Water management in local development plans: the case of the old Fruit and Vegetable Market in Bologna

This paper describes the hydraulic simulation of an urban drainage system with SWMM 5.0 in order to evaluate the behavior of different solutions for the management of urban runoff. In particular have been analyzed different solutions for the flow peak reduction in the receiving water: retention basin, green roofs and infiltration tanks. The reuse of rainfall for irrigation has been analyzed in order to evaluate the reduction in the volume that flow into the sewer system. The simulations were performed adopting a long time rainfall series of 15 years recorded in Bologna (Italy)

Effectiveness of clozapine and olanzapine: a comparison in severe, psychotically ill patients

The aim of our study was to evaluate the effectivenessof clozapine and olanzapine in the treatment of schizophrenicpatients. Either clozapine or olanzapine signifcantly ameliorated positive symptoms, but only clozapine was effective in reducinganxiety and hallucinations, while olanzapine was more effective in reducing negative symptoms, such as mannerism and posturing, blunted affect and emotional withdrawal. Olanzapine-treated patients obtained significantly higher GAF scores than clozapine-treated patients and more frequently participated in rehabilitative programmes. In conclusio, olanzapine therapy has surprisingly been shown to be more effective than clozapine in improving social and working skills

Sustainability achievements in building regulations. The example of Bologna

The urban development in the last decades has meant for most cities a significant increasing of land consumption and waste of natural resources. Despite the process of urban sprawl is now being reduced, there is an urgent need for corrective measures to qualify the existing town, according to more sustainable principles.The city of Bologna has recently developed new tools, in order to promote a social and economic growth without affecting the urban and environmental quality. This article aims to describe the achievements of the innovative requirements in the new Town Planning Building Regulations, to analyse their effect, in relation to the reduction of use of natural resources and the improvement of environmental quality of the interventions

Resistance of European spring 2-row barley cultivars to Pyrenophora graminea and detection of associated loci

Pyrenophora graminea is the seed-borne pathogen causal agent of barley leaf stripe disease. In this work, we screened a collection of 206 spring two-row barley cultivars from Europe for their resistance to the fungal pathogen. Artificial inoculation with the highly virulent isolate Dg2 revealed a continuous variation for the incidence of infection, with few highly resistant or highly susceptible genotypes. On average, old cultivars showed higher resistance than the more modern ones. Genome- Wide Association Scan was performed by exploiting available molecular data for >4000 SNP markers and revealed a single, highly significant association on the short arm of chromosome 6H, in a genomic position where quantitative trait loci (QTL) for barley resistance to P. graminea were not detected before. Based on the last version of the reference barley genome, genes encoding for proteins with a kinase domain were suggested as candidates for the locus

Eliciting Implicit Awareness in Alzheimer’s Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Task-Based Functional MRI Study

Background: Recent models of anosognosia in dementia have suggested the existence of an implicit component of self-awareness about one’s cognitive impairment that may remain preserved and continue to regulate behavioral, affective, and cognitive responses even in people who do not show an explicit awareness of their difficulties. Behavioral studies have used different strategies to demonstrate implicit awareness in patients with anosognosia, but no neuroimaging studies have yet investigated its neural bases. Methods: Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment and dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the execution of a color-naming task in which they were presented with neutral, negative, and dementia-related words (Dementia-Related Emotional Stroop). Results: Twenty-one patients were recruited: 12 were classified as aware and 9 as unaware according to anosognosia scales (based on clinical judgment and patient-caregiver discrepancy). Behavioral results showed that aware patients took the longest time to process dementia-related words, although differences between word types were not significant, limiting interpretation of behavioral results. Imaging results showed that patients with preserved explicit awareness had a small positive differential activation of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) for the dementia-related words condition compared to the negative words, suggesting attribution of emotional valence to both conditions. PCC differential activation was instead negative in unaware patients, i.e., lower for dementia-related words relative to negative-words. In addition, the more negative the differential activation, the lower was the Stroop effect measuring implicit awareness. Conclusion: Posterior cingulate cortex preserved response to dementia-related stimuli may be a marker of preserved implicit self-awareness

