1,525 research outputs found
Medical treatment of early stage and rare histological variants of epithelial ovarian cancer
Epithelial ovarian cancer is often considered a single pathological entity, but increasing evidence suggests that it is rather a group of different
neoplasms, each with unique pathological characteristics, molecular features, and clinical behaviours. This heterogeneity accounts for the
different sensitivity to antineoplastic drugs and makes the treatment of ovarian tumours a challenge.
For early-stage disease, as well as for heavily pre-treated patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, the benefit of chemotherapy remains
uncertain.
Clear-cell, mucinous, low-grade serous, and endometrioid carcinomas show different molecular characteristics, which require different
therapeutic approaches. In the era of personalised cancer medicine, understanding the pathogenesis and the genetic background of each
subtype of epithelial ovarian tumour may lead to a tailored therapy, maximising the benefits of specific treatments and possibly reducing
the side effects. Furthermore, personal factors, such as the patient’s performance status, should be taken into account in the management
of ovarian cancer, with the aim of safeguarding the patients’ quality of life
HKT manifolds: Hodge theory, formality and balanced metrics
Let be a compact HKT manifold and denote with
the conjugate Dolbeault operator with respect to ,
,
where is the adjoint of . Under suitable
assumptions, we study Hodge theory for the complexes
and
showing a similar behavior to
K\"ahler manifolds. In particular, several relations among the Laplacians, the
spaces of harmonic forms and the associated cohomology groups, together with
Hard Lefschetz properties, are proved. Moreover, we show that for a compact HKT
-manifold the differential graded algebra
is formal and this will lead to an obstruction for
the existence of an HKT -structure
on a compact complex manifold . Finally, balanced HKT structures on
solvmanifolds are studied.Comment: 17 pages. Comments are welcom
IN THE NAME OF MICHELANGELO: LIVES AND WORKS OF MICHELANGELO BUONAROTTI AND MICHELANGELO MERISI
This piece intends to create interest and passion for two key figures in the Italian cultural and artistic landscape united by the same name: Michelangelo. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) and Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (1571-1610) have a contrasting conceptions of art, possess many affinities that align them. In particulary the Lombard Caravaggio was inspired by the Florentine Buonarroti, recognizing his resounding value, in a very personal artistic competition with him. They were artists of unparalleled technical capability and exquisite intelligence, both they changed the world, the habits, the conventions that surrounded them. Since then, the “fire” of their novelties never ceased to burn and it is for this reason that, to this day, their glories are still universally acknowledged
Clinimetrics
'Clinimetrics' is the term introduced by Alvan R. Feinstein in the early 1980s to indicate a domain concerned with indexes, rating scales and other expressions that are used to describe or measure symptoms, physical signs and other clinical phenomena. Clinimetrics has a set of rules that govern the structure of indexes, the choice of component variables, the evaluation of consistency, validity and responsiveness. This review illustrates how clinimetrics may help expanding the narrow range of information that is currently used in clinical science. It will focus on characteristics and types of clinimetric indexes and their current use. The clinimetric perspective provides an intellectual home for clinical judgment, whose implementation is likely to improve outcomes both in clinical research and practice
Nuclear factor E2-related factor 2’s activation in transgenic mice fed with high dosage of fish oil.
Some fatty acids, such as CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) and n-3 fatty acids modulate immune and inflammatory response in ruminants and monogastrics; their supplementation alters fatty acids profile of meat and milk, enhancing their nutritional quality. However, it is still unclear if their addition causes oxidative damage to animals. Nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) plays an important role in cellular defenses against oxidative stress, indeed it produces a rapid induction of its target genes involved in antioxidant response. The aim of the project is to investigate the activation of Nrf2 in luciferase reporter mice fed different amount of n-3 PUFA in the diet (7,5% lard, 7,5% tuna oil, 20 % lard and 20%tuna oil). Forty-eight reporter mice are divided into three groups: male, intact female and ovariectomized female. Each group is split in four subgroups fed different diets. Oxidative status will be studied monitoring Nrf2’s activation with in vivo bioluminescent imaging. The inflammatory and immune response will be assessed using calprotectin and lactoferrin levels in faecal samples that are non-invasive techniques. The trial is still in progress: on the 62nd day, animals will be sacrificed after a challenge in order to measure the different effects of diets and +/- oestrogen on stress response. Finally, the post mortem analysis will be carried on extract organs. Data obtained will be analysed using statistical procedures and results will improve the knowledge about interaction between omega-3 fatty acids and animals’ oxidative status
Season and altitude effects on milk fatty acid profile in Sarda dairy sheep flocks
Diet plays a major role in modulating the fatty acid composition of ruminant milk. It is also well known that the
intake of fresh forages has a positive influence on polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA), particularly CLA and omega-
3, compared with diets based on dry forage and concentrates. Altitude influences, directly, grass availability and
botanical composition of the pasture, and, indirectly, the amount of concentrate supplemented to the diet. Therefore,
the altitude where farms are located at may give indirect information about the type of feeding system trough
analysis of milk fat. The objective of this survey was to investigate variations in the milk fatty acid profile, focusing
on the content of vaccenic acid (VA), conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and n-3 fatty acid (FA), of Sarda dairy ewes
flocks located at different altitudes throughout Sardinia.
