Chapter Genoa: Colonizing and Colonized City? The Port City as a Pole of Attraction for Foreign Merchants (16th-18th centuries)

As Michel Balard pointed out with reference to the late Middle Ages and to the relations between Genoa and overseas cities, “Genoa, a colonizer in the East, is colonized by the Orientals”. The aim of this work is to verify whether and to what extent this concept is applicable also to the modern age and whether it involved a wider geographic area than the one examined by this French historian. In particular we outline the features of the presence of foreign merchants in Genoa between the 16th and 18th centuries as a phenomenon complementary to the better known “diaspora” of Genoese businessmen

ANALYSIS OF EXTERNAL LOAD DURING SSG 5VS5 WITH AND WITHOUT EXTERNAL WILDCARD (JOLLY) SOCCER PLAYERS

5vs5 with external jolly shows higher and very significant (p<0.0005) values in the parameter of maximum speed, maximum power, sprint distance; however, 5vs5 without external jolly shows higher and very significant (p <0.0005) values in walking/jogging distance covered, average power in recovery time between power session, the time spent and the distance covered at low intensity power (< 20.00 W/kg). In conclusion, the 5vs5 format with the use of goalkeepers is recommended for those who have been used for at least 60 minutes during the match; however, the 5vs5 format with goalkeepers and external jolly is recommended for those who did not take part in the game or did not play 60 minutes

Can the Core Stability Training Influences Sprint and Jump Performances in Young Basketball Players?

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Sustainable options for paints through a life cycle assessment method

In recent years, the paint industry has addressed the development of products, technologies, and packaging to build conditions to improve environmental performance in accordance to the circular economy goals. For these reasons, a life cycle thinking approach allows for the understanding of the most important steps for pursuing closed-loop strategies and related goals. This paper provides a twofold analysis: first, a comparison of two paints, characterised by different chemical compositions, has been carried out according to the current production cycle (baseline scenario); second, for each product, two additional and alternative scenarios have been hypothesised. These scenarios focus on the use of waste paint blended with virgin paint, and the use of a high rate of recycled inputs of packaging materials. The aim is first to assess the environmental impacts of the life cycles of the paints and identify feasible measures to reduce these impacts. The second aim is to choose the better option between scenarios, according to a circular economy approach. The results highlight that the production and supply of raw materials have the greatest impact on both paints, for all impact indicators. Consequently the use of waste paint reduces environmental impacts by roughly 48%, on average. Furthermore, the packaging options allow us to determine that the use of 50% recycled polypropylene had a better environmental performance than 100% recycled aluminium, although the contribution of packaging is negligible in the total impact indicators. Confirming the results, the sensitivity analysis on the waste paint use has been undertaken

End point prick test: could this new test be used to predict the outcome of oral food challenge in children with cow's milk allergy?

Background: Cow\u2019s milk allergy (CMA) is the most frequent food allergy in childhood; the trend of CMA is often characterized by a progressive improvement to achieve tolerance in the first 4 to 5 years of life. It has been observed that specific IgE (sIgE) towards cow\u2019s milk proteins decrease when the age increases. Although food allergy can be easily diagnosed, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the oral food challenge (OFC), that remains the gold standard in the diagnosis of food allergy, by allergometric tests. Methods: We considered 44 children with CMA diagnosed through OFC who returned to our Allergy and Immunology Pediatric Department between January to December 2010 to evaluate the persistence of allergy or the achievement of tolerance. On the basis of the history, we performed both allergometric skin tests and OFC in children that were still following a milk-free diet, whereas only allergometric skin tests those that had already undergone spontaneous introduction of milk protein at home without presenting symptoms. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the persistence of CMA or the acquisition of tolerance and the results of the end point prick test (EPT). Results and Discussion: The OFC with cow\u2019s milk was performed on 30 children, 4 children were excluded because of a history of severe reactions to cow\u2019s milk, and 10 because they had spontaneously already taken milk food derivates at home without problems. 16/30 (53%) children showed clinical reactions and the challenge was stopped, 14/30 (47%) did not have any reaction. Comparing the mean wheal diameter of every EPT\u2019s dilution between the group of allergic children and the tolerant ones, we obtained a significant difference (p < 0.05) for the first 4 dilutions. We have also calculated sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), the positive predictive value (PPV) and the negative predictive value (NPV) for each EPT dilution. Conclusions: EPT is a safe and cheap test, easy to be executed and that could provide good prediction of the outcome of OFC; so it might be used to avoid OFC-induced anaphylaxis in children affected by CMA. It can also help avoiding dietetic restrictions in tolerant children who show sensitization towards cow\u2019s milk proteins

