How does climate change affect a fishable resource? The case of the royal sea cucumber (Parastichopus regalis) in the central Mediterranean Sea

Holothurians or sea cucumbers are key organisms in marine ecosystems that, by ingesting large quantities of sediments, provide important ecosystem services. Among them, Parastichopus regalis (Cuvier, 1817) is one of the living sea cucumbers in the Mediterranean actively fished for human consumption mainly in Spain, where it is considered a gastronomic delicacy. In the Strait of Sicily (central Mediterranean Sea), this species is not exploited for commercial use even if it is used as bait by longline fishery. P. regalis is frequently caught by bottom trawling and discarded at sea by fishers after catch, and because of its capacity to resist air exposition (at least in cold months), it is reasonable to consider that it is not affected by fishing mortality. Having observed a significant decrease in abundance since 2018, the possible effects of some ecological factors related to current climate change (i.e., temperature and pH) were sought. Generalized additive models (GAMs) were applied to investigate the relationship among the abundance of P. regalis and environmental variables and fishing effort. Long time series of P. regalis densities (2008-2021) were extracted from the MEDITS bottom trawling survey and modeled as function of environmental parameters (i.e., salinity, dissolved oxygen, ammonium, pH, and chlorophyll alpha) and fishing effort (i.e., total number of fishing days per gross tonnage). Our results showed that this species prefers the soft bottoms (50-200 m) of the Adventure Bank and Malta Plateau, and its distribution changed over time with a slight deepening and a rarefaction of spatial distribution starting from 2011 and 2017, respectively. In addition, a positive relationship with pH concentration in surface waters during the larval dispersal phase (3-year lag before the survey) and nutrient concentration at sea bottom (1-year lag) has been found, suggesting that this species is sensitive to climate change and food availability. This study adds new knowledge about the population dynamics of an unexploited stock of P. regalis under fishing impact and environmental under climate change in fisheries management

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

Activity of chemotherapy in mucinous ovarian cancer with a recurrence free interval of more than 6 months: results from the SOCRATES retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mucinous ovarian carcinoma have a poorer prognosis compared with other histological subtypes. The aim of this study was to evaluate, retrospectively, the activity of chemotherapy in patients with platinum sensitive recurrent mucinous ovarian cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The SOCRATES study retrospectively assessed the pattern of care of a cohort of patients with recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer observed in the years 2000–2002 in 37 Italian centres. Data were collected between April and September 2005. Patients with recurrent ovarian cancer with > 6 months of platinum free interval were considered eligible.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Twenty patients with mucinous histotype and 388 patients with other histotypes were analyzed. At baseline, mucinous tumours differed from the others for an higher number of patients with lower tumor grading (p = 0.0056) and less advanced FIGO stage (p = 0.025). At time of recurrence, a statistically significant difference was found in performance status (worse in mucinous, p = 0.024). About 20% of patients underwent secondary cytoreduction in both groups, but a lower number of patients were optimally debulked in the mucinous group (p = 0.03). Patients with mucinous cancer received more frequently single agent platinum than platinum based-combination therapy or other non-platinum schedules as second line therapy (p = 0.026), with a response rate lower than in non-mucinous group (36.4% vs 62.6%, respectively, p = 0.04). Median time to progression and overall survival were worse for mucinous ovarian cancer. Finally, mucinous cancer received a lower number of chemotherapy lines (p = 0.0023).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This analysis shows that platinum sensitive mucinous ovarian cancer has a poor response to chemotherapy. Studies dedicated to this histological subgroup are needed.</p

Real-Time PCR in HIV/Trypanosoma cruzi Coinfection with and without Chagas Disease Reactivation: Association with HIV Viral Load and CD4+ Level

Chagas disease is endemic in Latin America and is caused by the flagellate protozoan T. cruzi. The acute phase is asymptomatic in the majority of the cases and rarely causes inflammation of the heart or the central nervous system. Most infected patients progress to a chronic phase, characterized by cardiac or digestive involvement when not asymptomatic. However, when patients are also exposed to an immunosuppressant (such as chemotherapy), neoplasia, or other infections such as HIV, T. cruzi infection may develop into a severe disease (Chagas disease reactivation) involving the heart and central nervous system. The current microscopic methods for diagnosing Chagas disease reactivation are not sensitive enough to prevent the high rate of death observed in these cases. Therefore, we propose a quantitative method to monitor blood levels of the parasite, which will allow therapy to be administered as early as possible, even if the patient has not yet presented symptoms