Bulk milk samples were collected in spring (April) and in summer (July) from 36 flocks located at different altitudes:
3 flocks in the lowlands (Low), 3 flocks in the hills (Hill) and 3 in the highlands (High) in 4 provinces (Sassari,
Nuoro, Oristano and Cagliari) of Sardinia (Italy). Milk fatty acid profile was analyzed by gas-chromatography. Data
were analyzed with a linear model with altitude (A), season (S), province (P) and altitude x season as fixed factors.
The interaction was never significant. The season influenced significantly almost all fatty acids analyzed. The proportion
of short chain FA (C4-C10) decrease (10.0 vs 7.0 mg/100 mg FA; P<0.01) and that of medium chain FA
increase (43.2 vs 45.5 mg/100 mg FA; P<0.10) from spring to summer. The long chain FA did not vary between
spring and summer but the concentration of oleic acid (C18:1 cis9) increased significantly from spring to summer
(22.3 vs 25.1 mg/100 mg FA; P<0.01). The proportion of n-3 FA was higher in spring than summer (1.2 vs 0.7 for n-
3 FA; P<0.01). The variation in n-3 FA in milk fat was mainly due to the variation in a-linolenic acid (ALA; 18:3n-
3) which decrease from 1.0 to 0.5 mg/100 mg FA from spring to summer. The same pattern was showed by vaccenic
acid (VA; trans-11 18:1) that decrease from 1.6 vs 0.8 mg/100 mg FA. No variation in cis9, trans11 CLA has been
observed between spring and summer (1.0 vs 0.8 mg/100 mg FA). A reduction of PUFA (5.64 vs 5.10; P<0.10), n3/n6
ratio (0.38 vs 0.21) and content of C20:5 n-3 (0.13 vs 0.07 mg/100 mg FA) from spring to summer has been observed.
Unexpectedly, the milk FA profile was not affected by altitude, except for C18:1 c9, probably because of the low number of samples analyzed
Does the somatosensory temporal discrimination threshold change over time in focal dystonia?
BACKGROUND:
The somatosensory temporal discrimination threshold (STDT) is defined as the shortest interval at which an individual recognizes two stimuli as asynchronous. Some evidence suggests that STDT depends on cortical inhibitory interneurons in the basal ganglia and in primary somatosensory cortex. Several studies have reported that the STDT in patients with dystonia is abnormal. No longitudinal studies have yet investigated whether STDT values in different forms of focal dystonia change during the course of the disease.
METHODS:
We designed a follow-up study on 25 patients with dystonia (15 with blepharospasm and 10 with cervical dystonia) who were tested twice: upon enrolment and 8 years later. STDT values from dystonic patients at the baseline were also compared with those from a group of 30 age-matched healthy subjects.
RESULTS:
Our findings show that the abnormally high STDT values observed in patients with focal dystonia remained unchanged at the 8-year follow-up assessment whereas disease severity worsened.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our observation that STDT abnormalities in dystonia remain unmodified during the course of the disease suggests that the altered activity of inhibitory interneurons-either at cortical or at subcortical level-responsible for the increased STDT does not deteriorate as the disease progresses
Evaluation of efficacy and effectiveness of live attenuated zoster vaccine
Herpes zoster (HZ) is a viral disease characterized by a dermatologic and neurologic involvement caused by the reactivation of the latent varicella zoster virus (VZV) acquired during primary infection (varicella). HZ incidence increases with age and is related to waning specific cell-mediated immunity (CMI). The most frequent complication of HZ is post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN) characterized by chronic pain lasting at least 30 days, with impact on patientsâ quality of life. Available treatments are quite unsatisfac- tory in reducing pain and length of the disease. The evaluation of the epidemiology, the debilitating complications (PHN), the suboptimal available treatments and the costs related to the diagnosis and clinical/therapeutic management of HZ patients have been the rationale for the search of an adequate preventive measure against this disease. The target of this intervention is to reduce the frequency and severity of HZ and related complications by stimulating CMI. Prevention has recently become possible with the live attenuated vaccine Oka/Merck, with an antigen content at least 10-fold higher than the antigen content of pediatric varicella vaccines. Clinical studies show a good level of efficacy and effectiveness, particularly against the burden of illness and PHN in all age classes. Accordingly to the summary of the characteristics of the product the zoster vaccine is indicated for the prevention of HZ and PHN in individuals 50 years of age or older and is effec- tive and safe in subjects with a positive history of HZ
Complex Symplectic Lie Algebras with Large Abelian Subalgebras
We present two constructions of complex symplectic structures on Lie algebras
with large abelian ideals. In particular, we completely classify complex
symplectic structures on almost abelian Lie algebras. By considering compact
quotients of their corresponding connected, simply connected Lie groups we
obtain many examples of complex symplectic manifolds which do not carry
(hyper)k\"ahler metrics. We also produce examples of compact complex symplectic
manifolds endowed with a fibration whose fibers are Lagrangian tori.Comment: 33 pages, no figures. Comments are welcome
Hospital at Home for Elderly Patients with Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
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