Endothelin-dependent vasoconstrictor activity in metabolically healthy and unhealthy obese patients

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The influence of emotional picture thematic content on exploratory eye movements

In picture viewing, emotional vs. neutral stimuli could play a different role in eye movement parameters and in the spatial progression of the scanpath. The aim of this paper is to investigate exploratory behaviour of normal subjects during the vision of emotional vs. non-emotional stimuli, by considering to what extent the thematic content (animate vs. inanimate) is likely to influence the observer’s eye movements. Sixty-five subjects’ eye movement patterns were measured while looking to emotional (pleasant and unpleasant) and neutral pictures depicting animate or inanimate contents. Results showed that the number of fixations and the gaze duration were greater for emotional pictures than for neutral ones, and animate pictures were fixated longer than inanimate ones. Both emotional and animate pictures may affect eye movements and constitute privileged stimuli of adaptive behavioural tendencies

Parent Training Interventions for Children and Adolescents with Aggressive Behavioral Problems

Children who display early disruptive and aggressive behavior are also at greater risk for delinquency, mood and anxiety disorders, and substance use in the long term. As is the case for many forms of childhood psychopathology, a number of factors are associated with the emergence of aggressive and disruptive behavior, including family factors. Indeed, conduct problems during childhood are usually associated with peculiar parenting practices, such as increasingly coercive cycles of harsh parenting and noncompliance exhibited by child; insensitive and nonresponsive parenting; inconsistent, severe discipline and vague commands and directions; lack of parental warmth and involvement; and absence of parental monitoring and supervision. That is why behavioral parent trainings (BPTs) represent one of the gold standard interventions for conduct problems. The main goal of BPT is to decrease coercive interchanges and, consequently, children aggressive problems by teaching parents strategies in order to apply a more effective discipline. Therefore, the putative mechanism for change in youth behavior in BPT is change in parent behavior. Some of the most employed parent training interventions for aggressive behavior problems are presented

Environmental assessment of antimicrobial coatings for packaged fresh milk

Antimicrobial coatings are being increasingly used as a means to extend the shelf life of food products. This extension helps consumers cut down on the food waste generated at household level, while at the same time reducing the impact, which these products' life cycle has on the environment. The aim of this Life Cycle Assessment study is thus to assess the consequences on the environment arising from the application of an antimicrobial coating onto the packaging of a fresh milk product, while also taking into account the reduction in milk waste. The antimicrobial coating considered is a synthetic derivative of lauric acid. The application of the coating involves additional environmental impacts caused by all the inputs and outputs which occur during its life cycle. At the same time, however, the use of this coating allows to extend the fresh milk's shelf life with a consequent reduction in food waste. The data related to the production and application of the coating were provided by the packaging laboratory of the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology (Valencia) and by manufacturing companies. The data related to food waste, milk processing, refrigeration transports, storage, and end of life of both product and packaging were obtained from previous studies, institutional reports and Ecoinvent database v2.2. The Midpoint Impact 2002 method was used to assess impacts. The results show how the reduction in milk waste achievable by using the coating generates higher environmental benefits than the impacts caused by the coating's life cycle due to milk saving. Furthermore this study demonstrates the importance of including food waste in Life Cycle Assessment studies of packaging systems. The connection between packaging design and food waste is a decisive aspect in the evaluation of actual environmental sustainability and should thus be considered in all assessments of packaging solutions. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Manfredi, M.; Fantin, V.; Vignali, G.; Gavara Clemente, R. (2015). Environmental assessment of antimicrobial coatings for packaged fresh milk. Journal of Cleaner Production. 95:291-300. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.02.0482913009

Using altmetrics for detecting impactful research in quasi-zero-day time-windows: the case of COVID-19

On December 31st 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology detected in Wuhan City. The cause of the syndrome was a new type of coronavirus isolated on January 7th 2020 and named Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoronaVirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Since January 2020 an ever increasing number of scientific works have appeared in literature. Identifying relevant research outcomes at very early stages is challenging. In this work we use COVID-19 as a use-case for investigating: (i) which tools and frameworks are mostly used for early scholarly communication; (ii) to what extent altmetrics can be used to identify potential impactful research in tight (i.e. quasi-zero-day) time-windows. A literature review with rigorous eligibility criteria is performed for gathering a sample composed of scientific papers about SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 appeared in literature in the tight time-window ranging from January 15th 2020 to February 24th 2020. This sample is used for building a knowledge graph that represents the knowledge about papers and indicators formally. This knowledge graph feeds a data analysis process which is applied for experimenting with altmetrics as impact indicators. We find moderate correlation among traditional citation count, citations on social media, and mentions on news and blogs. This suggests there is a common intended meaning of the citational acts associated with aforementioned indicators. Additionally, we define a method that harmonises different indicators for providing a multi-dimensional impact indicator.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, 4 table

Differences in the vascular and metabolic profiles between metabolically healthy and unhealthy obesity

Abstract Individuals suffering from severe obesity but not presenting the typical metabolic alterations, are included in a subclass of obesity defined Metabolically Healthy Obesity (MHO). The physiological factors underlying what seems a protective and favourable metabolic profile remain unclear. MHO individuals are more insulin-sensitive, have relatively lower visceral/ectopic fat accumulation and reduced levels of chronic low-grade inflammation, compared to obese subjects with co-morbidities. The study of MHO subjects represents a great opportunity for the recognition of the mechanisms that lead to the vascular and metabolic complications in obesity. Finding the differences among the metabolic profile of visceral adipose tissue between metabolically healthy and unhealthy obesity may lead to future personalized and stratified therapies.This review article summarizes the pathomechanisms and metabolic changes in MHO and metabolically unhealthy obesity (MUO), reviews clinical studies on the subject, and discusses preventive and therapeutic options