End-User Development for Artificial Intelligence: A Systematic Literature Review

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence has become more and more relevant in our society. Creating AI systems is almost always the prerogative of IT and AI experts. However, users may need to create intelligent solutions tailored to their specific needs. In this way, AI systems can be enhanced if new approaches are devised to allow non-technical users to be directly involved in the definition and personalization of AI technologies. End-User Development (EUD) can provide a solution to these problems, allowing people to create, customize, or adapt AI-based systems to their own needs. This paper presents a systematic literature review that aims to shed the light on the current landscape of EUD for AI systems, i.e., how users, even without skills in AI and/or programming, can customize the AI behavior to their needs. This study also discusses the current challenges of EUD for AI, the potential benefits, and the future implications of integrating EUD into the overall AI development process.Comment: This version did not undergo peer-review. A corrected version is published by Springer Nature in the Proceedings of 9th International Syposium on End-User Development (ISEUD 2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34433-6_

PARP1 proximity proteomics reveals interaction partners at stressed replication forks

PARP1 mediates poly-ADP-ribosylation of proteins on chromatin in response to different types of DNA lesions. PARP inhibitors are used for the treatment of BRCA1/2-deficient breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer. Loss of DNA replication fork protection is proposed as one mechanism that contributes to the vulnerability of BRCA1/2-deficient cells to PARP inhibitors. However, the mechanisms that regulate PARP1 activity at stressed replication forks remain poorly understood. Here, we performed proximity proteomics of PARP1 and isolation of proteins on stressed replication forks to map putative PARP1 regulators. We identified TPX2 as a direct PARP1-binding protein that regulates the auto-ADP-ribosylation activity of PARP1. TPX2 interacts with DNA damage response proteins and promotes homology-directed repair of DNA double-strand breaks. Moreover, TPX2 mRNA levels are increased in BRCA1/2-mutated breast and prostate cancers, and high TPX2 expression levels correlate with the sensitivity of cancer cells to PARP-trapping inhibitors. We propose that TPX2 confers a mitosis-independent function in the cellular response to replication stress by interacting with PARP1

GERBIL: General Entity Annotator Benchmarking Framework

We present GERBIL, an evaluation framework for semantic entity annotation. The rationale behind our framework is to provide developers, end users and researchers with easy-to-use interfaces that allow for the agile, fine-grained and uniform evaluation of annotation tools on multiple datasets. By these means, we aim to ensure that both tool developers and end users can derive meaningful insights pertaining to the extension, integration and use of annotation applications. In particular, GERBIL provides comparable results to tool developers so as to allow them to easily discover the strengths and weaknesses of their implementations with respect to the state of the art. With the permanent experiment URIs provided by our framework, we ensure the reproducibility and archiving of evaluation results. Moreover, the framework generates data in machine-processable format, allowing for the efficient querying and post-processing of evaluation results. Finally, the tool diagnostics provided by GERBIL allows deriving insights pertaining to the areas in which tools should be further refined, thus allowing developers to create an informed agenda for extensions and end users to detect the right tools for their purposes. GERBIL aims to become a focal point for the state of the art, driving the research agenda of the community by presenting comparable objective evaluation results