Psychological implications of the application of health state continuous monitoring systems in cardiovascular pathologies, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2005, nr 4

In recent years, specialist literature has particularly focused on the understanding of the modes of psychological adaptation to organic pathologies. A number of close investigations within the fields of medical and health psychology have been devoted to the analysis of situations characterised by a state of chronicity of organic pathology. Relying on the data deriving from such studies, the different authors tend to point out that illnesses represent a threat to the subject’s psychophysical and relational integrity, thus constituting as a source of frustration and anxiety. Researchers belonging to different theoretical approaches raise a number of questions as to the role of personality and/or the subjective mode to react to tough, stressful, unexpected, negative situations, such as the emergence of a severe physical illness. Current research approaches essentially intend to explain the individual differences in the reactivity to negative stimuli by analysing the interactions between situational attributes and personality dispositions (for instance, trait anxiety)

"In vitro" activities of antimycobacterial agents against <i>Mycobacterium avium</i> subsp. <i>paratuberculosis</i> linked to Crohn's disease and paratuberculosis

Crohn's disease, a human disease similar to paratuberculosis in animals is the most painful and devastating disease that may involve infection with M. avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP), different genetic polymorphisms and an immune dysregulation syndrome. Treatment of Crohn's disease is most commonly based on 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) compounds, corticosteroids, and immunosuppressive agents. Recently, biological therapies using monoclonal antibodies against inflammatory cytokines have shown some positive results. However, all these therapies treat the symptoms not the cause of the disease

Cognitive Impairment in People Living with HIV and the Impact of Mood: Results from a Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection represents a significant public health concern and, consequently, the incidence of HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorder (HAND) has grown over the years. The present study aims to assess HAND with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) to find significant associations with cognitive impairment. Methods: The study included 210 PLWHA, aged from 30 to 81 years, of whom, 137 (65.2%) were males. They were assessed at the Immunology Service of the University Hospital of Monserrato, Cagliari, Italy, between November 2022 and April 2023. Results: The sample showed an overall optimal response to antiretroviral therapy, as shown by the excellent levels of CD4+ lymphocytes and HIV RNA copies. A sum of 115 subjects (54.8%) were considered cognitively impaired and the multivariate analysis demonstrated that it was independently associated with duration of infection (OR: 0.96), age (OR: 1.12), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (OR: 1.02), and depression (OR: 1.33). By dichotomizing the variables, the significance of the association was confirmed for age (65-year threshold) (chi 2: 5.142, p = 0.0233) and depression (chi 2: 7.834, p = 0.0051). Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that it is hard to find both statistically and clinically significantly associated variables with cognitive impairment in PLWHA, and that the strongest independent association is with depressed mood

New variations on the theme of gold(III) C^N^N cyclometalated complexes as anticancer agents: Synthesis and biological characterization

A new series of novel (C∧N∧N) cyclometalated gold(III) complexes have been characterized for their structural and spectroscopic properties. The anticancer activities of the compounds have been studied in vitro, and their reactivity with model biomolecules has been elucidated by mass spectrometry techniques, evidencing an unexpected preference for binding to nucleic acids with respect to proteins and amino acids

Sensitivity and specificity of in vivo COVID-19 screening by detection dogs: Results of the C19-Screendog multicenter study

Trained dogs can recognize the volatile organic compounds contained in biological samples of patients with COVID-19 infection. We assessed the sensitivity and specificity of in vivo SARS-CoV- 2 screening by trained dogs. We recruited five dog-handler dyads. In the operant conditioning phase, the dogs were taught to distinguish between positive and negative sweat samples collected from volunteers’ underarms in polymeric tubes. The conditioning was validated by tests involving 16 positive and 48 negative samples held or worn in such a way that the samples were invisible to the dog and handler. In the screening phase the dogs were led by their handlers to a drive-through facility for in vivo screening of volunteers who had just received a nasopharyngeal swab from nursing staff. Each volunteer who had already swabbed was subsequently tested by two dogs, whose responses were recorded as positive, negative, or inconclusive. The dogs’ behavior was constantly monitored for attentiveness and wellbeing. All the dogs passed the conditioning phase, their responses showing a sensitivity of 83-100% and a specificity of 94-100%. The in vivo screening phase involved 1251 subjects, of whom 205 had a COVID-19 positive swab and two dogs per each subject to be screened. Screeningsensitivity and specificity were respectively 91.6-97.6% and 96.3-100% when only one dog was involved, whereas combined screening by two dogs provided a higher sensitivity. Dog wellbeing was also analysed: monitoring of stress and fatigue suggested that the screening activity did not adversely impact the dogs’ wellbeing. This work, by screening a large number of subjects, strengthen recent findings that trained dogs can discriminate between COVID-19 infected and healthy human subjects and introduce two novel research aspects: i) assessement of signs of fatigue and stress in dogs during training and testing, and ii) combining screening by two dogs to improve detection sensitivity and specificity. Using some precautions to reduce the risk of infection and spillover, in vivo COVID-19 screening by a dog-handler dyad can be suitable to quickly screen large numbers of people: it is rapid, non- invasiveand economical, since it does not involve actual sampling, lab resources or waste management, and is suitable to screen large numbers of people

