Applications of dry chain technology to maintain high seed viability in tropical climates.

Seed storage life in tropical areas is shortened by high humidity and temperature and the general inaccessibility to dehumidifying and refrigeration systems, resulting in rapid decreases in seed viability in storage as well as a high incidence of fungal and insect infestations. The dry chain, based on rapid and deep drying of seeds after harvest followed by packaging in moisture-proof containers, has been proposed as an effective method to maintain seed quality during medium-term storage in humid climates, even without refrigeration. In addition, seed drying with zeolite drying beads can be more effective and economical than sun or heated-air drying under these warm, humid conditions.

Non-wounding contact-based Inoculation of fruits with fungal pathogens in postharvest.

Background: Fungal pathogens significantly impact the quality of fruits and vegetables at different stages of the supply chain, leading to substantial food losses. Understanding how these persistent fungal infections occur and progress in postharvest conditions is essential to developing effective control strategies.

Results: In this study, we developed a reliable and consistent inoculation protocol to simulate disease spread from infected fruits to adjacent healthy fruits during postharvest storage.

Argument-based inductive logics, with coverage of compromised perception.

Formal deductive logic, used to express and reason over declarative, axiomatizable content, captures, we now know, essentially all of what is known in mathematics and physics, and captures as well the details of the proofs by which such knowledge has been secured. This is certainly impressive, but deductive logic alone cannot enable rational adjudication of arguments that are at variance (however much additional information is added). After affirming a fundamental directive, according to which argumentation should be the basis for human-centric AI, we introduce and employ both a deductive and-crucially-an inductive .

Attentional Strategies and the Transition From Subitizing to Estimation in Numerosity Perception.

The common view of the transition between subitizing and numerosity estimation regimes is that there is a hard bound on the subitizing range, and beyond this range, people estimate. However, this view does not adequately address the behavioral signatures of enumeration under conditions of attentional load or in the immediate post-subitizing range. The possibility that there might exist a numerosity range where both processes of subitizing and estimation operate in conjunction has so far been ignored.

Efficacy of [Lu]Lu-DOTATATE in metastatic neuroendocrine neoplasms of different locations: data from the SEPTRALU study.

Background: Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) is one of the most promising therapeutic strategies in neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs). Nevertheless, its role in certain tumor sites remains unclear. This study sought to elucidate the efficacy and safety of [Lu]Lu-DOTATATE in NENs with different locations and evaluate the effect of the tumor origin, bearing in mind other prognostic variables.

Comparison of protocols with respiratory-gated (4D) motion compensation in PET/CT: open-source package for quantification of phantom image quality.

Background: Patient's breathing affects the quality of chest images acquired with positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) studies. Movement correction is required to optimize PET quantification in clinical settings. We present a reproducible methodology to compare the impact of different movement compensation protocols on PET image quality.

Education and COVID-19 excess mortality.

We study the role of education during the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy. We compare excess mortality in 2020 and 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic mortality between municipalities with different shares of educated residents. We find that education initially played a strong protective role, which however quickly faded out.

Comparative analysis of inverse kinematics methodologies to improve the controllability of rehabilitative robotic devices.

The solution of the inverse kinematics problem in multi-degrees of freedom robots has been tackled, through the last three decades, by several different approaches including analytical, geometrical, differential and numerical methods. All these techniques present their own advantages and drawbacks. However, a guideline on which approach is better to follow, depending on the kind of task to perform and the type of robotic device used, is still missing.

Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy with [Lu]Lu-DOTA-TATE in Patients with Advanced GEP NENS: Present and Future Directions.

This review article summarizes findings published in the last years on peptide receptor radionuclide therapy in GEP NENs, as well as potential future developments and directions. Unanswered questions remain, such as the following: Which is the correct dose and individual dosimetry? Which is the place for salvage PRRT-Lu? Whicht is the role of PRRT-Lu in the pediatric population? Which is the optimal sequencing of PRRT-Lu in advanced GEP NETs? Which is the place of PRRT-Lu in G3 NENs? These, and future developments such as inclusion new radiopharmaceuticals and combination therapy with different agents, such as radiosensitizers, will be discussed.

Confidence and gradation in causal judgment.

When comparing the roles of the lightning strike and the dry climate in causing the forest fire, one might think that the lightning strike is more of a cause than the dry climate, or one might think that the lightning strike completely caused the fire while the dry conditions did not cause it at all. Psychologists and philosophers have long debated whether such causal judgments are graded; that is, whether people treat some causes as stronger than others. To address this debate, we first reanalyzed data from four recent studies.

