Mass calibration and Relative Humidity compensation requirements for optical portable particulate matter monitors : the IMPASHS (Impact of smoke-free policies in EU Member States) WP2 preliminary results

Better knowledge of particulate matter (PM) concentrations needs portable, reliable, user friendly, low cost, real time mass analyzers of PM2.5 and PM10. Optical Particle Counters (OPC) measuring mass have manufacturer calibration specific gravity “K” factor referred to polystyrene latex particles which are completely different than those of the real world, therefore they require specific calibrations. Measurements are also subject to Relative Humidity (RH) heavy interference.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Autosomal Dominant Tubulointerstitial Kidney Disease with Adult Onset due to a Novel Renin Mutation Mapping in the Mature Protein

Autosomal dominant tubulointerstitial kidney disease (ADTKD) is a genetically heterogeneous renal disorder leading to progressive loss of renal function. ADTKD-REN is due to rare mutations in renin, all localized in the protein leader peptide and affecting its co-translational insertion in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Through exome sequencing in an adult-onset ADTKD family we identified a new renin variant, p.L381P, mapping in the mature protein. To assess its pathogenicity, we combined genetic data, computational and predictive analysis and functional studies. The L381P substitution affects an evolutionary conserved residue, co-segregates with renal disease, is not found in population databases and is predicted to be deleterious by in silico tools and by structural modelling. Expression of the L381P variant leads to its ER retention and induction of the Unfolded Protein Response in cell models and to defective pronephros development in zebrafish. Our work shows that REN mutations outside of renin leader peptide can cause ADTKD and delineates an adult form of ADTKD-REN, a condition which has usually its onset in childhood. This has implications for the molecular diagnosis and the estimated prevalence of the disease and points at ER homeostasis as a common pathway affected in ADTKD-REN, and possibly more generally in ADTKD

Discrepancies between explicit and implicit evaluation of aesthetic perception ability in individuals with autism: a potential way to improve social functioning

Background: The capacity to evaluate beauty plays a crucial role in social behaviour and social relationships. It is known that some characteristics of beauty are important social cues that can induce stereotypes or promote different behavioural expectations. Another crucial capacity for success in social interactions is empathy, i.e. the ability to understand and share others\u2019 mental and emotional states. Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have an impairment of empathic ability. We showed in a previous study that empathy and aesthetic perception abilities closely related. Indeed, beauty can affect different aspects of empathic behaviour, and empathy can mediate the aesthetic perception in typically developing (TD) individuals. Thus, this study evaluates the ability of aesthetic perception in ASD individuals compared to TD individuals, using the Golden Beauty behavioural task adapted for eye-tracking in order to acquire both explicit and implicit evidences. In both groups, the relationship between empathic and aesthetic perception abilities was also evaluated. Methods: Ten ASD individuals (age \ub1 SD:20.7 \ub1 4.64) and ten TD individuals (age \ub1 SD:20.17 \ub1 0.98) participated in the study. Participants underwent empathy tasks and then the Golden Beauty task. To assess differences in the participants\u2019 performance, we carried out a repeated measures general linear model. Results: At the explicit level, our behavioural results show an impairment in aesthetic perception ability in ASD individuals. This inability could have relevance for their ability to experience pleasure during social interactions. However, at the implicit level (eye-tracking results), ASD individuals conserved a good ability to feel aesthetic pleasure during the Golden Beauty task, thus indicating a discrepancy between the explicit and implicit evaluation of the beauty task. Finally, beauty perception appears to be linked to empathy when neither of these capacities is compromised, as demonstrated in the TD group. In contrast, this link lacks in ASD individuals

1000 Days: The “WeCare Generation” Program—The Ultimate Model for Improving Human Mental Health and Economics: The Study Protocol

