Investigating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Discussions in News: A Knowledge Graph Analysis Empowered by AI

This paper explores the growing importance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria in financial assessments and conducts an AI-driven analysis of ESG concepts’ evolution from 1980 to 2022. Focusing on media sources from the United States and the United Kingdom, the study utilizes the Dow Jones News Article dataset for a comprehensive analysis focused on the environmental domain. The research introduces an innovative information extraction technique, transforming extracted data into a knowledge graph. Key findings highlight recent trends in ESG aspects, with a notable emphasis on climate change, renewable energy sources, and biodiversity conservation in the environmental dimension

Generation of the induced pluripotent stem cell line CSSi006-A (3681) from a patient affected by advanced-stage Juvenile Onset Huntington's Disease

Abstract Juvenile Onset Huntington's Disease (JOHD) is a rare variant of HD withage of onset ≤20 years, accounting for 3–10% of all HD patients. The rarity occurrence of JOHD cases, who severely progress towards mental and physical disability with atypical clinical manifestations compared to classical HD, are responsible of general lack of knowledge about this variant. We obtained a fully reprogrammed iPS cell line from fibroblasts of a JOHD patient carrying 65 CAG repeats and age at onset at age 15. At the biopsy time, the patient showed an advanced stage after 10 years of disease

Triplétoile: Extraction of knowledge from microblogging text

Numerous methods and pipelines have recently emerged for the automatic extraction of knowledge graphs from documents such as scientific publications and patents. However, adapting these methods to incorporate alternative text sources like micro-blogging posts and news has proven challenging as they struggle to model open-domain entities and relations, typically found in these sources. In this paper, we propose an enhanced information extraction pipeline tailored to the extraction of a knowledge graph comprising open-domain entities from micro-blogging posts on social media platforms. Our pipeline leverages dependency parsing and classifies entity relations in an unsupervised manner through hierarchical clustering over word embeddings. We provide a use case on extracting semantic triples from a corpus of 100 thousand tweets about digital transformation and publicly release the generated knowledge graph. On the same dataset, we conduct two experimental evaluations, showing that the system produces triples with precision over 95% and outperforms similar pipelines of around 5% in terms of precision, while generating a comparatively higher number of triples

The ACTyourCHANGE study protocol: promoting a healthy lifestyle in patients with obesity with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundAs treatment of choice in promoting psychological flexibility, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) was found to be effective in several conditions, and among different populations, including weight management in individuals with obesity. However, the mechanism of action of psychological flexibility is less known. The aim of the present study is, within the context of a brief ACT intervention for behavioral change and behavioral maintenance of a healthy lifestyle in a sample of inpatients with obesity, to explore the effect of each subcomponent of the psychological flexibility model on treatment processes and outcomes.MethodsA randomized controlled trial will be conducted. Ninety Italian adult inpatients with obesity attending a rehabilitation program for weight loss will be randomly allocated into three experimental conditions targeting respectively each subcomponent of the psychological flexibility model: group Engage focused on values-oriented behaviors, group Openness focused on acceptance and cognitive defusion, and group Awareness focused on being present and aware of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at every moment. Weight, BMI (kg/m(2)), the Psychological General Well-Being Inventory (PGWBI), the Outcome Questionnaire-45.2 (OQ-45.2), the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), the Dutch Eating Behaviors Questionnaire (DEBQ), the Brief Values Inventory (BVI), the Committed Action Questionnaire (CAQ), the Italian-Cognitive Fusion Questionnaire (I-CFQ), the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ-II) will be assessed at the beginning (time 0), at the end of psychological intervention (time 1), and after 3 (time 2) and 6months (time 3) and 9months (time 4) from discharge. During the following month after discharge, outpatients will be monitored in their adherence to a healthy lifestyle, using a wearable device.To assess the effectiveness of the intervention, mixed between-within 3 (conditions) x4 (times) repeated measure ANOVAs will be conducted to examine changes from time 0 to time 1, 2, 3, and 4 in means of weight, BMI, and means of scores PGWBI, OQ-45.2, DASS, DERS, DEBQ, AAQ-II, BVI, CAQ, I-CFQ, and FFMQ, between three groups.DiscussionThis study will contribute to clarify the mechanism of action of each subcomponent of the psychological flexibility model and understand its impact on the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.govNCT04474509. Registered on July 4, 202