Genome-Wide Association Study Using Genotyping by Sequencing for Bacterial Leaf Blight Resistance Loci in Local Thai Indica Rice

Bacterial leaf blight (BLB) is a devastating disease caused by Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), which poses a significant threat to global rice production. In this study, a genomewide association study (GWAS) was conducted using the genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach to identify candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with BLB resistance genes. The study utilized 200 indica rice accessions inoculated with seven distinct Xoo isolates and filtered highly significant SNPs using a minor allele frequency (MAF) of >5% and a call rate of 75%. Four statistical models were used to explore potential SNPs associated with BLB resistance, resulting in the identification of 32 significant SNPs on chromosomes 1–8 and 12 in the rice genome. Additionally, 179 genes were located within 100 kb of the SNP region, of which 49 were selected as candidate genes based on their known functions in plant defense mechanisms. Several candidate genes were identified, including two genes in the same linkage disequilibrium (LD) decay as the well-known BLB resistance gene (Xa1). These findings represent a valuable resource for conducting further functional studies and developing novel breeding strategies to enhance the crop’s resistance to this disease

A possible role of the trehalose/trehalose-6-phosphate/SnRK1 system in rice response to salt stress

Among the abiotic stresses exacerbated by climate change, soil salinity is one of the most harmful for crops. Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is a very salt-sensitive cereal, with particular regard to the cultivars belonging to the subspecies japonica. In order to identify genomic traits conferring salt tolerance, a collection of 277 rice accessions (ssp. japonica) has been phenotypized under mild-salinity considering germination kinetic parameters and seedling emergence rate. Genotyping By Sequencing (GBS) followed by a Genome Wide Association Study (GWASs) were carried out. A total of 31.421 SNPs were used for the analysis. Significant genotypic-phenotypic associations were observed and a few Marker-Trait Associations (MTAs) were identified. By alignment with the rice reference genome (Os-Nipponbare-Reference-IRGSP-1.0), some of the genes putatively involved in salt stress were highlighted. Among them, our interest has been focused on OsTPP7 (chromosome 9) and OsTPP10 (chromosome 7), genes that belong to the OsTPP gene family encoding for Trehalose-6-Phosphate Phosphatase (TPP) enzymes catalyzing the dephosphorylation of Trehalose-6-Phosphate (T6P) to Trehalose (Tre). The level of T6P plays a central role in abiotic stress tolerance, acting as a signal in the cascade of events regulating sugar metabolism (sucrose) during seed germination and seedling growth. This activity is mediated by Snf1-Related protein Kinase-1 (SnRK1), a metabolic sensor fundamental in maintaining carbon homeostasis under stress condition. Biochemical and molecular analyses were performed on two rice accessions showing opposite behavior under salt stress (Olcenengo, tolerant, and SR113, sensitive). Results concerning T6P, Tre and sucrose levels in growing embryos, the evaluation of the time course of \u3b1-amylase enzyme (target of the SnRK1 system) activity and of OsTPP10-OsTPP7 gene expression appear to allow us to define a picture coherent with the different effects of salt stress in Olcenengo and SR113. Functional characterization of OsTPP10 gene and its allele mining analysis within the 277 rice accessions are in progress

Anosognosia in Early- and Late-Onset Dementia and Its Association With Neuropsychiatric Symptoms

Background: The symptom anosognosia or unawareness of disease in dementia has mainly been studied in patients with late-onset dementia (LOD, ≥65 years), whereas little is known on whether it is also present in patients with early-onset dementia (EOD, <65 years). We aimed at investigating differences in anosognosia between LOD and EOD, by also studying its association with different clinical variants of EOD and the presence of neuropsychiatric symptoms. Methods: A total of 148 patients, 91 EOD and 57 LOD, were recruited and underwent extended clinical assessment and caregiver interview that included questionnaires aimed at measuring anosognosia and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Differences in anosognosia between EOD and LOD and between subgroups with different clinical variants were investigated, as well as correlation between anosognosia and neuropsychiatric symptoms. A regression analysis was applied to explore the association between anosognosia and development of neuropsychiatric symptoms during disease progression. Results: Median levels of anosognosia were not significantly different between EOD and LOD. Anosognosia increased overtime with disease progression and was higher in frontotemporal dementia patients or, more precisely, in frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease variants associated with involvement of the frontal lobes. Higher levels of early anosognosia were associated with higher frequency and severity of subsequent neuropsychiatric symptoms, in particular apathy, later in the course of the disease. Conclusion: Anosognosia is a frequent symptom of EOD, occurring in 94.5% of all-cause EOD, and it is associated with higher risk of developing neuropsychiatric symptoms during disease progression. Recognising anosognosia may be helpful for clinicians and families to reduce diagnostic delay and improve disease managment

