The effect of mentally demanding cognitive tasks on rowing performance in young athletes

Objectives: The present study aims to investigate the effect of mentally demanding cognitive tasks on rowing performance in prepubertal athletes. Design: Randomised, counterbalanced and crossover. Method: Seventeen rowers, aged between 10 and 12 years, completed three separate testing sessions during which they performed three different cognitive tasks before completing a 1500\u202fm time trial on the rowing ergometer. In the two experimental conditions, one hour of a standard cognitive task (Stroop task) and an arithmetic school test were used to elicit mental effort; in the control condition a time-matched, not demanding activity was carried out (painting). Subjective workload and mood were measured before and after the treatments, and the motivation was recorded before the time-trial. During the time trial, time, power, speed, cadence, heart rate and rate of perceived exertion were assessed. Results: The Stroop task and the arithmetic test were rated more mentally demanding (P\u202f<\u202f0.001), effortful (P\u202f<\u202f0.001) and frustrating (P\u202f=\u202f0.001) than the control task, but the items fatigue (P\u202f=\u202f0.437, P\u202f=\u202f0.197) and vigour (P\u202f=\u202f0.143, P\u202f=\u202f1.000) after the cognitive tasks were not significantly different from the control. The performance of the time trial did not differ between conditions (time: P\u202f=\u202f0.521; power: P\u202f=\u202f0.208; speed: P\u202f=\u202f0.341); physiological (P\u202f=\u202f0.556) and perceptual (P\u202f=\u202f0.864) measures recorded during the physical task were not affected by the conditions. Accordingly, pacing profiles (P\u202f=\u202f0.312) and cadence (P\u202f=\u202f0.062) did not differ between the conditions. Conclusions: Mentally demanding activities did not affect the subsequent physical performance in prepubertal athletes

Breast cancer and microRNAs: therapeutic impact

Summary Despite advances in detection and therapies, breast cancer is still the leading cause of cancer death in women worldwide. The etiology of this neoplasm is complex, and both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the complicate scenario. Gene profiling studies have been extensively used over the last decades as a powerful tool to define the signature of different cancers and to predict outcome and response to therapies. More recently, a new class of small (19-25 nucleotides) non-coding RNAs, microRNAs (miRs or miRNAs) has been linked to several human diseases, included cancer. MicroRNAs are involved in temporal and tissue-specific eukaryotic gene regulation, 1 either by translational inhibition or exonucleolytic mRNA decay, targeted through imperfect complementarity between the microRNA and the 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of the mRNA. 2 Since their ability to potentially target any human mRNA, it is likely that microRNAs are involved in almost every biological process, including cell cycle regulation, cell growth, apoptosis, cell differentiation and stress response. 3 The involvement of microRNAs in the biology of human cancer is supported by an increasing body of experimental evidence, that has gradually switched from profiling studies, as the first breast cancer specific signature reported in 2005 by our group 4 describing an aberrant microRNA expression in different tumor types, to biological demonstrations of the causal role of these small molecules in the tumorigenic process, and the possible implications as biomarkers or therapeutic tools. 5 These more recent studies have widely demonstrated that microRNAs can modulate oncogenic or tumor suppressor pathways, and that, at the same time, their expression can be regulated by oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. The possibility to modulate microRNA expression both in vitro and in vivo by developing synthetic pre-microRNA molecules or antisense oligonucletides has at the same time provided a powerful tool to a deeper comprehension of the molecular mechanisms regulated by these molecules, and suggested the intriguing and promising perspective of a possible use in therapy. Here we review our current knowledge about the involvement of microRNAs in cancer, focusing particularly on breast cancer, and their potential as diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic tools

A defective ABC transporter of the MRP family, responsible for the bean lpa1 mutation, affects the regulation of the phytic acid pathway, reduces seed myo-inositol and alters ABA sensitivity

We previously identified the lpa1 (low phytic acid) 280-10 line that carries a mutation conferring a 90% reduction in phytic acid (InsP6) content. In contrast to other lpa mutants, lpa1(280-10) does not display negative pleiotropic effects. In the present paper, we have identified the mutated gene and analysed its impact on the phytic acid pathway. Here, we mapped the lpa1(280-10) mutation by bulk analysis on a segregating F2 population, an then, by comparison with the soybean genome, we identified and sequenced a candidate gene. The InsP6 pathway was analysed by gene expression and quantification of metabolites. The mutated Pvmrp1(280-10) cosegregates with the lpa1(280-10) mutation, and the expression level of several genes of the InsP6 pathway are reduced in the lpa1(280-10) mutant as well as the inositol and raffinosaccharide content. PvMrp2, a very similar paralogue of PvMrp1 was also mapped and sequenced. The lpa1 mutation in beans is likely the result of a defective Mrp1 gene (orthologous to the lpa genes AtMRP5 and ZmMRP4), while its Mrp2 paralog is not able to complement the mutant phenotype in the seed. This mutation appears to down-regulate the InsP6 pathway at the transcriptional level, as well as altering inositol-related metabolism and affecting ABA sensitivity

Correlates of spinal deforming index (SDI) in HIV-positive patients naive and on treatment

