Adnexal Torsion in Pediatric Age: Does Bolli's Score Work? Report of Two Cases

Adnexal torsion is a surgical emergency requiring early diagnosis in order to avoid demolitive surgery. Adnexal torsion's diagnosis could be very difficult in pediatric patients because children cannot explain symptoms accurately. Furthermore reproductive organs lie high in abdomen, causing unclear examinations findings. For reducing diagnostic mistakes or delay clinical and hematological criteria could be useful. No radiological criteria (CT or MRI) should be taken in count because of the costs and the required time. By combining clinical presentation in patients with OT three useful diagnostic variables have been identified: age, duration of pain, vomiting. Presence of vomiting, short duration of abdominal pain and high CRP levels have great predictive value for the diagnosis of adnexal torsion. In those patients an exploratory laparoscopy should be performed without any doubt and/or delay. These data may aid physicians in the evaluation of abdominal pain in premenarchal girls

(Down-to-)Earth matter effect in supernova neutrinos

Neutrino oscillations in the Earth matter may introduce peculiar modulations in the supernova (SN) neutrino spectra. The detection of this effect has been proposed as diagnostic tool for the neutrino mass hierarchy at "large" 1-3 leptonic mixing angle theta13. We perform an updated study on the observability of this effect at large next-generation underground detectors (i.e., 0.4 Mton water Cherenkov, 50 kton scintillation and 100 kton liquid Argon detectors) based on neutrino fluxes from state-of-the-art SN simulations and accounting for statistical fluctuations via Montecarlo simulations. Since the average energies predicted by recent simulations are lower than previously expected and a tendency towards the equalization of the neutrino fluxes appears during the SN cooling phase, the detection of the Earth matter effect will be more challenging than expected from previous studies. We find that none of the proposed detectors shall be able to detect the Earth modulation for the neutrino signal of a typical galactic SN at 10 kpc. It should be observable in a 100 kton liquid Argon detector for a SN at few kpc and all three detectors would clearly see the Earth signature for very close-by stars only (d ~ 0.2 kpc). Finally, we show that adopting IceCube as co-detector together with a Mton water Cherenkov detector is not a viable option either.Comment: (14 pages, 5 ps figures

Regulation of p27kip1 and p57kip2 functions by natural polyphenols

In numerous instances, the fate of a single cell not only represents its peculiar outcome but also contributes to the overall status of an organism. In turn, the cell division cycle and its control strongly influence cell destiny, playing a critical role in targeting it towards a specific phenotype. Several factors participate in the control of growth, and among them, p27Kip1 and p57Kip2, two proteins modulating various transitions of the cell cycle, appear to play key functions. In this review, the major features of p27 and p57 will be described, focusing, in particular, on their recently identified roles not directly correlated with cell cycle modulation. Then, their possible roles as molecular effectors of polyphenols’ activities will be discussed. Polyphenols represent a large family of natural bioactive molecules that have been demonstrated to exhibit promising protective activities against several human diseases. Their use has also been proposed in association with classical therapies for improving their clinical effects and for diminishing their negative side activities. The importance of p27Kip1 and p57Kip2 in polyphenols’ cellular effects will be discussed with the aim of identifying novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of important human diseases, such as cancers, characterized by an altered control of growth

Vanillin prevents doxorubicin-induced apoptosis and oxidative stress in rat H9c2 cardiomyocytes

Doxorubicin (doxo) is an effective anticancer compound in several tumor types. However, as a consequence of oxidative stress induction and ROS overproduction, its high cardiotoxicity demands urgent attention. Vanillin possesses antioxidant, antiproliferative, antidepressant and anti-glycating properties. Therefore, we investigated the potential vanillin protective effects against doxo-induced cardiotoxicity in H9c2 cells. Using multiparametric approach, we demonstrated that vanillin restored both cell viability and damage in response to doxo exposure. Contextually, vanillin decreased sub-G1 appearance and caspase-3 and PARP1 activation, reducing the doxo-related apoptosis induction. From a mechanistic point of view, vanillin hindered doxo-induced ROS accumulation and impaired the ERK phosphorylation. Notably, besides the cardioprotective effects, vanillin did not counteract the doxo effectiveness in osteosarcoma cells. Taken together, our results suggest that vanillin ameliorates doxo-induced toxicity in H9c2 cells, opening new avenues for developing alternative therapeutic approaches to prevent the anthracycline-related cardiotoxicity and to improve the long-term outcome of antineoplastic treatment

