Lichen and lichenicolous fungal communities tested as suitable systems for the application of cross-taxon analysis

Lichens are outstanding examples of fungal symbioses, forming long-lived structures, the lichen thalli in which a multiplicity of other microorganisms are hosted. Among these, microfungi seem to establish diverse trophic relationships with their lichen hosts. The most specialised of these fungi are the parasitic lichenicolous fungi. of which the diversity has hardly been explained as a proxy for the diversity of lichen species. Here, we used an exemplar dataset of a well-studied alpine lichen community composed of 63 lichen and 41 lichenicolous fungal species and tested it to verify the strength of the co-occurrences of the two species groups with predictive co-correspondence analyses. The results showed that the distribution of lichen abundances affect the abundance and variation of lichenicolous fungi and support our hypothesis to use lichens as surrogate for lichenicolous fungi in the surrogacy analysis

Genome-wide expression profiling of the response to short-term exposure to fluconazole in Cryptococcus neoformans serotype A

Fluconazole (FLC), a triazole antifungal drug, is widely used for the maintenance therapy of cryptococcal meningoencephalitis, the most common opportunistic infection in AIDS patients. In this study, we examined changes in the gene expression profile of the C. neoformans reference strain H99 (serotype A) following FLC treatment in order to investigate the adaptive cellular responses to drug stress

Double Tracheoesophageal Fistula and Azygos Lobe

n/

health related quality of life in myotonic dystrophy type 1 and its relationship with cognitive and emotional functioning

Objective: To evaluate the health-related quality of life in myotonic dystrophy type 1 and its relationships with clinical, genetic, neuropsychological and emotional factors. Design: Case-control study of a continuous series of patients with myotonic dystrophy type 1. Patients and methods: Twenty patients, and 20 age-, sex- and education-matched healthy controls underwent the MOS 36Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), an extensive neuropsychological battery and emotional functioning tests. Results: Patients' SF-36 mean scores were lower than those of controls in all dimensions. The neuropsychological study showed a significant impairment in visuospatial and verba

Intrabone transplant provides full stemness of cord blood stem cells with fast hematopoietic recovery and low GVHD rate: results from a prospective study

Umbilical Cord Blood (UCB) represents a valid option for patients with hematopoietic malignancies lacking an HLA matched donor. To overcome the limitation of the low stem cell dose of UCB, the intrabone (IB) route has been proposed. We report the results of a prospective study on a poor-prognosis cohort of 23 patients receiving intrabone single UCB transplant (Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00886522). Cumulative incidence of hematological recovery at day 90 was 82 ± 9% (ANC > 0.5 × 109/L) and 70 ± 10% (platelet > 50 × 109/L) and correlated with CD34 + cells in the graft. NRM was 20 ±  9%. No severe aGVHD and only one extensive cGVHD occurred, with fast immune reconstitution. To test the hypothesis that the direct IB injection could affect the expression of stem cells regulatory pathways, CD34 + cells from BM aspirates at day + 10, + 20, + 30, processed in hypoxic conditions mimicking the BM-microenvironment (7%pO2), were studied for the expression of c-Mpl, Notch1 and CXCR4. We found that the expression of c-Mpl in CD34 + cells at day + 10 significantly correlated with hematological recovery. In conclusion, IB-UCB transplant success is associated with low incidence of GVHD and high-speed platelet recovery; intrabone route may preserve full hematopoietic stemness by direct delivery of UCB stem cells into the hypoxic HSC niche

Different fetal-neonatal outcomes in siblings born to a mother with Graves-Basedow disease after total thyroidectomy: a case series

ABSTRACT:INTRODUCTION: We describe three different fetal or neonatal outcomes in the offspring of a mother who had persistent circulating thyrotropin receptor antibodies despite having undergone a total thyroidectomy several years before. CASE PRESENTATION: The three different outcomes were an intrauterine death, a mild and transient fetal and neonatal hyperthyroidism and a severe fetal and neonatal hyperthyroidism that required specific therapy. CONCLUSIONS: The three cases are interesting because of the different outcomes, the absence of a direct correlation between thyrotropin receptor antibody levels and clinical signs, and the persistence of thyrotropin receptor antibodies several years after a total thyroidectomy

Interpretation of user’s feedback in human-robot interaction

In this paper we will propose the use of social robots as interface between users and services in a Smart Environment. We will focus on the need for a robot to recognize the user’s feedback, in order to respond and revise its behaviour according to user’s needs. As we believe speech is a natural and immediate input channel in human-robot interaction, we will discuss the importance of recognising, besides the linguistic content of the spoken sentence, the attitude of the user towards the robot and the environment. In this way, the meaning of the user dialog will be made clear when hardly recognisable by the analysis of the utterance structure. Then, we will present the results of the application of a potential approach used for integrating the linguistic analysis with the recognition of the valence and arousal of the user’s utterance. In order to achieve this goal, we collected and analysed a corpus of data to build an interpretation model based on a Bayesian network. Then we tested the accuracy of the model using a test dataset. Results will show that the integration of the linguistic content with the recognition of some acoustic features of spoken sentences perform better in recognising the key aspects of user’s feedback

On linear quadratic optimal control for time-varying multimodal linear systems with time-triggered jumps

This letter details the solution to the linear quadratic (LQ) optimal control problem over a finite interval for time-varying multimodal linear systems with time-triggered jumps. By multimodal, we mean the possibility for the system state to change dimension after every jump. To this end, we introduce the multimodal jumping differential Riccati equation (MJDRE) and we show the equivalence between the solvability of the optimal control problem and the existence of a finite solution of the MJDRE. The MJDRE can be used to compute optimal tracking gains for hybrid system with state-triggered jumps, whose state dimension changes after each jump (multimodal hybrid system). This is demonstrated, in simulation, on a 2DOF dual-mass spring-damper system