Introduction

Conceptual hybridisation can be described as a transformative process in which certain existing concepts and ideas undergo a commixture, or are intermixed into other existing conceptual formations, so that existing notions are reshaped and gradually renewed, or an unexpected novelty is produced in the domain of documentable historical dynamics of ideas and concepts. This special issue on `Hybridisation in the History of Ideas' comprises five papers on dazzling historical cases spanning from the Renaissance to the 20th century, and covering European, Chinese, and American history of ideas, as well as their intertwining

How does Psychological Restoration Work in Children? An Exploratory Study

This study investigates three issues concerned with psychological restoration in children, specifically whether children perceive the difference between the restorative value of a natural and a built environment; whether the perception of restorativeness affects children\u2019s attentional performance; how children feel to be connected with Nature. To this aim, 48 children age 9-11 years participated in a within-subjects study; children filled in the Perceived Restorativeness Scale-children (environmental preference included) and the Connectedness to Nature Scalechildren, and performed the Continuous Performance Test in three different conditions: 1-in the classroom after the practice of Mindful Silence; 2-in the school playground after the school break; 3-in an alpine wood after a walk. In addition to the self-report assessments and the measurement of attentional performance, the children\u2019s physiological condition was assessed by measuring some basic physiological parameters. From results it emerges that though children\u2019s connection to Nature doesn\u2019t vary among conditions, they can discriminate among environments with different degree of restorativeness (assessments were made on setting characteristics and activities), and the perception of restorativeness keeps pace with the performance at the attention test and the preference evaluation. Results are in agreement with Kaplan\u2019s Attention Restoration Theory (1995) and the fascination/meditation hypothesis (Kaplan, 2001)

New Insights into the Role of Ferroptosis in Cardiovascular Diseases

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the principal cause of disease burden and death worldwide. Ferroptosis is a new formof regulated cell deathmainly characterized by altered ironmetabolism, increased polyunsaturated fatty acid peroxidation by reactive oxygen species, depletion of glutathione and inactivation of glutathione peroxidase 4. Recently, a series of studies have indicated that ferroptosis is involved in the death of cardiac and vascular cells and has a key impact on the mechanisms leading to CVDs such as ischemic heart disease, ischemia/reperfusion injury, cardiomyopathies, and heart failure. In this article, we reviewed the molecular mechanism of ferroptosis and the current understanding of the pathophysiological role of ferroptosis in ischemic heart disease and in some cardiomyopathies. Moreover, the comprehension of the machinery governing ferroptosis in vascular cells and cardiomyocytes may provide new insights into preventive and therapeutic strategies in CVDs

Electrocardiographic changes in hiatal hernia: a case report

We describe the case of a 78-year-old woman admitted to our department for suspected silent myocardial ischaemia with the evidence of T wave inversion in anterior lead. All the instrumental exams excluded inducible myocardial ischaemia. A gastroscopy showed a moderate hiatal hernia. We postulate that electrocardiogram modification could be attributed to hiatal hernia

Soluble plasma thrombomodulin levels in patients with chronic myeloproliferative disorder.

The plasma levels of soluble thrombomodulin (TM) were measured in 44 patients with chronic myeloprolif erative disorder, 15 with polycythemia vera (PV), 29 with es sential thrombocythemia (ET), and a group of 62 matched healthy controls. The younger patients had significantly lower TM levels (mean: 15.6 ± 4.8 ng/mL) than the older patients (mean: 28.6 ± 8.2 ng/mL, p < .001). Moreover, a significant negative correlation between platelet counts and plasma TM levels in healthy persons was noted (r = 0.317, p < .05). The only significant difference we found in plasma TM levels be tween patients and controls or among patients was between the young patients with ET (mean: 29.0 ± 19.2 ng/mL) and young healthy controls (mean: 15.6 ± 4.8 ng/mL). It is possible that younger ET patients with more active platelets are more sus ceptible to earlier vascular damage. The lack of any significant difference compared with the older patient population supports this hypothesis. Key Words: Thrombomodulin—Essential thrombocythemia—Polycythemia vera

Born with a solitary kidney: at risk of hypertension

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Red Blood Cell Morphologic Abnormalities in Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19

Peripheral blood smear is a simple laboratory tool, which remains of invaluable help for diagnosing primary and secondary abnormalities of blood cells despite advances in automated and molecular techniques. Red blood cells (RBCs) abnormalities are known to occur in many viral infections, typically in the form of mild normo-microcytic anemia. While several hematological alterations at automated complete blood count (including neutrophilia, lymphopenia, and increased red cell distribution width—RDW) have been consistently associated with severity of COVID-19, there is scarce information on RBCs morphological abnormalities, mainly as case-reports or small series of patients, which are hardly comparable due to heterogeneity in sampling times and definition of illness severity. We report here a systematic evaluation of RBCs morphology at peripheral blood smear in COVID-19 patients within the first 72 h from hospital admission. One hundred and fifteen patients were included, with detailed collection of other clinical variables and follow-up. A certain degree of abnormalities in RBCs morphology was observed in 75 (65%) patients. Heterogenous alterations were noted, with spiculated cells being the more frequent morphology. The group with &gt;10% RBCs abnormalities had more consistent lymphopenia and thrombocytopenia compared to those without abnormalities or &lt;10% RBCs abnormalities (p &lt; 0.018, and p &lt; 0.021, respectively), thus underpinning a possible association with an overall more sustained immune-inflammatory “stress” hematopoiesis. Follow-up analysis showed a different mortality rate across groups, with the highest rate in those with more frequent RBCs morphological alterations compared to those with &lt;10% or no abnormalities (41.9%, vs. 20.5%, vs. 12.5%, respectively, p = 0.012). Despite the inherent limitations of such simple association, our results point out towards further studies on erythropoiesis alterations in the pathophysiology of COVID-19

