DSGSDs induced by post glacial decompression in central Apennine (Italy)

During the last 30 years of studies in the field of mass movements located in the calcareous-marly and marly-sandy Apennines (Umbria-Marches and Latium-Abruzzi regions), over to a large number of landslides with different dimensions, even a lot of deep-seated gravitational slope deformations (DSGSDs) have been recognized and analysed. These phenomena are also located in that sector of central Italy affected by a cold climate during the past and actually temperate (central Apennine chain)

Unexpected different chemoselectivity in the aerobic oxidation of methylated planar catechin and bent epicatechin derivatives catalysed by the Trametes villosa laccase/1-hydroxybenzotriazole system

Unreported methylated catechin and epicatechin derivatives 5 and 6 were synthesized by an oxa-Pictet- Spengler reaction. Catechin 5 shows the B and C rings coplanar because of the formation of a trans junction between the C ring and the newly generated six-term cycle D, in turn condensed to ring B. In contrast, epicatechin 6 presents a bent geometry due to the establishment of a cis junction between the C ring and the newly formed cycle D. The oxidation of compounds 5 and 6 in the presence of the Trametes villosa laccase/1-hydroxybenzotriazole (HBT) system was investigated under aerobic conditions in both a biphasic system and a reverse micelle. The unexpected different chemoselective oxidation at the benzylic position of catechin and epicatechin derivatives 5 and 6 has been rationalized using a molecular modelling approach. These results demonstrate that the Trametes villosa laccase/HBT system represents a useful tool to functionalize the C-2 or C-4 position of phenolic compounds depending on the structural features

Machine learning from real data: A mental health registry case study

Imbalanced datasets can impair the learning performance of many Machine Learning techniques. Nevertheless, many real-world datasets, especially in the healthcare field, are inherently imbalanced. For instance, in the medical domain, the classes representing a specific disease are typically the minority of the total cases. This challenge justifies the substantial research effort spent in the past decades to tackle data imbalance at the data and algorithm levels. In this paper, we describe the strategies we used to deal with an imbalanced classification task on data extracted from a database generated from the Electronic Health Records of the Mental Health Service of the Ferrara Province, Italy. In particular, we applied balancing techniques to the original data, such as random undersampling and oversampling, and Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique for Nominal and Continuous (SMOTE-NC). In order to assess the effectiveness of the balancing techniques on the classification task at hand, we applied different Machine Learning algorithms. We employed cost-sensitive learning as well and compared its results with those of the balancing methods. Furthermore, a feature selection analysis was conducted to investigate the relevance of each feature. Results show that balancing can help find the best setting to accomplish classification tasks. Since real-world imbalanced datasets are increasingly becoming the core of scientific research, further studies are needed to improve already existing techniqu

Polymorph Separation by Ordered Patterning

We herein address the problem of polymorph selection by introducing a general and straightforward concept based on their ordering. We demonstrated the concept by the ordered patterning of four compounds capable of forming different polymorphs when deposited on technologically relevant surfaces. Our approach exploits the fact that, when the growth of a crystalline material is confined within sufficiently small cavities, only one of the possible polymorphs is generated. We verify our method by utilizing several model compounds to fabricate micrometric "logic patterns" in which each of the printed pixels is easily identifiable as comprising only one polymorph and can be individually accessed for further operations

Was Charles Darwin right in his explanation of the ‘abominable mystery’?

The site and time of origin of angiosperms are still debated. The co-occurrence of many of the early branching lineages of flowering plants in a region somewhere between Australia and the SW Pacific islands suggests a possible Gondwanan origin of angiosperms. The recent recognition of Zealandia, a 94% submerged continent in the east of Australia, could explain the discrepancy between molecular clocks and fossil records about the age of angiosperms, supporting the old Darwinian hypothesis of a “lost continent” to explain the “abominable mystery” regarding the origin and rapid radiation of flowering plants

Real-world treatment patterns for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer at IRST Italy

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Chemotherapy and palliative care near end-of life: Examining the appropriateness at a cancer institute for colorectal cancer patients

Background: Appropriate cessation of chemotherapy and timely referral of patients to hospice services are crucial for the quality of care near death. We investigated the quality of care in our Cancer Institute in very advanced metastatic colorectal cancer patients treated in real life. Patients and Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of electronic medical data of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who were candidates for chemotherapy during the study period (1 January 2007-30 June 2014) and died before 31 December 2014. Quality-of-cancer-care indicators were calculated for the overuse of chemotherapy and referral to hospice. Predictive factors of chemotherapy discontinuation and hospice referral in end-of life care were investigated using parametric and nonparametric methods. Results: Of the 365 patients who died before 31 December 2014, 26 (7.1%) received chemotherapy in the last 14 days of life and 36 (9.8%) started a new chemotherapy regimen in the last 30 days of life. Factors associated with the overuse of chemotherapy were being < 70 years of age for both indicators and not having received advanced chemotherapy treatments for the former indicator. The majority of patients (74.7%) had access to hospice services, of whom only a small percentage (7.2%) accessed them very near to death. Conclusions: According to the criteria used, our Institute provides a good quality of cancer care for dying colorectal cancer patients, measured by the use of chemotherapy and referral to hospice in their last days of life