Abstract Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic stressed the necessity of a new resilience of the human population and health system. The “WeCare Generation” program is a new proposal of territorial intervention, with a new paradigm, on the diseases of the human body and mind. Background: In recent decades, the independent strands of investigation on brain plasticity and early trauma consequences have demonstrated that traumatic experiences in the period from pregnancy to the age of 3 years have an enormous impact on an individual’s future development, and both physical and mental health. Research shows that adverse child experiences (ACEs) are associated with a strong risk of conditions such as: harmful alcohol use, smoking, illicit drug use, high body-mass index, depression, anxiety, interpersonal violence, cancer, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, stroke respiratory diseases and, as a consequence, to a high financial cost in Italy and also across Europe (1–9% GDP) and the USA (total annual costs estimated to be USD 581 billion in Europe and USD 748 billion in North America). All this suggests that an early intervention on that traumatized-slice of population leads to multiplied savings. Methods: A multi-center, randomized, controlled trial was designed. The parents of the future neonatal population (from pregnancy to delivery) with trauma will be enrolled, and randomized to treatment, or control arm. The article describes in detail how the primary outpoint (cost to the national health system), and some secondary outpoints, will be collected. Discussion: An overall rate of return on investment (ROI) statistically significant 13.0% per annum with an associated benefit/cost ratio (BCR) of 6.3 is expected as the primary outcome of the “WeCare Generation” program. Our proposed model predicts a new medical paradigm aiming to empower new generations, with a strong return on economy and health

Clinical heterogeneity and diagnostic delay of autoimmune polyendocrinopathy-candidiasis-ectodermal dystrophy syndrome

n/

R&D Paths of Pixel Detectors for Vertex Tracking and Radiation Imaging

This report reviews current trends in the R&D of semiconductor pixellated sensors for vertex tracking and radiation imaging. It identifies requirements of future HEP experiments at colliders, needed technological breakthroughs and highlights the relation to radiation detection and imaging applications in other fields of science.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, submitted to the European Strategy Preparatory Grou

A Hydrogenated amorphous silicon detector for Space Weather Applications

The characteristics of a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) detector are presented here for monitoring in space solar flares and the evolution of large energetic proton events up to hundreds of MeV. The a-Si:H presents an excellent radiation hardness and finds application in harsh radiation environments for medical purposes, for particle beam characterization and in space weather science and applications. The critical flux detection threshold for solar X rays, soft gamma rays, electrons and protons is discussed in detail.Comment: 32 pages, 13 figures, submitted to Experimental Astronom

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women's Perinatal Mental Health: Preliminary Data on the Risk of Perinatal Depression/Anxiety from a National Survey in Italy

Increasing evidence suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety and depression during the perinatal period increased. The aim of the study is to estimate the prevalence of risk for both maternal depression and anxiety among women attending 18 healthcare centres in Italy during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic and to investigate the psychosocial risks and protective factors associated. It was divided into a retrospective phase (2019, 2020, and the first nine months of 2021) and a prospective phase (which began in November 2021 and it is still ongoing), which screened 12,479 and 2349 women, respectively, for a total of 14,828 women in the perinatal period. To evaluate the risk of anxiety and depression, the General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), and an ad hoc form were used to collect sociodemographic variables. In the prospective study, the average age of the women is 31 (range 18-52) years. Results showed that the percentage of women who had EPDS score ≥9 increased from 11.6% in 2019 to 25.5% in the period ranging from November 2021 to April 2022. In logistic regression models, the variables associated with the risk of depression at a level ≤0.01 include having economic problems (OR 2.16) and not being able to rely on support from relatives or friends (OR 2.36). Having the professional status of the housewife is a lower risk (OR 0.52). Those associated with the risk of anxiety include being Italian (OR 2.97), having an education below secondary school level (OR 0.47), having some or many economic problems (OR 2.87), being unable to rely on support from relatives or friends (OR 2.48), and not having attended an antenatal course (OR 1.41). The data from this survey could be useful to determine the impact of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic on women and to establish a screening program with common and uniformly applied criteria which are consistent with national and international women's mental health programs

Rapporto Sulle Attività Svolte Dal Gruppo Bollettino Sismico Italiano A Seguito Della Sequenza Sismica Del Centro Italia 2016-2017 Nel Periodo Tra Il 23-9-2016 Ed Il 16-01-2017

