Do interactions between plant roots and the rhizosphere affect parasitoid behaviour?

Multitrophic interactions are powerful forces shaping the structure of living communities. Plants encounter a great diversity of organisms in their environment: some of these interactions are beneficial (e.g. symbiotic fungi and insect pollinators) while some are detrimental (e.g. herbivorous insects and pathogenic micro-organisms). Multitrophic interactions between below-ground and above-ground organisms are receiving increasing attention because they may influence plant defences against biotic and abiotic stresses. In this study we show that an arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis makes tomato plants significantly more resistant towards aphids, by enhancing both direct defences, both attractivity towards aphid parasitoids

Flavored tetraquark spectroscopy

The recent confirmation of the charged charmonium like resonance Z(4430) by the LHCb experiment strongly suggests the existence of QCD multi quark bound states. Some preliminary results about hypothetical flavored tetraquark mesons are reported. Such states are particularly amenable to Lattice QCD studies as their interpolating operators do not overlap with those of ordinary hidden-charm mesons

Road Design Criteria and Capacity Estimation Based on Autonomous Vehicles Performances. First Results from the European C-Roads Platform and A22 Motorway

Several European road operators and authorities joined the C-Roads Platform with the aim of harmonising the deployment activities of cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS). C-ITS research is preliminary to future automated-driving vehicles. The current conventional highways were designed on traditional criteria and models specifically developed for traffic flows of manually guided vehicles. Thus, this article describes some new criteria for designing and monitoring road infrastructures on the basis of performance features of autonomous (or self-driving) vehicles.The new criteria have been adopted to perform an accurate conformity control of the A22 Brenner motorway, included in the C-Roads Platform, and also to ascertain whether in future it may be travelled by automated vehicles in safety conditions. Always in accordance with the technical and scientific insights required by the C-Roads Platform, a traffic model has been implemented to estimate how the A22 capacity increases compared to current values, by taking various percentages of automated or manual vehicles into consideration. The results given by theoretical models indicate that the highway will be able to be travelled by automated vehicles in safety conditions. On the other hand, the lane capacity is due to increase up to 2.5 times more than the current capacities, experimentally determined through traffic data collected from 4 highway sections by means of Drake's flow model

Reward-sensitive women overeat in a varied food environment, but only when hungry

In the current study we tried to elucidate the relationship between a personality trait, reward sensitivity, and an environmental variable; food variety. Based on scarce previous research we predicted that reward sensitivity would interact with variety in the food environment so that especially high reward sensitive individuals would be vulnerable to overeating in a varied food environment. It turned out that especially the high reward individuals did indeed overeat in a varied food environment. However, this was only the case for the highly reward sensitive individuals who experienced feelings of hunger. In other words, reward sensitivity does not affect food intake in varied food environments as long as feelings of hunger are not present. Future research should concentrate on identifying other factors that interact with the person and the environment to discourage reward-related overeating

Flavored tetraquark spectroscopy

The recent confirmation of the charged charmonium like resonance Z(4430) by the LHCb experiment strongly suggests the existence of QCD multi quarks bound states. Some preliminary results about hypothetical flavored tetraquark mesons are reported. Such states are particularly amenable to Lattice QCD studies as their interpolating operators do not overlap with those of ordinary hidden-charm mesons.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, presented at the 32nd International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2014), June 23-28 2014, New York, US

Targeting a phospho-STAT3-miRNAs pathway improves vesicular hepatic steatosis in an in vitro and in vivo model

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a leading cause of chronic liver disease. Although genetic predisposition and epigenetic factors contribute to the development of NAFLD, our understanding of the molecular mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of the disease is still emerging. Here we investigated a possible role of a microRNAs-STAT3 pathway in the induction of hepatic steatosis. Differentiated HepaRG cells treated with the fatty acid sodium oleate (fatty dHepaRG) recapitulated features of liver vesicular steatosis and activated a cell-autonomous inflammatory response, inducing STAT3-Tyrosine-phosphorylation. With a genome-wide approach (Chromatin Immunoprecipitation Sequencing), many phospho-STAT3 binding sites were identified in fatty dHepaRG cells and several STAT3 and/or NAFLD-regulated microRNAs showed increased expression levels, including miR-21. Innovative CARS (Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering) microscopy revealed that chemical inhibition of STAT3 activity decreased lipid accumulation and deregulated STAT3-responsive microRNAs, including miR-21, in lipid overloaded dHepaRG cells. We were able to show in vivo that reducing phospho-STAT3-miR-21 levels in C57/BL6 mice liver, by long-term treatment with metformin, protected mice from aging-dependent hepatic vesicular steatosis. Our results identified a microRNAs-phosphoSTAT3 pathway involved in the development of hepatic steatosis, which may represent a molecular marker for both diagnosis and therapeutic targeting

