SMALL LAKES AND RESERVOIRS IN THE HILLS OF SICILY. MAINTAIN, SAVE AND RECOVER RURAL LANDSCAPE

In the transition from nomadic to sedentary, people have tried - for their settlements - the most plenty of water, and the first cities were founded, in fact, along Tigris and Euphrates rivers, extraordinary water resources in a particular dry climate.In the most interior of Sicily, which has always been characterized by low rainfall, the farmers - over time - have tried various expedients for the preservation of rain water in order to allow its survival and crop.The use of new technologies and materials has resulted in recently hard impacts for landscape, while construction of small dams filled with earth, using natural soil impluviums and the nature of the land, made it possible to irrigate thousands of hectares of agricultural land otherwise ready for drought. A “sustainable” technique, which resulted in the last sixty years, a significant change in the rural landscape of Sicily. In a time when the whole country seems to be threatened - to build indiscriminately - by excessive consumption of soil, which will inevitably and irreversibly alter the environmental balance, the rediscovery of the landscape value of crops that characterize - today - the sicilian countryside and techniques of sustainable conservation of rainwater, it seems of great relevance for the study and protection of soil and for the recovery of the identity of this territory.This abstract introduce to a multidisciplinary investigation yet started, which will aim to assess both technical and landscaping aspects, both economic and agronomic, and also ecological profiles of this technique to protect the biodiversity in these specialized fields. The investigation will aim also to give an historical perspective and an ex-post evaluation of interventions in order to lead to urban planning, landscape and spatial awareness. A further aim is the design of a network system which has impacts on the quality of rural tourism, which emphasizes, as an example, the interaction with the system of bicycle routes and footpaths, greenways, that is being developed in Sicily

The New Paradigms in Clinical Research: From Early Access Programs to the Novel Therapeutic Approaches for Unmet Medical Needs.

Despite several innovative medicines gaining worldwide approval in recent years, there are still therapeutic areas for which unsatisfied therapeutic needs persist. For example, high unmet clinical need was observed in patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus and hemophilia, as well as in specific age groups, such as the pediatric population. Given the urgent need to improve the therapy of clinical conditions for which unmet clinical need is established, clinical testing, and approval of new medicines are increasingly being carried out through accelerated authorization procedures. Starting from 1992, the Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have supported the so-called Early Access Programs (EAPs). Such procedures, which can be based on incomplete clinical data, allow an accelerated marketing authorization for innovative medicines. The growth in pharmaceutical research has also resulted in the development of novel therapeutic approaches, such as biotech drugs and advanced therapy medicinal products, including new monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of asthma, antisense oligonucleotides for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy, and new anticancer drugs that act on genetic biomarkers rather than any specific type of cancer. Even though EAPs and novel therapeutic approaches have brought huge benefits for public health, their implementation is limited by several challenges, including the high risk of safety-related label changes for medicines authorized through the accelerated procedure, the high costs, and the reimbursement and access concerns. In this context, regulatory agencies should provide the best conditions for the implementation of the described new tools

Evidence of abnormal scalar timing property in alexithymia

: Evidence suggests that incidental modulation of affective states affects the ability to keep track of time. Alexithymia represents an ideal condition to further address the emotion-time processing link, as it refers to a trait characterized by a deficit of affective processing. 31 healthy participants completed an online version of the TAS-20 scale, which measures alexithymia, and a time reproduction task of visual stimuli related to positive (i.e., happiness) and negative (i.e., anger) facial expressions. Results documented a positive correlation between TAS-20 score and the variability in reproducing sub-second durations of the anger expression stimuli We also found an overestimation of sub-second durations of non-affective expressions in borderline/alexithymic participants. Finally, in line with the literature, we confirmed the overall tendency to overestimate the duration of anger expression stimuli. These findings, which can be interpreted in terms of abnormal scalar timing property in alexithymia, expand previous investigations linking this personality trait with abnormal processing of negative emotions. The evidence that alexithymia predicts the reproduction variability of sub-second durations of negative affective stimuli corroborates previous neuroimaging studies documenting cerebellar deficits in these individuals

