MIDDLE PLIOCENE CETACEANS FROM MONTE VOLTRAIO (TUSCANY, ITALY). BIOSTRATIGRAPHICAL, PALEOECOLOGICAL AND PALEOCLIMATIC OBSERVATIONS

The historic collection of fossil odontocetes (Cetacea) from Monte Voltraio, near Volterra (Tuscany, Italy) has been examined and lithostratigraphical and biostratigraphical investigations on the find locality have been carried out. The Monte Voltraio outcrop is referred to the Middle Pliocene, in particular to Globorotalia aemiliana and Discoaster tamalis zones. The odontocete remains are assigned to the families Kogiidae (Kogia pusilla) and Delphinidae (Globicephala? etruriae and two indeterminate specimens which might belong to Hemisyntrachelus and Stenella giulii). The Middle Pliocene cetacean fauna from the Mediterranean basin (Monte Voltraio and Rio Stramonte associations) includes extinct taxa or extant taxa no longer represented in this basin. The disappearance of these taxa may be linked with the Pliocene and/or Quaternary climatic deteriorations (e.g. the climatic crisis at about 2.6-2.4 MA).&nbsp

Esophageal Electrical Cardioversion of Atrial Fibrillation: When Esophagus Gives a Help to Cardiologists

Atrial fibrillation is a common clinical disease especially in the elderly and in patients with organic heart disease. Electrical cardioversion is the first choice therapeutic approach for patients in which sinus rhythm could improve the quality of life and where the maintenance of sinus rhythm is considered likely. There are different techniques to perform an electrical cardioversion, each with specific indications, advantages, and limitations. The method most frequently used to restore sinus rhythm is external direct current cardioversion; however, this technique has some disadvantages, since it requires a high energy and usually general anesthesia. Esophageal cardioversion is an alternative method to obtain restoration of sinus rhythm, warranting acute and long-term results absolutely comparable with those obtained by the conventional transthoracic technique, especially in obese and COPD patients with high thoracic impedance for whom the standard technique may be less effective

Ketogenic Diet and Weight Loss: Is There an Effect on Energy Expenditure?

A dysregulation between energy intake (EI) and energy expenditure (EE), the two components of the energy balance equation, is one of the mechanisms responsible for the development of obesity. Conservation of energy equilibrium is deemed a dynamic process and alterations of one component (energy intake or energy expenditure) lead to biological and/or behavioral compensatory changes in the counterpart. The interplay between energy demand and caloric intake appears designed to guarantee an adequate fuel supply in variable life contexts. In the past decades, researchers focused their attention on finding efficient strategies to fight the obesity pandemic. The ketogenic or "keto" diet (KD) gained substantial consideration as a potential weight-loss strategy, whereby the concentration of blood ketones (acetoacetate, 3-beta-hydroxybutyrate, and acetone) increases as a result of increased fatty acid breakdown and the activity of ketogenic enzymes. It has been hypothesized that during the first phase of KDs when glucose utilization is still prevalent, an increase in EE may occur, due to increased hepatic oxygen consumption for gluconeogenesis and for triglyceride-fatty acid recycling. Later, a decrease in 24-h EE may ensue due to the slowing of gluconeogenesis and increase in fatty acid oxidation, with a reduction of the respiratory quotient and possibly the direct action of additional hormonal signals

Hindering reaction attacks by using monomial codes in the McEliece cryptosystem

In this paper we study recent reaction attacks against QC-LDPC and QC-MDPC code-based cryptosystems, which allow an opponent to recover the private parity-check matrix through its distance spectrum by observing a sufficiently high number of decryption failures. We consider a special class of codes, known as monomial codes, to form private keys with the desirable property of having a unique and complete distance spectrum. We verify that for these codes the problem of recovering the secret key from the distance spectrum is equivalent to that of finding cliques in a graph, and use this equivalence to prove that current reaction attacks are not applicable when codes of this type are used in the McEliece cryptosystem.Comment: 5 pages, 0 figures, 1 table, accepted for presentation at the 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT

Therapeutic potential of the phosphino Cu(I) complex (HydroCuP) in the treatment of solid tumors

[Cu(thp)4][PF6] (HydroCuP) is a phosphino copper(I) complex highly soluble and stable in physiological media that has been developed as a possible viable alternative to platinum-based drugs for anticancer therapy. HydroCuP potently inhibited the growth of human cancer cells derived from solid tumors by inducing endoplasmatic reticulum (ER) stress thus leading to cell death through paraptosis with a preferential efficacy against cancer rather than non-cancer cells. Aim of the present study was to assess the therapeutic potential of HydroCuP in vivo, in syngenic and xenograft murine models of solid tumors by triggering the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) pathway. With respect to platinum drugs, HydroCuP induced a markedly higher reduction of tumor growth associated with minimal animal toxicity. In human colorectal cancer xenografts, chemotherapy with HydroCuP was extremely effective in both oxaliplatin-sensitive and resistant models. The favorable in vivo tolerability of HydroCuP was also correlated to an encouraging biodistribution profile. Additionally, no signs of drug-related neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity were observed. Altogether, these results demonstrate that HydroCuP appears worth of further investigation to evaluate its therapeutic activity towards a broad spectrum of solid malignancies

Fuzzy logic–based clinical decision support system for the evaluation of renal function in post‐Transplant Patients

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Financial sector pro-cyclicality: lessons from the crisis

We analyze the main forces affecting financial system pro-cyclicality (the fact that developments in the financial sector can amplify business cycle fluctuations). We first review some major structural developments in financial markets that may influence pro-cyclicality and that have been overlooked in earlier analyses. We then examine three issues that are center stage in the current debate: capital regulation, accounting standards and managers’ incentives. After reviewing the institutional set-up and the key mechanisms at work, we critically examine a series of proposals designed to mitigate pro-cyclicality.pro-cyclicality, financial accelerator, capital requirements, leverage, accounting standards, incentives

oleuropein overrides liver damage in steatotic mice

Abstract Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common disease in which oxidative stress plays a main role in causing organ damage. Oleuropein (Ole) is a phenolic compound with both significant anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The aim of the present work has been focused on investigating the mechanisms by which Ole is able to improve liver damage, in the presence of hepatic steatosis. We evaluated the effects of Ole in female and male mice fed normal diet (ND) or high fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks, adding or not Ole for the following 8 weeks. Ole induced a decrease in body, liver and heart weights and had an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects in HFD mice. Interestingly, in presence of the unhealthy diet, antioxidant effects of Ole overcome sex-related differences, improving liver damage