Methods HIV-infected subjects naive or on stable HAART were included. Vertebral deformities were identified using SDI (according to semiquantitative method by Genant), calculated by summing the deformity grades of all vertebrae (T4 to L4); pathological deformities are defined as follow: grade 1 between 20–25%, grade 2 between 26–40%, and grade 3 > >40%. According to WHO criteria, osteopenia and osteoporosis were diagnosed in patients having spine BMD calculated as -1 << T-score << -2.5 and T-score ≤≤2.5, respectively. The correlation between SDI and spine BMD was evaluated by univariate and multivariate linear regression. [Other variables considered: gender, age, current CD4 count, CD4 nadir, BMI, lipid parameters, alcohol intake, smoking habit, physical activity, family history for bone fracture, months of ARV exposure, and co-infection with hepatitis viruses; only the variables with p <<0.2 in univariate analyses were included in the final model.

Prediction is very hard, especially about conversion. Predicting user purchases from clickstream data in fashion e-commerce

Knowing if a user is a buyer vs window shopper solely based on clickstream data is of crucial importance for ecommerce platforms seeking to implement real-time accurate NBA (next best action) policies. However, due to the low frequency of conversion events and the noisiness of browsing data, classifying user sessions is very challenging. In this paper, we address the clickstream classification problem in the fashion industry and present three major contributions to the burgeoning field of AI in fashion: first, we collected, normalized and prepared a novel dataset of live shopping sessions from a major European e-commerce fashion website; second, we use the dataset to test in a controlled environment strong baselines and SOTA models from the literature; finally, we propose a new discriminative neural model that outperforms neural architectures recently proposed at Rakuten labs

Investigation on the use of fused deposition modeling for the production of IR dosage forms containing Timapiprant

: The present work focused on evaluating the feasibility of fused deposition modeling (FDM) in the development of a dosage form containing Timapiprant (TMP), also known as CHF6532, which is a novel active molecule indicated in the potential treatment of eosinophilic asthma upon oral administration. The resulting product could be an alternative, with potential towards personalization, of immediate release (IR) tablets used in the clinical studies. Formulations based on different polymeric carriers were screened, leading to the identification of a polyvinyl alcohol-based one, which turned out acceptable for versatility in terms of active ingredient content, printability and dissolution performance (i.e. capability to meet the dissolution specification set, envisaging &gt;80% of the drug dissolved within 30&nbsp;min). Following an in-depth evaluation on the influence of TMP solid state and of the voids volume resulting from printing on dissolution, few prototypes with shapes especially devised for therapy customization were successfully printed and were compliant with the dissolution specification set

Compartmental tongue surgery for intermediate-advanced squamous cell carcinoma: A multicentric study

Background: A multicentric study was conducted on technical reproducibility of compartmental tongue surgery (CTS) in advanced tongue cancers (OTSCC) and comparison to standard wide margin surgery (SWMS). Methods: We studied 551 patients with OTSCC treated by CTS and 50 by SWMS. Oncological outcomes were analyzed. A propensity score was performed to compare survival endpoints for the two cohorts. Results: In the CTS group, survival and prognosis were significantly associated with positive lymph-nodes, extranodal extension, depth of invasion and involvement of the soft tissue connecting the tongue primary tumor to neck lymph nodes (T-N tract), independently from the center performing the surgery. SWMS versus CTS showed a HR Cause-Specific Survival (CSS) of 3.24 (95% CI: 1.71-6.11; p < 0.001); HR Loco-Regional Recurrence Free Survival (LRRFS) of 2.54 (95% CI: 1.47-4.40; p < 0.001); HR Overall Survival (OS) of 0.11 (95% CI: 0.01-0.77; p = 0.03). Conclusion: Performing the CTS could provide better CSS and LRRFS than SWMS regardless of the center performing the surgery, in advanced OTSSC

Forensic geosciences investigations on experimental fields

The search for homicide graves is a very strenuous activity that may lead to the identification of the burial site if it is planned based on articulated scientific approaches considering several aspects of forensic sciences. Moreover, another difficult task in such criminal cases may be the estimation of the Post-Mortem Interval (PMI) of the victim. Discrepancies between PMI estimation through entomological studies and other evaluations may be. This inconsistency is at the base of the necessity to examine and well understand the human decay process of human beings and the decay consequences in the surrounding environmental context. It is noteworthy that several processes may occur on the surrounding site the burial.peer-reviewe

Mindful approach to University education

A mindful approach to education and training could improve students' reflective capacities and have positive effects on clinical practice because it facilitates a helping relationship. The main aims of this study were to investigate whether participation in a mindful-based University training was associated with increases in mindfulness skills as measured by the 5-Facet M Questionnaire, and to present the Italian validation of the questionnaire. Sixty-seven students from the course Neuro and Psychomotor Therapy were enrolled. They filled in the self-administered 5-Facet M Questionnaire before and 1 month after a mindfulness-based training, focused on role-playing and followed by a feedback group discussion. The Italian version of the 5-Facet M Questionnaire had good psychometric properties. The pre- and post-training analysis showed a significant increase in the subscale 'Observing'. Findings suggest that role-playing and feedback group sessions are valid tools to improve students' mindfulness skills