From rising star to shooting star: where next for Italy’s five star movement?

Italy’s Five Star Movement held a congress on 14-15 November to determine the party’s future. The congress came after disappointing regional election results and a sustained decline in opinion polls since the last Italian general election in 2018. Maria Giovanna Sessa and Giacomo Riccio write that the party must decide whether to embrace its position as a mainstream political actor or to reclaim its anti-system credentials

Diversity of cervical microbiota in asymptomatic chlamydia trachomatis genital infection: a pilot study

Chlamydia trachomatis genital infection continues to be an important public health problem worldwide due to its increasing incidence. C. trachomatis infection can lead to severe sequelae, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, obstructive infertility, and preterm birth. Recently, it has been suggested that the cervico-vaginal microbiota may be an important defense factor toward C. trachomatis infection as well as the development of chronic sequelae. Therefore, the investigation of microbial profiles associated to chlamydial infection is of the utmost importance. Here we present a pilot study aiming to characterize, through the metagenomic analysis of sequenced 16s rRNA gene amplicons, the cervical microbiota from reproductive age women positive to C. trachomatis infection. The main finding of our study showed a marked increase in bacterial diversity in asymptomatic C. trachomatis positive women as compared to healthy controls in terms of Shannon's diversity and Shannon's evenness (P = 0.031 and P = 0.026, respectively). More importantly, the cervical microbiota from C. trachomatis positive women and from healthy controls significantly separated into two clusters in the weighted UniFrac analysis (P = 0.0027), suggesting that differences between the two groups depended entirely on the relative abundance of bacterial taxa rather than on the types of bacterial taxa present. Furthermore, C. trachomatis positive women showed an overall decrease in Lactobacillus spp. and an increase in anaerobes. These findings are part of an ongoing larger epidemiological study that will evaluate the potential role of distinct bacterial communities of the cervical microbiota in C. trachomatis infection

Lumbar interspinous process fixation and fusion with stand-alone interlaminar lumbar instrumented fusion implant in patients with degenerative spondylolisthesis undergoing decompression for spinal stenosis

Abstract STUDY DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. PURPOSE: To assess the ability of a stand-alone lumbar interspinous implant (interspinous/interlaminar lumbar instrumented fusion, ILIF) associated with bone grafting to promote posterior spine fusion in degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS) with vertebral instability. OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE: A few studies, using bilateral laminotomy (BL) or bilateral decompression by unilateral laminotomy (BDUL), found satisfactory results in stenotic patients with decompression alone, but others reported increased olisthesis, or subsequent need for fusion in DS with or without dynamic instability. METHODS: Twenty-five patients with Grade I DS, leg pain and chronic low back pain underwent BL or BDUL and ILIF implant. Olisthesis was 13% to 21%. Follow-up evaluations were performed at 4 to 12 months up to 25 to 44 months (mean, 34.4). Outcome measures were numerical rating scale (NRS) for back and leg pain, Oswestry disability index (ODI) and short-form 36 health survey (SF-36) of body pain and function. RESULTS: Fusion occurred in 21 patients (84%). None had increased olisthesis or instability postoperatively. Four types of fusion were identified. In Type I, the posterior part of the spinous processes were fused. In Type II, fusion extended to the base of the processes. In Type III, bone was present also around the polyetheretherketone plate of ILIF. In Type IV, even the facet joints were fused. The mean NRS score for back and leg pain decreased by 64% and 80%, respectively. The mean ODI score was decreased by 52%. SF-36 bodily pain and physical function mean scores increased by 53% and 58%, respectively. Computed tomography revealed failed fusion in four patients, all of whom still had vertebral instability postoperatively. CONCLUSIONS: Stand-alone ILIF with interspinous bone grafting promotes vertebral fusion in most patients with lumbar stenosis and unstable Grade I DS undergoing BL or BDUL

Changes in T cell effector functions over an 8-year period with TNF antagonists in patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases

The aim of the study was to clarify the effect of long-term anti-TNF therapy on T cell function in patients with rheumatologic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID). The production of IFNγ by T cells was evaluated at baseline and after 1, 2, 4, and 8 years of anti-TNF agents by means of a QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube assay. The T cell proliferation and surface co-expression of CD25/CD134 in response to phytohaemagglutinin together with the in vitro impact of anti-TNF therapy on the functional capacity of T cells were evaluated after 8 years from the onset of the biological treatment. Age-matched healthy donors were enrolled as controls. The quantitative mitogen-induced IFNγ responses significantly increased with respect to baseline at each time point, apart from the determination after 4 years. We found an increased expression of CD25/CD134 in CD4+compared to CD8+T cells both in patients and controls. The in vitro addition of anti-TNF agents induced a significant decrease of both the IFNγ response and of CD25/CD134, whereas no effect on the intensity of the proliferative response was observed. Our data provide a biological basis for the reassuring issues on the safety of long-term anti-TNF treatment in patients with IMID

Temperature‐dependent orientation of diamond films on titanium and structural evolution of interfacial layers

X-ray diffraction analytical techniques have been used to investigate the influence of the deposition temperature (650–850 °C) on the composition and microstructure of the transition layers formed at the interface between titanium substrates and diamond thin films. The diamond coatings were produced by hot-filament chemical vapor deposition using a 1% methane/hydrogen mixture. X-ray diffraction analysis, performed both through θ–2θ scans and at grazing incidence, allowed investigation of the crystallographic properties and of the structural evolution of the various phases (TiC, TiH2, α-Ti) generated inside the intermediate reaction layers. The temperature-dependent orientation of diamond crystallites is discussed with reference to the complex structure of these interfacial layers

L'evoluzione della nozione di "sicurezza alimentare": dalla normativa italiana a quella comunitaria.

