Exploring the potential of coworking spaces for quality of working life and wellbeing: A systematic review of academic literature

Coworking spaces (CSs) have gained significant attention in the last decades as an alternative to traditional offices and homes. These spaces offer a flexible and collaborative environment that caters to the needs of freelancers, entrepreneurs, and remote workers. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review academic literature to investigate how CSs contribute to workers' quality of working life (QWL) and wellbeing. Literature is analysed thematically following the QWL framework proposed by Walton (1973). The findings of this review suggest that CSs may act as a quasi-organisation by emulating the role traditionally undertaken by employers contributing to different aspects of workers’ QWL, which ultimately affect their wellbeing. CSs’ contribution largely depends on the different material features of the spaces, the services offered, the work culture promoted, the curation activity of the host, the coworking members, and the complex interrelation among all these elements. In the conclusive section, the review identifies potential research gaps and areas for future research in this field.publicad

The (r)evolution of cancer genetics

The identification of an increasing number of cancer genes is opening up unexpected scenarios in cancer genetics. When analyzed for their systemic properties, these genes show a general fragility towards perturbation. A recent paper published in BMC Biology shows how the founder domains of known cancer genes emerged at two macroevolutionary transitions - the advent of the first cell and the transition to metazoan multicellularity

FancyGene: dynamic visualization of gene structures and protein domain architectures on genomic loci

Summary: FancyGene is a fast and user-friendly web-based tool for producing images of one or more genes directly on the corresponding genomic locus. Starting from a variety of input formats, FancyGene rebuilds the basic components of a gene (UTRs, intron, exons). Once the initial representation is obtained, the user can superimpose additional features—such as protein domains and/or a variety of biological markers—in specific positions. FancyGene is extremely flexible allowing the user to change the resulting image dynamically, modifying colors and shapes and adding and/or removing objects. The output images are generated either in portable network graphics (PNG) or portable document format (PDF) formats and can be used for scientific presentations as well as for publications. The PDF format preserves editing capabilities, allowing picture modification using any vector graphics editor

The PAM domain, a multi-protein complex-associated module with an all-alpha-helix fold

BACKGROUND: Multimeric protein complexes have a role in many cellular pathways and are highly interconnected with various other proteins. The characterization of their domain composition and organization provides useful information on the specific role of each region of their sequence. RESULTS: We identified a new module, the PAM domain (PCI/PINT associated module), present in single subunits of well characterized multiprotein complexes, like the regulatory lid of the 26S proteasome, the COP-9 signalosome and the Sac3-Thp1 complex. This module is an around 200 residue long domain with a predicted TPR-like all-alpha-helical fold. CONCLUSIONS: The occurrence of the PAM domain in specific subunits of multimeric protein complexes, together with the role of other all-alpha-helical folds in protein-protein interactions, suggest a function for this domain in mediating transient binding to diverse target proteins

Exploring the potential of coworking spaces for quality of working life and wellbeing: a systematic review of academic literature

Coworking spaces (CSs) have gained significant attention in the last decades as an alternative to traditional offices and homes. These spaces offer a flexible and collaborative environment that caters to the needs of freelancers, entrepreneurs, and remote workers. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review academic literature to investigate how CSs contribute to workers' quality of working life (QWL) and wellbeing. Literature is analysed thematically following the QWL framework proposed by Walton (1973). The findings of this review suggest that CSs may act as a quasi-organisation by emulating the role traditionally undertaken by employers contributing to different aspects of workers’ QWL, which ultimately affect their wellbeing. CSs’ contribution largely depends on the different material features of the spaces, the services offered, the work culture promoted, the curation activity of the host, the coworking members, and the complex interrelation among all these elements. In the conclusive section, the review identifies potential research gaps and areas for future research in this field

The contribution of experimental archaeology in addressing the analysis of residues on spindle-whorls

This contribution focuses on residues developing on spindle-whorls during spinning. Such a kind of tools is largely diffused in archaeological contexts where spindle-whorls were used in textile activities or deposited in burials as grave goods. Scholars recently approached the analysis of these objects through experimental archaeology to better understand their wide variation in size and shape especially in relationship with the adoption of specific spinning techniques or the quality of the fibres processed for producing different kinds of yarn. The method presented here highlights the contribution of controlled experiments to identify and to study the formation of organic deposits on spindle-whorls after repeated and intentional use. Moreover, this article provides a preliminary reference collection of experimental residues combining different techniques of observation and different magnifications (Optical Light Microscopes - OLM and Scanning Electron Microscope - SEM) on ceramic replicas to address the residues investigation on textile tools in archaeological contexts

