Traditional knowledge on ethno-veterinary and fodder plants in South Angola: an ethnobotanic field survey in Mopane woodlands in Bibala, Namibe province

Livestock is a critical resource to improve income and household livelihoods in many rural areas. To date, very few studies have investigated farmers’ local knowledge on plants used in managing animal health and welfare in Angolan Mopane woodland. This is a very dry ecosystem where animal husbandry (mostly cattle and goats breeding) is highly widespread and is often the main form of subsidence, greatly contributing to local communities food security, especially in periods of resources shortage. An ethnobotanical research project was carried out in Bibala (Namibe province – Angola) in 2010 – 2012, in order to collect information on different traditional uses of plants, involving an interviewed sample of 66 informants. Fifty-eight of them (87.9%) listed a total of 39 species used as ethno-veterinary and/or fodder plants. Ten ethno-veterinary species (28 citations) were reported by 20 informants as used to treat diseases commonly affecting animals in the studied area, namely respiratory tract problems (Laphangium luteoalbum, Gyrocarpus americanus, Craibia brevicaudata subsp. baptistarum, Lepisanthes senegalensis, Ptaeroxylon obliquum, Ximenia americana) and skin diseases and wounds (Aloe littoralis, Blepharis sp., Ficus thonningii), or acting as a general tonic (Faidherbia albida). Thirty-four plants (235 citations) were cited by 58 informants as fodder. In this category of use, the most cited species were Terminalia prunioides (30 citations), Faidherbia albida (28 citations) and Spirostachys africana (21 citations). Our study shows that communities living in South Angola Mopane woodlands still retain a valuable traditional knowledge about plants used to maintain animal health and welfare. This body of knowledge and related skills can play a crucial role in the resilience of livestock systems facing present environmental and socioeconomic changes

Simulation Study of Multi-wire front Contact Grids for Silicon Solar Cells

Abstract Multi-wire (MW) front-contact schemes represent a promising alternative to standard H-pattern structure with ribbon busbar (BB) in silicon solar cells. In the case of MW schemes, busbar are replaced by copper wires. MW have been demonstrated to enhance the photo-generation with respect to a standard H-pattern structure with ribbon busbar when solar cells are encapsulated and assembled in modules. However, the influence of the geometrical and optical properties of the encapsulation layers as well as of wires on the optical effective shading is not exhaustively treated by the literature. In this work, we have performed electro-optical simulations of MW and BB based solar cells in order to calculate the effective optical shading factor, the enhancement of conversion efficiency and the saving of contact-paste, with respect to the BB design. Specifically, we have studied by means of a ray-tracing simulation tool the significant impact of the front contact grid geometry, of the encapsulation layer thickness and of the optical properties of the cell front interface on the effective optical shading. The calculated values of effective optical shading are used to determine the enhancement of the figures of merit and the paste saving with respect to the reference silver BB scheme. On the basis of our calculations the adoption of optimized MW designs may enhance the conversion efficiency up to 0.5% abs , allowing paste saving up to 50 mg per cell

Anestesia locale computerizzata con il sistema Wand®STA®. Valutazione dell’efficacia nella terapia estrattiva dei terzi molari e della percezione dolorosa evocata in fase iniettiva

Il dolore percepito durante l’iniezione intraorale rappresenta la causa principale di ansia per molti pazienti che devono sottoporsi alle cure odontoiatriche. Lo studio presentato valuta la percezione del dolore e l’efficacia della metodica anestetica a flusso controllato con il dispositivo Wand® STA® in 50 pazienti sottoposti a terapia estrattiva di terzo molare. I pazienti riferiscono, attraverso la compilazione di questionari comprendenti la scala VAS (Scala Visuo-Analogica) e la scala MDAS (Modified Dental Anxiety Scale), una netta riduzione del dolore e dell’ansia in relazione alla metodica di erogazione (computerizzata rispetto a quella tradizionale), evidente soprattutto in soggetti con uno stato d’ansia basale maggiore. Il protocollo ha evidenziato l’efficacia di questa metodica anestetica pari al 90%, in una delle procedure di chirurgia orale più comuni e complesse in odontoiatria, che richiedono un effetto anestetico completo

Male Infertility Diagnosis: Improvement of Genetic Analysis Performance by the Introduction of Pre-Diagnostic Genes in a Next-Generation Sequencing Custom-Made Panel

