Identification of two divergent swine Noroviruses detected at the slaughterhouse in North East Italy

Norovirus (NoV) has emerged as one of the major causative agents of non-bacterial, food- and water-borne gastroenteritis in humans, with the main genogroup involved in human outbreaks (GII), which has been detected worldwide in different animal species including swine. A four-month investigation at the slaughterhouse aiming to examine the presence of NoV in the swine in North-Eastern Italy, enabled the detection of two divergent Noroviruses (NoVs) (GII.P11) in two swine farms. This represents the first study in the swine population of North-Eastern Italy, which has paved the way for future integrated virological and epidemiological investigations on swine NoVs

Optimizing the order of taxon addition in phylogenetic tree construction using genetic algorithm

Abstract. Phylogenetics has gained in public favor for the analysis of DNA sequence data as molecular biology has advanced. Among a number of algorithms for phylogenetics, the fastDNAml is considered to have reasonable computational cost and performance. However, it has a defect that its performance is likely to be significantly affected by the order of taxon addition. In this paper, we propose a genetic algorithm for optimizing the order of taxon addition in the fastDNAml. Experimental results show that the fastDNAml with the optimized order of taxon addition constructs more probable evolutionary trees in terms of the maximum likelihood.

Modifications of phonetic labial targets in emotive speech

This paper describes how the visual characteristics of some Italian phones (/\u2019a/, /b/, /v/) are modified in emotive speech by the expression of the "big six" emotions: joy, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, and fear. In this research we specifically analyze the interaction between the articulatory lip targets of the Italian vowel /\u2019a/ and consonants /b/ and /v/, defined by phonetic-phonological rules, and the labial configurations, peculiar to each emotion. This interaction was quantified on the basis of the variations of the following parameters: lip opening, upper and lower lip vertical displacements, lip rounding, anterior/posterior movements (protrusion) of upper lip and lower lip, left and right lip corner horizontal displacements, left and right corner vertical displacements, and two asymmetry parameters, calculated as the difference between right and left corner position along the horizontal and the vertical axes. The first aim of this research is to quantify the modifications of the lip articulatory parameters due to the emotions; the second aim is to analyze the parameters which are subject to phonetic-phonological constraints and are consequently less influenced by emotions. The results are useful to define the emotive speech production models and are presently employed in researches conearning audiovisual speech synthesis (Talking Heads). \uc2\ua9 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Oxygen Heterocycles by Sulphur Ylide Annulation: Synthesis of 3,4-Dihydro-2H,5H-pyrano[3,2-c][1]benzopyran-5-ones by Dimethylsulphoxonium Methylide

3,4-Dihydro-2-hydroxymethyl-2H,5H-pyrano[3,2-c][1]benzopyran-5-ones are the main products of the reaction of dimethylsulphoxonium methylide on Michael adducts of 4-hydroxycoumarins and α,β-unsaturated ketones. Minor quantities of 3,4-dihydro-2-hydroxymethyl-2H,5H-pyrano[2,3-b][1]benzopyran-5-ones are also sometimes obtained

Preparation of (R)-Fluoropyruvaldehyde N,S-Ketals by HighlyStereospecific Tandem Pummerer Rearrangement/1,2-p-TolylthioGroup Migration of (R)-alfa-(Fluoroalkyl)-beta-sulfinylenamines

Fluoropyruvaldehyde N,S-ketals (R)-2 have been prepared in good yields (up to 88%) and ee (up to 79%) from R-(fluoroalkyl)-beta-sulfinylenamines (R)-(Z)-1, through a new self-immolative tandem sequential process, consisting of a Pummerer reaction, promoted by trifluoroacetic anhydride, followed by a 1,2-migration of the p-tolylthio group, triggered by addition of silica gel or aqueous base. Each transfer of stereogenic center, from sulfur to the R-carbon and then to the alfa-carbon, occurs with an average degree of enantioselectivity up to 94:6. Cis geometry between the sulfinyl and the amino groups of the starting enamine (R)-1 is necessary for achieving high level of stereocontrol, since neighboring group participation by the N-Cbz amino group prevents the sulfinyl center from racemization promoted by trifluoroacetic anhydride. NMR studies have shown that imines 3 are intermediate products of the Pummerer rearrangement, which are stable in the reaction environment