Pan-cancer detection of driver genes at the single-patient resolution

BACKGROUND: Identifying the complete repertoire of genes that drive cancer in individual patients is crucial for precision oncology. Most established methods identify driver genes that are recurrently altered across patient cohorts. However, mapping these genes back to patients leaves a sizeable fraction with few or no drivers, hindering our understanding of cancer mechanisms and limiting the choice of therapeutic interventions. RESULTS: We present sysSVM2, a machine learning software that integrates cancer genetic alterations with gene systems-level properties to predict drivers in individual patients. Using simulated pan-cancer data, we optimise sysSVM2 for application to any cancer type. We benchmark its performance on real cancer data and validate its applicability to a rare cancer type with few known driver genes. We show that drivers predicted by sysSVM2 have a low false-positive rate, are stable and disrupt well-known cancer-related pathways. CONCLUSIONS: sysSVM2 can be used to identify driver alterations in patients lacking sufficient canonical drivers or belonging to rare cancer types for which assembling a large enough cohort is challenging, furthering the goals of precision oncology. As resources for the community, we provide the code to implement sysSVM2 and the pre-trained models in all TCGA cancer types ( https://github.com/ciccalab/sysSVM2 )

To Chase or not to Chase: A Study on the Role of Mentalization and Alcohol Consumption in Chasing Behavior

Background and aims: Chasing is a behavioral marker and a diagnostic criterion for gambling disorder. Although chasing has been recognized to play a central role in gambling disorder, research on this topic is relatively scarce. This study investigated the association between chasing, alcohol consumption, and mentalization among habitual gamblers. Method: A total of 132 adults took part in the study. Participants were administered the South Oaks Gambling Screen, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire, and a laboratory task assessing chasing behavior. Participants were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions (Control, Loss, and Win). To deeply investigate chasing behavior, participants were requested to indicate the reasons for stopping or continuing playing at the end of the experimental session. Results: Logistic regression analysis showed that the choice to stop or continue playing depended on experimental condition and alcohol use. Hierarchical linear regression indicated that chasing propensity was affected by experimental condition, alcohol consumption, and deficit in mentalization. The results of path analysis showed that hypermentalizing predicts chasing not only directly, but also indirectly via alcohol consumption. Conclusions: Overall, these results for the first time showed that hypermentalization plays a key role in chasing behavior over and above gambling severity. Since these findings support the idea that chasers and non-chasers are different subtypes of gamblers, clinical interventions should consider the additive role of chasing in gambling disorder

HDAC inhibition is associated to valproic acid induction of early megakaryocytic markers

Valproic acid (VPA), a histone deacetylase inhibitor, causes differentiation in different cell lines and in a cell-specific manner; yet, its effect on megakaryocytic (MK) differentiation has not been studied. We evaluated whether VPA induces MK differentiation in a UT-7 cell line through histone acetylation in the GpIIIa gene region and activation of the ERK pathway. UT-7 cells, derived from megakaryoblastic leukemia, were treated with VPA at various concentrations, and the expression of differentiation markers as well as the gene expression profile was assessed. Flow cytometry, immunoblot analysis, and RT-PCR demonstrated that VPA induced the expression of the early MK markers GpIIIa (CD61) and GpIIb/IIIa (CD41) in a dose-dependent manner. The VPA-treated cells showed hyperacetylation of the histones H3 and H4; in particular, histone acetylation was found to have been associated with CD61 expression, in that the GpIIIa promoter showed H4 hyperacetylation, as demonstrated by the chromatin immunoprecipitation assay. Furthermore, activation of the ERK pathway was involved in VPA-mediated CD61/CD41 expression and in cell adhesion, as demonstrated by using the MEK/ERK inhibitor U0126. In conclusion, the capacity of VPA to commit UT-7 cells to MK differentiation is mediated by its inhibitory action on HDAC and the long-lived activation of ERK1/2

Key role of MEK/ERK pathway in sustaining tumorigenicity and in vitro radioresistance of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma stem-like cell population

The identification of signaling pathways that affect the cancer stem-like phenotype may provide insights into therapeutic targets for combating embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the MEK/ERK pathway in controlling the cancer stem-like phenotype using a model of rhabdospheres derived from the embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma cell line (RD)