Genomics and Immunomics in the Treatment of Urothelial Carcinoma

Urothelial carcinoma is a complex cancer with genomic immunomic drivers that have prognostic and predictive treatment implications. Identifying potential targetable alterations via next-generation sequencing and RNA sequencing may allow for elucidation of such targets and exploitation with targeted therapeutics. The role of immunotherapy in treating urothelial carcinoma has shown benefit, but it is unclear in which patients immunotherapeutics have the highest yield. Continuing efforts into better identifying which patients may benefit most from targeted therapies, immunotherapies, and combination therapies may ultimately lead to improved outcomes for patients with this disease

Lightweight Model for Session-Based Recommender Systems with Seasonality Information in the Fashion Domain

This paper presents the solution designed by the team "Boston Team Party"for the ACM RecSys Challenge 2022. The competition was organized by Dressipi and was framed under the session-based fashion recommendations domain. Particularly, the task was to predict the purchased item at the end of each anonymous session. Our proposed two-stage solution is effective, lightweight, and scalable. First, it leverages the expertise of several strong recommendation models to produce a pool of candidate items. Then, a Gradient-Boosting Decision Tree model aggregates these candidates alongside several hand-crafted features to produce the final ranking. Our model achieved a score of 0.18800 in the public leaderboard. To aid in the reproducibility of our findings, we open-source our materials

Discriminating between Seasonal and Chemical Variation in Extracellular Enzyme Activities within Two Italian Beech Forests by Means of Multilevel Models

Enzymes play a key-role in organic matter dynamics and strong scientific attention has been given to them lately, especially to their response to climate and substrate chemical composition. Accordingly, in this study, we investigated the effects of chemical composition and seasons on extracellular enzyme activities (laccase, peroxidase, cellulase, chitinase, acid phosphomonoesterase, and dehydrogenase) by means of multilevel models within two Italian mountain beech forests. We used chemical variables as the fixed part in the model, season as random variation and layers (decomposition continuum for leaf litter and 0–5, 5–15, 15–30, and 30–40 cm for soil) as nested factors within the two forests. Our results showed that seasonal changes explained a higher amount of variance in enzyme activities compared to substrate chemistry in leaf litter, whereas chemical variation had a stronger impact on soil. Moreover, the effect of seasonality and chemistry was in general larger than the differences between forest sites, soils, and litter layers

Importancia de la rehabilitación post-endodóntica en relación a la permanencia y funcionalidad de las piezas en boca

La micro filtración coronaria es una causa potencial de fracaso endodóntico. Ésta, junto a la caries recurrente o restauraciones fracturadas, permiten la re contaminación del sistema de conductos. La exposición de la gutapercha coronaria a la cavidad oral puede provocar la migración de bacterias hacia el ápice en cuestión de días y sus endotoxinas lo hacen con aún mayor velocidad. Por lo que se recomienda realizar la restauración lo más inmediatamente posible del diente, aunque sea con una “barrera intracoronaria” de composite o ionómero vítreo sobre la entrada a los conductos.Facultad de Odontologí

Albarella future – zero carbon emission

Climate warming is setting requirements on research also in the agronomic and forest fields. The soil and vegetation are available as carbon sinks. Ecosystems under high exploitation lost part of their carbon. It is possible to recover this carbon from the air with natural processes and to return it to the land. Besides, global warming requires a change in mentality that moves into the replacement of fossil fuels with other energy sources. In this perspective, the island of Albarella, with its environment and economic activities, represents an attractive miniature model of the planet Earth. For this design, we estimated (Vensim simulation) the emissions and storage of CO2 equivalent of the whole island. Then, with the idea of acting on natural ecosystems to make them more active in carbon storage, we analyzed two vegetation series from the forest to the sea, one located in the nearby natural reserve of Porto Caleri, and one on the island of Albarella. The investigation concerns the soil carbon storage and the quality and quantity of populations of arthropods, bacteria, and fungi as well. The biodiversity of artificial environments resulted in higher than that of natural habitats, opening a debate. Acting in different ways on the substitution of fuels, we obtained scenarios with decreasing emissions, from consumerist without substitution of fuels, realistic with 15% of replacement by solar energy, and sustainable with zero use of fossil energy and all the island electricity produced through photovoltaic panels

