Metabolic and vascular effect of the mediterranean diet

Several studies indicated how dietary patterns that were obtained from nutritional cluster analysis can predict disease risk or mortality. Low-grade chronic inflammation represents a background pathogenetic mechanism linking metabolic risk factors to increased risk of chronic degenerative diseases. A Mediterranean diet (MeDi) style has been reported as associated with a lower degree of inflammation biomarkers and with a protective role on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events. There is heterogeneity in defining the MedDiet, and it can, owing to its complexity, be considered as an exposome with thousands of nutrients and phytochemicals. Recently, it has been reported a novel positive association between baseline plasma ceramide concentrations and cardiovascular events and how adherence to a Mediterranean Diet-style may influence the potential negative relationship between elevated plasma ceramide concentrations and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Several randomized controlled trials (RCTs) showed the positive effects of the MeDi diet style on several cardiovascular risk factors, such as body mass index, waist circumference, blood lipids, blood pressure, inflammatory markers and adhesion molecules, and diabetes and how these advantages of the MeDi are maintained in comparison of a low-fat diet. Some studies reported a positive effect of adherence to a Mediterranean Diet and heart failure incidence, whereas some recent studies, such as the PREDIMED study, showed that the incidence of major cardiovascular events was lower among those assigned to MeDi supplemented with extra-virgin olive oil or nuts than among those assigned to a reduced-fat diet. New studies are needed to better understand the molecular mechanisms, whereby the MedDiet may exercise its effects. Here, we present recent advances in understanding the molecular basis of MedDiet effects, mainly focusing on cardiovascular diseases, but also discussing other related diseases. We review MedDiet composition and assessment as well as the latest advances in the genomic, epigenomic (DNA methylation, histone modifications, microRNAs, and other emerging regulators), transcriptomic (selected genes and whole transcriptome), and metabolomic and metagenomic aspects of the MedDiet effects (as a whole and for its most typical food components). We also present a review of the clinical effects of this dietary style underlying the biochemical and molecular effects of the Mediterranean diet. Our purpose is to review the main features of the Mediterranean diet in particular its benefits on human health, underling the anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-atherosclerotic effects to which new knowledge about epigenetic and gut-microbiota relationship is recently added

The Complexity of Admissibility in Omega-Regular Games

Iterated admissibility is a well-known and important concept in classical game theory, e.g. to determine rational behaviors in multi-player matrix games. As recently shown by Berwanger, this concept can be soundly extended to infinite games played on graphs with omega-regular objectives. In this paper, we study the algorithmic properties of this concept for such games. We settle the exact complexity of natural decision problems on the set of strategies that survive iterated elimination of dominated strategies. As a byproduct of our construction, we obtain automata which recognize all the possible outcomes of such strategies

Solving Mean-Payoff Games via Quasi Dominions

We propose a novel algorithm for the solution of mean-payoff games that merges together two seemingly unrelated concepts introduced in the context of parity games, small progress measures and quasi dominions. We show that the integration of the two notions can be highly beneficial and significantly speeds up convergence to the problem solution. Experiments show that the resulting algorithm performs orders of magnitude better than the asymptotically-best solution algorithm currently known, without sacrificing on the worst-case complexity

Taming Strategy Logic: Non-Recurrent Fragments

Strategy Logic (SL for short) is one of the prominent languages for reasoning about the strategic abilities of agents in a multi-agent setting. This logic extends LTL with first-order quantifiers over the agent strategies and encompasses other formalisms, such as ATL* and CTL*. The model-checking problem for SL and several of its fragments have been extensively studied. On the other hand, the picture is much less clear on the satisfiability front, where the problem is undecidable for the full logic. In this work, we study two fragments of One-Goal SL, where the nesting of sentences within temporal operators is constrained. We show that the satisfiability problem for these logics, and for the corresponding fragments of ATL* and CTL*, is ExpSpace and PSpace-complete, respectively

