Closing the knowledge gap on the composition of the asbestos bodies

Asbestos bodies (AB) form in the lungs as a result of a biomineralization process initiated by the alveolar macrophages in the attempt to remove asbestos. During this process, organic and inorganic material deposit on the foreign fibers forming a Fe-rich coating. The AB start to form in months, thus quickly becoming the actual interface between asbestos and the lung tissue. Therefore, revealing their composition, and, in particular, the chemical form of Fe, which is the major component of the AB, is essential to assess their possible role in the pathogenesis of asbestos-related diseases. In this work we report the result of the first x-ray diffraction measurements performed on single AB embedded in the lung tissue samples of former asbestos plant workers. The combination with x-ray absorption spectroscopy data allowed to unambiguously reveal that Fe is present in the AB in the form of two Fe-oxy(hydroxides): ferrihydrite and goethite. The presence of goethite, which can be explained in terms of the transformation of ferrihydrite (a metastable phase) due to the acidic conditions induced by the alveolar macrophages in their attempt to phagocytose the fibers, has toxicological implications that are discussed in the paper

Measles: An overview of a re-emerging disease in children and immunocompromised patients

Despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine, in 2018, around 350,000 measles cases were reported worldwide, which resulted in an estimate of 142,300 deaths from measles. Additionally, in 2017, global measles cases spiked, causing the death of 110,000 people, mostly children under the age of 5 years and immunocompromised adults. The increase in measles incidence is caused by the ongoing reduction of vaccination coverage. This event has triggered public and scientific interest. For this reason, we reviewed the pathophysiology of measles infection, focusing on mechanisms by which the virus spreads systemically through the host organism. By reaching the lymphocytes from the airways through a \u201ctrojan horse\u201d strategy, measles induces an immunosuppression status. H and F glycoproteins, both expressed in the envelope, ensure attachment of the virus to host cells and spreading from one cell to another by binding to several receptors, as described in detail. The severity of the disease depends both on the age and underlying conditions of patients as well as the social and health context in which epidemics spread, and is often burdened by sequelae and complications that may occur several years after infection. Particular attention was paid to special groups that are more susceptible to severe or atypical measles. An overview of microbiology, symptoms, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment completes and enriches the review

Clinical Management of Adult Patients with COVID-19 Outside Intensive Care Units: Guidelines from the Italian Society of Anti-Infective Therapy (SITA) and the Italian Society of Pulmonology (SIP)

Introduction: The Italian Society of Anti-Infective Therapy (SITA) and the Italian Society of Pulmonology (SIP) constituted an expert panel for developing evidence-based guidance for the clinical management of adult patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outside intensive care units. Methods: Ten systematic literature searches were performed to answer ten different key questions. The retrieved evidence was graded according to the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation methodology (GRADE). Results and Conclusion: The literature searches mostly assessed the available evidence on the management of COVID-19 patients in terms of antiviral, anticoagulant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP)/non-invasive ventilation (NIV) treatment. Most evidence was deemed as of low certainty, and in some cases, recommendations could not be developed according to the GRADE system (best practice recommendations were provided in similar situations). The use of neutralizing monoclonal antibodies may be considered for outpatients at risk of disease progression. For inpatients, favorable recommendations were provided for anticoagulant prophylaxis and systemic steroids administration, although with low certainty of evidence. Favorable recommendations, with very low/low certainty of evidence, were also provided for, in specific situations, remdesivir, alone or in combination with baricitinib, and tocilizumab. The presence of many best practice recommendations testified to the need for further investigations by means of randomized controlled trials, whenever possible, with some possible future research directions stemming from the results of the ten systematic reviews

The GAPS Programme with HARPS-N@TNG IX. The multi-planet system KELT-6: detection of the planet KELT-6 c and measurement of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect for KELT-6 b

