Clinical significance of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in laryngeal carcinoma: Its role in the different subsites

Background: During epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, cancer cells lose adhesion capacity gaining migratory properties. The role of the process on prognosis has been evaluated in 50 cases of laryngeal carcinoma. Methods: E-cadherin, N-cadherin, β-catenin, α-catenin, γ-catenin, caveolin-1, and vimentin immunohistochemical expression were evaluated using a double score based on staining intensity and cellular localization. Results: Cytoplasmic E-cadherin and α/γ catenin staining were associated with a decrease in survival, cytoplasmic β-catenin was associated with advanced stage, and N-cadherin and vimentin expression were associated with poor differentiation and tumor relapse. On the basis of cancer cells, epithelial or mesenchymal morphological and immunophenotypic similarity we identified 4 main subgroups correlated with a transition to a more undifferentiated phenotype, which have a different pattern of relapse and survival. Conclusion: The negative prognostic role of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition has been confirmed and a predictive role in glottic tumors has been suggested, leading us to propose epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition as an additional adverse feature in laryngeal carcinoma

Detecting time-fragmented cache attacks against AES using Performance Monitoring Counters

Cache timing attacks use shared caches in multi-core processors as side channels to extract information from victim processes. These attacks are particularly dangerous in cloud infrastructures, in which the deployed countermeasures cause collateral effects in terms of performance loss and increase in energy consumption. We propose to monitor the victim process using an independent monitoring (detector) process, that continuously measures selected Performance Monitoring Counters (PMC) to detect the presence of an attack. Ad-hoc countermeasures can be applied only when such a risky situation arises. In our case, the victim process is the AES encryption algorithm and the attack is performed by means of random encryption requests. We demonstrate that PMCs are a feasible tool to detect the attack and that sampling PMCs at high frequencies is worse than sampling at lower frequencies in terms of detection capabilities, particularly when the attack is fragmented in time to try to be hidden from detection

A rapid and selective mass spectrometric method for the identification of nitrated proteins.

The nitration of protein tyrosine residues represents an important posttranslational modification during development, oxidative stress, and biological aging. The major challenge in the proteomic analysis of nitroproteins is the need to discriminate modified proteins, usually occurring at substoichiometric levels, from the large amount of nonmodified proteins. Moreover, precise localization of the nitration site is often required to fully describe the biological process. Identification of the specific targets of protein oxidation was previously accomplished using immunoprecipitation techniques followed by immunochemical detection. Here, we report a totally new approach involving dansyl chloride labeling of the nitration sites which relies on the enormous potential of MSn analysis. The tryptic digest from the entire protein mixture is directly analyzed by MS on a linear ion trap mass spectrometer. Discrimination between nitro- and unmodified peptide is based on two selectivity criteria obtained by combining a precursor ion scan and a MS3 analysis. The novel labeling procedure was successfully applied to the identification of 3-nitrotyrosine residues in complex protein mixture

Glue constraining asymmetries in W, γ\gamma or Z production at CERN LHC

We propose a class of forward-backward asymmetries with respect to the subprocess c.m. scattering angle in $V$+jet production at hadron colliders, with V being any of (W, Z, $\gamma$, H), which are directly proportional to the gluon distribution $g(x)$. The informations that these asymmetries can provide are complementary of those reachable from measurements of the transverse momentum and/or the rapidity distributions of a $V$ in kinematical regimes where gluon scattering subprocesses dominate. The accuracy which can be reached in the W, Z and $\gamma$ cases, at the upgraded Tevatron and at LHC, should allow a considerable improvement of our knowledge of the gluon distribution function, especially at large x.Comment: 20 pages including 14 figures. Minor corrections include

Z' Physics

The limits on extra neutral gauge bosons, which could be reached at LEP2, are reviewed. Exclusion and discovery limits are discussed for f\bar f and WW production.Comment: 20 pages Latex, 7 figures included by epsfig, Contribution to the Proceedings the workshop "Physics at LEP2", Geneva, 199

Stress management interventions among healthcare workers using mindfulness. A systematic review.

Background: stress among healthcare professionals has gained more and more attention due to the negative consequences on their and patients’ health. As a result of intense working hours, night shifts, responsibilities of care, and emotional contact with patients, healthcare workers experience stressful conditions. Interventions to prevent and manage their wellbeing are needed, in order to reduce the risks of onset of burnout syndrome. Aim: the aim of this systematic review is to analyze how mindfulness courses can improve mental and physical well-being of healthcare workers. Methods: a literature search was conducted in May 2018 using the databases Medline (PubMed), Scopus and Isi Web of Knowledge. Studies were included if they examined mindfulness interventions as possible solutions to manage stress among healthcare workers. Results: fifty-eight articles met the inclusion criteria: 13 of them were clinical trials; 11 were randomized clinical trials; 12 were systematic reviews; 7 were narrative reviews and 15 were observational studies. The studies included showed effectiveness of mindfulness programs in reducing stress, self-compassion, burnout, anxiety and depression. Significant negative association has been observed between MBSR and stress levels (β: −0.60, 95% CI:−5.95 to −4.04, P< 0.001) and mental exhaustion (β:−0.43, 95% CI:−3.30 −1.86, P< 0.001). Clinical trials focused on psychoeducational interventions highlighted decreased burnout scores in intervention group (SDM: -0.38). Conclusion: courses based on mindfulness showed to be effective in improving healthcare workers’ well-being, increasing their quality of life and the productivity outcomes. The evidence derived from this systematic review suggests that these interventions should be included within the work organization in order to be viable tools for promoting self-care and quality of care

JET ANALYSIS BY NEURAL NETWORKS IN HIGH ENERGY HADRON-HADRON COLLISIONS

We study the possibility to employ neural networks to simulate jet clustering procedures in high energy hadron-hadron collisions. We concentrate our analysis on the Fermilab Tevatron energy and on the $k_\bot$ algorithm. We consider both supervised multilayer feed-forward network trained by the backpropagation algorithm and unsupervised learning, where the neural network autonomously organizes the events in clusters.Comment: 9 pages, latex, 2 figures not included

INCLUSIVE PARTICLE PRODUCTION IN \pbp COLLISIONS

We calculate the inclusive production of charged hadrons in \pbp collisions to next-to-leading order (NLO) in the QCD improved parton model using a new set of NLO fragmentation functions for charged pions and kaons. We predict transverse-momentum distributions and compare them with experimental data from the CERN S\pbpS Collider and the Fermilab Tevatron.Comment: the file containing the figures has been replaced: we correct a mistake in the uuencoding procedure and we give the real Fig 4 instead of the spurious one which was accidentally included in the previous file. the text is unchanged

Redox proteome analysis of auranofin exposed ovarian cancer cells (A2780)

The effects of Auranofin (AF) on protein expression and protein oxidation in A2780 cancer cells were investigated through a strategy based on simultaneous expression proteomics and redox proteomics determinations. Bioinformatics analysis of the proteomics data supports the view that the most critical cellular changes elicited by AF treatment consist of thioredoxin reductase inhibition, alteration of the cell redox state, impairment of the mitochondrial functions, metabolic changes associated with conversion to a glycolytic phenotype, induction of ER stress. The occurrence of the above cellular changes was extensively validated by performing direct biochemical assays. Our data are consistent with the concept that AF produces its effects through a multitarget mechanism that mainly affects the redox metabolism and the mitochondrial functions and results into severe ER stress. Results are discussed in the context of the current mechanistic knowledge existing on AF