The Low Energy Tagger for the KLOE-2 experiment

The KLOE experiment at the upgraded DAFNE e+e- collider in Frascati (KLOE-2) is going to start a new data taking at the beginning of 2010 with its detector upgraded with a tagging system for the identification of gamma-gamma interactions. The tagging stations for low-energy e+e- will consist in two calorimeters The calorimeter used to detect low-energy e+e- will be placed between the beam-pipe outer support structure and the inner wall of the KLOE drift chamber. This calorimeter will be made of LYSO crystals readout by Silicon Photomultipliers, to achieve an energy resolution better than 8% at 200 MeV.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, in the proceedings of "Frontier detectors for frontier physics", isola d'Elba, Italy, May 200

CHANTI: a Fast and Efficient Charged Particle Veto Detector for the NA62 Experiment at CERN

The design, construction and test of a charged particle detector made of scintillation counters read by Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) is described. The detector, which operates in vacuum and is used as a veto counter in the NA62 experiment at CERN, has a single channel time resolution of 1.14 ns, a spatial resolution of ~2.5 mm and an efficiency very close to 1 for penetrating charged particles

The rna-binding ubiquitin ligase mex3a affects glioblastoma tumorigenesis by inducing ubiquitylation and degradation of rig-i

Glioblastoma multiforme (GB) is the most malignant primary brain tumor in humans, with an overall survival of approximatively 15 months. The molecular heterogeneity of GB, as well as its rapid progression, invasiveness and the occurrence of drug-resistant cancer stem cells, limits the efficacy of the current treatments. In order to develop an innovative therapeutic strategy, it is mandatory to identify and characterize new molecular players responsible for the GB malignant phenotype. In this study, the RNA-binding ubiquitin ligase MEX3A was selected from a gene expression analysis performed on publicly available datasets, to assess its biological and still-unknown activity in GB tumorigenesis. We find that MEX3A is strongly up-regulated in GB specimens, and this correlates with very low protein levels of RIG-I, a tumor suppressor involved in differentiation, apoptosis and innate immune response. We demonstrate that MEX3A binds RIG-I and induces its ubiquitylation and proteasome-dependent degradation. Further, the genetic depletion of MEX3A leads to an increase of RIG-I protein levels and results in the suppression of GB cell growth. Our findings unveil a novel molecular mechanism involved in GB tumorigenesis and suggest MEX3A and RIG-I as promising therapeutic targets in GB

Use of a dual reporter plasmid to demonstrate bactofection with an attenuated aroa- derivative of Pasteurella multocida b:2

A reporter plasmid pSRG has been developed which expresses red fluorescent protein (RFP) from a constitutive prokaryotic promoter within Pasteurella multocida B:2 and green fluorescent protein (GFP) from a constitutive eukaryotic promoter within mammalian cells. This construct has been used to determine the location and viability of the bacteria when moving from the extracellular environment into the intracellular compartment of mammalian cells. Invasion assays with embryonic bovine lung (EBL) cells and an attenuated AroA- derivative of Pasteurella multocida B:2 (strain JRMT12), harbouring the plasmid pSRG, showed that RFP-expressing bacteria could be detected intracellularly at 3 h post-invasion. At this stage, some EBL cells harbouring RFP-expressing bacteria were observed to express GFP simultaneously, indicating release of the plasmid into the intracellular environment. At 5 h post-invasion, more EBL cells were expressing GFP, while still harbouring RFP-expressing bacteria. Concurrently, some EBL cells were shown to express only GFP, indicating loss of viable bacteria within these cells. These experiments proved the functionality of the pSRG dual reporter system and the potential of P. multocida B:2 JRMT12 for bactofection and delivery of a DNA vaccine

Influence of life-history traits on the occurrence of carnivores within exotic Eucalyptus plantations

Aim The world's forested area has been declining, especially in developing countries. In contrast, forest plantations are increasing, particularly exotic Eucalyptus plantations, which cover nowadays over 20 million ha worldwide. This global landscape change affects native communities, especially those at higher trophic levels that are affected by bottom–up cascading effects, such as carnivores. We seek to identify the general life‐history traits of mammalian carnivore species that use exotic Eucalyptus plantations. Location We reviewed 55 studies reporting carnivore presence in Eucalyptus plantations worldwide. Methods We consider seven species life‐history traits (generation length, social behaviour, body mass, energetic trophic level, diet diversity, habitat generalist/specialist and locomotion mode) as candidate drivers. We used generalized linear mixed models, with life‐history traits as fixed factors, and study as well as carnivore species as random factors. We obtained the carnivore occurrence data from the literature (detection of 42 different species, from seven families). We considered non‐detected species those with an IUCN Red List of Threatened Species estimated distribution range overlapping with the study areas, but not recorded by the studies. Results While we found no evidence of an effect of any of the other life‐history traits tested, our modelling procedure indicated that habitat generalist species are more likely to use Eucalyptus forests than specialist species. Main conclusions Our results, therefore, confirm an impoverishment of predator communities in disturbed environments, with the exclusion of the most specialist predators, leading to fragmentation of their populations and, ultimately contributing to their local extinction. The local extinction of specialist carnivores may lead to “functional homogenization” of communities within plantations, modifying ecosystem functioning with a negative impact on plantations’ productivity, profitability and services.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Leishmania infantum leishmaniasis in corticosteroid – treated patients