Somatostatin and Somatostatin Receptors: From Signaling to Clinical Applications in Neuroendocrine Neoplasms.

Neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs) are heterogeneous neoplasms which arise from neuroendocrine cells that are distributed widely throughout the body. Although heterogenous, many of them share their ability to overexpress somatostatin receptors (SSTR) on their cell surface. Due to this, SSTR and somatostatin have been a large subject of interest in the discovery of potential biomarkers and treatment options for the disease.

Ultrastaging protocol in sentinel lymph node for apparent early stage ovarian cancer.

Objective: The objective of the present study is to determine the role of sentinel lymph node (SLN) ultrastaging in apparent early-stage ovarian cancer.

Methods: We previously demonstrated the feasibility of SLN in early-stage ovarian cancer in a pilot study and in a clinical trial (NCT03452982). The SLN of the 30 patients involved in both were processed following an ultrastaging protocol.

Much Ado About Nothing: The Mental Representation of Omissive Relations.

When the absence of an event causes some outcome, it is an instance of omissive causation. For instance, not eating lunch may cause you to be hungry. Recent psychological proposals concur that the mind represents causal relations, including omissive causal relations, through mental simulation, but they disagree on the form of that simulation.

Norms Affect Prospective Causal Judgments.

People more frequently select norm-violating factors, relative to norm-conforming ones, as the cause of some outcome. Until recently, this abnormal-selection effect has been studied using retrospective vignette-based paradigms. We use a novel set of video stimuli to investigate this effect for prospective causal judgments-that is, judgments about the cause of some future outcome.

The politics of ageing and retirement: Evidence from Swiss referenda.

Ageing threatens the financial sustainability of pay-as-you-go pension systems, since it increases the share of retirees to workers. An often-advocated policy response is to increase retirement age. Ironically, however, the political support for this policy may actually be hindered by population ageing.

Prevention and Management of Hormonal Crisis during Theragnosis with LU-DOTA-TATE in Neuroendocrine Tumors. A Systematic Review and Approach Proposal.

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) frequently overexpress somatostatin receptors (SSTR) on their cell surface. The first-line pharmacological treatment for inoperable metastatic functioning well-differentiated NETs are somatostatin analogs. On second line, Lu-DOTA-TATE (Lu-DOTA Tyr octreotate) has shown stabilization of the disease and an increase in progression free survival, as well as effectiveness in controlling symptoms and increasing quality of life.

Pilot performance of a dedicated prostate PET suitable for diagnosis and biopsy guidance.

Background: Prostate cancer (PCa) represents one of the most common types of cancers facing the male population. Nowadays, to confirm PCa, systematic or multiparametric MRI-targeted transrectal or transperineal biopsies of the prostate are required. However, due to the lack of an accurate imaging technique capable to precisely locate cancerous cells in the prostate, ultrasound biopsies sample random parts of the prostate and, therefore, it is possible to miss regions where those cancerous cells are present.

Sentinel lymph node technique in early-stage ovarian cancer (SENTOV): a phase II clinical trial.

Objective: Early-stage ovarian cancer might represent an ideal disease scenario for sentinel lymph node application. Nevertheless, the published experience seems to be limited. Our objective was to assess the feasibility and safety concerns of sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with clinical stage I-II ovarian cancer.

The role of attention in the enumeration of canonical patterns.

We report novel findings from experiments on the enumeration of canonical patterns under attentional load. While previous studies have shown that the process of enumerating randomized arrangements can be disrupted by attentional load, the effect of attentional load on canonical patterns has been unexplored. To investigate this case, we adapted a spatial dual-task paradigm previously used to study attentional disruption during the enumeration of randomized arrangements.

Best compromise nutritional menus for childhood obesity.

Childhood obesity is an undeniable reality that has rapidly increased in many countries. Obesity at an early age not only increases the risks of chronic diseases but also produces a problem for the whole healthcare system. One way to alleviate this problem is to provide each patient with an appropriate menu that is defined by a mathematical model.

Selection enables enhancement: An integrated model of object tracking.

The diversity of research on visual attention and multiple-object tracking presents challenges for anyone hoping to develop a unified account. One key challenge is identifying the attentional limitations that give rise to competition among targets during tracking. To address this challenge, we present a computational model of object tracking that relies on two attentional mechanisms: serial selection and parallel enhancement.