Assessment of Micronutrient Status in Pregnant Malawian Women Before and After Treatment for Moderate Malnutrition

Background: Multiple micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent in pregnant women in developing countries and can result in adverse effects to both the mother and infant. Multiple micronutrient supplements or supplementary foods may be a way to combat micronutrient deficiencies. Objective: To assess change in micronutrient and protein levels in moderately malnourished pregnant Malawian women after receiving one of three nutritional interventions. Methods: Serum retinol, 25-hydroxyvitamin D, ferritin, vitamin B12, folate, zinc, albumin and C-reactive protein concentrations were measured in pregnant women with MUAC \u3e20.6 cm and Results: Baseline micronutrient concentrations indicated high rates of deficiency in zinc (29-39%) and albumin (37-46%), and marginal status of retinol (26-37%) and vitamin D (31-32%). Adjusted mean changes in vitamin B12 concentrations from week 0 to week 10 were -17.1, -36.1, and -52.9 pg/mL for RUSF, CSB-UNIMMAP, and CSB-IFA, respectively (p=0.007). Adjusted mean changes in vitamin D concentrations from week 0 to week 10 were 6.1, 3.1, and 1.7 ng/mL for RUSF, CSB-UNIMMAP, and CSB-IFA, respectively (p=0.007). Adjusted mean changes in folate concentrations from week 0 to week 10 were 2.2, 1.7, and 4.0 ng/mL for RUSF, CSB-UNIMMAP, and CSB-IFA, respectively (p=0.37 for effect of treatment; p=0.06 for the interaction effect of time*treatment). Changes in ferritin, zinc, albumin, retinol, and CRP were not significantly different between treatment groups. Conclusions: Deficiencies in zinc and albumin, and marginal status of vitamin D and retinol, are common among this population of moderately malnourished pregnant Malawian women. Significant changes in vitamin D and vitamin B12were observed from week 0 to week 10, with the RUSF group having the greatest improvements compared to the CSB-UNIMMAP and CSB-IFA treatments

First record of Sphaeralcea bonariensis (Cav.) Griseb. (Malvaceae) as a casual alien species in the Mediterranean area

Sphaeralcea bonariensis (Cav.) Griseb. is here reported for the first time as alien species in Italy and in the Mediterranean area. It is a perennial shrub native to Southern America, where it is often considered a ruderal species frequent in cultivated areas. It was found in a population of a few individuals within Opuntia ficus-indica groves of Rocca Palumba territory (Western Sicily). Actually, due to short-term observational period and the low number of plants, Sphaeralcea bonariensis should be considered as a casual species in Italy. The ecological characteristics of the growing stand and the consistency of the population, as well as the possible causes of its introduction, are briefly discussed

Temporal changes of vascular plant diversity in response to tree dieback in a mediterranean lowland forest

Palo Laziale wood is a small biotope of about 129 ha situated along the north coast of Rome. It is one of the last remaining patches of an ancient lowland floodplain forest that once covered the coastal area of the Lazio region. It contains several habitats and species of high conservation interest which has been included in the Natura2000 network. The forest suffered an impressive dieback event in 2003, coinciding with a particularly hot and dry summer. In the framework of an ecological restoration project (LIFE PRIMED LIFE17 NAT/GR/000511), a preliminary assessment of the biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem was carried out, including a floristic analysis. This analysis was compared with that conducted in 1990 to assess whether there was any change in the species composition also following the forest dieback. Comparisons between biological forms, chorotypes and the Ellenberg indicators were also made in the analysis. The total flora of the site increased from 462 to 490 species. Moreover, there has been a turnover of species with the disappearance of some grassland and halophytic species and the appearance of allochthonous/ruderal and freshwater habitat species. Despite this, the flora remained unchanged in ecological terms, demonstrating a certain resilience of the plant species, confirming this approach to identify declining processes and support ecosystem-based restoration actions elsewhere

Chromosome numbers for the Italian flora: 6

In this contribution, new chromosome data obtained on material collected in Italy are presented. It includes three chromosome counts for Bupleurum baldense Turra, Colchicum lusitanum Brot., and Euphorbia gasparrinii Boiss. subsp. gasparrinii