BACKGROUND: The number of leishmaniasis cases associated with immunosuppression has increased regularly over the past 20 years. Immunosuppression related to HIV infection, immunosuppressive treatment, organ transplantation, and neoplastic diseases increases the risk for Leishmania-infected people to develop visceral illness. CASE PRESENTATION: Three cases of Leishmania infantum leishmaniasis in corticosteroid (CS)-treated patients are reported: an isolated lingual leishmaniasis in a farmer treated with CS for asthma, a severe visceral leishmaniasis associated with cutaneous lesions in a woman with myasthenia gravis, and a visceral involvement after cutaneous leishmaniasis in a man receiving CS. CONCLUSION: Physicians should recognise CS-treated patients as a population likely to be immunesuppressed. In immunodeficiency conditions, unusual forms of leishmaniasis can develop and foster the risk of a diagnostic delay and of poor response to therapy

Insights into pathophysiology of smoke-related cardiovascular disease

cardiovascular morbidity and mortality are well established. Both active and passive smoking represent a major health hazard for both men and women. The great concerns related to the deleterious effects of CS on cardiovascular disease have been translated into various kinds of social interventions and targeted health policies since ever. The high health impact of cigarette smoking has driven a huge number of researches at the epidemiological, clinical and biological level. Nevertheless, even though many progresses have been made in understanding the mechanisms underlying the high disease burden associated to cigarette smoke, the exact components and the mechanisms by means of which it exerts its effects remain to be completely clarified as yet. The present paper reviews the main observations on the pathophysiology of smoke-related cardiovascular diseases, providing an up-to-date perspective about one of the main cardiovascular killers of our days

Very low prevalence of ultrasound detected tenosynovial abnormalities in healthy subjects throughout the age range: OMERACT ultrasound minimal disease study

Objectives: This study aimed to determine the prevalence of ultrasound detected tendon abnormalities in healthy subjects (HS) across the age range. / Methods: Adult HS (age 18 to 80 years) were recruited in 23 international Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) ultrasound centres and clinically assessed to exclude inflammatory diseases or overt osteoarthritis before undergoing a bilateral ultrasound examination of digit flexor (DF) 1-5 and extensor carpi ulnaris (ECU) tendons to detect the presence of tenosynovial hypertrophy (TSH), power Doppler (TPD) and tenosynovial effusion (TEF), usually considered ultrasound signs of inflammatory diseases. A comparison cohort of Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients was taken from the Birmingham BEACON early arthritis inception cohort. / Results: 939 HS and 144 RA patients were included. The majority of HS (85%) had grade 0 for TSH, TPD and TEF in all DF and ECU tendons examined. There was statistically significant difference in the proportion of TSH and TPD involvement between HS and RA subjects (HS vs RA p<0.001). In HS there was no difference in the presence of ultrasound abnormalities between age groups. / Conclusions: Ultrasound detected TSH and TPD abnormalities are rare in HS and can be regarded as markers of active inflammatory disease in newly presenting suspected RA

Linguistic profile automated characterisation in pluripotential clinical high-risk mental state (CHARMS) conditions: methodology of a multicentre observational study

Introduction: Language is usually considered the social vehicle of thought in intersubjective communications. However, the relationship between language and high- order cognition seems to evade this canonical and unidirectional description (ie, the notion of language as a simple means of thought communication). In recent years, clinical high at-risk mental state (CHARMS) criteria (evolved from the Ultra-High-Risk paradigm) and the introduction of the Clinical Staging system have been proposed to address the dynamicity of early psychopathology. At the same time, natural language processing (NLP) techniques have greatly evolved and have been successfully applied to investigate different neuropsychiatric conditions. The combination of at-risk mental state paradigm, clinical staging system and automated NLP methods, the latter applied on spoken language transcripts, could represent a useful and convenient approach to the problem of early psychopathological distress within a transdiagnostic risk paradigm. Methods and analysis: Help-seeking young people presenting psychological distress (CHARMS+/− and Clinical Stage 1a or 1b; target sample size for both groups n=90) will be assessed through several psychometric tools and multiple speech analyses during an observational period of 1-year, in the context of an Italian multicentric study. Subjects will be enrolled in different contexts: Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, Maternal and Child Health (DINOGMI), Section of Psychiatry, University of Genoa—IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy; Mental Health Department—territorial mental services (ASL 3—Genoa), Genoa, Italy; and Mental Health Department—territorial mental services (AUSL—Piacenza), Piacenza, Italy. The conversion rate to full-blown psychopathology (CS 2) will be evaluated over 2 years of clinical observation, to further confirm the predictive and discriminative value of CHARMS criteria and to verify the possibility of enriching them with several linguistic features, derived from a fine-grained automated linguistic analysis of speech. Ethics and dissemination: The methodology described in this study adheres to ethical principles as formulated in the Declaration of Helsinki and is compatible with International Conference on Harmonization (ICH)-good clinical practice. The research protocol was reviewed and approved by two different ethics committees (CER Liguria approval code: 591/2020—id.10993; Comitato Etico dell’Area Vasta Emilia Nord approval code: 2022/0071963). Participants will provide their written informed consent prior to study enrolment and parental consent will be needed in the case of participants aged less than 18 years old. Experimental results will be carefully shared through publication in peer- reviewed journals, to ensure proper data reproducibility. Trial registration number DOI:10.17605/OSF.IO/BQZTN

The NA62 LAV front-end electronics

The branching ratio for the decay $K^+ \to \pi^+\nu\bar{\nu}$ is sensitive to new physics; the NA62 experiment will measure it to within about 10%. To reject the dominant background from channels with final state photons, the large-angle vetoes (LAVs) must detect particles with better than 1 ns time resolution and 10% energy resolution over a very large energy range. Our custom readout board uses a time-over-threshold discriminator coupled to a TDC as a straightforward solution to satisfy these requirements. A prototype of the readout system was extensively tested together with the ANTI-A2 large angle veto module at CERN in summer 2010.Comment: prepared for the TWEPP 2011 conference proceeding