Effetto protettivo della restrizione calorica nella sindrome metabolica: miglioramento del profilo lipidomico e dell’attività anti-infiammatoria citochinica ed enzimatica (CETP)

È noto che il calo ponderale in corso di sindrome metabolica diminuisce il rischio cardiovascolare e di diabete di tipo 2 ma gli effetti sull’infiammazione e sul lipidoma sierico sono ancora poco chiari. Scopo di questo studio è determinare gli effetti di un calo ponderale fisiologico ottenuto con una dieta ipocalorica bilanciata sui parametri cardio-metabolici, sulla composizione chimica delle lipoproteine e sul secretoma infiammatorio in pazienti affetti da sovrappeso/obesità lieve e sindrome metabolica. Sono stati inclusi nello studio 18 maschi adulti con sindrome metabolica (definita secondo IDF 2009) e BMI compreso tra 25 e 35 Kg/m2 sottoposti a dieta mediterranea ipocalorica bilanciata per 6 mesi, che avessero raggiunto un calo ponderale di almeno 5% del loro peso iniziale al termine dello studio. Dopo calo ponderale si osserva un significativo miglioramento dei parametri cardio e glicometabolici (BMI, insulina e glicemia a digiuno, HOMA-I) e una riduzione importante della trigliceridemia e delle LDL con incremento delle HDL. L’analisi delle lipoproteine estratte da siero per gradiente ha evidenziato una modifica della loro composizione con un massiccio trasferimento di triacilgliceroli dalle HDL verso le LDL (p <0.01). A questo si associa una riduzione significativa nel secretoma sierico di citochine pro-infiammatorie quali TNF-α, IL-8 e MIP-1β (Luminex). La riduzione delle citochine periferiche e la modifica di composizione delle lipoproteine ottenute con il calo ponderale si associano inoltre in maniera significativa alla riduzione dei livelli periferici di CETP, l’enzima di trasferimento degli esteri del colesterolo, la cui funzione pro-aterogena in corso di dislipidemia è già nota in letteratura

Predictors of Response to Hydroxyurea and Switch to Ruxolitinib in HU-Resistant Polycythaemia VERA Patients: A Real-World PV-NET Study

: In polycythemia vera (PV), the prognostic relevance of an ELN-defined complete response (CR) to hydroxyurea (HU), the predictors of response, and patients' triggers for switching to ruxolitinib are uncertain. In a real-world analysis, we evaluated the predictors of response, their impact on the clinical outcomes of CR to HU, and the correlations between partial or no response (PR/NR) and a patient switching to ruxolitinib. Among 563 PV patients receiving HU for ≥12 months, 166 (29.5%) achieved CR, 264 achieved PR, and 133 achieved NR. In a multivariate analysis, the absence of splenomegaly (p = 0.03), pruritus (p = 0.002), and a median HU dose of ≥1 g/day (p < 0.001) remained associated with CR. Adverse events were more frequent with a median HU dose of ≥1 g/day. Overall, 283 PR/NR patients (71.3%) continued HU, and 114 switched to ruxolitinib. In the 449 patients receiving only HU, rates of thrombosis, hemorrhages, progression, and overall survival were comparable among the CR, PR, and NR groups. Many PV patients received underdosed HU, leading to lower CR and toxicity rates. In addition, many patients continued HU despite a PR/NR; however, splenomegaly and other symptoms were the main drivers of an early switch. Better HU management, standardization of the criteria for and timing of responses to HU, and adequate intervention in poor responders should be advised

Happiness economics

There is enough evidence to be confident that individuals are able and willing to provide a meaningful answer when asked to value on a finite scale their satisfaction with their own lives, a question that psychologists have long and often posed to respondents of large questionnaires. Without taking its limitations and criticisms too lightly, some economists have been using thismeasure of self-reported satisfaction as a proxy for utility so as to contribute to a better understanding of individuals' tastes and hopefully behavior. By means of satisfaction questions we can elicit information on individual likes and dislikes over a large set of relevant issues, such as income, working status and job amenities, the risk of becoming unemployed, inflation, and health status. This information can be used to evaluate existing ideas from a new perspective, understand individual behavior, evaluate and design public policies, study poverty and inequality, and develop a preference based valuation method. In this article I first critically assess the pros and cons of using satisfaction variables, and then discuss its main applications

Compiling the actuarial balance for pay-as-you-go pension systems. Is it better to use the hidden asset or the contribution asset?

The aim of this article is twofold: to establish the connection between the 'Contribution Asset' (CA) and the 'Hidden Asset' (HA) and to determine whether using either of them to compile the Actuarial Balance (AB) sheet in the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) pension system will provide a reliable solvency indicator. With these aims in mind, we develop a model based on those first put forward by Settergren and Mikula (2005) and Boado-Penas et al. (2008) to obtain the analytical properties of the CA and to confirm its soundness as a measure of the assets of a PAYG scheme. Our model also enables us to explore whether, and to what extent, the HA can be considered a second alternative measure of the assets for PAYG schemes. The main theoretical finding is that, despite their very different natures, the HA and the CA may nearly coincide at the limit when the interest rate of the financial market approaches the growth of the covered wage bill from above, but the HA supplies a solvency indicator which is not always consistent with the system's financial health.</p

Exploiting feature extraction techniques on users’ reviews for movies recommendation

Abstract Recommender systems help users to deal with the information overload problem by producing personalized content according to their interests. Beyond the traditional recommender strategies, there is a growing effort to incorporate users’ reviews into the recommendation process, since they provide a rich set of information regarding both items’ features and users’ preferences. This article proposes a recommender system that uses users’ reviews to produce items’ representations that are based on the overall sentiment toward the items’ features. We focus on exploiting the impact that different feature extraction techniques, allied with sentiment analysis, cause in an item attribute-aware neighborhood-based recommender algorithm. We compare four techniques of different granularities (terms and aspects) in two recommendation scenarios (rating prediction and item recommendation) and elect the most promising technique. We also compare our techniques with traditional structured metadata constructions, which are used as the baseline in our experimental evaluation. The results show that the techniques based on terms provide better results, since they produce a larger set of features, hence detailing better the items

COMBUSTION OFF-GAS CLEANING BY WET ELECTROSTATIC SCRUBBING: PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

This paper reports preliminary experimental results on wet electrostatic scrubbing of model submicron particles in controlled hydrodynamic conditions based on the use of an electrospray exerted in dripping mode. The experimental results were successfully compared with the predictions of classical particle scavenging