Concept Matching for Low-Resource Classification

We propose a model to tackle classification tasks in the presence of very little training data. To this aim, we approximate the notion of exact match with a theoretically sound mechanism that computes a probability of matching in the input space. Importantly, the model learns to focus on elements of the input that are relevant for the task at hand; by leveraging highlighted portions of the training data, an error boosting technique guides the learning process. In practice, it increases the error associated with relevant parts of the input by a given factor. Remarkable results on text classification tasks confirm the benefits of the proposed approach in both balanced and unbalanced cases, thus being of practical use when labeling new examples is expensive. In addition, by inspecting its weights, it is often possible to gather insights on what the model has learned

Effects of an intensive inpatient rehabilitation program in elderly patients with obesity

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the short-term effectiveness of an intensive inpatient multidimensional rehabilitation program (MRP), including diet, exercise, and behavioral therapy, in elderly patients with severe obesity. Methods: Forty-four elderly patients (old; age 69.3 \ub1 3.5 years, BMI 41.9 \ub1 14.9) were analyzed against 215 younger patients (young; age 48.2 \ub1 18.5 years, BMI 43.9 \ub1 9.4), who were used as controls. All patients underwent MRP, based on group therapy guided by a multidisciplinary team (physicians, dietitians, exercise trainers, psychologists). We evaluated changes in anthropometry, cardiovascular risk factors, physical fitness, quality of life, and eating behavior. Results: After 3 weeks of MRP, we observed a reduction in body weight (old -3.8%, young -4.3%), BMI (old -3.9%, young -4.4%), waist circumference (old -3.4%, young -4.1%), total cholesterol (old -14.0%, young -15.0%), and fasting glucose (old -8.3%, young -8.1%), as well as improved performance in the Six-Minute-Walk Test (old +28.7%, young +15.3%), chair-stand test (old +24.8%, young +26.9%), and arm-curl test (old +15.2%, young +27.3%). Significant improvement was registered in all other analyzed domains. Conclusion: Our 3-week MRP provided significant clinical and functional improvement, which was similar between elderly and younger patients with severe obesity. In the long-term, this may be translated into better quality of life, through better management of obesity-associated morbidities and reduced frailty

Opportunities and challenges in antimicrobial resistance policy including animal production systems and humans across stakeholders in Argentina: a context and qualitative analysis

Introduction: Gaps in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance and control, including implementation of national action plans (NAPs), are evident internationally. Countries’ capacity to translate political commitment into action is crucial to cope with AMR at the human–animal–environment interface. Methods: We employed a two-stage process to understand opportunities and challenges related to AMR surveillance and control at the human–animal interface in Argentina. First, we compiled the central AMR policies locally and mapped vital stakeholders around the NAP and the national commission against bacterial resistance. Second, we conducted qualitative interviews using a semistructured questionnaire covering stakeholders’ understanding and progress towards AMR and NAP. We employed a mixed deductive–inductive approach and used the constant comparative analysis method. We created categories and themes to cluster subthemes and determined crucial relationships among thematic groups. Results: Crucial AMR policy developments have been made since 1969, including gradually banning colistin in food-producing animals. In 2023, a new government decree prioritised AMR following the 2015 NAP launch. Our qualitative analyses identified seven major themes for tackling AMR: (I) Cultural factors and sociopolitical country context hampering AMR progress, (II) Fragmented governance, (III) Antibiotic access and use, (IV) AMR knowledge and awareness throughout stakeholders, (V) AMR surveillance, (VI) NAP efforts and (VII) External drivers. We identified a fragmented structure of the food production chain, poor cross-coordination between stakeholders, limited surveillance and regulation among food-producing animals and geographical disparities over access, diagnosis and treatment. The country is moving to integrate animal and food production into its surveillance system, with most hospitals experienced in monitoring AMR through antimicrobial stewardship programmes. Conclusion: AMR accountability should involve underpinning collaboration at different NAP implementation levels and providing adequate resources to safeguard long-term sustainability. Incorporating a multisectoral context-specific approach relying on different One Health domains is crucial to strengthening local AMR surveillance

Time to Face Language: Embodied Mechanisms Underpin the Inception of Face-Related Meanings in the Human Brain