Impact of Aetiological Treatment on Conventional and Multiplex Serology in Chronic Chagas Disease

The main criterion for treatment effectiveness in Chagas Disease has been the seronegative conversion of previously reactive serology, generally achieved many years post-treatment. The lack of reliable tests to ensure parasite clearance and to examine the effect of treatment is the main difficulty in evaluating treatment for chronic Chagas disease. Decreases of conventional and non-conventional serological titers can be useful tools to monitor the early impact of treatment. We serially measured changes in antibody levels, including seronegative conversion as well as declines in titers in 53 benznidazole-treated and 89 untreated chronically T. cruzi-infected subjects. Seronegative conversion as well as decreases of titers was significantly higher in treated compared with untreated patients. A strong concordance was found between decreases of titers of conventional and non-conventional serologic tests post-treatment, reaffirming the findings. When seronegative conversion plus decreases of titers were considered altogether, the impact of treatment was higher, in a shorter follow-up period than previously considered. New tools for monitoring the effectiveness of treatment of chronic Chagas disease are necessary, and the results showed in this study is a contribution to researchers and physicians who assist patients suffering from this disease

Usefulness of PCR-based assays to assess drug efficacy in Chagas disease chemotherapy: value and limitations

One major goal of research on Chagas disease is the development of effective chemotherapy to eliminate the infection from individuals who have not yet developed cardiac and/or digestive disease manifestations. Cure evaluation is the more complex aspect of its treatment, often leading to diverse and controversial results. The absence of reliable methods or a diagnostic gold standard to assess etiologic treatment efficacy still constitutes a major challenge. In an effort to develop more sensitive tools, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assays were introduced to detect low amounts of Trypanosoma cruzi DNA in blood samples from chagasic patients, thus improving the diagnosis and follow-up evaluation after chemotherapy. In this article, I review the main problems concerning drug efficacy and criteria used for cure estimation in treated chagasic patients, and the work conducted by different groups on developing PCR methodologies to monitor treatment outcome of congenital infections as well as recent and late chronic T. cruzi infections

Selective Targeting of TRPV1 Expressing Sensory Nerve Terminals in the Spinal Cord for Long Lasting Analgesia

Chronic pain is a major clinical problem and opiates are often the only treatment, but they cause significant problems ranging from sedation to deadly respiratory depression. Resiniferatoxin (RTX), a potent agonist of Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), causes a slow, sustained and irreversible activation of TRPV1 and increases the frequency of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents, but causes significant depression of evoked EPSCs due to nerve terminal depolarization block. Intrathecal administration of RTX to rats in the short-term inhibits nociceptive synaptic transmission, and in the long-term causes a localized, selective ablation of TRPV1-expressing central sensory nerve terminals leading to long lasting analgesia in behavioral models. Since RTX actions are selective for central sensory nerve terminals, other efferent functions of dorsal root ganglion neurons can be preserved. Preventing nociceptive transmission at the level of the spinal cord can be a useful strategy to treat chronic, debilitating and intractable pain

Pathogenic Huntingtin Repeat Expansions in Patients with Frontotemporal Dementia and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

We examined the role of repeat expansions in the pathogenesis of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by analyzing whole-genome sequence data from 2,442 FTD/ALS patients, 2,599 Lewy body dementia (LBD) patients, and 3,158 neurologically healthy subjects. Pathogenic expansions (range, 40-64 CAG repeats) in the huntingtin (HTT) gene were found in three (0.12%) patients diagnosed with pure FTD/ALS syndromes but were not present in the LBD or healthy cohorts. We replicated our findings in an independent collection of 3,674 FTD/ALS patients. Postmortem evaluations of two patients revealed the classical TDP-43 pathology of FTD/ALS, as well as huntingtin-positive, ubiquitin-positive aggregates in the frontal cortex. The neostriatal atrophy that pathologically defines Huntington's disease was absent in both cases. Our findings reveal an etiological relationship between HTT repeat expansions and FTD/ALS syndromes and indicate that genetic screening of FTD/ALS patients for HTT repeat expansions should be considered