La sequenza sismica del centro Italia, successivamente al terremoto di Amatrice di fine agosto, è stata caratterizzata da altri forti terremoti alla fine del mese di ottobre 2016. Il 26 ottobre due eventi di Mw 5.4 e 5.9 hanno interessato l’area posta al confine Marche-Umbria tra i Comuni di Castelsantangelo sul Nera (MC), Norcia (PG) e Arquata del Tronto (AP). La mattina del 30 ottobre un terremoto di Mw 6.5 con epicentro non lontano da Norcia ha interessato l’intera area già profondamente colpita dalla sequenza; questo è stato il più forte terremoto registrato negli ultimi 30 in Italia. A 5 mesi dall’inizio dell’emergenza sismica, il Bollettino Sismico Italiano ha portato a termine la revisione di tutti gli eventi con ML≥ 3.5: parte di questi (insieme alla revisione delle ore che hanno seguito il primo mainshock) sono stati oggetto del primo report (3 ottobre 2016) e del lavoro Marchetti et al. (2016), un’altra parte degli eventi “forti” è stata pubblicata il 17 novembre in ISIDe e nella pagina CNT.ingv.it (insieme anche alla revisione delle prime ore del 30 ottobre, fino alle 7:30 UTC) con relativo comunicato fatto dal funzionario INGV. I restanti eventi già rivisti dagli analisti del BSI sono elencati in questo report e saranno pubbicati a fine gennaio. Gli eventi rivisti integrano all’interno del BSI tutte le stazioni i cui dati sono archiviati nello European Integrated Data Archive, cioè oltre alle stazioni delle varie reti permanenti che costituiscono la Rete Sismica Nazionale Italiana vengono integrate le stazioni delle reti permanenti presenti nelle Marche e le stazioni temporanee installate dal gruppo di emergenza SISMIKO, le cui registrazioni vengono archiviate in EIDA, in tempi brevi, insieme alle stazioni trasmesse in real-time. Durante la sequenza molti degli analisti del BSI sono stati impegnati a coprire la turnazione prevista per lo svolgimento del servizio di sorveglianza nella sala sismica dell’Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) di Roma e in DICOMAC; questa esigenza non ha consentito di procedere rapidamente nella revisione dell’intera sequenza ma grazie al supporto di personale INGV generalmente non impiegato nel BSI si sta organizzando la revisione della stessa che sarà realizzata nel corso del 2017. A partire dal 23 settembre 2016 (facendo quindi riferimento all’ultimo report del BSI) fini al 16 gennaio 2017 sono stati analizzati e ricontrollati 221 eventi in generale di magnitudo ML≥ 3.5 (con qualche eccezione...INGV DPCPublished1SR. TERREMOTI - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ

Rapporto Sulle Attività Svolte Dal Gruppo Bollettino Sismico Italiano A Seguito Della Sequenza Sismica Del Centro Italia 20162017 Relativo Agli Eventi Nel Periodo Tra Il 17/01/2017 E Il 26/02/2017

La sequenza sismica del centro Italia ha avuto una importante ripresa il 18 gennaio 2017 quando quattro eventi di Mw≥5.0 hanno interessato l’area posta al confine tra Lazio e Abruzzo vicino ai Comuni di Barete, Capitignano e Montereale (AQ). A 8 mesi dall’inizio dell’emergenza sismica, il Bollettino Sismico Italiano ha portato a termine la revisione di tutti gli eventi con ML≥ 3.5: parte di questi (insieme alla revisione delle ore che hanno seguito il primo mainshock) sono stati oggetto del primo report (3 ottobre 2016) e del lavoro Marchetti et al. (2016), un’altra parte degli eventi “forti” già rivisti dagli analisti del BSI sono stati oggetto del report del 31 gennaio. Gli eventi rivisti ad oggi integrano all’interno del BSI tutte le stazioni i cui dati sono archiviati nello European Integrated Data Archive (EIDA), cioè oltre alle stazioni delle varie reti permanenti che costituiscono la Rete Sismica Nazionale Italiana vengono integrate le stazioni delle reti permanenti presenti nelle Marche e le stazioni temporanee installate dal gruppo di emergenza SISMIKO, le cui registrazioni vengono archiviate in EIDA, in tempi brevi, insieme alle stazioni trasmesse in real-time. A partire dal 31 gennaio 2017 (facendo quindi riferimento all’ultimo report del BSI) sono stati revisionati tutti gli eventi forti avvenuti dal 17 gennaio al 26 febbraio 2017; sono stati analizzati e rilocalizzati 37 eventi in generale di magnitudo ML≥ 3.5. Inoltre, sono state modificate alcune delle procedure che selezionano la magnitudo mostrata nella lista dei terremoti pubblicata nel sito web del CNT (cnt.rm.ingv.it) e utilizzata nei conteggi relativi alle diverse classi di magnitudo nelle relazioni di sequenza che vengono inviate giornalmente. Questa revisione, che fa si che la magnitudo mostrata sia sempre quella rivista dal BSI, comporta una lieve variazione nel numero di eventi attribuiti alle diverse classi.INGV- DPCPublished1SR. TERREMOTI - Servizi e ricerca per la Societ