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LEGUME PROTEINS FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF CHRONIC DISEASES:HYPERLIPIDEMIA AND DIABETES

Food proteins can be considered as source of bioactive peptides that can exert physiological functions to promote health and prevent chronic diseases, such as lipid disorders diabetes, hypertension cancer and obesity which are typical of industrialized societies. Soybean (Glycine max) and white lupin (Lupinus angustifolium) comprise the most widely grown legume crops in the world. In addition to being an invaluable source of oil and proteins for food and feed, many papers from our group pointed out the positive effect of soybean and white lupin proteins on lipid and glucose metabolism. The aim of the present work has been to evaluate in \u201cin vitro\u201d and \u201cin vivo\u201d experiments the ability of soybean and white lupin polypeptides to interact with the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of plasma and tissue lipids as well as on the glucose homeostasis. Soybean proteins: the \u3b1\u2019 subunit of the soybean 7S globulin, the so called \u3b2-conglycinin, was shown to play a key role in the up-regulation of liver high affinity-LDL receptors, in \u201cin vivo\u201d and \u201cin vitro\u201d systems suggesting that biologically active peptides, capable of modulating lipid homeostasis, are likely to be produced by cell and gastrointestinal enzymes. Our research group has been following two different approaches to identify the active peptide/s involved in the lipid regulation. The first one has been to reduce the length of the polypeptide chain of \u3b1\u2019 by a biotechnological process obtaining an extension form of \u3b1\u2019 chain, roughly covering one third of the full-length polypeptide from N-terminus, which has proved active in the LDL-R up-regulation of Hep G2 cells. The second approach has been to make a screening of peptides with amino acid sequences occurring in \u3b1\u2019, \u3b1 and \u3b2 subunits of soy \u3b2-conglycinin, and test their biological effect \u201cin vitro\u201d. These peptides have been evaluated for their effect on the expression of LDL-receptor, SREBP-2 and HMGCoA red mRNAs in HepG2 cells. Moreover, the peptide that proved more promising among the different compounds under study, has been tested in a rat model of human hypercholesterolemia in order to evaluate its potential on lipid homeostasis. \uf067gamma-Conglutin, a lupin seed glycoprotein, plays a key role on the glucose metabolism. Since the \u201cin vitro\u201d interaction of gamma -conglutin with mammalian insulin has been described, in the present study the effect of an oral dose of this protein was studied in an animal model of diabetes in order to evaluate its potential in the fine regulation of glucose homeostasis. Moreover in \u201cin vitro\u201d experiments the ability of gamma-conglutin to interact with cell compartment and to interfere in the insulin pathway has been followed in order to ascertain whether the protein was characterized by insulin-like property. Although the data obtained in this study should be confirmed by human studies, the potential of peptides from \u3b1\u2019 subunit of soybean as well as that of lupin seed g-conglutin to control plasma lipids and glycaemia could be considered before developing new therapeutic strategies for the prevention or treatment of lipid/ glucose metabolism disorders

Dual modulation VCSEL-based sustainable transceiver for SSB DMT signals transmission

Single sideband DMT signal performance is analyzed in order to achieve high capacity and high spectral efficiency over 50-km uncompensated SMF. A sustainable implementation of the SSB DMT-based transceiver is proposed by means of a VCSEL source and a dual-modulator scheme, providing SSB without optical filtering and Hilbert transform implementation. Moreover, Kramers-Kronig detection, made possible by SSB, is studied at the receiver to effectively compensate the chromatic dispersion with direct detection

Vascular Complications following Isolated Limb Perfusion for Local Recurrence of Extremity Melanoma: A Case Report and Literature Review

