Antioxidant Supplementation in the Treatment of Aging-Associated Diseases

Oxidative stress is generally considered as the consequence of an imbalance between pro- and antioxidants species, which often results into indiscriminate and global damage at the organismal level. Elderly people are more susceptible to oxidative stress and this depends, almost in part, from a decreased performance of their endogenous antioxidant system. As many studies reported an inverse correlation between systemic levels of antioxidants and several diseases, primarily cardiovascular diseases, but also diabetes and neurological disorders, antioxidant supplementation has been foreseen as an effective preventive and therapeutic intervention for aging-associated pathologies. However, the expectations of this therapeutic approach have often been partially disappointed by clinical trials. The interplay of both endogenous and exogenous antioxidants with the systemic redox system is very complex and represents an issue that is still under debate. In this review a selection of recent clinical studies concerning antioxidants supplementation and the evaluation of their influence in aging-related diseases is analyzed. The controversial outcomes of antioxidants supplementation therapies, which might partially depend from an underestimation of the patient specific metabolic demand and genetic background, are presented

Chiral Lagrangians with tensor sources

The implementation of tensor sources in Chiral Lagrangians allows the computation of Green functions and form factors involving tensor currents, that is, quark bilinears of the form \bar{q}_i\sigma^{\mu\nu}q_j. Whereas only four new terms show up at O(p^4), we find around a hundred of them at O(p^6). So it becomes essential to ensure that this set o operators is indeed minimal and non-redundant (i.e., it is a basis). We discuss two phenomenological applications in the context of vector meson resonances and the radiative pion decay.Comment: Talk given at the 4th International Worshop on Quantum ChromoDynamics, Theory and experiment, June 16-20, 2007. Martina Franca - Valle d'Itria - Ital

A novel stepwise micro-TESE approach in non obstructive azoospermia

Background: The purpose of the study was to investigate whether micro-TESE can improve sperm retrieval rate (SRR) compared to conventional single TESE biopsy on the same testicle or to contralateral multiple TESE, by employing a novel stepwise micro-TESE approach in a population of poor prognosis patients with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA). Methods: Sixty-four poor prognosis NOA men undergoing surgical testicular sperm retrieval for ICSI, from March 2007 to April 2013, were included in this study. Patients inclusion criteria were a) previous unsuccessful TESE, b) unfavorable histology (SCOS, MA, sclerahyalinosis), c) Klinefelter syndrome. We employed a stepwise micro-TESE consisting three-steps: 1) single conventional TESE biopsy; 2) micro-TESE on the same testis; 3) contralateral multiple TESE. Results: SRR was 28.1 % (18/64). Sperm was obtained in both the initial single conventional TESE and in the following micro-TESE. The positive or negative sperm retrieval was further confirmed by a contralateral multiple TESE, when performed. No significant pre-operative predictors of sperm retrieval, including patients’ age, previous negative TESE or serological markers (LH, FSH, inhibin B), were observed at univariate or multivariate analysis. Micro-TESE (step 2) did not improve sperm retrieval as compared to single TESE biopsy on the same testicle (step 1) or multiple contralateral TESE (step 3). Conclusions: Stepwise micro-TESE could represent an optimal approach for sperm retrieval in NOA men. In our view, it should be offered to NOA patients in order to gradually increase surgical invasiveness, when necessary. Stepwise micro-TESE might also reduce the costs, time and efforts involved in surgery

Dynamics and Hadronization at intermediate transverse momentum at RHIC

The ultra-relativistic heavy-ion program at RHIC has shown that at intermediate transverse momenta ($p_T \simeq 2$-6 GeV) standard (independent) parton fragmentation can neither describe the observed baryon-to-meson ratios nor the empirical scaling of the hadronic elliptic flow ($v_2$) according to the number of valence quarks. Both aspects find instead a natural explanation in a coalescence plus fragmentation approach to hadronization. After a brief review of the main results for light quarks, we focus on heavy quarks showing that a combined fragmentation and quark-coalescence framework is relevant also here. Moreover, within relativistic Langevin simulations we find evidence for the importance of heavy-light resonances in the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) to explain the strong energy loss and collective flow of heavy-quark spectra as inferred from non-photonic electron observables. Such heavy-light resonances can pave the way to a unified understanding of the microscopic structure of the QGP and its subsequent hadronization by coalescence.Comment: Proceedings of the International Workshop on QCD - Martina Franca (Italy), June 2007. To be published in AIP. 6 pages, 6 figure

Signals of Warped Extra Dimensions at the LHC

We discuss the signatures of the spin-2 graviton excitations predicted by the Randall-Sundrum model with one warped extra dimension, in dilepton and diphoton production at LHC. By using a specific angular analysis, we assess the ranges in mass and coupling constant where such gravitons can be discriminated against competitor spin-1 and spin-0 objects, that potentially could manifest themselves in these processes with the same mass and rate of events. Depending on the value of the coupling constant to quarks and leptons, the numerical results indicate graviton identification mass ranges up to 1.1-2.4 TeV and 1.6-3.2 TeV for LHC nominal energy of 14 TeV and time-integrated luminosity of 10 and 100~${\rm fb}^{-1}$, respectively.Comment: 8 pages, Talk given at QCD@Work - International Workshop on QCD - Theory and Experiment, 20 - 23 June, 2010, Martina Franca Ital