Background: Infertility affects about 7% of the general male population. The underlying cause of male infertility is undefined in about 50% of cases (idiopathic infertility). The number of genes involved in human spermatogenesis is over two thousand. Therefore, it is essential to analyze a large number of genes that may be involved in male infertility. This study aimed to test idiopathic male infertile patients negative for a validated panel of “diagnostic” genes, for a wide panel of genes that we have defined as “pre-diagnostic.” Methods: We developed a next-generation sequencing (NGS) gene panel including 65 pre-diagnostic genes that were used in 12 patients who were negative to a diagnostic genetic test for male infertility disorders, including primary spermatogenic failure and central hypogonadism, consisting of 110 genes. Results: After NGS sequencing, variants in pre-diagnostic genes were identified in 10/12 patients who were negative to a diagnostic test for primary spermatogenic failure (n = 9) or central hypogonadism (n = 1) due to mutations of single genes. Two pathogenic variants of DNAH5 and CFTR genes and three uncertain significance variants of DNAI1, DNAH11, and CCDC40 genes were found. Moreover, three variants with high impact were found in AMELY, CATSPER 2, and ADCY10 genes. Conclusion: This study suggests that searching for pre-diagnostic genes may be of relevance to find the cause of infertility in patients with apparently idiopathic primary spermatogenic failure due to mutations of single genes and central hypogonadism

The role of mergers in driving morphological transformation over cosmic time

Accepted for publication in MNRASUnderstanding the processes that trigger morphological transformation is central to understanding how and why the Universe transitions from being disc-dominated at early epochs to having the morphological mix that is observed today. We use Horizon-AGN, a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, to perform a comprehensive study of the processes that drive morphological change in massive (M*/M ⊙ > 10 10) galaxies over cosmic time. We show that (1) essentially all the morphological evolution in galaxies that are spheroids at z = 0 is driven by mergers with mass ratios greater than 1: 10; (2) major mergers alone cannot produce today's spheroid population - minor mergers are responsible for a third of all morphological transformation over cosmic time and are its dominant driver after z ~ 1; (3) prograde mergers trigger milder morphological transformation than retrograde mergers - while both types of event produce similar morphological changes at z > 2, the average change due to retrograde mergers is around twice that due to their prograde counterparts at z ~ 0; (4) remnant morphology depends strongly on the gas fraction of a merger, with gas-rich mergers routinely re-growing discs; and (5) at a given stellar mass, discs do not exhibit drastically different merger histories from spheroids - disc survival in mergers is driven by acquisition of cold gas (via cosmological accretion and gas-rich interactions) and a preponderance of prograde mergers in their merger histories.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

NEAMTHM18

European-Union Civil Protection Mechanism, DG-ECHO, Agreement Number: ECHO/SUB/2015/718568/PREV26Published6T. Studi di pericolosità sismica e da maremoto1SR TERREMOTI - Sorveglianza Sismica e Allerta Tsunami2SR TERREMOTI - Gestione delle emergenze sismiche e da maremoto4IT. Banche dat

The making of the NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18)

The NEAM Tsunami Hazard Model 2018 (NEAMTHM18) is a probabilistic hazard model for tsunamis generated by earthquakes. It covers the coastlines of the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and connected seas (NEAM). NEAMTHM18 was designed as a three-phase project. The first two phases were dedicated to the model development and hazard calculations, following a formalized decision-making process based on a multiple-expert protocol. The third phase was dedicated to documentation and dissemination. The hazard assessment workflow was structured in Steps and Levels. There are four Steps: Step-1) probabilistic earthquake model; Step-2) tsunami generation and modeling in deep water; Step-3) shoaling and inundation; Step-4) hazard aggregation and uncertainty quantification. Each Step includes a different number of Levels. Level-0 always describes the input data; the other Levels describe the intermediate results needed to proceed from one Step to another. Alternative datasets and models were considered in the implementation. The epistemic hazard uncertainty was quantified through an ensemble modeling technique accounting for alternative models' weights and yielding a distribution of hazard curves represented by the mean and various percentiles. Hazard curves were calculated at 2,343 Points of Interest (POI) distributed at an average spacing of ∼20 km. Precalculated probability maps for five maximum inundation heights (MIH) and hazard intensity maps for five average return periods (ARP) were produced from hazard curves. In the entire NEAM Region, MIHs of several meters are rare but not impossible. Considering a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years (ARP≈2,475 years), the POIs with MIH >5 m are fewer than 1% and are all in the Mediterranean on Libya, Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece coasts. In the North-East Atlantic, POIs with MIH >3 m are on the coasts of Mauritania and Gulf of Cadiz. Overall, 30% of the POIs have MIH >1 m. NEAMTHM18 results and documentation are available through the TSUMAPS-NEAM project website (http://www.tsumaps-neam.eu/), featuring an interactive web mapper. Although the NEAMTHM18 cannot substitute in-depth analyses at local scales, it represents the first action to start local and more detailed hazard and risk assessments and contributes to designing evacuation maps for tsunami early warning

Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy and outcomes from SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients with cancer: a joint analysis of OnCovid and ESMO-CoCARE registries

BackgroundAs management and prevention strategies against COVID-19 evolve, it is still uncertain whether prior exposure to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) affects COVID-19 severity in patients with cancer.MethodsIn a joint analysis of ICI recipients from OnCovid (NCT04393974) and European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) CoCARE registries, we assessed severity and mortality from SARS-CoV-2 in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients with cancer and explored whether prior immune-related adverse events (irAEs) influenced outcome from COVID-19.FindingsThe study population consisted of 240 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between January 2020 and February 2022 exposed to ICI within 3 months prior to COVID-19 diagnosis, with a 30-day case fatality rate (CFR30) of 23.6% (95% CI 17.8 to 30.7%). Overall, 42 (17.5%) were fully vaccinated prior to COVID-19 and experienced decreased CFR30 (4.8% vs 28.1%, p=0.0009), hospitalization rate (27.5% vs 63.2%, p<0.0001), requirement of oxygen therapy (15.8% vs 41.5%, p=0.0030), COVID-19 complication rate (11.9% vs 34.6%, p=0.0040), with a reduced need for COVID-19-specific therapy (26.3% vs 57.9%, p=0.0004) compared with unvaccinated patients. Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW)-fitted multivariable analysis, following a clustered-robust correction for the data source (OnCovid vs ESMO CoCARE), confirmed that vaccinated patients experienced a decreased risk of death at 30 days (adjusted OR, aOR 0.08, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.69).Overall, 38 patients (15.8%) experienced at least one irAE of any grade at any time prior to COVID-19, at a median time of 3.2 months (range 0.13-48.7) from COVID-19 diagnosis. IrAEs occurred independently of baseline characteristics except for primary tumor (p=0.0373) and were associated with a significantly decreased CFR30 (10.8% vs 26.0%, p=0.0462) additionally confirmed by the IPTW-fitted multivariable analysis (aOR 0.47, 95% CI 0.33 to 0.67). Patients who experienced irAEs also presented a higher median absolute lymphocyte count at COVID-19 (1.4 vs 0.8 10(9) cells/L, p=0.0098).ConclusionAnti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccination reduces morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 in ICI recipients. History of irAEs might identify patients with pre-existing protection from COVID-19, warranting further investigation of adaptive immune determinants of protection from SARS-CoV-2

A review of elliptical and disc galaxy structure, and modern scaling laws

A century ago, in 1911 and 1913, Plummer and then Reynolds introduced their models to describe the radial distribution of stars in `nebulae'. This article reviews the progress since then, providing both an historical perspective and a contemporary review of the stellar structure of bulges, discs and elliptical galaxies. The quantification of galaxy nuclei, such as central mass deficits and excess nuclear light, plus the structure of dark matter halos and cD galaxy envelopes, are discussed. Issues pertaining to spiral galaxies including dust, bulge-to-disc ratios, bulgeless galaxies, bars and the identification of pseudobulges are also reviewed. An array of modern scaling relations involving sizes, luminosities, surface brightnesses and stellar concentrations are presented, many of which are shown to be curved. These 'redshift zero' relations not only quantify the behavior and nature of galaxies in the Universe today, but are the modern benchmark for evolutionary studies of galaxies, whether based on observations, N-body-simulations or semi-analytical modelling. For example, it is shown that some of the recently discovered compact elliptical galaxies at 1.5 < z < 2.5 may be the bulges of modern disc galaxies.Comment: Condensed version (due to Contract) of an invited review article to appear in "Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems"(www.springer.com/astronomy/book/978-90-481-8818-5). 500+ references incl. many somewhat forgotten, pioneer papers. Original submission to Springer: 07-June-201

Pancreatitis after percutaneous ethanol injection into HCC: a minireview of the literature

Deaths after percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) into hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) may occur within a few hours to a few days following the procedure because of hemoperitoneum and haemorrhage from oesophageal varices or hepatic insufficiency. Pancreatitis has been recently reported as a rare lethal complication of intra-arterial PEI, another modality for treating HCCs. In this minireview, we analyze the literature concerning the development of acute pancreatitis after PEI. Pathogenesis of pancreatitis from opioids and ethanol is also addressed. Treatment with opioids to reduce the patient's abdominal pain after PEI in combination with the PEI itself may lead to direct toxic effects, thus favouring the development of pancreatitis