Cyber-physical systems in manufacturing: Future trends and research priorities

In the last decades, the manufacturing ecosystem witnessed an unprecedented evolution of disruptive technologies forging new opportunities for manufacturing companies to cope the ever-growing market pressure. Moreover, the race to create value for the customers has been hindered by several issues that both small and large companies have been facing, such as shorter product life cycles, rapid time-to-market, product complexity, cost pressure, increased international competition, etc. In this scenario, ICT represent a crucial enabler for preserving competitiveness and fostering industry innovation. In particular, among these technologies, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is growing an ever-high interest of industry stakeholders, researchers, practitioners and policy makers as they are considered the key technology that will transform manufacturing industry to the next generation. Indeed, CPS is a breakthrough research area for ICT in manufacturing and represents the cornerstone for achieving the EU2020 "smart everywhere" vision. At this early development phase, there is the urgent need to set the ground for future research streams, create a common understanding and consensus, define viable migration paths and support standards definition. This paper describes the identified research challenges and the future trends that will drive to the adoption of CPS in manufacturing. The main evidences on researches challenges expected for CPS in manufacturing are outlined by the authors that have been involved in the sCorPiuS project 'European Roadmap for Cyber- Physical Systems in Manufacturing', promoted by the European Commission to define a roadmap for future CPS in manufacturing adoption research agenda

Gap analysis on Research and Innovation for Cyber-Physical Systems in Manufacturing

In defining the Roadmap of the Research Priorities for the adoption of CPS in manufacturing industry, it is crucial to identify the key elements preventing a fast and smooth transition from the current status to the desired one. In such complex environments characterized by many industrial sectors and processes, external factors and social/economical influences, it is important to address only the main issues to achieve the result. This paper is aiming to illustrate the results of the Gap Analysis activities carried out in the sCorPiuS (http://scorpius-project.eu/) project

Building a neurocognitive profile of suicidal risk in severe mental disorders

Background Research on the influence of neurocognitive factors on suicide risk, regardless of the diagnosis, is inconsistent. Recently, suicide risk studies propose applying a trans-diagnostic framework in line with the launch of the Research Domain Criteria Cognitive Systems model. In the present study, we highlight the extent of cognitive impairment using a standardized battery in a psychiatric sample stratified for different degrees of suicidal risk. We also differentiate in our sample various neurocognitive profiles associated with different levels of risk. Materials and methods We divided a sample of 106 subjects into three groups stratified by suicide risk level: Suicide Attempt (SA), Suicidal Ideation (SI), Patient Controls (PC) and Healthy Controls (HC). We conducted a multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) for each cognitive domain measured through the standardized battery MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB). Results We found that the group of patients performed worse than the group of healthy controls on most domains; social cognition was impaired in the suicide risk groups compared both to HC and PC. Patients in the SA group performed worse than those in the SI group. Conclusion Social cognition impairment may play a crucial role in suicidality among individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness as it is involved in both SI and SA; noteworthy, it is more compromised in the SA group fitting as a marker of risk severity

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Is Associated with Altered Neuropsychological Performance in Young Adults

Subjects with ischemic lesions have an increased risk of dementia. In addition, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular cognitive impairment share many risk factors. These observations suggest that different diseases that cause altered blood perfusion of the brain or hypoxia promote AD neurodegeneration. In this case-control, cross-sectional study, we sought to test the hypothesis that hypoxia facilitates cognitive decline. We looked for altered neuropsychological performance in subjects with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) without apparent cardio- or cerebrovascular diseases or risk factors for atherosclerosis. A selected, homogeneous group of workers from two ceramic factories in a small town of central Italy was enrolled in this study. The COPD patients had a slightly, but significantly worse performance than controls in a number of neuropsychological tests. The findings are consistent with the working hypothesis that chronic hypoxia facilitates cognitive decline

A Novel Monoclonal Antibody Targeting a Large Surface of the Receptor Binding Motif Shows Pan-neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 Activity Including BQ.1.1 Variant