In construing meaning, the brain recruits multimodal (conceptual) systems and embodied (modality-specific) mechanisms. Yet, no consensus exists on how crucial the latter are for the inception of semantic distinctions. To address this issue, we combined electroencephalographic (EEG) and intracranial EEG (iEEG) to examine when nouns denoting facial body parts (FBPs) and nonFBPs are discriminated in face-processing and multimodal networks. First, FBP words increased N170 amplitude (a hallmark of early facial processing). Second, they triggered fast (~100 ms) activity boosts within the face-processing network, alongside later (~275 ms) effects in multimodal circuits. Third, iEEG recordings from face-processing hubs allowed decoding ~80% of items before 200 ms, while classification based on multimodal-network activity only surpassed ~70% after 250 ms. Finally, EEG and iEEG connectivity between both networks proved greater in early (0-200 ms) than later (200-400 ms) windows. Collectively, our findings indicate that, at least for some lexico-semantic categories, meaning is construed through fast reenactments of modality-specific experience.Fil: García, Adolfo Martín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Educación Elemental y Especial; Argentina. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; Chile. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Hesse Rizzi, Eugenia Fátima. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Birba, Agustina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de San Andrés; ArgentinaFil: Gonzalez Adolfi, Federico. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Mikulan, Ezequiel Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; Argentina. Università degli Studi di Milano; ItaliaFil: Martorell Caro, Miguel Angel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Petroni, Agustín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Computación. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias de la Computación; ArgentinaFil: Bekinchstein, Tristán. University of Cambridge; Reino UnidoFil: García, María del Carmen. Hospital Italiano; ArgentinaFil: Silva, Walter. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Hospital Italiano; ArgentinaFil: Ciraolo, Carlos. Hospital Italiano; ArgentinaFil: Vaucheret Paz, Esteban Fabian. Hospital Italiano; ArgentinaFil: Sedeño, Lucas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; ArgentinaFil: Ibañez, Agustin Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Instituto de Neurología Cognitiva. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt | Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva y Traslacional. Fundación Ineco Rosario Sede del Incyt; Argentina. Universidad de San Andrés; Argentina. University of California; Estados Unidos. Universidad Adolfo Ibañez; Chil

Serum amyloid P component is an essential element of resistance against Aspergillus fumigatus

© The Author(s) 2021. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Serum amyloid P component (SAP, also known as Pentraxin 2; APCS gene) is a component of the humoral arm of innate immunity involved in resistance to bacterial infection and regulation of tissue remodeling. Here we investigate the role of SAP in antifungal resistance. Apcs-/- mice show enhanced susceptibility to A. fumigatus infection. Murine and human SAP bound conidia, activate the complement cascade and enhance phagocytosis by neutrophils. Apcs-/- mice are defective in vivo in terms of recruitment of neutrophils and phagocytosis in the lungs. Opsonic activity of SAP is dependent on the classical pathway of complement activation. In immunosuppressed mice, SAP administration protects hosts against A. fumigatus infection and death. In the context of a study of hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation, genetic variation in the human APCS gene is associated with susceptibility to invasive pulmonary aspergillosis. Thus, SAP is a fluid phase pattern recognition molecule essential for resistance against A. fumigatus.The contribution of the European Commission (ERC project PHII-669415; FP7 project 281608 TIMER; ESA/ITN, H2020-MSCA-ITN-2015-676129), Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca (MIUR) (project FIRB RBAP11H2R9), Associazione Italiana Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC IG-19014 and IG-21714, AIRC 5 × 1000 −9962 and −21147), the Italian Ministry of Health, the Northern Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020), under the Portugal 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000013 and NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000023), the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) (UIDB/50026/2020, UIDP/50026/2020, PTDC/SAU-SER/29635/2017, PTDC/MED-GEN/28778/2017, CEECIND/04058/2018 and CEECIND/03628/2017), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement no. 847507 and the “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434) and FCT under the agreement LCF/PR/HR17/52190003 is gratefully acknowledged.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effects of an Intensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Program in Elderly Patients with Obesity

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the short-term effectiveness of an intensive inpatient multidimensional rehabilitation program (MRP), including diet, exercise, and behavioral therapy, in elderly patients with severe obesity. Methods: Forty-four elderly patients (old; age 69.3 ± 3.5 years, BMI 41.9 ± 14.9) were analyzed against 215 younger patients (young; age 48.2 ± 18.5 years, BMI 43.9 ± 9.4), who were used as controls. All patients underwent MRP, based on group therapy guided by a multidisciplinary team (physicians, dietitians, exercise trainers, psychologists). We evaluated changes in anthropometry, cardiovascular risk factors, physical fitness, quality of life, and eating behavior. Results: After 3 weeks of MRP, we observed a reduction in body weight (old –3.8%, young –4.3%), BMI (old –3.9%, young –4.4%), waist circumference (old –3.4%, young –4.1%), total cholesterol (old –14.0%, young –15.0%), and fasting glucose (old –8.3%, young –8.1%), as well as improved performance in the Six-Minute-Walk Test (old +28.7%, young +15.3%), chair-stand test (old +24.8%, young +26.9%), and arm-curl test (old +15.2%, young +27.3%). Significant improvement was registered in all other analyzed domains. Conclusion: Our 3-week MRP provided significant clinical and functional improvement, which was similar between elderly and younger patients with severe obesity. In the long-term, this may be translated into better quality of life, through better management of obesity-associated morbidities and reduced frailty

Autophagy in major human diseases

Abstract: Autophagy is a core molecular pathway for the preservation of cellular and organismal homeostasis. Pharmacological and genetic interventions impairing autophagy responses promote or aggravate disease in a plethora of experimental models. Consistently, mutations in autophagy‐related processes cause severe human pathologies. Here, we review and discuss preclinical data linking autophagy dysfunction to the pathogenesis of major human disorders including cancer as well as cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, metabolic, pulmonary, renal, infectious, musculoskeletal, and ocular disorders

Geopolitica del Mundial

L'articolo si concentra sull'investimento di Lula per far ottenere al Brasile la Coppa del Mondo di calcio maschile 2014 al fine di accrescere la caratura internazionale del Brasile e sui limiti di questo faraonico progetto. Si sofferma inoltre sui rischi legati all'organizzare grandi eventi sportivi e sul ruolo politico ed economico della FIFA e degli interessi televisivi