A study on text-score disagreement in online reviews

In this paper, we focus on online reviews and employ artificial intelligence tools, taken from the cognitive computing field, to help understanding the relationships between the textual part of the review and the assigned numerical score. We move from the intuitions that 1) a set of textual reviews expressing different sentiments may feature the same score (and vice-versa); and 2) detecting and analyzing the mismatches between the review content and the actual score may benefit both service providers and consumers, by highlighting specific factors of satisfaction (and dissatisfaction) in texts. To prove the intuitions, we adopt sentiment analysis techniques and we concentrate on hotel reviews, to find polarity mismatches therein. In particular, we first train a text classifier with a set of annotated hotel reviews, taken from the Booking website. Then, we analyze a large dataset, with around 160k hotel reviews collected from Tripadvisor, with the aim of detecting a polarity mismatch, indicating if the textual content of the review is in line, or not, with the associated score. Using well established artificial intelligence techniques and analyzing in depth the reviews featuring a mismatch between the text polarity and the score, we find that -on a scale of five stars- those reviews ranked with middle scores include a mixture of positive and negative aspects. The approach proposed here, beside acting as a polarity detector, provides an effective selection of reviews -on an initial very large dataset- that may allow both consumers and providers to focus directly on the review subset featuring a text/score disagreement, which conveniently convey to the user a summary of positive and negative features of the review target.Comment: This is the accepted version of the paper. The final version will be published in the Journal of Cognitive Computation, available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12559-017-9496-

Intraoperative determinants of infrainguinal bypass graft patency: A prospective study

Objectives:To evaluate a number of currently available methods for intraoperative assessment of infrainguinal bypass grafts (IBG) in terms of detecting technical errors and predicting graft failure.Design:Prospective open clinical study.Methods:Forty-nine patients undergoing 54 consecutive IBG were studied. Intraoperatively, the following measurements were performed: distal pulse palpation (DPP), continuous wave Doppler (CWD), pulse volume recording (PVR), and ultrasonic volume flowmetry (UVF), followed by intraoperative angiography of the entire graft and runoff vessels. The outflow resistance was graded according to the guidelines of the Society for Vascular Surgery and International Society for Cardiovascular Surgery (SVS/ISCVS runoff score). Graft patency was determined noninvasively (PVR, colour Duplex) up to 12 months following surgery. Predictive values and likelihood ratios for the intraoperative tests in detecting a technical problem during the bypass procedure and in predicting early graft failure were calculated.Results:There were five immediate revisions for problems detected intraoperatively. Angiography did not identify any additional problems but assisted in the correct location of the problems detected by the other tests. DPP and CWD were highly significant indicators of the need for revision with likelihood ratios for a positive test of 14.7 (p < 0.01) and 12.3 (p < 0.01) respectively. PVR did not achieve statistical significance in this respect. None of the intraoperative tests was a statistically significant predictor of early graft failure. The SVS/ISCVS runoff score, on the other hand, predicted early failure with a PPV of 33% (likelihood ratio for a positive test of 4.9, p < 0.05). None of the grafts with a perfect SVS/ISCVS runoff score (n = 39) failed in the first postoperative month.Conclusions:Simple CWD insonation of graft and anastomoses is the best intraoperative indicator for technical inadequacies after IBG. Routine intraoperative angiography is not necessary and intraoperative anatomical imaging may be reserved for situations in which noninvasive documentation of technical success is absent. Contrary to the intraoperative haemodynamic test results, the SVS/ISCVS runoff score is a good predictor of early graft failure

Integrative Taxonomy of Armeria Taxa (Plumbaginaceae) Endemic to Sardinia and Corsica

Sardinia and Corsica are two Mediterranean islands where the genus Armeria is represented by 11 taxa, 10 out of which are endemic. An integrative approach, using molecular phylogeny, karyology, and seed and plant morphometry was used to resolve the complex taxonomy and systematics in this group. We found that several taxa are no longer supported by newly produced data. Accordingly, we describe a new taxonomic hypothesis that only considers five species: Armeria leucocephala and A. soleirolii, endemic to Corsica, and A. morisii, A. sardoa, and A. sulcitana, endemic to Sardinia

Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 11

In this contribution, the conservation status assessment of three vascular plants according to IUCN categories and criteria is presented. It includes the global assessment of Limonium parvifolium Tineo and Viscaria alpina (L.) G.Don, and the regional assessment of Rhazya stricta Decne. (Iraq)