A municipality-level analysis of excess mortality in Italy in the period January-April 2020.

Background: the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in WHO European Region was reported at the end of January 2020 and, from that moment, the epidemic has been speeding up and rapidly spreading across Europe. The health, social, and economic consequences of the pandemic are difficult to evaluate, since there are many scientific uncertainties and unknowns.

Objectives: the main focus of this paper is on statistical methods for profiling municipalities by excess mortality, directly or indirectly caused by COVID-19.

Assessing the Effect of Nutrition Therapy on Rehospitalization Rate in Malnourished Pediatric Patients With Chronic Diseases.

Background: Malnutrition is common among hospitalized children with chronic diseases and increases hospital care needs. The aim of this study is to estimate the clinical consequences of nutrition therapy (NT) after discharge.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of all pediatric inpatients with diagnosis of malnutrition hospitalized at our center from January 2017 to February 2018 was conducted.

Characterization of Arabica and Robusta volatile coffees composition by reverse carrier gas headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry based on a statistical approach.

Nineteen samples of Arabica and 14 of Robusta coming from various plantation were analysed by dynamic headspace capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to characterize the volatile fraction of green and roasted samples and the relationships of the same species with geographical origin. As concerns green beans, Arabica species appear characterized by high content of -hexanol, furfural and amylformate, while Robusta species by greater content of ethylpyrazine, dimethylsulfone and 2-heptanone. Four variables, 4-methyl-2,3-dihydrofuran, -hexanol, limonene and nonanal, appear involved in the characterization of the geographical origin of the analysed samples.

Effect of expiry date communication on acceptability and waste of fresh-cut lettuce during storage at different temperatures.

The effect of expiry date communication on acceptability and wasting risk of fresh-cut lettuce was investigated. Fresh-cut lettuce was packed in plastic pouches reporting or not the expiry date on the label and stored at recommended (8 °C) or abuse temperature (12 °C) for increasing time up to 21 days. Lettuce was assessed during storage for colour, total viable count, consumer rejection and wasting risk.

Altered erythropoiesis and decreased number of erythrocytes in children with neuroblastoma.

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a pediatric tumor presenting at diagnosis either as localized or metastatic disease, which mainly involves the bone marrow (BM). The physical occupancy of BM space by metastatic NB cells has been held responsible for impairment of BM function. Here, we investigated whether localized or metastatic NB may alter hematopoietic lineages' maturation and release of mature cells in the periphery, through gene expression profiling, analysis of BM smears, cell blood count and flow cytometry analysis.

Relation between ultrasonic properties, rheology and baking quality for bread doughs of widely differing formulation.

Background: The objective was to evaluate whether an ultrasonic reflectance technique has predictive capacity for breadmaking performance of doughs made under a wide range of formulation conditions. Two flours of contrasting dough strength augmented with different levels of ingredients (inulin, oil, emulsifier or salt) were used to produce different bread doughs with a wide range of properties. Breadmaking performance was evaluated by conventional large-strain rheological tests on the dough and by assessment of loaf quality.

Preferential sampling and Bayesian geostatistics: Statistical modeling and examples.

Preferential sampling refers to any situation in which the spatial process and the sampling locations are not stochastically independent. In this paper, we present two examples of geostatistical analysis in which the usual assumption of stochastic independence between the point process and the measurement process is violated. To account for preferential sampling, we specify a flexible and general Bayesian geostatistical model that includes a shared spatial random component.

Geostatistical integration and uncertainty in pollutant concentration surface under preferential sampling.

In this paper the focus is on environmental statistics, with the aim of estimating the concentration surface and related uncertainty of an air pollutant. We used air quality data recorded by a network of monitoring stations within a Bayesian framework to overcome difficulties in accounting for prediction uncertainty and to integrate information provided by deterministic models based on emissions meteorology and chemico-physical characteristics of the atmosphere. Several authors have proposed such integration, but all the proposed approaches rely on representativeness and completeness of existing air pollution monitoring networks.

Deregulation of focal adhesion pathway mediated by miR-659-3p is implicated in bone marrow infiltration of stage M neuroblastoma patients.

To get insights on the metastatic process of human neuroblastoma (NB), the miRNA expression profile of bone marrow (BM)-infiltrating cells has been determined and compared to that of primary tumors.Twenty-two BM-infiltrating cells, 22 primary tumors, and 4 paired samples from patients with metastatic NB aged > 12 months were analyzed for the expression of 670 miRNAs by stem-loop RT-qPCR. The miRNAs whose expression was significantly different were subjected to selection criteria, and 20 selected miRNAs were tested in 10 additional BM-infiltrating cells and primary tumors.

Relationships between volatile compounds and sensory characteristics in virgin olive oil by analytical and chemometric approaches.

Background: The volatile fraction of virgin olive oil is characterised by low molecular weight compounds that vaporise at room temperature. In order to obtain an aroma profile similar to natural olfactory perception, the composition of the volatile compounds was determined by applying dynamic headspace gas chromatography, performed at room temperature, with a cryogenic trap directly connected to a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer system. Samples were also evaluated according to European Union and International Olive Council official methods for sensory evaluation.

