Fifty-kDa Hyaluronic Acid Upregulates Some Epidermal Genes without Changing TNF-α Expression in Reconstituted Epidermis

Background: Due to its strong water binding potential, hyaluronic acid (HA) is a well-known active ingredient for cosmetic applications. However, based on its varying molecular size, skin penetration of HA may be limited. Recent studies have demonstrated that low-molecular-weight HA (LMW HA) may show a certain proinflammatory activity. We thus aimed to characterize an LMW-sized HA molecule that combines strong anti-aging abilities with efficient skin penetration but lacks potential proinflammatory effects. Methods: Total RNA and total protein were isolated from reconstituted human epidermis following incubation with HAs of various molecular weights (20, 50, 130, 300, 800 and 1,500 kDa). Tumor necrosis factor-alpha expression was determined using quantitative PCR. Genonnic and proteomic expression of various junctional proteins was determined using Affymetrix and common Western blotting techniques. Results: LMW HA of approximately 50 kDa did not significantly alter tumor necrosis factor-alpha expression compared to 20-kDa HA, but revealed significantly higher skin penetration rates than larger sized HA associated with increased expression of genes and proteins known to be involved in tight junction formation and keratinocyte cohesion. Conclusion: LMW HA of approximately 50 kDa shows better penetration abilities than larger-sized HA. In addition, LMW HA influences the expression of various genes including those contributing to keratinocyte differentiation and formation of intercellular tight junction complexes without showing proinflammatory activity. These observations contribute to current knowledge on the effects of LMW HA on keratinocyte biology and cutaneous physiology. Copyright (C) 2011 S. Karger AG, Base

Taken by strum: ukuleles and participatory music-making in Hamilton, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Ethnographic study of ukulele playing in Hamilton, N

H-Prune through GSK-3β interaction sustains canonical WNT/β-catenin signaling enhancing cancer progression in NSCLC.

H-Prune hydrolyzes short-chain polyphosphates (PPase activity) together with an hitherto cAMP-phosphodiesterase (PDE), the latest influencing different human cancers by its overexpression. H-Prune promotes cell migration in cooperation with glycogen synthase kinase-3 (Gsk-3β). Gsk-3β is a negative regulator of canonical WNT/β-catenin signaling. Here, we investigate the role of Gsk-3β/h-Prune complex in the regulation of WNT/β-catenin signaling, demonstrating the h-Prune capability to activate WNT signaling also in a paracrine manner, through Wnt3a secretion. In vivo study demonstrates that h-Prune silencing inhibits lung metastasis formation, increasing mouse survival. We assessed h-Prune levels in peripheral blood of lung cancer patients using ELISA assay, showing that h-Prune is an early diagnostic marker for lung cancer. Our study dissects out the mechanism of action of h-Prune in tumorigenic cells and also sheds light on the identification of a new therapeutic target in non-small-cell lung cancer

Processes and experiences of creative cognition in seven Western classical composers

In a qualitative study, we explored the range of reflections and experiences involved in the composition of score-based music by administering a 15-item, open-ended, questionnaire to seven professional composers from Europe and North America. Adopting a grounded theory approach, we organized six different codes emerging from our data into two higher-order categories ( the act of composing and establishing relationships). Our content analysis, inspired by the theoretical resources of 4E cognitive science, points to three overlapping characteristics of creative cognition in music composition: it is largely exploratory, it is grounded in bodily experience, and it emerges from the recursive dialogue of agents and their environment. More generally, such preliminary findings suggest that musical creativity may be advantageously understood as a process of constant adaptation – one in which composers enact their musical styles and identities by exploring novel interactivities hidden in their contingent and historical milieux

Il terremoto del 21 giugno 2013 in Lunigiana. Le attività del coordinamento Sismiko

