Case report: A fatal case of cryptococcosis in an immunocompetent patient due to (AFLP6/VGII)

Introduction: Cryptococcosis in immunocompetent adults is a rare disease in Europe, mostly induced by members of the Cryptococcus gattii species complex. The diagnosis can be challenging due to its rarity, unspecific symptoms and long symptomless latency. Case presentation: A 49-year-old woman with a three weeks history of headache was admitted to the hospital due to discrete ataxia and impaired vision. Cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a contrast-enhancing mass in the cerebellum. Further investigations detected a slight leukocytosis and a single subpleural nodule in the right inferior lung lobe. The cerebral lesion was surgically removed, and a direct frozen section only showed an unspecific inflammation. In the course of her admission she developed non-treatable cerebral edema and died ten days after surgical intervention. Histopathological examination of the surgical specimen and postmortem evaluation of the lung and the cerebrum demonstrated fungal elements. Molecular identification of the fungal elements in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue lead to the diagnosis of cryptococcosis induced by C. gattii sensu lato. Molecular genetic analysis identified the involved cryptococcal species as genotype AFLP6/VGII, recently described as Cryptococcus deuterogattii, which is known to be endemic to the west-coast of Canada and the USA. Additional heteroanamnestic information revealed that she had spent her holidays on Vancouver Island, Canada, two years before disease onset, indicating that infection during this stay seems to be plausible. Conclusion: Cryptococcosis due to C. deuterogattii is a rarely encountered fungal disease in Europe, not particularly associated with immunodeficiency, and infection is likely to be contracted in endemic areas. Due to its rarity, long symptomless latency, unspecific symptoms and misleading radiological features the diagnosis can be challenging. Physicians need to be aware of this differential diagnosis in immunocompetent patients, as early adequate therapy can be lifesaving

Digital technologies and the social economy: New technologies and digitisation: opportunities and challenges for the social economy and social enterprises

The ongoing digital transformation is crucial for the social economy as it presents both enormous opportunities and challenges. Digital technologies, such as online platforms, software applications (apps), distributed ledger technologies, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), offer a wide variety of tools to support the creation of social values and the development and further expansion of the social economy. Budget constraints, digital skills shortages and technological gaps are clear barriers for the social economy to uptake new technologies. We selected 26 social economy organisations using innovative digital technologies effectively across Greece, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK. Our objective is to understand how they are working through the digitalisation process. The study, based on primary information and insights collected via personal interviews, workshops and on relevant literature, sheds light on the key questions stated above. Here we present highlights of the study

Blockchain technology use cases

Blockchain recently received an increasing attention from the industrial and research fields as well as a wide coverage from the media, as it enables the creation of a shared (worldwide) ledger maintained on a peer-to-peer basis, where autonomous programs (the smart contracts) can be executed. From the technological point of view, the blockchain is still far from a mainstream adoption, mainly due to scalability issues and because the interaction with it is still complex and requires technical skills. Given blockchain’s (and smart contracts’) advantages and technical limitations, it is difficult, for a company, to decide whether to invest in this technology or not, and to identify potential successful use cases. The objective of this chapter is to provide the reader with practical information to perform this choice. In particular, the chapter first provides a glossary of blockchain-related terms and then shows existing and under development use cases belonging to different sectors. Presented use cases are then discussed, to identify which sectors could benefit the most from blockchain and smart contracts, highlighting the most promising use cases in which this technology could be disrupting, and underlying the ones where advantages of relying on it are only marginal