Coping Strategies and Distress in Patients and Caregivers Dealing with Neurocognitive Disorders

Background and Aims: Quality of life (QoL) is described as the individual’s perception of life in relation to the cultural context and value system in which they live, and their objectives, expectations and interests. The aim of the present study is to investigate the perceptions of QoL on the part of patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or mild dementia and on the part of their caregivers, by examining how they are influenced by factors such as anosognosia, coping strategies, perceived stress and caregiver burden. Methods: QoL was assessed in a sample of 30 patients with MCI or mild dementia and their caregivers using the QoL-AD. Other variables were measured with the AQ-D, PSS-10, COPE-NVI-25 and CBI instruments. We also assessed patients’ levels of cognitive impairment with the MMSE. Results: Patients’ QoL ratings were significantly higher than those of their respective caregivers. Patients’ perceptions of QoL were predicted by their caregiver’s avoidance coping strategy (β = -0.591, p < 0.01), whereas the caregivers’ perceptions of QoL were predicted by their perceived stress levels (β = -0.567, p < 0.01), the patient’s transcendent orientation (β = -0.369, p < 0.05) and the caregiver’s positive attitude coping strategy (β = 0.312, p < 0.05). Conclusions: This study shows that perception of QoL is mostly influenced by coping strategies and perceived stress, and that caregivers’ dysfunctional coping strategies can affect patients’ perceptions of QoL. Our data also highlight the crucial role of the caregiver in the treatment of neurocognitive disorders

A Verticillium longisporum pleiotropic drug transporter determines tolerance to the plant host beta-pinene monoterpene

Terpenes constitute a major part of secondary metabolites secreted by plants in the rhizosphere. However, their specific functions in fungal-plant interactions have not been investigated thoroughly. In this study we investigated the role of monoterpenes in interactions between oilseed rape (Brassica napus) and the soilborne pathogen Verticillium longisporum. We identified seven monoterpenes produced by B. napus, and production of alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, 3-carene, and camphene was significantly increased upon fungal infection. Among them, beta-pinene was chosen for further analysis. Transcriptome analysis of V. longisporum on exposure to beta-pinene resulted in identification of two highly expressed pleotropic drug transporters paralog genes named VlAbcG1a and VlAbcG1b. Overexpression of VlAbcG1a in Saccharomyces cerevisiae increased tolerance to beta-pinene, while deletion of the VlAbcG1a homologous gene in Verticillium dahliae resulted in mutants with increased sensitivity to certain monoterpenes. Furthermore, the VlAbcG1a overexpression strain displayed an increased tolerance to beta-pinene and increased virulence in tomato plants. Data from this study give new insights into the roles of terpenes in plant-fungal pathogen interactions and the mechanisms fungi deploy to cope with the toxicity of these secondary metabolites

The role of terpenes produced by Brassica napus in interactions with Verticillium longisporum

Verticillium longisporum is responsible for severe yield losses, especially of oilseed rape (Brassica napus). Rapeseed is the third most important source of vegetable oil worldwide. The need to increase rapeseed oil yield is not only because is a source of healthy vegetable oil but also because it is used as a biodiesel. The control of Verticillium longisporum has been limited since this pathogen forms special resting structures that survive in the soil for a long time and under harsh environment, showing also delayed expression of symptoms. Volatile secondary metabolites exuded by plant roots have been involved in plant-plant and plant-herbivore signalling, while they affect fungal behaviour. For example, monoterpenes display strong inhibitory or stimulatory activities on fungi. Previous analysis showed that a group of V. longisporum genes are highly induced during application of monoterpenes. In this study, RT-qPCR analysis of V. longisporum genes exposed to terpenes produced by rapeseed plants, previously identified by RNAseq analysis upon infection of rapeseed showed to be induced. Consistent with the previous results, the Arabidopsis monoterpene mutant AT5G44630 (sesquiterpene synthase) was more tolerant to Verticillium infection, suggesting an involvement of this gene in disease development. An in vitro experiment showed that fungal biomass was lower in mutant Arabidopsis lines compared to the wild type (WT) plants. Finally, to produce rapeseed resistant plants to V. longisporum a clustered regulatory interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9) construct to was generated to produce rapeseed plants lacking the homologous AT5G44630 gene