Il 21 giugno 2013 alle ore 10.33 UTC è stato registrato dalla Rete Sismica Nazionale (RSN) [Amato e Mele, 2008; Delladio, 2011] dell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) un terremoto di magnitudo (ML) 5.2 nel distretto sismico1 denominato “Alpi Apuane” tra i comuni di Minucciano in provincia di Lucca e Fivizzano e Casola in provincia di Massa e Carrara, zona conosciuta come “Lunigiana”. L’evento sismico, localizzato dai sismologi in turno presso la sala di sorveglianza sismica di Roma [Basili, 2011] con coordinate 44.153°N e 10.135° E e una profondità di circa 5 km è stato ben risentito in tutta la penisola centro-settentrionale ed è stato seguito in poche ore da numerosi eventi anche di ML ≥ 3.0 (16 nelle prime 72 ore). Storicamente l’area oggetto della sequenza sismica è stata interessata da numerosi terremoti di magnitudo superiore a 5.0 il più grande dei quali quello avvenuto nel 1920 nella zona della Garfagnana (fonte dati: Catalogo Parametrico dei Terremoti Italiani - CPTI11 [Rovida et al., 2011]), ad una distanza di circa 12 km dal mainshock odierno, interessata anch’essa da una piccola sequenza sismica a gennaio del 2013. In considerazione dell’entità dell’evento e seguendo le procedure definite per le situazioni di emergenza internamente all’INGV anche in accordo con l’Allegato A2 della Convenzione vigente 2012- 20203 fra l’ente e il Dipartimento di Protezione Civile (DPC), è stata attivata la Rete Sismica Mobile della sede INGV di Roma (Re.Mo. [Moretti et al., 2010]). Nell’arco di tempo di poco più un’ora dall’accadimento del mainshock è stata disposta l’installazione di una rete sismica temporanea costituita da sei stazioni a integrazione delle reti sismiche permanenti già presenti in area epicentrale (RSN e Regional Seismic network of North-Western Italy – RSNI [Ferretti et al., 2008; 2010; Eva et al., 2010; Pasta et al., 2011]). Nel contempo sono stati consultati tramite e-mail i referenti delle unità di rete sismica mobile delle altre sedi INGV che nell’ambito del coordinamento “Sismiko” [Moretti et al., 2012] negli ultimi due anni hanno dato la propria disponibilità, in termini di personale e strumentazione, ad intervenire in caso di emergenza sismica; sono stati inoltre contattati i colleghi del Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell’Ambiente e della Vita, dell’Università degli Studi di Genova (DISTAV) i più vicini all’area epicentrale e gestori della RSNI che hanno comunicato loro stessi l’intenzione di installare due stazioni temporanee, una in real-time e una in configurazione stand-alone. In questo lavoro viene descritta l’attività compiuta dalla Rete Sismica Mobile INGV, la tempistica dell’intervento effettuato in sinergia con i colleghi dell’Università di Genova, i dettagli circa l'installazione e la gestione delle stazioni sismiche temporanee nel primo mese di attività e una valutazione del dataset acquisito

Group Singing as a Resource for the Development of a Healthy Public

A growing body of evidence points to a wide range of benefits arising from participation in group singing. Group singing requires participants to engage with each other in a simultaneous musical dialogue in a pluralistic and emergent context, creating a coherent cultural expression through the reflexive negotiation of (musical) meaning manifest in the collective power of the human voice. As such, group singing might be taken – both literally and figuratively – as a potent form of ‘healthy public’, creating an ‘ideal’ community which participants can subsequently mobilise as a positive resource for everyday life. The experiences of a group of singers (n=78) who had participated in an outdoor singing project were collected and analysed using a three-layer research design consisting of: distributed data generation and interpretation, considered against comparative data from other singing groups (n=88); a focus group workshop (n=11); an unstructured interview (n=2). The study confirmed an expected perception of the social bonding effect of group singing, highlighting affordances for interpersonal attunement and attachment alongside a powerful individual sense of feeling ‘uplifted’. This study presents a novel perspective on group singing, highlighting the importance of participant experience as a means of understanding music as a holistic and complex adaptive system. It validates findings about group singing from previous studies - in particular the stability of the social bonding effect as a less variant characteristic in the face of environmental and other situational influences, alongside its capacity for mental health recovery. It establishes a subjective sociocultural and musical understanding of group singing, by expanding on these findings to centralise the importance of individual experience, and the consciousness of that experience as descriptive self-awareness. The ways in which participants describe and discuss their experiences of group singing and its benefits points to a complex interdependence between a number of musical, neurobiological and psychosocial mechanisms which might be independently and objectively analysed. An emerging theory is that at least some of the potency of group singing is as a resource where people can rehearse and perform ‘healthy’ relationships, further emphasising its potential as a resource for healthy publics

Elevated serum neutrophil elastase is related to prehypertension and airflow limitation in obese women

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Neutrophil elastase level/activity is elevated in a variety of diseases such as atherosclerosis, systolic hypertension and obstructive pulmonary disease. It is unknown whether obese individuals with prehypertension also have elevated neutrophil elastase, and if so, whether it has a deleterious effect on pulmonary function. Objectives: To determine neutrophil elastase levels in obese prehypertensive women and investigate correlations with pulmonary function tests.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Thirty obese prehypertensive women were compared with 30 obese normotensive subjects and 30 healthy controls. The study groups were matched for age. Measurements: The following were determined: body mass index, waist circumference, blood pressure, lipid profile, high sensitivity C-reactive protein, serum neutrophil elastase, and pulmonary function tests including forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV₁), forced vital capacity (FVC) and FEV₁/FVC ratio.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Serum neutrophil elastase concentration was significantly higher in both prehypertensive (405.8 ± 111.6 ng/ml) and normotensive (336.5 ± 81.5 ng/ml) obese women than in control non-obese women (243.9 ± 23.9 ng/ml); the level was significantly higher in the prehypertensive than the normotensive obese women. FEV1, FVC and FEV1/FVC ratio in both prehypertensive and normotensive obese women were significantly lower than in normal controls, but there was no statistically significant difference between the prehypertensive and normotensive obese women. In prehypertensive obese women, there were significant positive correlations between neutrophil elastase and body mass index, waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, high sensitivity C-reactive protein and negative correlations with high density lipoprotein cholesterol, FEV1, FVC and FEV1/FVC.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Neutrophil elastase concentration is elevated in obese prehypertensive women along with an increase in high sensitivity C-reactive protein which may account for dyslipidemia and airflow dysfunction in the present study population.</p

