Correction to: inflammation is a target of medical treatment for lower urinary tract symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia

The article “Inflammation is a target of medical treatment for lower urinary tract symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia”, written by Cosimo De Nunzio, Andrea Salonia, Mauro Gacci and Vincenzo Ficarra was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on 14 February 2020 without open access

Inflammation is a target of medical treatment for lower urinary tract symptoms associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia

Purpose: To review the role of a persistent prostatic inflammatory status (PIS) in the development and progression of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) associated with lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) and which medical therapies approved for LUTS/BPH may reduce persistent PIS. Methods: Literature search in PubMed up to July 2019. Results: The cause of histologically defined persistent PIS or chronic prostatic inflammation is multifactorial. It is evident in many men with LUTS/BPH, particularly in older men and in men with a large prostate volume or more severe (storage) LUTS. Additionally, persistent PIS is associated with an increased risk of acute urinary retention and symptom worsening. Of medical therapies approved for LUTS/BPH, the current evidence for a reduction of persistent PIS is greatest for the hexanic extract of Serenoa repens (HESr). This treatment relieves LUTS to the same extent as α1-adrenoceptor antagonists and short-term 5α-reductase inhibitors. Limited evidence is available on the effect of other mainstream LUTS/BPH treatments on persistent PIS. Conclusions: Persistent PIS plays a central role in both the development and progression of LUTS/BPH. In men with LUTS/BPH who have a high chance of harbouring persistent PIS, HESr will not only improve LUTS, but also reduce (underlying) inflammation. Well-designed clinical studies, with a good level of evidence, are required to better evaluate the impact of BPH/LUTS medical therapies on persistent PIS

Identifying the oncogenic potential of gene fusions exploiting miRNAs

It is estimated that oncogenic gene fusions cause about 20% of human cancer morbidity. Identifying potentially oncogenic gene fusions may improve affected patients’ diagnosis and treatment. Previous approaches to this issue included exploiting specific gene-related information, such as gene function and regulation. Here we propose a model that profits from the previous findings and includes the microRNAs in the oncogenic assessment. We present ChimerDriver, a tool to classify gene fusions as oncogenic or not oncogenic. ChimerDriver is based on a specifically designed neural network and trained on genetic and post-transcriptional information to obtain a reliable classification. The designed neural network integrates information related to transcription factors, gene ontologies, microRNAs and other detailed information related to the functions of the genes involved in the fusion and the gene fusion structure. As a result, the performances on the test set reached 0.83 f1-score and 96% recall. The comparison with state-of-the-art tools returned comparable or higher results. Moreover, ChimerDriver performed well in a real-world case where 21 out of 24 validated gene fusion samples were detected by the gene fusion detection tool Starfusion. ChimerDriver integrates transcriptional and post-transcriptional information in an ad-hoc designed neural network to effectively discriminate oncogenic gene fusions from passenger ones. ChimerDriver source code is freely available at https://github.com/martalovino/ChimerDriver

Usability, communicability and cultural tourism in interactive systems : trends, economic effects and social impact

We have developed a set of techniques and an analysis methodology aimed at boosting the quality of interactive tourism systems. The details of it will be presented in full and with real examples which have yielded interesting results in the last few years, both from the social and economical point of view, but with a huge wealth of cultural and natural heritage. We will also present a first guidelines to foster tourism in those villages that are willing to promote themselves in the national and international market at a low cost

Vademecum for innovation through knowledge transfer : continuous training in universities, enterprises and industries

In the current work we present a first state of the art in technology transfer from the university-public-private environment to the enterprises and industries in Spain and Italy and vice versa. In it are described the main causes that boost and damage that two-way relationship. Additionally, a first vademecum is established to avoid those environments where technology transfer is either nonexistent or difficult to carry out because of the human factors this process entails. This short guide allows one to detect easily through the Internet whether we are in a real or false technology transfer process

Role of d-mannose in the prevention of recurrent uncomplicated cystitis: State of the art and future perspectives

