Smart furniture and smart city

"S [m2]ART, looking at the city by metro" is an industrial and development research project funded by the MIUR under Smart Cities and Communities and Social Innovation projects on social inclusion and welfare and security topics. Politecnics of Turin and Milan are partners of the project together with Telecom Italia (coordinator), Reply, Metalco, Thema Progetti Group and an ICT company of the ICT industry. The project aims at experimenting with a scalable system of smart urban furnishings, integrated into the city as a network “node”, offering innovative services to the inhabitants and at the same time providing the municipal administration with a network of sensors capable of monitor phenomena and dynamics of the urban environment. The role of the research group within the project was to define specific contributions in two areas: the definition of innovative services to be delivered to citizens through S[m2]ART urban furnishings and the definition of requirements relating to the sustainability of materials and materials technologies for the construction and furnishing of furniture. The paper presents the results of the research, describing, in particular, the involvement and collaboration between stakeholders (public administration and end users) and industrial partners. The research results are the framework for the definitive and executive design of intelligent urban furniture that could be installed and monitored later in the cities of Turin and Milan. The research has practical and socio-economic implications [1]. The project is designed in the light of a balance between a service offering able to meet innovative needs [2]and business opportunities of private partners involved with the goal of defining a sustainable business plan[3]. In addition, a network of sensors for the monitoring of urban environment data is envisaged, enabling public administrations to collect useful data to improve the quality of services provided to citizens

Liver-directed lentiviral gene therapy in a dog model of hemophilia B

We investigated the efficacy of liver-directed gene therapy using lentiviral vectors in a large animal model of hemophilia B and evaluated the risk of insertional mutagenesis in tumor-prone mouse models. We showed that gene therapy using lentiviral vectors targeting the expression of a canine factor IX transgene in hepatocytes was well tolerated and provided a stable long-term production of coagulation factor IX in dogs with hemophilia B. By exploiting three different mouse models designed to amplify the consequences of insertional mutagenesis, we showed that no genotoxicity was detected with these lentiviral vectors. Our findings suggest that lentiviral vectors may be an attractive candidate for gene therapy targeted to the liver and may be potentially useful for the treatment of hemophilia.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Tocilizumab for patients with COVID-19 pneumonia. The single-arm TOCIVID-19 prospective trial

BackgroundTocilizumab blocks pro-inflammatory activity of interleukin-6 (IL-6), involved in pathogenesis of pneumonia the most frequent cause of death in COVID-19 patients.MethodsA multicenter, single-arm, hypothesis-driven trial was planned, according to a phase 2 design, to study the effect of tocilizumab on lethality rates at 14 and 30 days (co-primary endpoints, a priori expected rates being 20 and 35%, respectively). A further prospective cohort of patients, consecutively enrolled after the first cohort was accomplished, was used as a secondary validation dataset. The two cohorts were evaluated jointly in an exploratory multivariable logistic regression model to assess prognostic variables on survival.ResultsIn the primary intention-to-treat (ITT) phase 2 population, 180/301 (59.8%) subjects received tocilizumab, and 67 deaths were observed overall. Lethality rates were equal to 18.4% (97.5% CI: 13.6-24.0, P=0.52) and 22.4% (97.5% CI: 17.2-28.3, P<0.001) at 14 and 30 days, respectively. Lethality rates were lower in the validation dataset, that included 920 patients. No signal of specific drug toxicity was reported. In the exploratory multivariable logistic regression analysis, older age and lower PaO2/FiO2 ratio negatively affected survival, while the concurrent use of steroids was associated with greater survival. A statistically significant interaction was found between tocilizumab and respiratory support, suggesting that tocilizumab might be more effective in patients not requiring mechanical respiratory support at baseline.ConclusionsTocilizumab reduced lethality rate at 30 days compared with null hypothesis, without significant toxicity. Possibly, this effect could be limited to patients not requiring mechanical respiratory support at baseline.Registration EudraCT (2020-001110-38); clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04317092)