Comportamento elettrochimico di polimeri compositi poli(anilina)/poli(stirensolfonato) a pH neutri: influenza dello spessore del film

A differenza della maggior parte dei polimeri conduttori, per i quali si osserva una sola transizione conduttore/isolante, la poli(anilina) (PANI) passa, per ossidazione elettrochimica in soluzione acquosa acida, dallo stato isolante (leucoemeraldina) allo stato conduttore (emeraldina) e nuovamente ad uno stato isolante (pernigranilina). In più le sue proprietà conduttrici dipendono anche dalla protonazione del polimero cosicché è possibile osservare anche una transizione conduttore/isolante a seguito della deprotonazione dell'emeraldina. E' evidente che quest'ultimo comportamento limita significativamente l'impiego del PANI in un ristretto intervallo di pH acidi. Tale limitazione è in parte superabile con la realizzazione di film compositi di PANI, ottenuti per polimerizzazione elettrochimica in presenza di polianioni quali il poli(vinilsolfonato) o il poli(stirensolfonato) (PSS). L'anione polimerico infatti, essendo intrappolato all'interno della matrice polimerica, non può essere scambiato con gli anioni presenti in soluzione il che assicura quindi un apprezzabile grado di protonazione del PANI anche in soluzioni con bassa concentrazione protonica. Incidentalmente, tali polimeri compositi rivestono grande importanza nel campo della bioelettrochimica in quanto sono in grado di promuovere il trasferimento elettronico diretto di taluni enzimi [1] in condizioni tali da non precludere la stabilità di questi ultimi. Essi pertanto sono utilizzabili per la realizzazione di dispositivi innovativi quali ad esempio i "transistor elettrochimici" [2]. La presente comunicazione intende illustrare uno studio sul comportamento elettrochimico a pH neutri di un film composito PANI/PSS, elettrosintetizzato potenziostaticamente in presenza di un monomero para sostituito, quale l'1,4-diamminobenzene, in grado di promuovere la formazione di gruppi fenazinici (mediatori efficaci per una vasta serie di enzimi) in seguito ad accoppiamenti di tipo orto all'interno del polimero e successiva ciclizzazione [3]. Questo studio ha evidenziato la capacità dell'1,4-diamminobenzene di modulare il grado di cross-linking del polimero risultante, la sua struttura e quindi la sua elettroattività. In particolare il comportamento elettrochimico del polimero è risultato fortemente influenzato dal suo spessore. Infatti si è osservato un grado di elettroattività apprezzabile solo per film polimerici sottili: ciò suggerisce che gli accoppiamenti orto sembrano prevalere all'inizio del processo di elettrosintesi garantendo così una struttura compatta con alto grado di cross-linking. Questa indagine ha permesso la realizzazione di film compositi PANI/PSS elettroattivi e stabili a pH neutri, ad elevato carattere fenazinico e quindi di sicuro interesse in campo bioelettrochimico. [1] Bartlett, P. N.; Wang, J. H. J. Chem. Soc., Faraday Trans. 1996, 92, 4137 [2] Bartlett, P. N.; Birkin, P. R. Anal. Chem. 1994, 66, 1552 [3] Mailhe, C.; Desilvestro, J. J. Electroanal. Chem. 1989, 262, 28

VP66.28: Conservative management and ultrasonographic longitudinal follow‐up of borderline ovarian tumour recurrences in pregnant women

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N=1* model and glueball superpotential from Renormalization-Group-improved perturbation theory

A method for computing the low-energy non-perturbative properties of SUSY GFT, starting from the microscopic lagrangian model, is presented. The method relies on covariant SUSY Feynman graph techniques, adapted to low energy, and Renormalization-Group-improved perturbation theory. We apply the method to calculate the glueball superpotential in N=1 SU(2) SYM and obtain a potential of the Veneziano-Yankielowicz type.Comment: 19 pages, no figures; added references; note added at the end of the paper; version to appear in JHE