On Minimum Bow Force for Bowed Strings

A famous theoretical prediction of the minimum bow force to maintain Helmholtz motion of a bowed string is re-examined to take account of effects associated with resonances of the instrument body. Starting from a more robust assumption of an ideal stick-slip velocity waveform at the bowing point rather than a perfect sawtoothshaped excitation force at the bridge, the analysis predicts that the minimum bow force, and the force waveform exciting the instrument bridge, can depend in a complicated way on the position of the bow on the string. Also, the frequency of "maximum wolfiness" of an instrument like a cello is predicted to shift away from that of the strong body resonance causing a wolf note. Simulations are used to evaluate the new formulation. For the simple case in which the string vibrates only in a single polarisation, the results are accurately confirmed. However, simulation also reveals that string vibration in the second polarisation can change the detailed response. Further simulations are used to investigate the influence on minimum bow force of some physical details of the model, especially torsional string motion and the presence of sympathetic strings

The Role of Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System in the Heart and Lung: Focus on COVID-19

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) firstly considered as a cardiovascular circulating hormonal system, it is now accepted as a local tissue system that works synergistically or independently with the circulating one. Evidence states that tissue RAAS locally generates mediators with regulatory homeostatic functions, thus contributing, at some extent, to organ dysfunction or disease. Specifically, RAAS can be divided into the traditional RAAS pathway (or classic RAAS) mediated by angiotensin II (AII), and the non-classic RAAS pathway mediated by angiotensin 1–7. Both pathways operate in the heart and lung. In the heart, the classic RAAS plays a role in both hemodynamics and tissue remodeling associated with cardiomyocyte and endothelial dysfunction, leading to progressive functional impairment. Moreover, the local classic RAAS may predispose the onset of atrial fibrillation through different biological mechanisms involving inflammation, accumulation of epicardial adipose tissue, and electrical cardiac remodeling. In the lung, the classic RAAS regulates cell proliferation, immune-inflammatory response, hypoxia, and angiogenesis, contributing to lung injury and different pulmonary diseases (including COVID-19). Instead, the local non-classic RAAS counteracts the classic RAAS effects exerting a protective action on both heart and lung. Moreover, the non-classic RAAS, through the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), mediates the entry of the etiological agent of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) into cells. This may cause a reduction in ACE2 and an imbalance between angiotensins in favor of AII that may be responsible for the lung and heart damage. Drugs blocking the classic RAAS (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers) are well known to exert a cardiovascular benefit. They are recently under evaluation for COVID-19 for their ability to block AII-induced lung injury altogether with drugs stimulating the non-classic RAAS. Herein, we discuss the available evidence on the role of RAAS in the heart and lung, summarizing all clinical data related to the use of drugs acting either by blocking the classic RAAS or stimulating the non-classic RAAS

Severe bleeding and absent ADP-induced platelet aggregation associated with inherited combined CalDAG-GEFI and P2Y12 deficiencies

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What determines auditory similarity? The effect of stimulus group and methodology.

Two experiments on the internal representation of auditory stimuli compared the pairwise and grouping methodologies as means of deriving similarity judgements. A total of 45 undergraduate students participated in each experiment, judging the similarity of short auditory stimuli, using one of the methodologies. The experiments support and extend Bonebright's (1996) findings, using a further 60 stimuli. Results from both methodologies highlight the importance of category information and acoustic features, such as root mean square (RMS) power and pitch, in similarity judgements. Results showed that the grouping task is a viable alternative to the pairwise task with N > 20 sounds whilst highlighting subtle differences, such as cluster tightness, between the different task results. The grouping task is more likely to yield category information as underlying similarity judgements

Embryonic stem cell-derived CD166+ precursors develop into fully functional sinoatrial-like cells

