Modulation of galactic protons in the heliosphere during the unusual solar minimum of 2006 to 2009

The last solar minimum activity period, and the consequent minimum modulation conditions for cosmic rays, was unusual. The highest levels of galactic protons were recorded at Earth in late 2009 in contrast to expectations. Proton spectra observed for 2006 to 2009 from the PAMELA cosmic ray detector on-board the Resurs-DK1 satellite are presented together with the solutions of a comprehensive numerical model for the solar modulation of cosmic rays. The model is used to determine what mechanisms were mainly responsible for the modulation of protons during this period, and why the observed spectrum for 2009 was the highest ever recorded. From mid-2006 until December 2009 we find that the spectra became significantly softer because increasingly more low energy protons had reached Earth. To simulate this effect, the rigidity dependence of the diffusion coefficients had to decrease significantly below ~3 GeV. The modulation minimum period of 2009 can thus be described as relatively more "diffusion dominated" than previous solar minima. However, we illustrate that drifts still had played a significant role but that the observable modulation effects were not as well correlated with the waviness of the heliospheric current sheet as before. Protons still experienced global gradient and curvature drifts as the heliospheric magnetic field had decreased significantly until the end of 2009, in contrast to the moderate decreases observed during previous minimum periods. We conclude that all modulation processes contributed to the observed increases in the proton spectra for this period, exhibiting an intriguing interplay of these major mechanisms

Editorial: Myokines, Adipokines, Cytokines in Muscle Pathophysiology.

[No abstract available

Editorial: myokines, adipokines, cytokines in muscle pathophysiology

Individual striated muscle fibers communicate in both a paracrine and endocrine fashion and are also involved in the crosstalk with other tissues and organs such as the adipose tissue, immune system, liver, pancreas, bones, and brain (Delezie andHandschin, 2018). The striatedmuscle, which accounts for 40% of bodymass, presents high biosynthetic activity, and extensive vascularization, features that endorse current thinking that muscle is the largest endocrine system of the body (Benatti and Pedersen, 2015). There are hundreds of muscle secretory products, collectively known as myokines, including proteins, miRNA, and exosomes (Barone et al., 2016). Muscle secretion is significantly affected by muscle contraction (Son et al., 2018) due to the activation of mechanotransduction pathways (Coletti et al., 2016a). It has been suggested that the adipose tissue is also an endocrine organ, producing adipokines- leptin, and other hormones, in addition to cytokines (Galic et al., 2010). The inflammatory infiltrate in fat depots affects the course of several diseases, including cancer (Batista et al., 2012; Sawicka and Krasowska, 2016; Neto et al., 2018; Opatrilova et al., 2018), and an extensive review on the role of adipokines in disease has been published elsewhere (Orzechowski et al., 2014). Myokines, adipokines, and cytokines are major therapeutic targets in both muscular and non-muscular diseases (Lindegaard et al., 2013;Manole et al., 2018), and understanding of their role in tissue crosstalk represents a subject of great interest in current biology.We have therefore chosen to address this paradigm within this Frontiers special issue on “Myokines, Adipokines, Cytokines in Muscle Pathophysiology.

Habitat Patch Diversity Evaluation for Sustainability: a Case Study of a Rural Area in Central Italy

Landscape analysis is regarded as a new tool for monitoring and judging land use patterns in terms of sustainability of human activity systems at local level. A case study of evaluation for sustainability based on habitat patch diversity in an ecoregion of Central Italy is presented. In this region, ongoing land use patterns reflect both historical adaptation to local environmental constraints and positive, social-oriented management. More protective land use patterns are mostly widespread in fragile physiographic conditions like those of the mountain areas, where woodland, shrub, and grassland patches are larger and cover more than 90% of the land. This situation is regarded as a positive outcome of the traditional public ownership regime, because public lands amount to more than 70% in the mountain areas. The hilly areas, where public property drops to 28%, presents landscape metrics showing a well balanced situation between agricultural land use and protective native woods and grasslands, which provides a fine-grained and harmonious Mediterranean landscape. In the low-land areas, with anthropic pressure and more favourable conditions for crop productivity, there is much more agricultural land, even if some mitigation in terms of biodiversity maintenance is offered by the presence of hedgerow ecotones. In these areas, landscape analysis is not able to supply meaningful information about cropping system design and practices which can maintain a sustainable level of soil fertility and quality of natural resources and processes, and further analysis at cropping system level should be carried out