Feasibility Study of a W-Band Multibeam Heterodyne Receiver for the Gregorian Focus of the Sardinia Radio Telescope

We report on the feasibility study of a W-band multibeam heterodyne receiver for the Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT), a general purpose fully steerable 64-m diameter antenna located on the Sardinia island, Italy, managed by INAF ('Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica,' Italy). The W-band front-end is designed for the telescope Gregorian focal plane and will detect both continuum and molecular spectral lines from astronomical sources and radio emission from the Sun in the 3 mm atmospheric window. The goal specification of the receiver is a $4\times 4$ focal plane array operating in dual-linear polarization with a front-end consisting of feed-horns placed in cascade with waveguide Orthomode Transducers (OMTs) and LNAs (Low Noise Amplifiers) cryogenically cooled at $\approx$ 20 K. The instantaneous FoV (Field of View) of the telescope is limited by the shaping of the 64-m primary and 7.9-m secondary mirrors. The cryogenic modules are designed to fit in the usable area of the focal plane and provide high-quality beam patterns with high antenna efficiency across the 70 - 116 GHz Radio Frequency (RF) band. The FoV covered by the $4\times 4$ array is $2.15\times 2.15$ arcmin2, unfilled, with separation between contiguous elements of 43 arcsec. Dual-sideband separation (2SB) down-conversion mixers are designed to be placed at the cryostat output and arranged in four four-pixel down-conversion modules with 4 - 12 GHz Intermediate Frequency (IF) bands (both Upper Side Band and Lower Side Band selectable for any pixel and polarization). The receiver utilizes a mechanical derotator to track the parallactic angle

Genome-wide Analyses Identify KIF5A as a Novel ALS Gene

To identify novel genes associated with ALS, we undertook two lines of investigation. We carried out a genome-wide association study comparing 20,806 ALS cases and 59,804 controls. Independently, we performed a rare variant burden analysis comparing 1,138 index familial ALS cases and 19,494 controls. Through both approaches, we identified kinesin family member 5A (KIF5A) as a novel gene associated with ALS. Interestingly, mutations predominantly in the N-terminal motor domain of KIF5A are causative for two neurodegenerative diseases: hereditary spastic paraplegia (SPG10) and Charcot-Marie-Tooth type 2 (CMT2). In contrast, ALS-associated mutations are primarily located at the C-terminal cargo-binding tail domain and patients harboring loss-of-function mutations displayed an extended survival relative to typical ALS cases. Taken together, these results broaden the phenotype spectrum resulting from mutations in KIF5A and strengthen the role of cytoskeletal defects in the pathogenesis of ALS.Peer reviewe

The European Modern Pollen Database (EMPD) project

Modern pollen samples provide an invaluable research tool for helping to interpret the quaternary fossil pollen record, allowing investigation of the relationship between pollen as the proxy and the environmental parameters such as vegetation, land-use, and climate that the pollen proxy represents. The European Modern Pollen Database (EMPD) is a new initiative within the European Pollen Database (EPD) to establish a publicly accessible repository of modern (surface sample) pollen data. This new database will complement the EPD, which at present holds only fossil sedimentary pollen data. The EMPD is freely available online to the scientific community and currently has information on almost 5,000 pollen samples from throughout the Euro-Siberian and Mediterranean regions, contributed by over 40 individuals and research groups. Here we describe how the EMPD was constructed, the various tables and their fields, problems and errors, quality controls, and continuing efforts to improve the available dat