Biallelic mutations in DYNC2LI1 are a rare cause of Ellis-van Creveld syndrome

Ellis van Creveld syndrome (EvC) is a chondral and ectodermal dysplasia caused by biallelic mutations in the EVC, EVC2 and WDR35 genes. A proportion of cases with clinical diagnosis of EvC, however, do not carry mutations in these genes. To identify the genetic cause of EvC in a cohort of mutation-negative patients, exome sequencing was undertaken in a family with three affected members, and mutation scanning of a panel of clinically and functionally relevant genes was performed in 24 additional subjects with features fitting/overlapping EvC. Compound heterozygosity for the c.2T>C (p.Met1?) and c.662C>T (p.Thr221Ile) variants in DYNC2LI1, which encodes a component of the intraflagellar transport-related dynein-2 complex previously found mutated in other short-rib thoracic dysplasias, was identified in the three affected members of the first family. Targeted resequencing detected compound heterozygosity for the same missense variant and a frameshift change (p.Val141*) in two siblings with EvC from a second family, while a newborn with a more severe phenotype carried two DYNC2LI1 truncating variants. Our findings indicate that DYNC2LI1 mutations are associated with a wider clinical spectrum than previously appreciated, including EvC, with the severity of the phenotype likely depending on the extent of defective DYNC2LI1 function

Safety and Efficacy of Subcutaneous Rituximab in Previously Untreated Patients with CD20+ Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma or Follicular Lymphoma: Results from an Italian Phase IIIb Study

Subcutaneous (SC) rituximab may be beneficial in terms of convenience and tolerability, with potentially fewer and less severe administration-related reactions (ARRs) compared to the intravenous (IV) form. This report presents the results of a phase IIIb study conducted in Italy. The study included adult patients with CD20+ DLBCL or FL having received at least one full dose of IV RTX 375 mg/m2 during induction or maintenance. Patients on induction received ≥4 cycles of RTX SC 1400 mg plus standard chemotherapy and FL patients on maintenance received ≥6 cycles of RTX SC. Overall, 159 patients (73 DLBCL, 86 FL) were enrolled: 103 (54 DLBCL, 49 FL) completed induction and 42 patients with FL completed 12 maintenance cycles. ARRs were reported in 10 patients (6.3%), 3 (4.2%) with DLBCL and 7 (8.1%) with FL, all of mild severity, and resolved without dose delay/discontinuation. Treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) and serious adverse events occurred in 41 (25.9%) and 14 patients (8.9%), respectively. Two patients with DLBCL had fatal events: Klebsiella infection (related to rituximab) and septic shock (related to chemotherapy). Neutropenia (14 patients, 8.9%) was the most common treatment-related TEAE. Two patients with DLBCL (2.8%) and 6 with FL (7.0%) discontinued rituximab due to TEAEs. 65.2% and 69.7% of patients with DLBCL and 67.9% and 73.6% of patients with FL had complete response (CR) and CR unconfirmed, respectively. The median time to events (EFS, PFS, and OS) was not estimable due to the low rate of events. At a median follow-up of 29.5 and 47.8 months in patients with DLBCL and FL, respectively, EFS, PFS, and OS were 70.8%, 70.8%, and 80.6% in patients with DLBCL and 77.9%, 77.9%, and 95.3% in patients with FL, respectively. The switch from IV to SC rituximab in patients with DLBCL and FL was associated with low risk of ARRs and satisfactory response in both groups. This trial was registered with NCT01987505