter species warn that dangerous copper cyclic corrosion is occurring, a harmful phenomenon, commonly defined as "bronze disease," which must be firmly mitigated. Finally, the findings reveal that the Moche metal workers used the depletion gilding to selectively modify the surface chemical composition of the artifacts to produce the Ag or Au thin films. According to this subtractive method, the surface of the Cu-Au-Ag alloys was enriched with a layer of precious metal by means of cycles of thermal treatments and removal of Cu or both Cu and Ag from the outermost region by using pickling solutions