Background: Urinary tract infections (UTI) are highly frequent in women, with a significant impact on healthcare resources. Although antibiotics still represent the standard treatment to manage recurrent UTI (rUTI), D-mannose, an inert monosaccharide that is metabolized and excreted in urine and acts by inhibiting bacterial adhesion to the urothelium, represents a promising nonantibiotic prevention strategy. The aim of this narrative review is to critically analyze clinical studies reporting data concerning the efficacy and safety of D-mannose in the management of rUTIs. Methods: A nonsystematic literature search, using the Pubmed, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and Cochrane Central Database of Systematic Reviews databases, was performed for relevant articles published between January 2010 and January 2021. The following Medical Subjects Heading were used: “female/woman”, “urinary tract infection”, and “D-mannose”. Only clinical studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses reporting efficacy or safety data on D-mannose versus placebo or other competitors were selected for the present review. Evidence was limited to human data. The selected studies were organized in two categories according to the presence or not of a competitor to D-mannose. Results: After exclusion of non-pertinent studies/articles, 13 studies were analyzed. In detail, six were randomized controlled trials (RCTs), one a randomized cross-over trial, five prospective cohort studies, and one a retrospective analysis. Seven studies compared D-mannose to placebo or others drugs/dietary supplements. Six studies evaluated the efficacy of D-mannose comparing follow-up data with the baseline. D-mannose is well tolerated, with few reported adverse events (diarrhea was reported in about 8% of patients receiving 2 g of D-mannose for at least 6 months). Most of the studies also showed D-mannose can play a role in the prevention or rUTI or urodynamics-associated UTI and can overlap antibiotic treatments in some cases. The possibility to combine D-mannose with polyphenols or Lactobacillus seems another important option for UTI prophylaxis. However, the quality of the collected studies was very low, generating, consequently, a weak grade of recommendations as suggested by international guidelines. Data on D-mannose dose, frequency, and duration of treatment are still lacking. Conclusion: Dmannose alone or in combination with several dietary supplements or Lactobacillus has a potential role in the non antimicrobial prophylaxis or recurrent UTI in women. Despite its frequent prescription in real-life practice, we believe that further well-designed studies are urgently needed to definitively support the role of D-mannose in the management of recurrent UTIs in women

A Multi-Cloud Warm-Absorber Model for NGC 4051

A multi-cloud model is presented which explains the soft X-ray excess in NGC 4051 and, consistently, the optical line spectrum and the SED of the continuum. The clouds are heated and ionized by the photoionizing flux from the active center and by shocks. Diffuse radiation, partly absorbed throughout the clouds, nicely fits the bump in the soft X-ray domain, while bremsstrahlung radiation from the gaseous clouds contribute to the fit of the continuum SED. Debris of high density fragmented clouds are necessary to explain the absorption oxygen throats observed at 0.87 keV and 0.74 keV. The debris are heated by shocks of about 200-300 km/s. Low velocity (100 km/s)-density (100 cm-3) clouds contribute to the line and continuum spectra, as well as high velocity (1000 km/s)-density (8000 cm-3) clouds which are revealed by the FWHM of the line profiles. The SED in the IR is explained by reradiation of dust, however, the dust-to-gas ratio is not particularly high. Radio emission is well fitted by synchrotron radiation created at the shock front by Fermi mechanism.Comment: 19 pages + 3 figures PostScrip

Advances in human-computer interaction : graphics and animation components for interface design

We present an analysis of communicability methodology in graphics and animation components for interface design, called CAN (Communicability, Acceptability and Novelty). This methodology has been under development between 2005 and 2010, obtaining excellent results in cultural heritage, education and microcomputing contexts. In studies where there is a bi-directional interrelation between ergonomics, usability, user-centered design, software quality and the human-computer interaction. We also present the heuristic results about iconography and layout design in blogs and websites of the following countries: Spain, Italy, Portugal and France

A survey on data integration for multi-omics sample clustering

Due to the current high availability of omics, data-driven biology has greatly expanded, and several papers have reviewed state-of-the-art technologies. Nowadays, two main types of investigation are available for a multi-omics dataset: extraction of relevant features for a meaningful biological interpretation and clustering of the samples. In the latter case, a few reviews refer to some outdated or no longer available methods, whereas others lack the description of relevant clustering metrics to compare the main approaches. This work provides a general overview of the major techniques in this area, divided into four groups: graph, dimensionality reduction, statistical and neural-based. Besides, eight tools have been tested both on a synthetic and a real biological dataset. An extensive performance comparison has been provided using four clustering evaluation scores: Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Davies-Bouldin(DB) index, Silhouette value and the harmonic mean of cluster purity and efficiency. The best results were obtained by using the dimensionality reduction, either explicitly or implicitly, as in the neural architecture