Cancer-Associated Thrombosis in Cirrhotic Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

It is common knowledge that cancer patients are more prone to develop venous thromboembolic complications (VTE). It is therefore not surprising that patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) present with a significant risk of VTE, with the portal vein being the most frequent site (PVT). However, patients with HCC are peculiar as both cancer and liver cirrhosis are conditions that can perturb the hemostatic balance towards a prothrombotic state. Because HCC-related hypercoagulability is not clarified at all, the aim of the present review is to summarize the currently available knowledge on epidemiology and pathogenesis of non-malignant thrombotic complications in patients with liver cirrhosis and HCC. They are at increased risk to develop both PVT and non-splanchnic VTE, indicating that both local and systemic factors can foster the development of site-specific thrombosis. Recent studies have suggested multiple and often interrelated mechanisms through which HCC can tip the hemostatic balance of liver cirrhosis towards hypercoagulability. Described mechanisms include increased fibrinogen concentration/polymerization, thrombocytosis, and release of tissue factor-expressing extracellular vesicles. Currently, there are no specific guidelines on the use of thromboprophylaxis in this unique population. There is the urgent need of prospective studies assessing which patients have the highest prothrombotic profile and would therefore benefit from early thromboprophylaxis

New physics from rare beauty

Merk, M.H.M. [Promotor]Pellegrino, A. [Copromotor]Hulsbergen, W.D. [Copromotor

Propositions for public policies and dissemination of organic farming based upon spatial analyses / Réflexion à partir d’une analyse spatialesur les politiques de soutien et la diffusion de l’agriculture biologique

Building on three studies conducted on the spatial diffusion of organic farming (OF) in France, the objective of this article is to provide analysis on incentives and obstacles for the development of OF. What restrains the OF adoption is represented by three types of risks (agronomic, economic and moral) which reduce the propensity to convert to organic farming. Our work is based on national data bases on certified farms in 2010 and beneficiaries of aid for conversion to organic farming between 1993 and 2010. If these data do not make it possible to analyse the motivations at the individual level, they provide original findings by their completeness and the mobilization of different spatial and temporal scales, and a set of tools for exploratory and econometric spatial analysis. The main results are commented: characterization of the spatial heterogeneity of OF, relationship between OF and markets access, territories characteristics (agronomic, socioeconomic, institutional) that increase or decrease their propensity to host organic farms. They provide a basis to discuss the implications of public policies aiming to remove the bottlenecks and stimulate the development of OF in all territories, according to the national objectives

Geometrical Calibration for the Panrover: a Stereo Omnidirectional System for Planetary Rover

Abstract. A novel panoramic stereo imaging system is proposed in this paper. The system is able to carry out a 360° stereoscopic vision, useful for rover autonomous-driving, and capture simultaneously a high-resolution stereo scene. The core of the concept is a novel "bifocal panoramic lens" (BPL) based on hyper hemispheric model (Pernechele et al. 2016). This BPL is able to record a panoramic field of view (FoV) and, simultaneously, an area (belonging to the panoramic FoV) with a given degree of magnification by using a unique image sensor. This strategy makes possible to avoid rotational mechanisms. Using two BPLs settled in a vertical baseline (system called PANROVER) allows the monitoring of the surrounding environment in stereoscopic (3D) mode and, simultaneously, capturing an high-resolution stereoscopic images to analyse scientific cases, making it a new paradigm in the planetary rovers framework.Differently from the majority of the Mars systems which are based on rotational mechanisms for the acquisition of the panoramic images (mosaicked on ground), the PANROVER does not contain any moving components and can rescue a hi-rate stereo images of the context panorama.Scope of this work is the geometric calibration of the panoramic acquisition system by the omnidirectional calibration methods (Scaramuzza et al. 2006) based on Zhang calibration grid. The procedures are applied in order to obtain well rectified synchronized stereo images to be available for 3D reconstruction. We applied a Zhang chess boards based approach even during STC/SIMBIO-SYS stereo camera calibration (Simioni et al. 2014, 2017). In this case the target of the calibration will be the stereo heads (the BPLs) of the PANROVER with the scope of extracting the intrinsic parameters of the optical systems. Differently by previous pipelines, using the same data bench the estimate of the extrinsic parameters is performed

Aging Reduces The Primary Humoral Response And The In Vitro Cytokine Production In Mice.

