Genotyping and antifungal susceptibility of Dipodascus capitatus isolated in a neonatal intensive care unit of a sicilian hospital

In August 2015, Dipodascus capitatus was isolated from two patients admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit. Nosocomial acquisition of the fungus was suspected and epidemiological studies were undertaken. The patients were simultaneously hospitalized, and the comparison of the two isolates by two independent molecular typing methods have confirmed clonal dissemination of a single strain of D. capitatus. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was useful for identifying the appropriated antifungal therapy in micafungin. To our knowledge these are the first described cases of neonatal D. capitatus infection and also the first report of successful treatment by micafungin.In August 2015, Dipodascus capitatus was isolated from two patients admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit. Nosocomial acquisition of the fungus was suspected and epidemiological studies were undertaken. The patients were simultaneously hospitalized, and the comparison of the two isolates by two independent molecular typing methods have confirmed clonal dissemination of a single strain of D. capitatus. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was useful for identifying the appropriated antifungal therapy in micafungin. To our knowledge these are the first described cases of neonatal D. capitatus infection and also the first report of successful treatment by micafungin

Theognis of Megara and the Divine Creating Power in the Framework of Semiotic Textology: An Application of J\ue1nos S\ue1ndor Pet\uf6fi's Theory to Archaic Greek Literature

This paper is a demonstration of an application of Semiotic Textology to a limited case study. The main aspects of Semiotic Textology, the theory elaborated by Pet\uf6fi, are presented; secondly the linguistic aspects of the interpretation of lines 133-134 of the Theognis of Megara's poem, analysed in the framework of said theory, are presented. All the relevant syntactic, semantic, pragmatic information involved in text processing have been considered. Through fixed steps, it is shown that text processing is not exclusively a grammatical activity, because within a theoretical interpretation an Interpreter needs a number of contextual hypotheses, in order to understand the author's ontology. \ua9 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V

ROAD SAFETY PERFORMANCES FROM MICRO-SIMULATION CONSIDERING AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES OPERATIONS

Introduction of Autonomous Vehicles in road traffic will remove the impact of the human factor from the driver\u2019s decision-making process, and will transform the criteria for road network design, road infrastructure administration, traffic modeling and assessment tools for road safety management. The paper presents a microsimulation-based approach for safety performance evaluation of roundabouts where different percentages of Autonomous Vehicles are mixed with Conventional Vehicles. The simulated vehicle trajectories exported from VISSIM were used as a basis to estimate traffic conflicts through the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM) for a sample of European roundabouts. In order to better consider the presence of Autonomous Vehicles in traffic and their kinematic, there has also been proposed a criterion to set the principal SSAM filters properly. The results confirmed that the safety assessment of any road unit may rely on surrogate safety measures and, in the absence of crash data which include information on Autonomous Vehicles, the simulated conflicts can be used as a promising approach for safety performance evaluation of roundabout

The importance of transaminases flare in liver elastography: Characterization of the probability of liver fibrosis overestimation by hepatitis C virus-induced cytolysis

Background: Liver stiffness measurement (LSM) is crucial for appropriate fibrosis staging in patients with ongoing hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. However, there is still an ongoing debate on the impact of serum transaminases (aspartate-aminotransferase, AST; alanine-aminotransferase, ALT) on LSM. Methods: We selected 110 patients undergoing HCV eradication therapy with LSM compatible with significant liver fibrosis. LSM was evaluated prior to therapy and one year after HCV eradication. Results: LSM showed a median decrease of 35% from baseline values, and 67 (61%) patients showed posttreatment values compatible with lower fibrosis stages. We developed two logistic regression models to determine the probability of liver fibrosis overestimation according to serum transaminase. The probability of overestimation of two or more fibrosis grade is equal to (1) 50% for AST of 99 IU/L (2.2 ULN) and ALT of 90.5 IU/L (2 ULN), (2) 80% for AST of 123.5 IU/L (2.74 ULN) and ALT of 101.5 IU/L (2.25 ULN), and (3) reaches 100% for AST of 211 IU/L (4.7 ULN) and ALT of 140 IU/L (3.1 ULN). Conclusions: This study highlights the impact of serum transaminases on LSM. We believe that our findings may serve as a reference point for appropriate fibrosis stratification by liver elastography in patients with HCV infection

