Contrasting multi-taxa diversity patterns between abandoned and non-intensively managed forests in the southern Dolomites

The abandonment of silvicultural activities can lead to changes in species richness and composition of biological communities, when compared to those found in managed forests. The aim of this study was to compare the multi-taxonomical diversity of two mature silver fir-beech-spruce forests in the southern Dolomites (Italy), corresponding to the European Union habitat type 9130. The two sites share similar ecological and structural characteristics, but differ in their recent management histories. In the last 50 years, one site underwent non-intensive management, while the other was left unmanaged and was included in a forest reserve. The species richness and composition of eight taxa were surveyed in the two sites between 2009 and 2011. The difference in mean species richness between the two forest management types was tested through permutation tests, while differences in species composition were tested by principal coordinates analysis and the permutational multivariate analysis of variance. Mean species richness of soil macrofungi, deadwood lichens, bark beetles, and longhorn beetles were significantly higher in the abandoned than in the non-intensively managed forests. Deadwood fungi and epiphytic lichens did not differ in mean species richness between the two study sites, while mean species richness of ground beetles and birds were higher in the non-intensively managed than in the abandoned forest. Significant differences in species composition between the two sites were found for all the taxa, except for longhorn beetles. These results indicate that improving forest landscape heterogeneity through the creation of a mosaic of abandoned and extensively managed forests should better fulfill the requirements of ecologically different taxa

Component Separation for Spectral X-Ray Imaging Using the XPAD3 Hybrid Pixel Camera

The advent of hybrid pixel cameras in X-ray imaging opens the way to the acquisition of spectral measurements. These new devices for which photon counting replaces charge integration incorporate a dedicated readout electronic for each pixel including a capability of selecting energies via the setup of an energy threshold. This ability is of uppermost importance for the development of new polychromatic X-ray imaging approaches that will exploit spectral information on the detected X-rays. Spectral measurements in X-ray imaging pave the way to the separation of images in several components of physical and biological interest: the photoelectric and the Compton contributions can be separated while several contrast agents can be simultaneously localized. We investigate the capability to perform component separation by using the newly developed XPAD3 hybrid pixel camera incorporated in the micro-CT demonstrator PIXSCAN. Firstly, we propose an approach to configure the acquisition setup in order to optimize the component separation problem with respect to the robustness to the photon noise. The method is based on the Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) that indicates the lowest reachable variance for the estimation of each component whatever the algorithm. Secondly, we investigate the separation problem with two components namely the photoelectric and the Compton ones. We show on noisy simulated data that such a separation with optimized setup i) enhances the contrast and the Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR) between biological materials (adipose, soft tissues) and water; ii) cancels the artifacts of the beam-hardening effect that may strongly degrade the image quality. On going work involves two steps: first, dealing with Monte Carlo simulations and real data acquired with the PIXSCAN demonstrator; second, dealing with component separation with more than two components by adding several contrast agents, for which PIXSCAN has already proved its ability to separate them

Plantas de cobertura verde podem controlar o excesso de vigor de uva vinífera.

A vitivinicultura na serra catarinense tem como aliado o clima que permite a colheita tardia, em relação às regiões tradicionalmente produtoras. Entretanto, a alta disponibilidade de nitrogênio do solo, aliada ao uso do porta enxerto P-1103 geralmente promovem vigor excessivo nas videiras, o que favorece a incidência de doenças e diminui a qualidade da uva. O objetivo desse trabalho foi avaliar a influência de plantas de cobertura e seu manejo no crescimento vegetativo da vinífera Cabernet Sauvignon em solos de altitude do sul do Brasil. O trabalho foi localizado no município de São Joaquim-SC em Cambissolo Distrofico a 1.120 metros de altitude. Foram avaliados cinco tratamentos compostos de um controle, com plantas espontâneas controladas por herbicida na linha e por roçada na entre linha; uma sucessão de plantas anuais, trigo mourisco-aveia branca; uma planta perene, festuca; e dois manejos, com e sem transferência do resíduo cultural da linha para a entre linha. Avaliou-se o crescimento de ramos da videira, na safra 2012-13 que é a quarta após o início do experimento. Na poda verde não se observou influencia das plantas de cobertura na massa média de ramos. Entretanto, em avaliação referente à poda seca, o consórcio de videira com festuca reduziu o vigor na videira, tanto nos tratamentos manejados com, como sem a transferência dos resíduos culturais da linha para entrelinha.Resumo expandido