Giovanni Faldella flâneur d’Europa

To illuminate the style and figure of Giovanni Faldella (1846-1928), protagonist of the Piedmontese Scapigliatura divided between current events and the cult of the past, between collecting obsolete words and highly original inventions, the essay examines with particular attention the author’s travel writings. Placed in a comparative dialectic with the studies of sociology, aesthetics and philosophy of history by thinkers such as Benjamin, Simmel, Kracauer, Spengler, the texts, the taste and the poetics of this provincial outsider are read here from an unprecedented angle and in a broad European perspective.Per illuminare lo stile e la figura di Giovanni Faldella (1846-1928), protagonista della Scapigliatura piemontese diviso tra attualità e culto del passato, tra collezionismo di parole desuete e invenzioni originalissime, il saggio esamina con particolare attenzione gli scritti di viaggio dell’autore. Posti in una dialettica comparativa con gli studi di sociologia, estetica e filosofia della storia di pensatori come Benjamin, Simmel, Kracauer, Spengler, i testi, il gusto e la poetica di questo outsider di provincia vengono qui letti sotto un’angolazione inedita e in un’ampia prospettiva europea

Clinical characteristics and management of COVID-19 patients accessing the emergency department in a hospital in Northern Italy in March and April 2020

the emergency due to SARS-CoV-2 pandemic struck the national and regional health system that needed an effort to reorganise and increase resources to cope with a sudden, uncertain, and previously unknown situation. This study was conducted in the immediate aftermath of this difficult period

Attentional engagement deficits in dyslexic children

Reading acquisition requires, in addition to appropriate phonological abilities, accurate and rapid selection of sublexical orthographic units by attentional letter string parsing. Spatio-temporal distribution of attentional engagement onto 3-pseudoletter strings was studied in 28 dyslexic and 55 normally reading children by measuring attentional masking (AM). AM refers to an impaired identification of the first of two sequentially presented masked objects (O1 and O2). In the present study, O1 was always centrally displayed, whereas the location of O2 (central or lateral) and the O1–O2 interval were manipulated. Dyslexic children showed a larger AM at the shortest O1–O2 interval and a sluggish AM recovery at the longest O1–O2 interval, as well as an abnormal lateral AM. More importantly, these spatio-temporal deficits of attentional engagement were selectively present in dyslexics with poor phonological decoding skills. Our results suggest that an inefficient spatio-temporal distribution of attentional engagement – probably linked to a parietal lobule dysfunction – might selectively impair the letter string parsing mechanism during phonological decoding

An Innovative Approach for Subnational Climate Adaptation of Biodiversity and Ecosystems: The Case Study of a Regional Strategy in Italy

Since climate change impacts are already occurring, urgent adaptive actions are necessary to avoid the worst damages. Regional authorities play an important role in adaptation, but they have few binding guidelines to carry out strategies and plans. Sectoral impacts and adaptive measures strongly differ between regions; therefore, specific results for each territory are needed. Impacts are often not exhaustively reported by literature, dataset and models, thus making it impossible to objectively identify specific adaptive measures. Usual expert elicitation helps to fill this gap but shows some issues. For the Piedmont Strategy, an innovative approach has been proposed, involving experts of private and public bodies (regional authorities, academia, research institutes, parks, associations, NGOs, etc.). They collaborated in two work group, first to identify current and future impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems, and secondly to elaborate and prioritize measures. Involving 143 experts of 46 affiliations, it was possible to quickly edit a cross-validated list of impacts (110) and measures (92) with limited costs. Lastly, a public return of results took place. This approach proved to be effective, efficient and influenced the policymakers, overcoming the tendency to enact long-term actions to face climate change. It could be used internationally by subnational authorities also in other sectors