Critical Issues in Assessing Occupational Exposure to Diesel Dust Exhaust.

The Italian Interministerial Decree of February 11, 2021, introduces the diesel engine exhaust (DDE) among the carcinogenic occupational compounds, also establishing an occupational exposure limit. Elemental carbon (EC), improperly called black carbon, has been proposed as a tracer of DDE exposure; EC is the carbon that is quantified in the ambient matrixes after all the organic carbon has been removed; traditionally, EC is measured with a thermo-optical analytical technique. EC determination and relative interpretation are challenging for the following reasons: (i) the scarce availability of equipped laboratories hampers EC analysis, (ii) EC interpretation is not easy due to the lack of reference values.

Optimization of Laminated Bio-Polymer Fabrication for Food Packaging Application: A Sustainable Plasma-Activated Approach.

The current level of packaging consumption imposes a need to fabricate single-use food packaging with renewable and compostable materials, such as bio-polyesters (e.g., polylactic acid, PLA and polybutylene succinate, PBS) or cellulose, but their use is still problematic.

Associations between fine particulate matter, gene expression, and promoter methylation in human bronchial epithelial cells exposed within a classroom under air-liquid interface.

Associations between indoor air pollution from fine particulate matter (PM with aerodynamic diameter d < 2.5 μm) and human health are poorly understood. Here, we analyse the concentration-response curves for fine and ultrafine PM, the gene expression, and the methylation patterns in human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) exposed at the air-liquid interface (ALI) within a classroom in downtown Rome.

Low transition temperature mixture-based extraction of 14 pesticides from tomato samples and their high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis.

The extensive use of pesticides to control pest infestations has led to the development of analytical methods to determine pesticide residues in food matrices to prevent food exposure. However, most developed analytical methods do not consider impact on the environment in terms of the toxicity of the chemicals used and the amount of waste produced. An environmentally-friendly method, based on a miniaturized matrix solid-phase dispersion followed by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, for the analysis of fourteen pesticides in tomatoes, was exploited.

On-Site Inspection Form in Veterinary Cases: The Parma Veterinary Form.

The on-site inspection of the scene of an animal cadaver is crucial for a correct interpretation of the autopsy results, to determine the manner, method, and cause of death. This information plays a crucial role in the control of public health including the prevention of zoonoses. It is also fundamental for the recognition and the contrast of crimes against animals and to animal abuse phenomena, considered an alert sign of an anti-social or violent behavior of humans.

Biomonitoring of pesticides in urine by using isoamyl acetate as a sustainable extraction solvent.

The protection of the health and safety of workers in the agricultural sector requires the assessment of human exposure to pesticides through biomonitoring programs. In doing this, the health and safety of laboratory analysts should be also protected through the use of analytical procedures as safe as possible. According to Green Analytical Chemistry and Green Sample Preparation principles, the use of miniaturized extraction techniques such as dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) should be encouraged, with the aim of limiting the consumption of chemicals (solvents and reagents) and energy, as well as the production of wastes.

Universal mean-field upper bound for the generalization gap of deep neural networks.

Modern deep neural networks (DNNs) represent a formidable challenge for theorists: according to the commonly accepted probabilistic framework that describes their performance, these architectures should overfit due to the huge number of parameters to train, but in practice they do not. Here we employ results from replica mean field theory to compute the generalization gap of machine learning models with quenched features, in the teacher-student scenario and for regression problems with quadratic loss function. Notably, this framework includes the case of DNNs where the last layer is optimized given a specific realization of the remaining weights.

A modified fluctuation-test framework characterizes the population dynamics and mutation rate of colorectal cancer persister cells.

Compelling evidence shows that cancer persister cells represent a major limit to the long-term efficacy of targeted therapies. However, the phenotype and population dynamics of cancer persister cells remain unclear. We developed a quantitative framework to study persisters by combining experimental characterization and mathematical modeling.

European Council of Legal Medicine (ECLM) on-site inspection forms for forensic pathology, anthropology, odontology, genetics, entomology and toxicology for forensic and medico-legal scene and corpse investigation: the Parma form.

Further to a previous publication by the European Council of Legal Medicine (ECLM) concerning on-site forensic and medico-legal scene and corpse investigation, this publication provides guidance for forensic medical specialists, pathologists and, where present, coroners' activity at a scene of death inspection and to harmonize the procedures for a correct search, detection, collection, sampling and storage of all elements which may be useful as evidence, and ensure documentation of all these steps. This ECLM's inspection form provides a checklist to be used on-site for the investigation of a corpse present at a crime or suspicious death scene. It permits the collection of all relevant data not only for the pathologist, but also for forensic anthropologists, odontologists, geneticists, entomologists and toxicologists, thus supporting a collaborative work approach.