ISOGO: Functional annotation of protein-coding splice variants

The advent of RNA-seq technologies has switched the paradigm of genetic analysis from a genome to a transcriptome-based perspective. Alternative splicing generates functional diversity in genes, but the precise functions of many individual isoforms are yet to be elucidated. Gene Ontology was developed to annotate gene products according to their biological processes, molecular functions and cellular components. Despite a single gene may have several gene products, most annotations are not isoform-specifc and do not distinguish the functions of the diferent proteins originated from a single gene. Several approaches have tried to automatically annotate ontologies at the isoform level, but this has shown to be a daunting task. We have developed ISOGO (ISOform+GO function imputation), a novel algorithm to predict the function of coding isoforms based on their protein domains and their correlation of expression along 11,373 cancer patients. Combining these two sources of information outperforms previous approaches: it provides an area under precision-recall curve (AUPRC) fve times larger than previous attempts and the median AUROC of assigned functions to genes is 0.82. We tested ISOGO predictions on some genes with isoform-specifc functions (BRCA1, MADD,VAMP7 and ITSN1) and they were coherent with the literature. Besides, we examined whether the main isoform of each gene -as predicted by APPRIS- was the most likely to have the annotated gene functions and it occurs in 99.4% of the genes. We also evaluated the predictions for isoform-specifc functions provided by the CAFA3 challenge and results were also convincing. To make these results available to the scientifc community, we have deployed a web application to consult ISOGO predictions (https://biotecnun.unav. es/app/isogo). Initial data, website link, isoform-specifc GO function predictions and R code is available at https://gitlab.com/icassol/isogo

ERADICAZIONE DI INFEZIONE DA HCV DOPO TRATTAMENTO DI 8 SETTIMANE CON GRAZOPREVIR/ELBASVIR: CASE REPORT

INTRODUZIONE. Il genotipo 1b è il più comune sottotipo di HCV, responsabile del 22% delle infezioni a livello globale. La combinazione di grazoprevir ed elbasvir, assunta una volta al giorno per 12 settimane, ha dimostrato buona tollerabilità ed efficacia (>95%) nell’ottenimento della risposta virologia sostenuta a 12 settimane (SVR12), in pazienti con genotipo 1 e 4, sia naïve che treatment experienced, coinfetti HIV, senza cirrosi o con cirrosi compensata. Secondo le linee guida EASL, sulla base dei dati dello studio STREAGER, è possibile trattare i pazienti naïve con genotipo 1b e grado di fibrosi F0-F2 per 8 settimane. OBIETTIVO. Descrizione di un caso di eradicazione di infezione da HCV in paziente con grado di fibrosi F0-F1 dopo trattamento di 8 settimane con grazoprevir/elbasvir CASO CLINICO. Paziente di anni 67, giunge alla nostra attenzione per intraprendere trattamento per infezione da HCV, riferita esser nota dal 1984; in anamnesi cardiomiopatia dilatativa ipocinetica, ipertensione, angioma cavernoso epatico, litiasi colecistica multipla. Agli esami ematochimici al basale da segnalare ipergammaglobulinemia (21,1%), normale funzionalità epatica, crioglobuline negative, positività degli anticorpi antiDNA nativo, giudicata di non rilevanza clinica da parere reumatologico; test HIV negativo, pregressa HAV, negativi markers per HBV e sierologia per sifilide, HCV RNA 2.750.000 UI/ml, genotipo 1b, grado di fibrosi F0-F1 secondo Metavir. Viene intrapresa terapia con grazoprevir/elbasvir in data 19/03/19; a 4 settimane HCV RNA non rilevabile. Il paziente viene ricoverato in altro nosocomio per colecistite acuta pertanto non si presenta a ritirare l’ultima confezione di farmaco e sospende terapia in data 14/05/2019. Ad un mese dalla sospensione torna a controllo, riferendo aderenza completa nelle 8 settimane di assunzione del farmaco; esegue nella stessa data prelievo ematico, ripetuto a 8 e 12 settimane dal termine della terapia, con riscontro di ematochimica nei limiti e HCV RNA non rilevabile. In programma follow up clinico, laboratoristico ed ecografico semestrale. CONCLUSIONI. Nonostante l’interruzione precoce della terapia, 8 settimane di trattamento con grazoprevir/elbasvir hanno comunque permesso di ottenere una risposta virologica sostenuta (SVR12) in paziente con basso grado di fibrosi e multiple comorbosità nella real life, confermando i dati della letteratura recente