3,458 research outputs found
Media devices in pre-school children: the recommendations of the Italian pediatric society
BACKGROUND: Young children are too often exposed to mobile devices (MD) and most of them had their own device. The adverse effects of a early and prolonged exposure to digital technology on pre-school children has been described by several studies. Aim of the study is to analyze the consequences of MD exposure in pre-school children. METHODS: We analyzed the documented effects of media exposure on children's mental and physical health. RESULTS: According to recent studies, MD may interfere with learning, children development, well being, sleep, sight, listening, caregiver-child relationship. DISCUSSION: Pediatricians should be aware of both the beneficial and side effects of MD and give advice to the families, according to children's age. CONCLUSION: In according to literature, the Italian Pediatric Society suggest that the media device exposure in childhood should be modulated by supervisors
AdipoRon and Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: a future perspective in overcoming chemotherapy-induced resistance?
The Solar Twin Planet Search II. A Jupiter twin around a solar twin
Through our HARPS radial velocity survey for planets around solar twin stars,
we have identified a promising Jupiter twin candidate around the star HIP11915.
We characterize this Keplerian signal and investigate its potential origins in
stellar activity. Our analysis indicates that HIP11915 hosts a Jupiter-mass
planet with a 3800-day orbital period and low eccentricity. Although we cannot
definitively rule out an activity cycle interpretation, we find that a planet
interpretation is more likely based on a joint analysis of RV and activity
index data. The challenges of long-period radial velocity signals addressed in
this paper are critical for the ongoing discovery of Jupiter-like exoplanets.
If planetary in nature, the signal investigated here represents a very close
analog to the solar system in terms of both Sun-like host star and Jupiter-like
planet.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; A&A accepted; typos corrected in this versio
Spectroscopic binaries in the Solar Twin Planet Search program: from substellar-mass to M dwarf companions
Previous studies on the rotation of Sun-like stars revealed that the
rotational rates of young stars converge towards a well-defined evolution that
follows a power-law decay. It seems, however, that some binary stars do not
obey this relation, often by displaying enhanced rotational rates and activity.
In the Solar Twin Planet Search program we observed several solar twin
binaries, and found a multiplicity fraction of in the whole
sample; moreover, at least three of these binaries (HIP 19911, HIP 67620 and
HIP 103983) clearly exhibit the aforementioned anomalies. We investigated the
configuration of the binaries in the program, and discovered new companions for
HIP 6407, HIP 54582, HIP 62039 and HIP 30037, of which the latter is orbited by
a M brown dwarf in a 1-month long orbit. We report the orbital
parameters of the systems with well-sampled orbits and, in addition, the lower
limits of parameters for the companions that only display a curvature in their
radial velocities. For the linear trend binaries, we report an estimate of the
masses of their companions when their observed separation is available, and a
minimum mass otherwise. We conclude that solar twin binaries with low-mass
stellar companions at moderate orbital periods do not display signs of a
distinct rotational evolution when compared to single stars. We confirm that
the three peculiar stars are double-lined binaries, and that their companions
are polluting their spectra, which explains the observed anomalies.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Kernel estimates for nonautonomous Kolmogorov equations with potential term
Using time dependent Lyapunov functions, we prove pointwise upper bounds for
the heat kernels of some nonautonomous Kolmogorov operators with possibly
unbounded drift and diffusion coefficients and a possibly unbounded potential
term
Optically switched magnetism in photovoltaic perovskite CHNH(Mn:Pb)I
The demand for ever-increasing density of information storage and speed of
manipulation boosts an intense search for new magnetic materials and novel ways
of controlling the magnetic bit. Here, we report the synthesis of a
ferromagnetic photovoltaic CHNH(Mn:Pb)I material in which the
photo-excited electrons rapidly melt the local magnetic order through the
Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interactions without heating up the spin system.
Our finding offers an alternative, very simple and efficient way of optical
spin control, and opens an avenue for applications in low power, light
controlling magnetic devices
Fungal pretreatments on non-sterile solid digestate to enhance methane yield and the sustainability of anaerobic digestion
Gaia DR2 view of the Lupus V-VI clouds: the candidate diskless young stellar objects are mainly background contaminants
Extensive surveys of star-forming regions with Spitzer have revealed
populations of disk-bearing young stellar objects. These have provided crucial
constraints, such as the timescale of dispersal of protoplanetary disks,
obtained by carefully combining infrared data with spectroscopic or X-ray data.
While observations in various regions agree with the general trend of
decreasing disk fraction with age, the Lupus V and VI regions appeared to have
been at odds, having an extremely low disk fraction. Here we show, using the
recent Gaia data release 2 (DR2), that these extremely low disk fractions are
actually due to a very high contamination by background giants. Out of the 83
candidate young stellar objects (YSOs) in these clouds observed by Gaia, only
five have distances of 150 pc, similar to YSOs in the other Lupus clouds, and
have similar proper motions to other members in this star-forming complex. Of
these five targets, four have optically thick (Class II) disks. On the one
hand, this result resolves the conundrum of the puzzling low disk fraction in
these clouds, while, on the other hand, it further clarifies the need to
confirm the Spitzer selected diskless population with other tracers, especially
in regions at low galactic latitude like Lupus V and VI. The use of Gaia
astrometry is now an independent and reliable way to further assess the
membership of candidate YSOs in these, and potentially other, star-forming
regions.Comment: Accepted for publication on Astronomy&Astrophysics Letter
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SinR is a mutational target for fine-tuning biofilm formation in laboratory-evolved strains of Bacillus subtilis
Background: Bacteria often form multicellular, organized communities known as biofilms, which protect cells from a variety of environmental stresses. During biofilm formation, bacteria secrete a species-specific matrix; in Bacillus subtilis biofilms, the matrix consists of protein polymers and exopolysaccharide. Many domesticated strains of B. subtilis have a reduced ability to form biofilms, and we conducted a two-month evolution experiment to test whether laboratory culturing provides selective pressure against biofilm formation in B. subtilis. Results: Bacteria grown in two-month-long batch culture rapidly diversified their biofilm-forming characteristics, exhibiting highly diverse colony morphologies on LB plates in the initial ten days of culture. Generally, this diversity decreased over time; however, multiple types of colony morphology remained in our final two-month-old populations, both under shaking and static conditions. Notably, while our final populations featured cells that produce less biofilm matrix than did the ancestor, cells overproducing biofilm matrix were present as well. We took a candidate-gene approach to identify mutations in the strains that overproduced matrix and found point mutations in the biofilm-regulatory gene sinR. Introducing these mutations into the ancestral strain phenocopied or partially phenocopied the evolved biofilm phenotypes. Conclusions: Our data suggest that standard laboratory culturing conditions do not rapidly select against biofilm formation. Although biofilm matrix production is often reduced in domesticated bacterial strains, we found that matrix production may still have a fitness benefit in the laboratory. We suggest that adaptive specialization of biofilm-forming species can occur through mutations that modulate biofilm formation as in B. subtilis. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12866-014-0301-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
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