Editorial: Congenital and perinatal infections: How to prevent sequelaes in neonates and children

The current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has overwhelmingly absorbed attention and health resources for 2 years, allowing us to reflect that infections are a permanent health and social problem, causing morbidity and mortality. They require organization, important prevention measures, and containment. This is particularly true in the neonatal age, where infections remain a complex problem with serious consequences

Cannula tip intravascular migration in an infant

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Diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide in children with type 1 diabetes

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Lidar And Hyperspectral Data Integration For Landslide Monitoring: The Test Case Of Valoria Landslide

In the framework of the WISELAND project, funded by MIUR, we tested the integration between Lidar and hyperspectral methodologies in the Valoria landslide (Modena province, Italy), a high risk area with vulnerable elements, subjected to periodic and abrupt reactivations. Multitemporal Lidar Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) allowed the calculation of a differential surface, highlighting absolute height variations, recognizing the main landslide components and identifying depletion and accumulation zones. Hyperspectral data helped in the landslide terrain roughness characterization, performing the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and correlating the results with Flatness and Organization geomorphometric parameters derived from Lidar DTM

Polarization observables in high-energy deuteron photodisintegration within the Quark-Gluon Strings Model

Deuteron two-body photodisintegration is analysed within the framework of the Quark-Gluon Strings Model. The model describes fairly well the recent experimental data from TJNAF in the few GeV region. Angular distributions at different $\gamma$-energies are presented and the effect of a forward-backward asymmetry is discussed. New results from the QGSM for polarization observables from 1.5 -- 6 GeV are presented and compared with the available data.Comment: 3 pages, LaTeX, 4 postscript figures; contribution to QNP2002, Juelich, June 10-14, 200

Self-Diffusion in Random-Tiling Quasicrystals

The first explicit realization of the conjecture that phason dynamics leads to self-diffusion in quasicrystals is presented for the icosahedral Ammann tilings. On short time scales, the transport is found to be subdiffusive with the exponent $\beta\approx0.57(1)$, while on long time scales it is consistent with normal diffusion that is up to an order of magnitude larger than in the typical room temperature vacancy-assisted self-diffusion. No simple finite-size scaling is found, suggesting anomalous corrections to normal diffusion, or existence of at least two independent length scales.Comment: 11 pages + 2 figures, COMPRESSED postscript figures available by anonymous ftp to black_hole.physics.ubc.ca directory outgoing/diffuse (use bi for binary mode to transfer), REVTeX 3.0, CTP-TAMU 21/9

Mechanisms of immune evasion in multiple myeloma: Open questions and therapeutic opportunities

Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most common hematologic malignancy, charac-terized by a multi-step evolutionary path, which starts with an early asymptomatic stage, defined as monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) evolving to overt disease in 1% of cases per year, often through an intermediate phase known as “smoldering” MM (sMM). Interestingly, while many genomic alterations (translocation, deletions, mutations) are usually found at early stages, they are not sufficient (alone) to determine disease evolution. The latter, indeed, relies on significant “epigenetic” alterations of different normal cell populations within the bone marrow (BM) niche, including the “evasion” from immune-system control. Additionally, MM cells could “educate” the BM immune microenvironment (BM-IM) towards a pro-inflammatory and immuno-suppressive phenotype, which ultimately leads to disease evolution, drug resistance, and patients’ worse outcome. Indeed, it is not a case that the most important drugs for the treatment of MM include immunomodulatory agents (thalidomide, lenalidomide, and pomalidomide) and monoclonal antibodies (daratumumab, isatuximab, and elotuzumab). On these bases, in this review, we describe the most recent advances in the comprehension of the role of the different cells composing the BM-IM, and we discuss the potential molecular targets, which could represent new opportunities to improve current treatment strategies for MM patients

Replacement of miR-155 elicits tumor suppressive activity and antagonizes bortezomib resistance in multiple myeloma

Aberrant expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) has been associated to the pathogenesis of multiple myeloma (MM). While miR-155 is considered a therapeutic target in several malignancies, its role in MM is still unclear. The analysis of miR-155 expression indicates its down-regulation in MM patient-derived as compared to healthy plasma cells, thus pointing to a tumor suppressor role in this malignancy. On this finding, we investigated miR-155 replacement as a potential anti-tumor strategy in MM. The miR-155 enforced expression triggered anti-proliferative and pro-apoptotic effects in vitro. Given the lower miR-155 levels in bortezomib-resistant as compared to sensitive MM cells, we analyzed the possible involvement of miR-155 in bortezomib resistance. Importantly, miR-155 replacement enhanced bortezomib anti-tumor activity both in vitro and in vivo in a xenograft model of human MM. In primary MM cells, we observed an inverse correlation between miR-155 and the mRNA encoding the proteasome subunit gene PSMβ5, whose dysregulation has been largely implicated in bortezomib resistance, and we validated PSMβ5 30UTR mRNA targeting, along with reduced proteasome activity, by miR-155. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that miR-155 elicits anti-MM activity, likely via proteasome inhibition, providing the framework for miR-155-based anti-MM therapeutic strategies

Stimulated Raman scattering metrology of molecular hydrogen

Frequency combs have revolutionized optical frequency metrology, allowing one to determine highly accurate transition frequencies of a wealth of molecular species. These progresses have only marginally benefited infrared-inactive transitions, due to their inherently weak cross-sections. Here we overcome this limitation by introducing stimulated-Raman-scattering metrology, where a frequency comb is exploited to calibrate the frequency detuning between the pump and Stokes excitation lasers. We apply this approach to the investigation of molecular hydrogen, which is a recognized benchmark for tests of quantum electrodynamics and of theories that describe physics beyond the standard model. Specifically, we measure the transition frequency of the Q(1) fundamental line of H2 around 4155 cm−1 with few parts-per-billion uncertainty, which is comparable to the theoretical benchmark of ab initio calculations and more than a decade better than the experimental state of the art. Our comb-calibrated stimulated Raman scattering spectrometer extends the toolkit of optical frequency metrology as it can be applied, with simple technical changes, to many other infrared-inactive transitions, over a 50-5000 cm−1 range that covers also purely rotational bands

Interleukin-21 sustains inflammatory signals that contribute to sporadic colon tumorigenesis

Interleukin (IL)-21 triggers inflammatory signals that contribute to the growth of neoplastic cells in mouse models of colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CRC). Because most CRCs are sporadic and arise in the absence of overt inflammation we have investigated the role of IL-21 in these tumors in mouse and man. IL-21 was highly expressed in human sporadic CRC and produced mostly by IFN-γ-expressing T-bet/RORγt double-positive CD3+CD8- cells. Stimulation of human CRC cell lines with IL-21 did not directly activate the oncogenic transcription factors STAT3 and NF-kB and did not affect CRC cell proliferation and survival. In contrast, IL-21 modulated the production of protumorigenic factors by human tumor infiltrating T cells. IL-21 was upregulated in the neoplastic areas, as compared with non-tumor mucosa, of Apc(min/+) mice, and genetic ablation of IL-21 in such mice resulted in a marked decrease of both tumor incidence and size. IL-21 deficiency was associated with reduced STAT3/NF-kB activation in both immune cells and neoplastic cells, diminished synthesis of protumorigenic cytokines (that is, IL-17A, IL-22, TNF-α and IL-6), downregulation of COX-2/PGE2 pathway and decreased angiogenesis in the lesions of Apc(min/+) mice. Altogether, data suggest that IL-21 promotes a protumorigenic inflammatory circuit that ultimately sustains the development of sporadic CRC