Variant on chromosome 9p is associated with left ventricular mass: results from two cohorts of essential hypertensive individuals

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The role of the LISTANet Consortium in the European DEDIPAC-KH project

Aim:To improve understanding of the determinants of dietary, physical activity (PA), and sedentary behaviours, the European multi-disciplinary consortium on “Determinants of Diet and Physical Activity Knowledge Hub” (DEDIPAC-KH) includes 46 consortia and organisations supported by joint programming grants from 12 countries across Europe (Lakerveld et al., 2014). Six Italian Universities (e.g., Cassino, Chieti-Pescara, Palermo, Roma Foro Italico, Roma Sapienza, and UCSC) participating in the LISTANet consortium supported by MIUR (B84G14000040008) contributed to the Thematic Area2 “Determinants of dietary, PA, and sedentary behaviours across the life course and in vulnerable groups”. In particular, the coordinator of LISTANet Prof Capranica and Prof. MacDonncha from the Irish Physical Activity and Health Consortium act as Work Package (WP) Leaders of PA determinants (WP2.2). Methods: A mix of methods has been used in identifying PA determinants by developing PA taxonomy and a European framework (EU-PAD), seven umbrella systematic literature reviews (e.g., behavioural, biological, economic, physical, policy, psychological, and socio-cultural), and identifying ongoing/recently completed European-funded projects and data sets for secondary data analyses. Results: LISTANet participated in DEDIPAC-KH meetings/seminars/courses/conferences, and organized two workshops dedicated to the EU-PAD framework and umbrella SLRs. Outcomes included internal reports, presentations to international conferences, and scientific papers submitted for publications. Conclusions: The DEDIPAC-KH project represents an excellent start in setting up a complex, cross-country, organisational structure to: 1) guide a European strategic plan for novel and multi-disciplinary research addressing the complexity of determinants of PA behaviours across the life course; and 2) identify key aspects for potential strategies and intervention programmes to implement multi-sectoral European policies in PA. Finally, the cumulated experience of LISTANet could be valuable to fully exploit effective research and actions to increase PA levels of Italian citizens

Studies on Arabic Dialectology and Sociolinguistics

This volume contains over fifty articles related to various fields of modern Arabic dialectology. All the articles are revised and enhanced versions of papers read on the 12th Conference of the Association Internationale de Dialectologie Arabe (AIDA) held in Marseille in June 2017. Since its first conference in Paris in 1993, AIDA members gather every two years in different country. The collection of the AIDA proceedings offer an updated insight of the development of the field. During the past few decadesthe the study of Arabic dialects has become an important branch of research covering a wide range of subjects from phonological analyses, morphosyntax, semantics to pragmatics, sociolinguistics, folk linguistics, studies on literacy and writings, cultural and artistic practices, etc. As many articles of this volume illustrate, the study of Arabic dialects explores different aspects of the languages and cultures of the contemporary Arab world. A remarkable feature is the growing and constant participation of young scholars from all around the globe

[Fifteen ways to optimize feedback.]

: This article proposes a series of insights that are drawn from the most up-to-date scientific literature and functional for an optimal implementation of Audit & Feedback (A&F). The focus is on the "feedback" component of the methodology. Some key issues of the feedback are the capability to address changes perceived as priorities for the recipients, recommend actions that bring real improvements, and allow the people to whom recommendations are addressed to manage them. Other suggestions concern how to share the data: it is important to provide feedback as soon as possible, multiple times, starting from individual rather than general data, and including comparisons able to promote the desired change. Other operational indications concern the most effective way to display the feedback, such as tightly linking the graphical representation and the summary message, presenting the feedback in multiple ways, and simplifying the message to minimize cognitive overload. Finally, some suggestions are about how to transmit feedback: tailor interventions according to the specific barriers of a given clinical-organizational context, provide short and easily understandable messages followed by more details, emphasize the credibility of information, increase motivation to change practice, and encourage participatory feedback construction rather than passive delivery. It also proposes an analysis of some of the challenges related to the design of A&F interventions translatable into improvements in practice starting from the context of the Easy-Net network program

A simple extraction method useful to purify DNA from difficult biologic sources

Several procedures to isolate DNA from difficult sources have previously been described, but they are often expensive, time consuming, and have limited applications. In this paper we describe a simple and versatile protocol to isolate nucleic acids from different plant tissues, using a silica-based extraction method. This extraction process efficiently purifies DNA from several plant cells. The obtained DNA has successfully been applied in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays for OGM purposes. The protocol is compatible with at least two automated liquid handling systems making it suitable for large-scale screening applications

COVID-19 and CAR T cells: a report on current challenges and future directions from the EPICOVIDEHA survey by EHA-IDWP

Since it was first reported in China, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly around the world, and the number of cases has increased exponentially. Initial reports suggested that patients with cancer have an estimated twofold increased risk of contracting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) compared with the general population. More importantly, it is expected that COVID-19 will be particularly life threatening in patients with hematological malignancies because of their immune dysfunction. Recent studies have reported an overall COVID-19–related mortality of 29% to 42% 3-8 in patients with hematological disease, depending on the type of malignancy, in contrast to the 2% to 7% observed in the general population. Regrettably, there remains a lack of studies about COVID-19 in patients receiving cellular therapies, including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells. CAR T cells are genetically modified autologous T cells, which have shown great promise in the treatment of advanced malignant hematological disorders, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and multiple myeloma. CAR T-cell recipients have significant B-cell aplasia requiring immunoglobulin G replacement therapy and may also develop delayed cytopenias, leaving them unable to mount any humoral response to viral infections. Shah et al 10 demonstrated that the seroconversion rate in a small cohort of patients treated with hemopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and CAR T-cell therapy did not exceed 66%

Reliability of an Integrated Inertial Sensor for the Continuous Measurement of Active Cervical Range of Motion in a Group of Younger and Elderly Individuals

The aim of this study was to evaluate the test-retest reliability of an integrated inertial sensor (IIS) for cervical range of motion assessment. An integrated inertial sensor was placed on the forehead center of thirty older adults (OA) and thirty younger adults (YA). Participants had to perform three continuous rotations, lateral bandings and flexion-extensions with their head. Test-retest reliability was assessed after 7 days. YA showed moderate to good agreement for rotation (0.54-0.82), lateral bending (0.74-0.8), and flexion-extension (0.74-0.81) movements and poor agreement for zero point (ZP). OA showed moderate to good agreement for rotation (0.65-0.86), good to excellent agreement in lateral bending (0.79-0.92), and poor to moderate agreement for flexion-extension (0.37-0.72). Zero point showed poor to moderate agreement. In conclusion, we can affirm that this IIS is a reliable device for cervical range of motion assessment in young and older adults; on the contrary, the ZP seems to be unreliable and the addition of an external reference point could help the subject to solve this shortcoming and reduce possible biases