Conservative upper limits on WIMP annihilation cross section from Fermi-LAT γ\gamma-rays

The spectrum of an isotropic extragalactic $\gamma$-ray background (EGB) has been measured by the Fermi-LAT telescope at high latitudes. Two new models for the EGB are derived from the subtraction of unresolved point sources and extragalactic diffuse processes, which could explain from 30% to 70% of the Fermi-LAT EGB. Within the hypothesis that the two residual EGBs are entirely due to the annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles in the Galactic halo, we obtain $conservative$ upper limits on their annihilation cross section \sigmav. Severe bounds on a possible Sommerfeld enhancement of the annihilation cross section are set as well. Finally, would {\sigmav} be inversely proportional to the WIMP velocity, very severe limits are derived for the velocity-independent part of the annihilation cross section.Comment: Proceedings of XII Taup Conference, Munich, September 201

Plastic Deformation of 2D Crumpled Wires

When a single long piece of elastic wire is injected trough channels into a confining two-dimensional cavity, a complex structure of hierarchical loops is formed. In the limit of maximum packing density, these structures are described by several scaling laws. In this paper it is investigated this packing process but using plastic wires which give origin to completely irreversible structures of different morphology. In particular, it is studied experimentally the plastic deformation from circular to oblate configurations of crumpled wires, obtained by the application of an axial strain. Among other things, it is shown that in spite of plasticity, irreversibility, and very large deformations, scaling is still observed.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Physical decline and cognitive impairment in frail hypertensive elders during COVID-19

Background: Hypertension is common in older adults and its incidence increases with age. We investigated the correlation between physical and cognitive impairment in older adults with frailty and hypertension. Methods: We recruited frail hypertensive older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, between March 2021 and December 2021. Global cognitive function was assessed through the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), physical frailty assessment was performed following the Fried criteria, and all patients underwent physical evaluation through 5-meter gait speed test. Results: We enrolled 203 frail hypertensive older adults and we found a significant correlation between MoCA score and gait speed test (r: 0.495; p<0.001) in our population. To evaluate the impact of comorbidities and other factors on our results, we applied a linear regression analysis with MoCA score as a dependent variable, observing a significant association with age, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and gait speed test. Conclusions: Our study revealed for the first time a significant correlation between physical and cognitive impairment in frail hypertensive elderly subjects

Gamma-ray anisotropies from dark matter in the Milky Way: the role of the radial distribution

The annihilation of dark matter particles in the halo of galaxies may end up into gamma rays, which travel almost unperturbed till to their detection at Earth. This annihilation signal can exhibit an anisotropic behavior quantified by the angular power spectrum, whose properties strongly depend on the dark matter distribution and its clumpiness. We use high resolution pure dark matter N-body simulations to quantify the contribution of different components (main halo and satellites) to the global signal as a function of the analytical profile adopted to describe the numerical results. We find that the smooth main halo dominates the angular power spectrum of the gamma-ray signal up to quite large multipoles, where the sub-haloes anisotropy signal starts to emerge, but the transition multipole strongly depends on the assumed radial profile. The extrapolation down to radii not resolved by current numerical simulations can affect both the normalization and the shape of the gamma-ray angular power spectrum. For the sub-haloes described by an asymptotically cored dark matter distribution, the angular power spectrum shows an overall smaller normalization and a flattening at high multipoles. Our results show the criticality of the dark matter density profile shape in gamma-ray anisotropy searches, and evaluate quantitatively the intrinsic errors occurring when extrapolating the dark matter radial profiles down to spatial scales not yet explored by numerical simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures. It matches the version published in MNRA

Características de rendimento de seis cultivares de bananeiras tipo prata em primeiro ciclo de produção.

Devido a sua ampla aceitação de mercado, as cultivares tipo Prata, tem um destaque importante na bananicultura brasileira. Surge dai a necessidade de desenvolver novas cultivares com uso do melhoramento genético, que possam solucionar problemas fitossanitários e de baixa produtividade, presentes nas plantadas atualmente. Neste contexto, o Programa Brasileiro de Melhoramento da Bananeira, coordenado pela Embrapa Mandioca e Fruticultura já desenvolveu diversos híbridos tetraplóides (AAAB) de bananeira tipo Prata. Alguns foram introduzidos de programas estrangeiros de melhoramento de bananeira, outros selecionados e outros obtidos por hibridação. Desses híbridos, foram recomendados para cultivo 'Maravilha' e 'BRS Fhia-18', foi pré-lançado 'BRS Platina' (DONATO et al., 2009) e encontram-se em fase de avaliação em diferentes regiões brasileiras 'Fhia-18' e 'JV42-135'