Migrazioni

Presentazione Collana Le migrazioni assumono una sempre maggior rilevanza nello scenario contemporaneo e, in quanto \u201cfatto sociale totale\u201d, chiamano in causa temi classici dell\u2019antropologia, quali le identit\ue0 etniche e di genere, le relazioni di potere e di scambio, la costruzione di reti informali e formali, il ruolo delle istituzioni, il rapporto tra locale e globale, la costruzione sociale del multiculturalismo e della diversit\ue0, spesso declinata in termini di incontro/scontro tra \u201cculture\u201d o in molteplici forme di razzismo. I processi migratori, inoltre, divengono anche il luogo attraverso il quale \ue8 possibile mettere alla prova la democrazia di uno Stato, dato il ruolo centrale di istituzioni statali e non-statali (locali e internazionali) per le politiche ed il governo delle migrazioni. In altri termini, la migrazione produce sempre un \u201ceffetto-specchio\u201d della societ\ue0 di approdo e del suo tessuto istituzionale, rivelandone anche le sfumature problematiche e predisponendo cos\uec l\u2019antropologia a farsi critica culturale. Chiamando in causa sia i luoghi di origine sia quelli della diaspora nella loro interazione, e avendo a che fare con soggetti che attraversano e riattraversano confini e che si riferiscono nelle loro pratiche sociali e nei loro processi d\u2019identificazione a diversi spazi dislocati territorialmente, le migrazioni hanno anche stimolato un\u2019innovazione metodologica nella disciplina antropologica, sviluppando nuove correnti dinamiste incentrate sul cambiamento sociale e dando vita a un fiorire di ricerche multi-situate con studiosi impegnati in spazi transnazionali, o interessati a ricostruire le reti di relazione attraverso cui si producono comunit\ue0 diasporiche o virtuali. Infine, l\u2019approccio antropologico alle migrazioni ha fatto emergere la complessit\ue0 di tali processi mettendo in primo piano il vissuto dei suoi protagonisti e dei diversi percorsi migratori, le biografie di singoli come dei gruppi, dando voce agli attori sociali e permettendo di restituirne un quadro non stereotipato, ma dinamico e diversificato. Anche in Italia, un paese che \ue8 stato teatro di imponenti fenomeni di emigrazione (oltre che di altrettanto rilevanti migrazioni interne), assistiamo finalmente negli ultimi quindici anni ad un fiorire di ricerche empiriche su comunit\ue0 migranti, sui processi di esclusione ed inclusione e sulle politiche di accoglienza, che attingono criticamente a proficui filoni di ricerca: dall\u2019antropologia della globalizzazione, all\u2019antropologia delle istituzioni. Questa collana si vuole porre come punto di riferimento e di dialogo per gli antropologi che si confrontano con i processi d\u2019immigrazione e d\u2019emigrazione con l\u2019obiettivo di accogliere lavori che siano caratterizzati da uno spiccato equilibrio tra innovazione teorico-metodologica ed ancoraggio empirico ed etnografico. Oltre alle monografie sono benvenute opere collettanee o anche introduttive, che mostrino tuttavia di muoversi in una dimensione empirica

Integrated analysis of performances of facades for indoor comfort purposes

Some guidelines for a method able to evaluate different physical characteristics of building facades, equipped with glazed surfaces, and of indoor environments in order to attain indoor comfort conditions are proposed. New graphs are introduced, showing at the same time the behaviours of several technical-physical parameters of walls, in order to allow comparative analysis of different design configurations in terms of acoustics, lighting and heat transfer properties. Similar graphs are also constructed with reference to parameters characteristic of indoor environment, in order to allow synthetic analysis of comfort conditions. The method would represent a contribution toward the definition of a tool devoted to define integral quality indexes of buildings, and, thus, toward the evaluation of environmental sustainability of buildings as well; as that it would be placed within the field of a more environmentally conscious design of buildings. Moreover, the method is also useful for automatic control of indoor comfort conditions in intelligent buildings