Germline mutations in DNA repair genes predispose asbestos-exposed patients to malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is a rare, aggressive cancer caused by asbestos exposure. An inherited predisposition has been suggested to explain multiple cases in the same family and the observation that not all individuals highly exposed to asbestos develop the tumor. Germline mutations in BAP1 are responsible for a rare cancer predisposition syndrome that includes predisposition to mesothelioma. We hypothesized that other genes involved in hereditary cancer syndromes could be responsible for the inherited mesothelioma predisposition. We investigated the prevalence of germline variants in 94 cancer-predisposing genes in 93 MPM patients with a quantified asbestos exposure. Ten pathogenic truncating variants (PTVs) were identified in PALB2, BRCA1, FANCI, ATM, SLX4, BRCA2, FANCC, FANCF, PMS1 and XPC. All these genes are involved in DNA repair pathways, mostly in homologous recombination repair. Patients carrying PTVs represented 9.7% of the panel and showed lower asbestos exposure than did all the other patients (p=0.0015). This suggests that they did not efficiently repair the DNA damage induced by asbestos and leading to carcinogenesis. This study shows that germline variants in several genes may increase MPM susceptibility in the presence of asbestos exposure and may be important for specific treatment

Neoadjuvant Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy for Locally Advanced Esophageal Cancer in a Single High-Volume Center.

Background. Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is now considered the standard of care bymany centers in the treatment of both squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and adenocarcinoma of the esophagus. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a neoadjuvant CRT protocol, as regards pathological complete response (pCR) rate and long-term survival.Methods. From 2003 to 2011, at Upper G.I. Surgery Division of Verona University, 155 consecutive patients with locally advanced esophageal cancers (90 SCC, 65 adenocarcinoma) were treated with a single protocol of neoadjuvant CRT (docetaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil with 50.4 Gy of concurrent radiotherapy). Response to CRT was evaluated through percentage of pathological complete response (pCR or ypT0N0), overall (OS) and disease-related survival (DRS), and pattern of relapse.Results. One hundred thirty-one patients (84.5 %) underwent surgery. Radical resection (R0) was achieved in 123 patients (79.3 %), and pCR in 65 (41.9 %). Postoperative mortality was 0.7 % (one case). Five-year OS and DRS were respectively 43 and 49 % in the entire cohort, 52 and 59 % in R0 cases, and 72 and 81 % in pCR cases. Survival did not significantly differ between SCC and adenocarcinoma, except for pCR cases. Forty-nine patients suffered from relapse, which was mainly systemic in adenocarcinoma. Only three out of 26 pCR patients with previous adenocarcinoma developed relapse, always systemic.Conclusions. This study suggests that patients treated with the present protocol achieve good survival and high pCR rate. Further research is necessary to evaluate whether surgery on demand is feasible in selected patients, such as pCR patients with adenocarcinoma

RLV applications: challenges and benefits of novel technologies for sustainable main stages

Within the scope of the European Green Deal, the aerospace industry is currently staking on sustainability. To fulfil the objectives and in order to ensure Europe's independent and cost-effective space access capabilities, the ASCenSIon (Advancing Space Access Capabilities - Reusability and Multiple Satellite Injection) project, funded by H2020, is connecting fifteen Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) and twenty-four partner organizations all across Europe. The pillar concept within the project is to adopt a Concurrent Research Network (CRN) methodology. Accordingly, different host institutions, each one with its main research program and vision, are connected to develop the design under a new perspective. This approach emphasises the cooperation between the fifteen ESRs, thus covering the design of a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) in its overall complexity, facing the new challenges deriving from the required sustainability in a more efficient manner. Corresponding to work package two (WP2) of ASCenSIon, this paper focuses on main stages for RLVs, and how the goal of sustainability affects their design. Therefore, many different interconnected disciplines, such as propulsion system, structural design, fatigue-life analysis and Health Monitoring (HM) have to be taken into consideration. These different domains are represented by the individual research projects of the ESRs, supported by a collaborative environment which promotes the foreseen interactions. At first, this contribution gives a general State-Of-The-Art overview of the mentioned topics. A preliminary trade-off on RLV architectures is established through multi-disciplinary design analysis and optimization methods based on propulsion modelling, optimal staging and structural sizing. These use performance and cost design metrics as objective functions, accounting for operability and maintainability factors. This investigation is then used to discuss the different Advanced Nozzle Concepts (ANCs) tailored on the system requirements and mission constraints. At this point, a one-dimensional performance analysis addresses the performance gain deriving from altitude-compensation properties of ANCs. Subsequently, the identification of a suitable green propellant will give the needed/accurate/required inputs to conduct a trade-off between engine cycles w.r.t. the fatigue-life of their most critical components. Consequently, fatigue-life analysis contributes to HM and sensing requirements for RLV systems. As a common approach between the ESRs, the data collection is organized in various Databases accessible within the network, which encourages their interconnections and collaborative research. This paper provides a preliminary analysis of the above discussed topics and their interconnections within the framework of ASCenSIon, aiming to develop novel technologies for future sustainable main stages