In the present study we report the functional and structural characterization of 17T2, a new highly potent pan-neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 human monoclonal antibody (mAb) isolated from a convalescent COVID-19 individual infected during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. 17T2 is a class 1 VH1-58/κ3-20 antibody, derived from a receptor binding domain (RBD)-specific IgA memory B cell and developed as a human recombinant IgG1. Functional characterization revealed that 17T2 mAb has a high and exceptionally broad neutralizing activity against all SARS-CoV-2 spike variants tested, including BQ.1.1. Moreover, 17T2 mAb has in vivo prophylactic activity against Omicron BA.1.1 infection in K18-hACE2 transgenic mice. 3D reconstruction from cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) showed that 17T2 binds the Omicron BA.1 spike protein with the RBD domains in up position and recognizes an epitope overlapping with the receptor binding motif, as it is the case for other structurally similar neutralizing mAbs, including S2E12. Yet, unlike S2E12, 17T2 retains its high neutralizing activity against all Omicron sublineages tested, probably due to a larger contact area with the RBD, which could confer a higher resilience to spike mutations. These results highlight the impact of small structural antibody changes on neutralizing performance and identify 17T2 mAb as a potential candidate for future therapeutic and prophylactic interventions.We acknowledge access to the cryo-EM CNB-CSIC facility in the context of the CRIOMECORR project (ESFRI-2019-01-CSIC-16) and we thank the staff of the Protein Technology Unity (CRG) for the help in protein production. This study was supported by the COVID-19 call grant from Generalitat de Catalunya, Department of Health (to GM), grant Miguel Servet research program (to GM), and partially funded by the crowdfunding initiative #joemcorono and the Fundació Glòria Soler (to JB). A.P-G. was supported by a predoctoral grant from Generalitat de Catalunya and Fons Social Europeu (2022 FI_B 00698).N

Overview of Direct and Indirect Effects of Antibiotics on Terrestrial Organisms

Antibiotics (ABs) have made it possible to treat bacterial infections, which were in the past untreatable and consequently fatal. Regrettably, their use and abuse among humans and livestock led to antibiotic resistance, which has made them ineffective in many cases. The spread of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and bacteria is not limited to nosocomial environments, but also involves water and soil ecosystems. The environmental presence of ABs and ARGs is a hot topic, and their direct and indirect effects, are still not well known or clarified. A particular concern is the presence of antibiotics in agroecosystems due to the application of agro-zootechnical waste (e.g., manure and biosolids), which can introduce antibiotic residues and ARGs to soils. This review provides an insight of recent findings of AB direct and indirect effects on terrestrial organisms, focusing on plant and invertebrates. Possible changing in viability and organism growth, AB bioaccumulation, and shifts in associated microbiome composition are reported. Oxidative stress responses of plants (such as reactive oxygen species production) to antibiotics are also described

A case of rapid conversion to psychosis of delusional misidentification associated with derealisation, verbal memory impairment and FDG-PET imaging abnormalities

The delusional misidentification syndromes, occurring within the context of different nosological settings, such as schizophrenia, are psychopathological phenomena related to the experience of depersonalisation/derealisation. Extensive research indicates that individuals meeting specific "prodromal" criteria, such as attenuated psychotic symptoms, brief intermittent psychotic symptoms, or functional decline and family history of schizophrenia have increased risk for impending psychosis. Despite depersonalisation and/or derealisation often precede psychotic onset, they are not included among the prodromal criteria of the Australian-American approach. A 17-year-old boy with acute agitation, violent behaviour and aggression, and dissociative amnesia had a mild verbal memory impairment and temporo-limbic hypometabolism on the positron-emission tomography. The patient was assessed with both the ultra-high risk (UHR) and the basic symptom approaches and was not found to be prodromal with imminent risk of transition to psychosis. He was hospitalised briefly and 2 weeks after discharge he developed delusional misidentification. This case shows that even the integration of both UHR and basic symptoms criteria may give false negatives in the prediction of psychosis, especially in those cases in which a long prodromal phase is absent. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Diastereoselective Fragmentation of Chiral alfa-Aminophosphonic Acids/Metal Ion Aggregates

Diastereomeric clusters [MAB2]+ and [MA2B]+ (M = Li(I), Na(I), Ag(I), Ni(II)-H, or Cu(II)-H; A = (R)-(-)- and (S)-(+)-(1-aminopropyl)phosphonic acid; B = (1R)-(-)- and (1S)-(+)-(1-aminohexyl)phosphonic acid) were readily generated in the electrospray ionization (ESI) source of a triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer and their collision-induced dissocn. (CID) studied. CID of diastereomeric complexes, e.g. [MAS(BS)2]+ and [MAR(BS)2]+, leads to fragmentation patterns characterized by Rhomo = [MASBS]+/[M(BS)2]+ and Rhetero = [MARBS]+/[M(BS)2]+ abundance ratios, which depend upon the relative stability of the diastereomeric [MASBS]+ and [MARBS]+ complexes in the gas phase. The chiral resoln. factor Rchiral = Rhomo/Rhetero depends not only on the nature of the M ion but also on that of the fragmenting species, whether [MAB2]+ or [MA2B]+. The origin of this behavior is discussed