Conservation tillage affects species composition but not species diversity: a comparative study in Northern Italy.

Conservation tillage (CT) is widely considered to be a practice aimed at preserving several ecosystem functions. In the literature, however, there seems to be no clear pattern with regard to its benefits on species diversity and species composition. In Northern Italy, we compared species composition and diversity of both vascular plants and Carabids under two contrasting tillage systems, i.

On the use of posterior predictive probabilities and prediction uncertainty to tailor informative sampling for parasitological surveillance in livestock.

Model-based geostatistics and Bayesian approaches are appropriate in the context of Veterinary Epidemiology when point data have been collected by valid study designs. The aim is to predict a continuous infection risk surface. Little work has been done on the use of predictive infection probabilities at farm unit level.

Monitoring dry-curing of S. Daniele ham by magnetic resonance imaging.

S. Daniele hams were collected at different stages during dry-curing and submitted to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) according to the acquisition Spin-Echo sequences T1 and T2. The intensity of the MR signals in the images of the Semimembranosus, Semitendinosus, Rectus femoris and Biceps femoris muscles of the hams was computed and expressed in grey levels.

Use of images in shelf life assessment of fruit salad.

Unlabelled: Fruit salads stored for different lengths of time as well as their images were used to estimate sensory shelf life by survival analysis. Shelf life estimates obtained using fruit salad images were longer than those achieved by analyzing the real product. This was attributed to the fact that images are 2-dimensional representations of real food, probably not comprehensive of all the visual information needed by the panelists to produce an acceptability/unacceptability judgment.

A hierarchical Bayesian approach to multiple testing in disease mapping.

We propose a Bayesian approach to multiple testing in disease mapping. This study was motivated by a real example regarding the mortality rate for lung cancer, males, in the Tuscan region (Italy). The data are relative to the period 1995-1999 for 287 municipalities.

Sensitivity analysis of the relationship between disease occurrence and distance from a putative source of pollution.

The relation between disease risk and a point source of pollution is usually investigated using distance from the source as a proxy of exposure. The analysis may be based on case-control data or on aggregated data. The definition of the function relating risk of disease and distance is critical, both in a classical and in a Bayesian framework, because the likelihood is usually very flat, even with large amounts of data.

Comparison of alternative modelling techniques in estimating short-term effect of air pollution with application to the Italian meta-analysis data (MISA Study).

In 2002, serious criticism was raised about the use of standard statistical software (Splus, SAS, Stata) to fit Generalized Additive Models (GAM) to epidemiological time series data. This criticism concerns convergence problems of the backfitting algorithm and inappropriate use of a linear approximation in estimating standard errors of estimates for parametric terms, such as the effect of air pollution. Here we analysed the association between PM10 and Mortality/Hospital Admissions in the Italian Meta-analysis of Short-term effects of Air pollutants (MISA) using two alternative approaches that are not affected by the same drawbacks: GAM with penalized regression spline fitted by the direct method in R (GAM-R) software and Generalized Linear Models with natural cubic spline (GLM+NS).

Disease mapping in veterinary epidemiology: a Bayesian geostatistical approach.

Model-based geostatistics and Bayesian approaches are useful in the context of veterinary epidemiology when point data have been collected by appropriate study design. We take advantage of an example of Epidemiological Surveillance on urban settings where a two-stage sampling design with first stage transects is applied to study the risk of dog parasite infection in the city of Naples, 2004-2005. We specified Bayesian Gaussian spatial exponential models and Bayesian kriging were performed to predict the continuous risk surface of parasite infection on the study region.

[Report on health status of residents in areas with industrial, mining or military sites in Sardinia, Italy].

Unlabelled: The work described in the present report has been requested by the Secretary of Hygiene, Health and Social Welfare of the Sardinia Region (Italy). It has been carried out by the Regional Epidemiological Observatory within the domain of ESA (Epidemiology Development and Environment) and with the support of the European Union. Eighteen areas (for a total of 73 municipalities) were identified a priori as "potentially polluted", accounting for a population of 917,977 in 2001 census (56% of the total population of Sardinia).

The 75-gram glucose load in pregnancy: relation between glucose levels and anthropometric characteristics of infants born to women with normal glucose metabolism.

Objective: To investigate, in pregnant women without gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), the relation among obstetric/demographic characteristics; fasting, 1-h, and 2-h plasma glucose values resulting from a 75-g glucose load; and the risk of abnormal neonatal anthropometric features and then to verify the presence of a threshold glucose value for a 75-g glucose load above which there is an increased risk for abnormal neonatal anthropometric characteristics.

Research Design And Methods: The study group consisted of 829 Caucasian pregnant women with singleton pregnancy who had no history of pregestational diabetes or GDM, who were tested for GDM with a 75-g, 2-h glucose load, used as a glucose challenge test, in two periods of pregnancy (early, 16-20 weeks; late, 26-30 weeks), and who did not meet the criteria for a GDM diagnosis. In the newborns, the following abnormal anthropometric characteristics were considered as outcome measures: cranial/thoracic circumference (CC/TC) ratio /=90th percentile for GA, and macrosomia (birth weight >/=90th percentile for GA), on the basis of growth standard development for our population.