Aging is accompanied by a decrease in several physiological functions that make older individuals less responsive to environmental challenges. In the present study, we analyzed the immune response of female BALB/c mice (N = 6) of different ages (from 2 to 96 weeks) and identified significant age-related alterations. Immunization with hapten-protein (trinitrophenyl-bovine serum albumin) conjugates resulted in lower antibody levels in the primary and secondary responses of old mice (72 weeks old). Moreover, young mice (2, 16, and 32 weeks old) maintained specific antibodies in their sera for longer periods after primary immunization than did old mice. However, a secondary challenge efficiently induced memory in old mice, as shown by the increased antibody levels in their sera. The number of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in the spleen increased until 8 weeks of age but there was no change in the CD4+/CD8+ ratio with aging. Splenic T cells from old mice that had or had not been immunized were less responsive to concanavalin-A and showed reduced cytokine production compared to young mice (IL-2: 57-127 vs 367-1104 pg/mL, IFN-gamma: 2344-12,836 vs 752-23,106 pg/mL and IL-10: 393-2172 vs 105-2869 pg/mL in old and young mice, respectively). These data suggest that there are significant changes in the organization of the immune system throughout life. However, the relevance of these alterations for the functioning of the immune system is unknown.401111-2

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF 3DPD, THE PHOTOGRAMMETRIC PIPELINE FOR THE CASSIS STEREO IMAGES

A novel photogrammetric pipeline has been designed by INAF-Padova for the processing of the recent stereo images of CaSSIS and it will be a starting point for the future procedures that will be applied to Stereo Camera (STC) (Cremonese, 2009; Da Deppo, 2010) images for the BepiColombo mission to Mercury. The large number of stereo pairs being generated has made it necessary that several teams attempt to generate products. The presented procedures are the two strategies (proposed by INAF-PADOVA and by EPFLLausanne) available nowadays in an international attempt to generate 3D products from the CaSSIS images. The comparisons here presented will be the first of several such efforts and are important to make the planetary community aware of the accuracy of the 3D data available. Furthermore, the possibility to consider higher accuracy DTMs as the ones of HiRISE makes the quality assessment of stereo products of CaSSIS robust and important for the assessment of data to be provided to the scientific community. The performance evaluation of the INAF-Padova pipeline (3DPD software) is the main objectives of this work. Additionally, the comparison between the correlation phase of 3DPD and of ASP (Moratto, 2010) that is integrated in the EPFL pipeline has been considered

Seasonal variation in the incidence of deep vein thrombosis in patients with deficiency of protein C or protein S.

An attempt was made to identify circaseptanal or seasonal variation of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in a population with protein C or protein S deficit. Forty-four patients with DVT and protein C or protein S deficit were studied for 1 year. A significant circannual rhythm was found for the total population that peaked during winter. There was also a significant falling circaseptanal rhythm on Fridays. These observations may optimize an adequate and precise anticoagulant therapy in patients witi protein C or protein S deficits

The Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters. XIII. ACS/WFC Parallel-Field Catalogues

As part of the Hubble Space Telescope UV Legacy Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters, 110 parallel fields were observed with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys, in the outskirts of 48 globular clusters, plus the open cluster NGC 6791. Totalling about $0.3$ square degrees of observed sky, this is the largest homogeneous Hubble Space Telescope photometric survey of Galalctic globular clusters outskirts to date. In particular, two distinct pointings have been obtained for each target on average, all centred at about $6.5$ arcmin from the cluster centre, thus covering a mean area of about $23\,{\rm arcmin^{2}}$ for each globular cluster. For each field, at least one exposure in both F475W and F814W filters was collected. In this work, we publicly release the astrometric and photometric catalogues and the astrometrised atlases for each of these fields.Comment: 30 pages, 23 figures. Accepted by MNRA

Suppression of nitric oxide production in mouse macrophages by soybean flavonoids accumulated in response to nitroprusside and fungal elicitation

BACKGROUND: The anti-inflammatory properties of some flavonoids have been attributed to their ability to inhibit the production of NO by activated macrophages. Soybean cotyledons accumulate certain flavonoids following elicitation with an extract of the fungal pathogen Diaporthe phaseolorum f. sp. meridionalis (Dpm). Sodium nitroprusside (SNP), a nitric oxide donor, can substitute for Dpm in inducing flavonoid production. In this study, we investigated the effect of flavonoid-containing diffusates obtained from Dpm- and SNP-elicited soybean cotyledons on NO production by lipopolysaccharide (LPS)- and LPS plus interferon-γ (IFNγ)-activated murine macrophages. RESULTS: Significant inhibition of NO production, measured as nitrite formation, was observed when macrophages were activated in the presence of soybean diffusates from Dpm- or SNP-elicited cotyledons. This inhibition was dependent on the duration of exposure to the elicitor. Daidzein, genistein, luteolin and apigenin, the main flavonoids present in diffusates of elicited cotyledons, suppressed the NO production by LPS + IFNγ activated macrophages in a concentration-dependent manner, with IC(50 )values of 81.4 μM, 34.5 μM, 38.6 μM and 10.4 μM respectively. For macrophages activated with LPS alone, the IC(50 )values were 40.0 μM, 16.6 μM, 10.4 μM and 2.8 μM, respectively. Western blot analysis showed that iNOS expression was not affected by daidzein, was reduced by genistein, and was abolished by apigenin, luteolin and Dpm- and SNP-soybean diffusates at concentrations that significantly inhibited NO production by activated macrophages. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the suppressive effect of flavonoids on iNOS expression could account for the potent inhibitory effect of Dpm- and SNP-diffusates on NO production by activated macrophages. Since the physiological concentration of flavonoids in plants is normally low, the treatment of soybean tissues with SNP may provide a simple method for substantially increasing the concentration of metabolites that are beneficial for the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases associated with NO production