Alternating (In)Dependence-Friendly Logic

Hintikka and Sandu originally proposed Independence Friendly Logic ([Formula presented]) as a first-order logic of imperfect information to describe game-theoretic phenomena underlying the semantics of natural language. The logic allows for expressing independence constraints among quantified variables, in a similar vein to Henkin quantifiers, and has a nice game-theoretic semantics in terms of imperfect information games. However, the [Formula presented] semantics exhibits some limitations, at least from a purely logical perspective. It treats the players asymmetrically, considering only one of the two players as having imperfect information when evaluating truth, resp., falsity, of a sentence. In addition, truth and falsity of sentences coincide with the existence of a uniform winning strategy for one of the two players in the semantic imperfect information game. As a consequence, [Formula presented] does admit undetermined sentences, which are neither true nor false, thus failing the law of excluded middle. These idiosyncrasies limit its expressive power to the existential fragment of Second Order Logic ([Formula presented]). In this paper, we investigate an extension of [Formula presented], called Alternating Dependence/Independence Friendly Logic ([Formula presented]), tailored to overcome these limitations. To this end, we introduce a novel compositional semantics, generalising the one based on trumps proposed by Hodges for [Formula presented]. The new semantics (i) allows for meaningfully restricting both players at the same time, (ii) enjoys the property of game-theoretic determinacy, (iii) recovers the law of excluded middle for sentences, and (iv) grants [Formula presented] the full descriptive power of [Formula presented]. We also provide an equivalent Herbrand-Skolem semantics and a game-theoretic semantics for the prenex fragment of [Formula presented], the latter being defined in terms of a determined infinite-duration game that precisely captures the other two semantics on finite structures

A kinetic BGK edge-based scheme including vibrational and electronic energy modes for high-Mach flows

A first principles formulation for the calorically imperfect behavior of gases is here proposed within a Boltzmann-type discretisation of the Navier–Stokes equations. The formulation is intended to enhance the consistency of gas kinetic schemes (GKS) with the physics of supersonic and hypersonic regimes where vibrational and electronic energy modes are activated before any thermal nonequilibrium or chemical activity takes place. The so-called node-pair BGK scheme, an edge-based implementation of the GKS, is considered in the present work for the implementation of a thermodynamic model where the calorically imperfect behavior is obtained from a modification of the way the different moments of the particle distribution function are computed and eventually used to determine the fluxes of conserved quantities across the boundary of each control volume. The method is validated on a series of canonical test cases for supersonic and hypersonic flows

A GIANT ANEURYSM OF PROPER HEPATIC ARTERY IN A CRYOGLOBULINEMIC PATIENT ON HEMODIALYSIS: A CASE REPORT.

Introductrion. Hepatic artery aneurysms (HAAs) are unusual vascular lesions often associated with many different pathological conditions. Most of reported cases are described in association with connective tissue diseases, such as polyarteritis nodosa and systemic lupus erythematosus. Case report. We observed a 52-year-old man with hypertension and HCV-related cryoglobulinemia complicated by end stage renal disease on replacement therapy by hemodialysis. He was admitted to our hospital because of the worsening of blood pressure values (170/110 mmHg) associated to new onset abdominal pain. After an initial physical examination, that showed a periumbelical bruit associated to a pulsatile mass in right hypocondrium, an abdominal ultrasound was performed with evidence of aneurysms of both the right branch (diameter max 4,5 cm) and the left branch (diameter max 1.5 cm) of the hepatic artery. An abdominal CT study was also performed and it confirmed the diagnosis of right intrahepatic artery aneurysm with partially thrombosed area in its peripheral distal portion. Discussion. Many different factors can contribute to the aneurysm formation in this patient. Vasculitic involvement due to cryoglobulinemic disease, therapy with steroid drugs, inflammatory state associated to HCV-related hepatitis, chronic kidney disease and replacement therapy by hemodialysis may all be involved in the development of the aneurysmatic hepatic lesion