Introduction. To evaluate the role of hyperthermic isolated limb perfusion (HILP) in arterial thrombosis following melanoma-soft tissue sarcoma chemotherapy. Report. Here is presented one case of iliac-common femoral artery subacute thrombosis and a review of the appropriate literature performed using a MEDLINE search. Acute/subacute arterial occlusion is one of the most feared vascular complications of HILP, located nearly always in the external iliac-femoral artery axis, being those vessels cannulated for perfusion. Conclusions. The small number of reported cases indicates either the rarity of this complication or unawareness of its existence. The true incidence of this complication is probably underreported

Global convergence of COVID-19 basic reproduction number and estimation from early-time SIR dynamics

The SIR ('susceptible-infectious-recovered') formulation is used to uncover the generic spread mechanisms observed by COVID-19 dynamics globally, especially in the early phases of infectious spread. During this early period, potential controls were not effectively put in place or enforced in many countries. Hence, the early phases of COVID-19 spread in countries where controls were weak offer a unique perspective on the ensemble-behavior of COVID-19 basic reproduction number Ro inferred from SIR formulation. The work here shows that there is global convergence (i.e., across many nations) to an uncontrolled Ro = 4.5 that describes the early time spread of COVID-19. This value is in agreement with independent estimates from other sources reviewed here and adds to the growing consensus that the early estimate of Ro = 2.2 adopted by the World Health Organization is low. A reconciliation between power-law and exponential growth predictions is also featured within the confines of the SIR formulation. The effects of testing ramp-up and the role of 'super-spreaders' on the inference of Ro are analyzed using idealized scenarios. Implications for evaluating potential control strategies from this uncontrolled Ro are briefly discussed in the context of the maximum possible infected fraction of the population (needed to assess health care capacity) and mortality (especially in the USA given diverging projections). Model results indicate that if intervention measures still result in Ro > 2.7 within 44 days after first infection, intervention is unlikely to be effective in general for COVID-19

Intra-datacenter links exploiting PCI express generation 4 interconnections

We demonstrate few-km reaches for PCIe-based optical fiber interconnections according to latency limitations, characterizing 16-Gb/s per lane Generation4 up to 10 km and confirming the Generation3 compliance of 2-km links employing suitable PCIe cards

LTE transmission exploiting pulse width modulation in fibre optic links

Recently it has been demonstrated that pulse width modulation (PWM) can represent a viable solution for the analog optical fronthaul alternative to standard radio over fibre, which still avoids the bandwidth expansion of the digital fronthaul. The PWM encodes the analog samples at the transmitter onto the duration of the on/off keyed optical signal, splitting the sampling and quantization of the radio signal between remote radio units (RRUs) and baseband units (BBUs). In particular in this contribution we demonstrate the capabilities of optical PWM for the transport of LTE signals to support the centralized access network (C-RAN) fronthaul in fibre optic link up to 10-km of standard single mode fibre. The generation and analysis of the radio signals is provided by software modules compliant with the LTE standard which allowed to analyse performance results for the different LTE carriers, channels and services. The PWM optical signal connecting RRUs to BBUs is generated by either directly modulating a DFB laser or an externally seeded reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (RSOA). Both devices could be exploited inside a wavelength division multiplexed passive optical network (WDM PON) architecture where the various RRU-to-BBU links are pooled through virtual point-to-point connections at different wavelengths

Values in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights : A Legal-Philosophical Analysis with a Focus on Migrants’ Rights

This work provides a sketch of a legal-philosophical understanding of the normative content of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In particular, after brefly reconstructing the genesis of the Charter and its historical and philosophical background, it focuses on how the values of dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity are conceived in the Charter and implemented in both Union law and the case law of the Court of Justice. Special attention is also devoted to the relationship between the European Union\u2019s and the Council of Europe\u2019s systems of protection of fundamental rights, with particular reference to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. This work stems from the research project "NoVaMigra \u2013 Norms and Values in the European Migration and Refugee Crisis", funded by the European Unionis. Accordingly, it mainly focuses on those rights which are, or could be, particularly significant in relation to migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Furthermore, special attention is devoted to women\u2019s rights and gender equality