Antioxidants in sport sarcopenia

The decline of skeletal muscle mass and strength that leads to sarcopenia is a pathology that might represent an emergency healthcare issue in future years. Decreased muscle mass is also a condition that mainly affects master athletes involved in endurance physical activities. Skeletal muscles respond to exercise by reshaping the biochemical, morphological, and physiological state of myofibrils. Adaptive responses involve the activation of intracellular signaling pathways and genetic reprogramming, causing alterations in contractile properties, metabolic status, and muscle mass. One of the mechanisms leading to sarcopenia is an increase in reactive oxygen and nitrogen species levels and a reduction in enzymatic antioxidant protection. The present review shows the recent experimental models of sarcopenia that explore molecular mechanisms. Furthermore, the clinical aspect of sport sarcopenia will be highlighted, and new strategies based on nutritional supplements, which may contribute to reducing indices of oxidative stress by reinforcing natural endogenous protection, will be suggested

Quantitative Storytelling: Science, Narratives, and Uncertainty in Nexus Innovations

Innovations are central instruments of sustainability policies. They project future visions onto technological solutions and enable win-win framings of complex sustainability issues. Yet, they also create new problems by interconnecting different resources such as water, food, and energy, what is known as the â WEF nexus.â In this paper, we apply a new approach called Quantitative Storytelling (QST) to the assessment of four innovations with a strong nexus component in EU policy: biofuels, shale gas, electric vehicles, and alternative water resources. Recognizing irreducible pluralism and uncertainties, QST inspects the relationships between the narratives used to frame sustainability issues and the evidence on those issues. Our experiences outlined two rationales for implementing QST. First, QST can be used to question dominant narratives that promote certain innovations despite evidence against their effectiveness. Second, QST can offer avenues for pluralistic processes of co-creation of alternative narratives and imaginaries. We reflect on the implementation of QST and on the role played by different uncertainties throughout these processes. Our experiences suggest that while the role of nexus assessments using both numbers and narratives may not be instrumental in directly inducing policy change, they are valuable means to open discussions on innovations outside of dominant nexus imaginaries. © The Author(s) 2021.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been funded by the European Union’s H2020 project MAGIC: Moving towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity (MAGIC GA No. 689669); European Union’s FP7 project IANEX: Integrated Assessment of the Nexus: The Case of Hydraulic Fracturing, Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship GA No. 623593; and Spanish Ministry of Science’s Juan de la Cierva Fellowship (IJC2019-038847-I/AEI/10.13039/501100011033)

Cancer‐Related Cachexia: The Vicious Circle between Inflammatory Cytokines, Skeletal Muscle, Lipid Metabolism and the Possible Role of Physical Training

Cachexia is a multifactorial and multi‐organ syndrome that is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in late‐stage chronic diseases. The main clinical features of cancer‐related cachexia are chronic inflammation, wasting of skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, insulin resistance, anorexia, and impaired myogenesis. A multimodal treatment has been suggested to approach the multifactorial genesis of cachexia. In this context, physical exercise has been found to have a general effect on maintaining homeostasis in a healthy life, involving multiple organs and their metabolism. The purpose of this review is to present the evidence for the relationship between inflammatory cytokines, skeletal muscle, and fat metabolism and the potential role of exercise training in breaking the vicious circle of this impaired tissue cross‐talk. Due to the wide‐ranging effects of exercise training, from the body to the behavior and cognition of the individual, it seems to be able to improve the quality of life in this syndrome. Therefore, studying the molecular effects of physical exercise could provide important information about the interactions between organs and the systemic mediators involved in the overall homeostasis of the body

Function and fiber-type specific distribution of hsp60 and αb-crystallin in skeletal muscles: Role of physical exercise

Skeletal muscle is a plastic and complex tissue, rich in proteins that are subject to continuous rearrangements. Skeletal muscle homeostasis can be affected by different types of stresses, including physical activity, a physiological stressor able to stimulate a robust increase in different heat shock proteins (HSPs). The modulation of these proteins appears to be fundamental in facili-tating the cellular remodeling processes related to the phenomenon of training adaptations such as hypertrophy, increased oxidative capacity, and mitochondrial activity. Among the HSPs, a special attention needs to be devoted to Hsp60 and αB-crystallin (CRYAB), proteins constitutively expressed in the skeletal muscle, where their specific features could be highly relevant in understanding the impact of different volumes of training regimes on myofiber types and in explaining the complex picture of exercise-induced mechanical strain and damaging conditions on fiber pop-ulation. This knowledge could lead to a better personalization of training protocols with an opti-mal non-harmful workload in populations of individuals with different needs and healthy status. Here, we introduce for the first time to the reader these peculiar HSPs from the perspective of exercise response, highlighting the control of their expression, biological function, and specific distribution within skeletal muscle fiber-types