Il Sito Web accessibile dell’Osservatorio Vesuviano

Il sito web dell’Osservatorio Vesuviano (OV) nasce nel 1997. Lo scopo era quello di fornire informazioni sullo stato di attività dei vulcani della Campania, per i quali l’Osservatorio Vesuviano gestisce le reti strumentali di monitoraggio, nonché di far conoscere le attività scientifiche e i dati prodotti dall’ente. Nel 2002 il sito ha subito una sostanziale riorganizzazione, a seguito di una ristrutturazione dell’Osservatorio Vesuviano, che insieme ad altri istituzioni scientifiche affini era confluito, all’inizio del 2001, nell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) diventandone la Sezione di Napoli. La nuova versione ha tenuto conto della più complessa articolazione delle attività dell’Osservatorio Vesuviano, che negli anni aveva visto aumentare il numero dei propri ricercatori e tecnici e aveva ulteriormente differenziato e specializzato le proprie attività. Inoltre la nuova strutturazione come sezione dell’INGV consentiva un’organizzazione in Unità Funzionali e Servizi. In occasione della realizzazione della seconda versione del sito è stata effettuata un’analisi sistematica dell’utenza basata prevalentemente sulla posta elettronica ricevuta all’indirizzo dedicato alle richieste di informazioni da parte del pubblico. Questo ha consentito di individuare diverse tipologie di utenza. In funzione delle crescenti richieste di informazioni è stato inoltre organizzato un gruppo per curare il servizio “info”, basato su richieste di informazione via mail, che ha dato modo di meglio delineare gli argomenti di maggior interesse da parte dei visitatori (Giudicepietro et al., 2006). Questa attività ha fatto nascere anche una sezione dedicata alle domande frequenti che, soprattutto nei periodi di maggior attenzione per le tematiche del rischio vulcanico, è risultata un utile supporto alla richiesta di informazioni da parte del pubblico. Negli ultimi anni in Italia, come in molti altri paesi del mondo, si è sviluppata una normativa in materia di web che ha dettato le linee guida per lo sviluppo dei siti delle Pubbliche Amministrazioni (Circolare Funzione Pubblica 13 marzo 2001, n. 3/2001 “Linee guida per l'organizzazione, l'usabilità e l'accessibilità dei siti web delle pubbliche amministrazioni”) nonché ha richiamato l’attenzione sull’accessibilità. La normativa italiana relativa all’accessibilità ha lo scopo principale di garantire la fruizione delle informazioni diffuse sul web e dei relativi servizi informatici anche alle persone disabili in ottemperanza al principio di uguaglianza ai sensi dell'articolo 3 della Costituzione. In particolare la Legge del 9 gennaio 2004 n. 4 (pubblicata in G.U. 13 del 17.01.2004) definisce l’accessibilità delle fonti di informazione e servizi informatici come “la capacità dei sistemi informatici, nelle forme e nei limiti consentiti dalle conoscenze tecnologiche, di erogare servizi e fornire informazioni fruibili, senza discriminazioni, anche da parte di coloro che a causa di disabilità necessitano di tecnologie assistive o configurazioni particolari”. Le tecnologie assistive sono definite nella stessa legge come “gli strumenti e le soluzioni tecniche, hardware e software, che permettono alla persona disabile, superando o riducendo le condizioni di svantaggio, di accedere alle informazioni e ai servizi erogati dai sistemi informatici”. Un esempio di tecnologia 4 assistiva può essere uno screen reader, ovvero un lettore di schermo, strumento utilizzato dai non vedenti per usare il computer. In attuazione della legge del 9 gennaio 2004 n. 4, il Decreto Ministeriale dell'8 luglio 2005 "Requisiti tecnici e i diversi livelli per l'accessibilità agli strumenti informatici", definisce 22 requisiti per l’accessibilità che i siti delle Pubbliche Amministrazioni devono soddisfare. La seconda versione del sito dell’Osservatorio Vesuviano non era conforme ai requisiti richiesti da questo decreto, pertanto si è resa necessaria una nuova ristrutturazione del sito che consentisse l’adeguamento alla normativa vigente (www.w3.org, www.governo.it, www.pubbliaccesso.it, www.cnipa.gov.it)