Rationale: A cell-based biological pacemaker is based on the differentiation of stem cells and the selection of a population displaying the molecular and functional properties of native sinoatrial node (SAN) cardiomyocytes. So far, such selection has been hampered by the lack of proper markers. CD166 is specifically but transiently expressed in the mouse heart tube and sinus venosus, the prospective SAN. Objective: We have explored the possibility of using CD166 expression for isolating SAN progenitors from differentiating embryonic stem cells. Methods and Results: We found that in embryonic day 10.5 mouse hearts, CD166 and HCN4, markers of the pacemaker tissue, are coexpressed. Sorting embryonic stem cells for CD166 expression at differentiation day 8 selects a population of pacemaker precursors. CD166(+) cells express high levels of genes involved in SAN development (Tbx18, Tbx3, Isl-1, Shox2) and function (Cx30.2, HCN4, HCN1, CaV1.3) and low levels of ventricular genes (Cx43, Kv4.2, HCN2, Nkx2.5). In culture, CD166(+) cells form an autorhythmic syncytium composed of cells morphologically similar to and with the electrophysiological properties of murine SAN myocytes. Isoproterenol increases (+57%) and acetylcholine decreases (-23%) the beating rate of CD166-selected cells, which express the -adrenergic and muscarinic receptors. In cocultures, CD166-selected cells are able to pace neonatal ventricular myocytes at a rate faster than their own. Furthermore, CD166(+) cells have lost pluripotency genes and do not form teratomas in vivo. Conclusions: We demonstrated for the first time the isolation of a nonteratogenic population of cardiac precursors able to mature and form a fully functional SAN-like tissue

Detection and genetic characterization of domestic cat hepadnavirus in cats with cavitary effusions

: After the identification of the novel domestic cat hepadnavirus (DCH) in 2018, its potential pathogenetic role in feline hepatic diseases has been suggested. Following the detection of DCH in a cat's serum and peritoneal effusion, the aim of this study was to retrospectively investigate the presence of DCH in cats with and without cavitary effusions along with DCH presence in effusions. Stored serum and effusion samples from cats with and without effusions admitted to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of Lodi (Italy) in 2020-2022 were included based on results of hematobiochemical parameters. Effusions were classified based on cytological and physicochemical findings. The likelihood of liver damage was estimated based on clinical and laboratory findings. Samples were tested for DCH presence by quantitative PCR (qPCR). Positive samples were subjected to whole genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis. DCH was detected in both serum and peritoneal effusion samples of 2/72 (2.8%) enrolled cats, included in the group with effusions (2/33; 6.1%), with one cat showing inflammatory and the other non-inflammatory effusion. Both DCH-positive cats belonged to the group with a likelihood of liver damage (2/22, 9.1%). Phylogeny showed that the DCH sequences from this study clustered with the prototypic Australian strain but were not included in the clade with other Italian DCH sequences. Results suggest the circulation of different DCH variants in Italy and show the presence of DCH in effusion samples from DCH-positive cats, mirroring the presence of HBV in body fluids from HBV-infected humans. Further studies are still recommended to define the pathogenic role of DCH in cats

Impairment of platelet function in both mild and severe COVID-19 patients

Abnormalities of platelet function were reported in patients with severe COVID-19 (severe-C), but few data are available in patients with mild COVID-19 (mild-C) and after COVID-19 recovery. The aim of this study was to investigate platelet parameters in mild-C patients (n = 51), with no evidence of pneumonia, and severe-C patients (n = 49), during the acute phase and after recovery, compared to 43 healthy controls. Both mild-C and severe-C patients displayed increased circulating activated platelets, low d-granule content (ADP, serotonin), impaired platelet activation by collagen (light transmission aggregometry) and impaired platelet thrombus formation on collagen-coated surfaces under controlled flow conditions (300/s shear rate). The observed abnormalities were more marked in severe-C patients than in mild-C patients. Overall, 61% (30/49) of mild-C and 73% (33/45) of severe-C patients displayed at least one abnormal platelet parameter. In a subgroup of just 13 patients who showed no persisting signs/symptoms of COVID-19 and were re-evaluated at least 1 month after recovery, 11 of the 13 subjects exhibited normalization of platelet parameters. In conclusion, mild abnormalities of platelet parameters were present not only in severe-C but also, albeit to a lesser extent, in mild-C patients during the acute phase of COVID-19 and normalized in most tested patients after clinical recovery