Estimation of Passenger Car Equivalents for single-lane roundabouts using a microsimulation-based procedure

Passenger car equivalents for heavy vehicles are required to carry out capacity calculations and perform operational analysis of any road entity (roadway segments or intersections). At single-lane roundabouts, the constraints to the vehicular trajectories imposed by the curvilinear geometric design and the driver's gap acceptance behaviour are expected to produce an impact of the heavy vehicles on the quality of traffic flow different from that produced on freeways and two-lane highways or other at-grade intersections. This is also because entering flow is opposed by the circulating flow which has priority and travels in an anticlockwise direction on a single-lane path around the central island. This paper addresses the question of how to estimate the passenger car equivalents for heavy vehicles on single-lane roundabouts. First, a comparison was performed between the empirical capacity functions based on a meta-analytic estimation of the critical and the follow up headways and the simulation outputs manually obtained for a single-lane roundabout built in Aimsun microscopic simulator. A genetic algorithm-based calibration procedure, therefore, was used to reach a better convergence between the simulation outputs and the empirical capacities. Based on the calibrated model, the passenger car equivalents were determined by comparing the capacity functions built for a fleet of passenger cars with the capacity functions calculated for different percentages of heavy vehicles. Differently from HCM 2010 which assumes a heavy vehicle to be equivalent to two passenger cars and sets as 2.0 the passenger car equivalents for heavy vehicles for roundabouts, a higher PCE effect would be expected on the quality of traffic conditions when the traffic stream contains a high number of heavy vehicles; this effect should be accounted for when calculating capacity and level-of-services

The expression of adiponectin receptors Adipo-R1 and Adipo-R2 is associated with an intestinal histotype and longer survival in gastric carcinoma

Background: Adiponectin (ApN) is a 30 kDa adipocytokine which mediates an antineoplastic effect after binding to its receptors, Adipo-R1 and Adipo-R2. The expression of these receptors has been documented in gastric cancer (GC) cell lines, but only a few data exist on their expression in GC neoplastic tissue.Aim: To investigate the expression of Adipo-R1 and Adipo-R2 in a series of surgically resected GCs and to assess its association with various tumour clinicopathological characteristics as well as with patient survival.Methods: Forty-nine surgically resected GCs were submitted to immunohistochemical assays for Adipo-R1, Adipo-R2 and ApN.Results: Adipo-R1 and Adipo-R2 immunoexpression was found in 22/49 GCs and in intestinal metaplasia areas near the tumours, whereas only slight immunoreactivity for these proteins was found in adjacent normal gastric epithelium. No ApN expression was encountered in any of the cases analysed. Adipo-R1/Adipo-R2 expression was significantly associated with an intestinal histotype of the tumours and with longer overall survival of the patients.Conclusions: Intestinal-type GCs often express AdipoR1/R2 in association with a better prognosis. The presence of these receptors could be exploited for novel anticancer therapies based on ApN addition in GC

An unusual presentation of secondary involvement of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia. A case report

Extramammary tumors rarely metastasize to the breast. The commonest tumors to metastasize in breast tissue are lymphoproliferative diseases, melanoma, lung cancer and gynecological malignancies. Primary breast lymphoma has been reported in the literature with a maximum percentage of about 0.5% of all breast malignancies, while secondary localizations of lymphomas in the breast are less well studied in the literature than primary ones. The authors report a rare case of a secondary localization of B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia to the breast in which the diagnosis was obtained by histopathology and immunohistochemistry and further confirmed by molecular data. This occurrence must be considered in the differential diagnosis of a breast lump so that the primary hematological disease can be adequately treated and the correct type of breast surgery performed