Aims. For more than 1.5 years we monitored spectroscopically the star KELT-6 (BD+312447), known to host the transiting hot Saturn KELT-6b, because a previously observed long-term trend in radial velocity time series suggested the existence of an outer companion. Methods. We collected a total of 93 new spectra with the HARPS-N and TRES spectrographs. A spectroscopic transit of KELT-6b was observed with HARPS-N, and simultaneous photometry was obtained with the IAC-80 telescope. Results. We proved the existence of an outer planet with a mininum mass M$_{\rm p}$sini=3.71$\pm$0.21 M$_{\rm Jup}$ and a moderately eccentric orbit ($e=0.21_{-0.036}^{+0.039}$) of period P$\sim$3.5 years. We improved the orbital solution of KELT-6b and obtained the first measurement of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, showing that the planet has a likely circular, prograde, and slightly misaligned orbit, with a projected spin-orbit angle $\lambda$=$-$36$\pm$11 degrees. We improved the KELT-6b transit ephemeris from photometry, and we provided new measurements of the stellar parameters. KELT-6 appears as an interesting case to study the formation and evolution of multi-planet systems.Comment: Letter, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Some language editing and numbering of the paper series changed (from X to IX

Neutral Iron Emission Lines From The Day-side Of KELT-9b -- The GAPS Programme With HARPS-N At TNG XX

We present the first detection of atomic emission lines from the atmosphere of an exoplanet. We detect neutral iron lines from the day-side of KELT-9b (Teq $\sim$ 4, 000 K). We combined thousands of spectrally resolved lines observed during one night with the HARPS-N spectrograph (R $\sim$ 115, 000), mounted at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo. We introduce a novel statistical approach to extract the planetary parameters from the binary mask cross-correlation analysis. We also adapt the concept of contribution function to the context of high spectral resolution observations, to identify the location in the planetary atmosphere where the detected emission originates. The average planetary line profile intersected by a stellar G2 binary mask was found in emission with a contrast of 84 $\pm$ 14 ppm relative to the planetary plus stellar continuum (40 $\pm$ 5$\%$ relative to the planetary continuum only). This result unambiguously indicates the presence of an atmospheric thermal inversion. Finally, assuming a modelled temperature profile previously published (Lothringer et al. 2018), we show that an iron abundance consistent with a few times the stellar value explains the data well. In this scenario, the iron emission originates at the $10^{-3}$-$10^{-5}$ bar level.Comment: Accepted for publication on ApJL; 19 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

A facility to Search for Hidden Particles (SHiP) at the CERN SPS

A new general purpose fixed target facility is proposed at the CERN SPS accelerator which is aimed at exploring the domain of hidden particles and make measurements with tau neutrinos. Hidden particles are predicted by a large number of models beyond the Standard Model. The high intensity of the SPS 400~GeV beam allows probing a wide variety of models containing light long-lived exotic particles with masses below ${\cal O}$(10)~GeV/c$^2$, including very weakly interacting low-energy SUSY states. The experimental programme of the proposed facility is capable of being extended in the future, e.g. to include direct searches for Dark Matter and Lepton Flavour Violation.Comment: Technical Proposa

Diagnostic and prognostic potential of the proteomic profiling of serum-derived extracellular vesicles in prostate cancer

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) and their cargo represent an intriguing source of cancer biomarkers for developing robust and sensitive molecular tests by liquid biopsy. Prostate cancer (PCa) is still one of the most frequent and deadly tumor in men and analysis of EVs from biological fluids of PCa patients has proven the feasibility and the unprecedented potential of such an approach. Here, we exploited an antibody-based proteomic technology, i.e. the Reverse-Phase Protein microArrays (RPPA), to measure key antigens and activated signaling in EVs isolated from sera of PCa patients. Notably, we found tumor-specific protein profiles associated with clinical settings as well as candidate markers for EV-based tumor diagnosis. Among others, PD-L1, ERG, Integrin-β5, Survivin, TGF-β, phosphorylated-TSC2 as well as partners of the MAP-kinase and mTOR pathways emerged as differentially expressed endpoints in tumor-derived EVs. In addition, the retrospective analysis of EVs from a 15-year follow-up cohort generated a protein signature with prognostic significance. Our results confirm that serum-derived EV cargo may be exploited to improve the current diagnostic procedures while providing potential prognostic and predictive information. The approach proposed here has been already applied to tumor entities other than PCa, thus proving its value in translational medicine and paving the way to innovative, clinically meaningful tools

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13