INTRODUZIONE Questa tesi si propone di esaminare l’evoluzione degli ambiti giuridici su cui si basa l’applicazione della nozione di “sicurezza alimentare” partendo dalla normativa italiana per arrivare a quella comunitaria. L’analisi è stata condotta partendo da un excursus storico relativo alle prime fonti sulla materia soffermandosi, in particolare, sul periodo medioevale, per arrivare all’Unità d’Italia. L’analisi è proseguita sulla normativa italiana degli anni Settanta, Ottanta e Novanta ed infine ai giorni nostri. Si sono poi esaminate le modalità di creazione degli standard, pubblici e privati, e il motivo della loro diffusione, così come quelli delle certificazioni e delle ragioni che hanno portato il legislatore pubblico ad emanare il Reg. 765/08 per il loro controllo. Contemporaneamente, si sono messi in luce gli effetti di tale evoluzione sull’attività di controllo della sicurezza gli alimenti in relazione al ruolo del veterinario ispettore. Quello che si evince dall’analisi svolta è che il controllo della sicurezza alimentare è passato da un sistema di accertamento di tipo prefettizio, da parte del Ministero dell’Interno, al Ministero della Salute, inquadrandosi poi con la legge 283/62 sotto un profilo di diritto pubblico-amministrativistico con rilevanza penale. Successivamente, l’ingresso nel sistema legislativo alimentare europeo con l’adozione del Regolamento 178/02 e del Pacchetto Igiene ha portato ad uno spostamento delle responsabilità, lungo tutta la filiera (From farm to table), dal controllore pubblico all’OSA. Lo studio ha portato ad evidenziare che la governance del settore alimentare è un sistema multilivello in cui oltre ad intrecciarsi il livello nazionale con quello globale, si collegano una molteplicità di interessi coinvolti, il che porta ad un “disordine normativo” con la coesistenza di attori privati e pubblici e strumenti di tutela hard e soft law. Infine, si è arrivati ad affermare che con la predominanza del mercato globale e le implicazioni socioeconomiche ad esso legate, si è fatto sempre maggior ricorso alle certificazioni private. Questo ha causato uno spostamento del concetto di sicurezza alimentare da un contesto normativo di diritto pubblico amministrativistico ad uno di diritto privato amministrativistico. Abstracts This work aims to analyze the evolution of the notion of "food safety" in the Italian and European legislative framework. The analysis begins with a historical perspective starting from the first legal sources on the topic. In particular, the first part of the study spanned from the medieval period to the Unification of Italy. Then, the analysis continued by examining the Italian legislation during the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, and in the present days. We examined how public and private standards and certification have been produced and the reason of their spread together with the reason that led the legislature to enact the Reg. 765/08 for their control. At the same time, we highlighted the effects of this development on the figure of the Veterinary Inspector. What emerged from the analysis is that the control of food safety, has changed from an inspection system based on a prefectural control, under the Ministry of Interior, to a system of public-regulatory matter with penal relevance under the law 283/62 of the Ministry of Health. Subsequently, the entrance in the European food law system with the adoption of Regulation 178/02 and of the Hygiene Package has led to a shift of responsibilities, throughout the supply chain (From farm to table), from the public controller to FBOs. The study highlighted that the governance of the food industry is a multi-level system. In addition to the overlap of the national and the global level, multiple interests are interconnected, leading to a "regulatory disorder" with the coexistence of private and public actors, and hard and soft law protection tools. Finally, we affirm that with the dominance of the global market and its socio-economic implications, the use of private certifications has increasingly grown. In this context the concept of food safety has moved from a public to a private regulatory matter

A Simple Multibody 2d-model for Early Postural Checks in Workplace Design

Posture prediction is one of the most important aspects of virtual modeling tools used for the workplace design: once the work point to reach is defined, the posture prediction module allows simulating, through inverse kinematics, the posture the operator is likely to assume. The paper presents a simple multibody 2D-model created for early postural checks in the design phase. The tool is a spreadsheet created in Microsoft Excel environment, with the support of Visual Basic. The principal output of the model in terms of angles of trunk bending and upper arm elevation, set in compliance with the technical standards, are compared to the results of an established software tool for ergonomic analyses, the 3D Static Strength Prediction Program (3DSSPP). Finally, possible differences in terms of moments on the L5/S1 and the shoulder joints introduced by the simplified kinematics of the 2D manikin are discussed

DockGame: Cooperative Games for Multimeric Rigid Protein Docking

Protein interactions and assembly formation are fundamental to most biological processes. Predicting the assembly structure from constituent proteins -- referred to as the protein docking task -- is thus a crucial step in protein design applications. Most traditional and deep learning methods for docking have focused mainly on binary docking, following either a search-based, regression-based, or generative modeling paradigm. In this paper, we focus on the less-studied multimeric (i.e., two or more proteins) docking problem. We introduce DockGame, a novel game-theoretic framework for docking -- we view protein docking as a cooperative game between proteins, where the final assembly structure(s) constitute stable equilibria w.r.t. the underlying game potential. Since we do not have access to the true potential, we consider two approaches - i) learning a surrogate game potential guided by physics-based energy functions and computing equilibria by simultaneous gradient updates, and ii) sampling from the Gibbs distribution of the true potential by learning a diffusion generative model over the action spaces (rotations and translations) of all proteins. Empirically, on the Docking Benchmark 5.5 (DB5.5) dataset, DockGame has much faster runtimes than traditional docking methods, can generate multiple plausible assembly structures, and achieves comparable performance to existing binary docking baselines, despite solving the harder task of coordinating multiple protein chains.Comment: Under Revie