One special question to start with: can HIF/NFkB be a target in inflammation?

Hypoxia and Inflammation are strictly interconnected with important consequences at clinical and therapeutic level. While cell and tissue damage due to acute hypoxia mostly leads to cell necrosis, in chronic hypoxia, cells that are located closer to vessels are able to survive adapting their phenotype through the expression of a number of genes, including proinflammatory receptors for alarmins. These receptors are activated by alarmins released by necrotic cells and generate signals for master transcription factors such as NFkB, AP1, etc. which control hundreds of genes for innate immunity and damage repair. Clinical consequences of chronic inflammatory reparative response activation include cell and tissue remodeling, damage in the primary site and, the systemic involvement of distant organs and tissues. Thus every time a tissue environment becomes stably hypoxic, inflammation can be activated followed by chronic damage and cell death or repair with vessel proliferation and fibrosis. This pathway can occur in cancer, myocardial infarction and stroke, diabetes, obesity, neurodegenerative diseases, chronic and autoimmune diseases and age-related diseases. Interestingly, proinflammatory gene expression can be observed earlier in hypoxic tissue cells and, in addition, in activated resident or recruited leukocytes. Herewith, the reciprocal relationships between hypoxia and inflammation will be shortly reviewed to underline the possible therapeutic targets to control hypoxia-related inflammation in a number of epidemiologically important human diseases and conditions

Il quadro concettuale e le esperienze di misurazione delle Smart Cities

The concept of Smart City is considered increasingly strategic for the solution to the questions related to the irreversible urban agglomeration growth. Created in the nineties in parallel to the liberalisation process of telecommunications and the development of internet services, this expression risks remaining too generic and without a shared operational definition. This paper contribute to the existing literature in two ways: i) providing an overall survey of the definition and measurement problems; ii) deriving some methodological suggestions from the analysis, in order to proceed towards a robust and comparable Smart City measurement system. The latter results extremely relevant in the perspective of a dedicated monitoring system implementatio

Smart city: fact and fiction

Transforming a city into a Smart City is a complex and multidimensional process which changes over time since all the involved stakeholders work to achieve more and better results. “To be smart” affects many aspects of a city including economics, government, people, living, mobility, environment, energy and services. This paper aims at critically analysing the main features related to smart cities such as terminological issues, the heterogeneous theoretical background and the methodological limits of the few existing measurement experiences

Smart city: fact and fiction

Transforming a city into a Smart City is a complex and multidimensional process which changes over time since all the involved stakeholders work to achieve more and better results. “To be smart” affects many aspects of a city including economics, government, people, living, mobility, environment, energy and services. This paper aims at critically analysing the main features related to smart cities such as terminological issues, the heterogeneous theoretical background and the methodological limits of the few existing measurement experiences

Il quadro concettuale e le esperienze di misurazione delle Smart Cities

The concept of Smart City is considered increasingly strategic for the solution to the questions related to the irreversible urban agglomeration growth. Created in the nineties in parallel to the liberalisation process of telecommunications and the development of internet services, this expression risks remaining too generic and without a shared operational definition. This paper contribute to the existing literature in two ways: i) providing an overall survey of the definition and measurement problems; ii) deriving some methodological suggestions from the analysis, in order to proceed towards a robust and comparable Smart City measurement system. The latter results extremely relevant in the perspective of a dedicated monitoring system implementatio

Comparison of the neuron body number of areas brain cortex of dogs

Foram utilizados 10 encéfalos de cães sem raça definida, 5 machos e 5 fêmeas, com peso entre 8-12 kg, com características constitucionais do crânio semelhantes (mesaquicéfalos). Dos encéfalos foram retirados fragmentos das diferentes áreas cerebrais, que foram preparados segundo técnica histológica convencional e corados por violeta cresil modificada, para evidenciação dos corpos de neurônios. Através da análise morfométrica, foram buscados dados comparativos, principalmente entre as diferentes áreas cerebrais; hemisférios cerebrais direito e esquerdo e entre os sexos, para o conhecimento do comportamento e da quantidade de corpos de neurônios. As lâminas foram analisadas com auxílio do Axioscópio Zeiss® acoplado ao programa de análise de imagens KS-400 Zeiss®. Os resultados encontrados foram que os machos apresentam maior quantidade de corpos de neurônios no hemisfério cerebral direito (16,71). Já nas fêmeas as proporções foram inversas, apresentando maior quantidade de neurônios no hemisfério cerebral esquerdo (17,46), quando comparados as diferentes áreas cerebrais. Os cães apresentaram maiores quantidades de corpos de neurônios na área visual (19,77), seguida da comportamental ou límbica (18,37) e entre as outras áreas cerebrais não verificou-se diferenças significativas.For this study, 10 brain of mongrel dogs, 5 males and 5 females, weighing between 8-12 Kg, with constitutionalist characteristics of cranium similar (mesaquicefalus), were collected. They were prepared according to conventional histological technique and stained by modified violet cresil, for becoming evident the neurons bodies. Through the morphometric analysis, comparative data were reached, mainly between the different bodies areas; brain right and left hemisphere and between the sex, for the knowledge of the arrangement and the quantity of the neuron bodies. The slides were analyzed with the aid of Axioscópio Zeiss®. The results showed that males had major quantity of the neuron bodies in brain right hemisphere (16,71). Once in females the rate were contrary, showing major quantity of neuron bodies in brain left hemisphere (17,46), when compared the different brain areas. The dogs showed major quantity of the neuron bodies in the visual area (19,77), following by the comportamental or limbic area (18,37) and between others areas did not show significant difference

No evidence of colonization with community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in HIV-1-infected men who have sex with men.

SUMMARYTo assess the prevalence of community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) colonization in HIV-1-infected men who have sex with men (MSM), a cross-sectional study was conducted on 104 persons attending a large STI/HIV unit in Rome, Italy in the period June 2007–June 2008. Swabs obtained from both anterior nares and S. aureus isolates were characterized by phenotypic and genotypic methods. A total of 24 individuals (23·1%) were colonized with S. aureus but none carried MRSA. No statistically significant association between colonization with S. aureus and behavioural, clinical, virological or immunological characteristics was identified. This study indicates a lack of circulation of CA-MRSA in HIV-1-infected MSM in Italy and underscores large epidemiological differences between the USA and a European country, so that only locally conducted epidemiological studies can provide insight into the local circulation of CA-MRSA in general and selected populations