Modified natural zeolites for water disinfection using heterogeneous photo-Fenton at near neutral pH.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) [1], microbiologically contaminated water for for human consumption can transmit diarrheal diseases or acute respiratory infections, among others, causing 485,000 deaths from diarrhea each year. Therefore, water contaminated with pathogenic organisms (bacteria resistant to antibiotics, viruses, etc.) must be adequately treated for its safe use.Currently there are several types of treatments for water disinfection, and in recent years the interest of the scientific community in Advanced Oxidation Processes (POAs) has increased significantly [2]. Among all types of POAs, the heterogeneous photo-Fenton process has been used for the degradation of a large number of contaminants in water. Likewise, there are studies that demonstrate its efficacy for the inactivation of pathogens. Its effectiveness lies in the generation of hydroxyl radicals through the oxidation-reduction reactions that occur on the surface of a photocatalyst due to the action of UV-Vis light and the presence of an oxidising agent (hydrogen peroxide) capable of producing profound changes in the chemical structure of contaminants and irreversible damage to microorganisms.In this work, modified natural zeolites (NZ) were used as an efficient photocatalytic and low-cost support [3] for the inactivation of a model microorganism (E. coli). To do this, first, natural zeolite clinoptilolite from the Tasajeras site (Villa Clara) was was subjected to ion exchange with Fe2+, following an usual procedure [4]. Once the material was obtained, it was characterised by DRX, SEM and IR, to ensure that the synthesis had been carried out properly. Next, its efficiency was evaluated in an 850 mL jacketed glass reactor with constant agitation and illuminated with UV or visible light at a constant temperature of 25ºC and initial pH of 6.5. The tests were performed with an initial concentration of E. coli of 106 CFU/mL and adding H2O2 (10 mM) and modified zeolite2(0.85 gr) at the beginning. The reduction of bacterial concentration was then evaluated every 30 minutes through serial dilutions. Likewise, in addition to the photo-Fenton process, to understand the isolated effect of the different parameters of the process, radiation disinfection; radiation - H2O2; H2O2; modified zeolite; modified radiation-zeolite; H2O2 - modified zeolite (Fenton) and the viability of the cells and their recreation were evaluated. Finally, the ability of the used catalyst to be recovered and cyclically reused without losing its photocatalytic activity was evaluated

Assessment of Benefits of Conservation Agriculture on Soil Functions in Arable Production Systems in Europe

Conventional farming (CONV) is the norm in European farming, causing adverse effects on some of the five major soil functions, viz. primary productivity, carbon sequestration and regulation, nutrient cycling and provision, water regulation and purification, and habitat for functional and intrinsic biodiversity. Conservation agriculture (CA) is an alternative to enhance soil functions. However, there is no analysis of CA benefits on the five soil functions as most studies addressed individual soil functions. The objective was to compare effects of CA and CONV practices on the five soil functions in four major environmental zones (Atlantic North, Pannonian, Continental and Mediterranean North) in Europe by applying expert scoring based on synthesis of existing literature. In each environmental zone, a team of experts scored the five soil functions due to CA and CONV treatments and median scores indicated the overall effects on five soil functions. Across the environmental zones, CONV had overall negative effects on soil functions with a median score of 0.50 whereas CA had overall positive effects with median score ranging from 0.80 to 0.83. The study proposes the need for field-based investigations, policies and subsidy support to benefit from CA adoption to enhance the five soil functions.Unión Europea 635201Unión Europea 652615Unión Europea 68927

Agronomical valorization of eluates from the industrial production of microorganisms: Chemical, microbiological, and ecotoxicological assessment of a novel putative biostimulant

Plant Biostimulants (BSs) are a valid supplement to be considered for the integration of conventional fertilization practices. Research in the BS field keeps providing alternative products of various origin, which can be employed in organic and conventional agriculture. In this study, we investigated the biostimulant activity of the eluate obtained as a by-product from the industrial production of lactic acid bacteria on bare agricultural soil. Eluates utilization is in line with the circular economy principle, creating economical value for an industrial waste product. The research focused on the study of physical, chemical, biochemical, and microbiological changes occurring in agricultural soil treated with the biowaste eluate, applied at three different dosages. The final aim was to demonstrate if, and to what extent, the application of the eluate improved soil quality parameters and enhanced the presence of beneficial soil-borne microbial communities. Results indicate that a single application at the two lower dosages does not have a pronounced effect on the soil chemical parameters tested, and neither on the biochemical proprieties. Only the higher dosage applied reported an improvement in the enzymatic activities of β-glucosidase and urease and in the chemical composition, showing a higher content of total, nitric and ammonia N, total K, and higher humification rate. On the other hand, microbial communities were strongly influenced at all dosages, showing a decrease in the bacterial biodiversity and an increase in the fungal biodiversity. Bioinformatic analysis revealed that some Operative Taxonomic Units (OTUs) promoted by the eluate application, belong to known plant growth promoting microbes. Some other OTUs, negatively influenced were attributed to known plant pathogens, mainly Fusarium spp. Finally, the ecotoxicological parameters were also determined and allowed to establish that no toxic effect occurred upon eluate applications onto soil