Environmental and occupational risk factors for early onset dementia in an Italian community

Background: Early onset dementia (EOD) is defined as dementia with symptoms onset before 65 years. Little is known about the etiological role of environmental and occupational risk factors. We aimed at assessing the role of these factors in disease etiology.Methods: Using a case-control design, we recruited all EOD cases resident in Modena province from October, 2016 to October, 2019, as well as a referent population drawn from patients’ care-givers. We investigated residential history of study participants, and their occupational and environmental exposures to pesticides, solvents and metals through a self-administered questionnaire. We computed the odds ratios (ORs) of disease risk, and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs), according to exposure to the investigated risk factors, using an unconditional logistic regression model adjusted for sex, age, and education. Results: Fifty-eight EOD cases and fifty-four controls agreed to participate. Among occupational factors, disease risk was associated with exposure to aluminum (OR 2.6, 95% CI 0.4-15.7), pesticides (OR 2.3, 95% CI 0.7-7.8) particularly from agricultural occupational exposure (OR 3.1, 95% CI 0.7-13.3) and dyes, paints or thinners (OR 1.7, 95% CI 0.6-5.0). Among lifestyles factors, smoking (OR 1.3, 95% CI 0.6-2.9) and playing football (OR 2.2, 95% CI 0.5-9.3) or cycling (OR 2.3, 95% CI 0.4-13.4) were associated with higher EOD risk, although overall sports practice appeared to be protective factor (OR 0.4, 95% CI 0.2-0.9). Risk was also positively associated with history of head trauma (OR 1.2, 95% CI 0.3-4.1) and particularly upper arm trauma (OR 2.2, 95% CI 0.7-7.5), but not overall trauma. No association emerged for exposure to electromagnetic fields. Conclusions:Despite the study limitations, our results appear to support a role of environmental risk factors in EOD etiology, particularly of some chemical exposures and professional sports, while overall sports practice may have a beneficial effect

Environmental Risk Factors for Early-Onset Alzheimer's Dementia and Frontotemporal Dementia: A Case-Control Study in Northern Italy

Background: Early-onset dementia (EOD) is defined as dementia with symptom onset before 65 years. The role of environmental risk factors in the etiology of EOD is still undefined. We aimed at assessing the role of environmental risk factors in EOD etiology, taking into account its different clinical types. Methods: Using a case-control study, we recruited all EOD cases referred to Modena hospitals from 2016 to 2019, while the referent population was drawn from cases' caregivers. We investigated residential history, occupational and environmental exposures to chemicals and lifestyle behaviors through a self-administered questionnaire. We computed the odds ratios of EOD risk (overall and restricting to the Alzheimer's dementia (AD) or frontotemporal dementia (FTD) diagnoses) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals using an unconditional logistic regression model. Results: Fifty-eight EOD patients (19 FTD and 32 AD) and 54 controls agreed to participate. Most of the investigated exposures, such as occupational exposure to aluminum, pesticides, dyes, paints or thinners, were associated with an increased odds ratio (OR) for FTD but not for AD. Long-term use of selenium-containing dietary supplements was associated with increased OR for EOD and, particularly, for FTD. For both EOD forms, smoking and playing football showed an increased odds ratio, while cycling was associated with increased risk only in FTD. Overall sports practice appeared to be a protective factor for both types. Conclusions: Our results suggest a role of environmental and behavioral risk factors such as some chemical exposures and professional sports in EOD etiology, in particular with reference to FTD. Overall sports practice may be associated with a reduced EOD risk