The Milky Way rotation curve in Horava - Lifshitz theory

The Horava - Lifshitz (HL) theory has recently attracted a lot of interest as a viable solution to some quantum gravity related problems and the presence of an effective cosmological constant able to drive the cosmic speed up. We show here that, in the weak field limit, the HL proposal leads to a modification of the gravitational potential because of two additive terms (scaling respectively as $r^2$ and $r^{-4}$) to the Newtonian $1/r$ potential. We then derive a general expression to compute the rotation curve of an extended system under the assumption that the mass density only depends on the cylindrical coordinates $(R, z)$ showing that the HL modification induces a dependence of the circular velocity on the mass function which is a new feature of the theory. As a first exploratory analysis, we then try fitting the Milky Way rotation curve using its visible components only in order to see whether the HL modified potential can be an alternative to the dark matter framework. This turns out not to be the case so that we argue that dark matter is still needed, but the amount of dark matter and the dark halo density profile have to be revised according to the new HL potential.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication on MNRA

Caspase 3 and 8 deficiency in human neuroblastoma

An altered apoptotic response represents a pivotal feature of cancer and is involved in cancerogenesis and resistance to chemotherapy. So far, however, only a few studies have been devoted to survey caspase content in malignant cell lines and primary tumor specimens. In this report, we investigated the expression of two pivotal caspases, 3 and 8, in 63 neuroblastoma specimens by three complementary techniques (i.e., reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, immunoblotting, and immunohistochemistry). We confirmed the frequent absence of caspase 8 expression. Moreover and most important, we demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, that a significant percentage of neuroblastomas lack caspase 3 mRNA and protein. Both caspase alterations do not show any correlation with tumor stage and MYCN status. Immunohistochemistry showed a large number of caspase-negative cell islets also present in positive samples. Our findings suggest that the absence of caspases might play an important role in neuroblastoma development and resistance to apoptosisbased treatments

Antibiotic activity of a Paraphaeosphaeria sporulosa-produced diketopiperazine against Salmonella enterica

A diketopiperazine has been purified from a culture filtrate of the endophytic fungus Paraphaeosphaeria sporulosa, isolated from healthy tissues of strawberry plants in a survey of microbes as sources of anti-bacterial metabolites. Its structure has been determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) analyses and was found to be identical to cyclo(L-Pro-L-Phe) purified from species of other fungal genera. This secondary metabolite has been selected following bioguided-assay fractionation against two strains of Salmonella enterica, the causal agent of bovine gastroenteritis. The diketopiperazine cyclo(L-Pro-L-Phe), isolated for the first time from Paraphaeosphaeria species, showed minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 71.3 and 78.6 μg/mL against the two S. enterica strains. This finding may be significant in limiting the use of synthetic antibiotics in animal husbandry and reducing the emergence of bacterial multidrug resistance. Further in vivo experiments of P. sporulosa diketopiperazines are important for the future application of these metabolites

Parasite Load and STRs Genotyping of Toxoplasma gondii Isolates From Mediterranean Mussels ( Mytilus galloprovincialis) in Southern Italy

oxoplasmosis is a zoonotic food-borne disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a land-derived protozoan parasite that infects a broad range of terrestrial and aquatic hosts. T. gondii may reach coastal waters via contaminated freshwater runoff and its oocysts may enter into the marine food web. Marine invertebrates as mussels being filter feeders are exposed and may concentrate T. gondii oocysts representing a potential source of infection for animals and humans. The present works investigated the prevalence, parasite burden and genotypes of T. gondii in the Mediterranean mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) from southern Italy. We sampled a total of 382 individual Mediterranean mussels from May to August 2018 from seven production sites in the Gulf of Naples (Campania region). An additional sample including 27 farmed Mediterranean mussels was obtained in February 2018 from a mollusk depuration plant in Corigliano Calabro (Calabria region). T. gondii DNA was detected in 43 out of 409 (10.5%) Mediterranean mussels from seven out of eight sampling sites. The number of T. gondii copies/g in the digestive gland ranged from 0.14 to 1.18. Fragment analysis of Short Tandem Repeats (STRs) at 5 microsatellite loci was performed from 10 T. gondii PCR positive samples revealing the presence of five distinct genotypes including one corresponding to type I and four atypical genotypes. These findings suggest potential implications of epidemiological importance for human and animal health because both type I and atypical genotypes could be highly pathogenic