Il terremoto del 21 giugno 2013 in Lunigiana. Le attività del coordinamento Sismiko

Il 21 giugno 2013 alle ore 10.33 UTC è stato registrato dalla Rete Sismica Nazionale (RSN) [Amato e Mele, 2008; Delladio, 2011] dell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) un terremoto di magnitudo (ML) 5.2 nel distretto sismico1 denominato “Alpi Apuane” tra i comuni di Minucciano in provincia di Lucca e Fivizzano e Casola in provincia di Massa e Carrara, zona conosciuta come “Lunigiana”. L’evento sismico, localizzato dai sismologi in turno presso la sala di sorveglianza sismica di Roma [Basili, 2011] con coordinate 44.153°N e 10.135° E e una profondità di circa 5 km è stato ben risentito in tutta la penisola centro-settentrionale ed è stato seguito in poche ore da numerosi eventi anche di ML ≥ 3.0 (16 nelle prime 72 ore). Storicamente l’area oggetto della sequenza sismica è stata interessata da numerosi terremoti di magnitudo superiore a 5.0 il più grande dei quali quello avvenuto nel 1920 nella zona della Garfagnana (fonte dati: Catalogo Parametrico dei Terremoti Italiani - CPTI11 [Rovida et al., 2011]), ad una distanza di circa 12 km dal mainshock odierno, interessata anch’essa da una piccola sequenza sismica a gennaio del 2013. In considerazione dell’entità dell’evento e seguendo le procedure definite per le situazioni di emergenza internamente all’INGV anche in accordo con l’Allegato A2 della Convenzione vigente 2012- 20203 fra l’ente e il Dipartimento di Protezione Civile (DPC), è stata attivata la Rete Sismica Mobile della sede INGV di Roma (Re.Mo. [Moretti et al., 2010]). Nell’arco di tempo di poco più un’ora dall’accadimento del mainshock è stata disposta l’installazione di una rete sismica temporanea costituita da sei stazioni a integrazione delle reti sismiche permanenti già presenti in area epicentrale (RSN e Regional Seismic network of North-Western Italy – RSNI [Ferretti et al., 2008; 2010; Eva et al., 2010; Pasta et al., 2011]). Nel contempo sono stati consultati tramite e-mail i referenti delle unità di rete sismica mobile delle altre sedi INGV che nell’ambito del coordinamento “Sismiko” [Moretti et al., 2012] negli ultimi due anni hanno dato la propria disponibilità, in termini di personale e strumentazione, ad intervenire in caso di emergenza sismica; sono stati inoltre contattati i colleghi del Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell’Ambiente e della Vita, dell’Università degli Studi di Genova (DISTAV) i più vicini all’area epicentrale e gestori della RSNI che hanno comunicato loro stessi l’intenzione di installare due stazioni temporanee, una in real-time e una in configurazione stand-alone. In questo lavoro viene descritta l’attività compiuta dalla Rete Sismica Mobile INGV, la tempistica dell’intervento effettuato in sinergia con i colleghi dell’Università di Genova, i dettagli circa l'installazione e la gestione delle stazioni sismiche temporanee nel primo mese di attività e una valutazione del dataset acquisito.Published1-345T. Sorveglianza sismica e operatività post-terremotoN/A or not JCRope

Circulating polymers in α1-antitrypsin deficiency.

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Reliability of the automatic procedures for locating earthquakes in southwestern Alps and northern Apennines (Italy)

International audienceReliable automatic procedure for locating earthquake in quasi-real time is strongly needed for seismic warning system, earthquake preparedness, and producing shaking maps. The reliability of an automatic location algorithm is influenced by several factors such as errors in picking seismic phases, network geometry, and velocity model uncertainties. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the performances of different automatic procedures to choose the most suitable one to be applied for the quasi-real-time earthquake locations in northwestern Italy. The reliability of two automatic-picking algorithms (one based on the Characteristic Function (CF) analysis, CF picker, and the other one based on the Akaike's information criterion (AIC), AIC picker) and two location methods (“Hypoellipse” and “NonLinLoc” codes) is analysed by comparing the automatically determined hypocentral coordinates with reference ones. Reference locations are computed by the “Hypoellipse” code considering manually revised data and tested using quarry blasts. The comparison is made on a dataset composed by 575 seismic events for the period 2000–2007 as recorded by the Regional Seismic network of Northwestern Italy. For P phases, similar results, in terms of both amount of detected picks and magnitude of travel time differences with respect to manual picks, are obtained applying the AIC and the CF picker; on the contrary, for S phases, the AIC picker seems to provide a significant greater number of readings than the CF picker. Furthermore, the “NonLinLoc” software (applied to a 3D velocity model) is proved to be more reliable than the “Hypoellipse” code (applied to layered 1D velocity models), leading to more reliable automatic locations also when outliers (wrong picks) are present