MVAΔ008 viral vector encoding the model protein OVA induces improved immune response against the heterologous antigen and equal levels of protection in a mice tumor model than the conventional MVA.

Modified vaccinia Ankara virus (MVA) is extensively used as a vaccine vector. We have previously observed that MVAΔ008, an MVA lacking the gene that codes for interleukin-18 binding protein, significantly increases CD8+ and CD4+ T-cell responses to vaccinia virus (VACV) epitopes and recombinant HIV antigens. However, the efficacy of this vector against pathogens or tumor cells remains unclear.

Seroprevalence and phylogenetic characterization of hepatitis E virus in pig farms in Southern Italy.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is an emerging public health problem in industrialized countries. The infection is associated with waterborne epidemics and transmitted via faecal-oral route. Zoonotic cases of HEV in humans have increased in Europe, and HEV genotype 3 (HEV-3) is the most frequent among humans and animals.

An evolutionary model identifies the main evolutionary biases for the evolution of genome-replication profiles.

Recent results comparing the temporal program of genome replication of yeast species belonging to the clade support the scenario that the evolution of the replication timing program could be mainly driven by correlated acquisition and loss events of active replication origins. Using these results as a benchmark, we develop an evolutionary model defined as birth-death process for replication origins and use it to identify the evolutionary biases that shape the replication timing profiles. Comparing different evolutionary models with data, we find that replication origin birth and death events are mainly driven by two evolutionary pressures, the first imposes that events leading to higher double-stall probability of replication forks are penalized, while the second makes less efficient origins more prone to evolutionary loss.

Criticality and conformality in the random dimer model.

In critical systems, the effect of a localized perturbation affects points that are arbitrarily far from the perturbation location. In this paper, we study the effect of localized perturbations on the solution of the random dimer problem in two dimensions. By means of an accurate numerical analysis, we show that a local perturbation of the optimal covering induces an excitation whose size is extensive with finite probability.

Occupational Exposure in Industrial Painters: Sensitive and Noninvasive Biomarkers to Evaluate Early Cytotoxicity, Genotoxicity and Oxidative Stress.

This study aimed to identify sensitive and noninvasive biomarkers of early cyto-genotoxic, oxidative and inflammatory effects for exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in shipyard painters. On 17 (11 spray and 6 roller) painters (previously characterized for VOCs exposure to toluene, xylenes, ethylbenzene, ethyl acetate) and on 18 controls, we performed buccal micronucleus cytome (BMCyt) assay; Fpg-comet assay on lymphocytes; detection of urinary 8-oxoGua (8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine), 8-oxodGuo (8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2'-deoxyguanosine) and 8-oxoGuo (8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanosine), and cytokines release on serum. We found induction of cyto-genotoxicity by BMCyt assay and inflammatory effects (IL-6 and TNFα) in roller painters exposed to lower VOC concentrations than spray painters.

Solvable Model for the Linear Separability of Structured Data.

Linear separability, a core concept in supervised machine learning, refers to whether the labels of a data set can be captured by the simplest possible machine: a linear classifier. In order to quantify linear separability beyond this single bit of information, one needs models of data structure parameterized by interpretable quantities, and tractable analytically. Here, I address one class of models with these properties, and show how a combinatorial method allows for the computation, in a mean field approximation, of two useful descriptors of linear separability, one of which is closely related to the popular concept of storage capacity.

Dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction using a low transition temperature mixture and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of pesticides in urine samples.

Biomonitoring is a potent tool to control the health risk of people occupationally and non-occupationally exposed. The latest trend in bioanalytical chemistry is to develop quick, cheap, easy, safe and reliable green analytical procedures to analyse a large number of chemicals in easily accessible biomatrices such as urine. In this paper, a new dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) procedure, conceived to treat urine samples and based on the use of a low transition temperature mixture (LTTM), was developed and validated to analyse twenty pesticides commonly used in farm practises.

Persistence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in post-mortem swab 35 days after death: A case report.

Post-mortem swabs for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA detection have been recommended by several Scientific Committees and Institutions as a standard procedure for post-mortem assessment of potential Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) related deaths. To date there is no data about the SARS-CoV-2 RNA detectability period in human bodies after death. The present case documents the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the upper respiratory tract 35-days after death.

Plasma activated water triggers plant defence responses.

Nowadays, one of the main challenges is moving towards an eco-sustainable agriculture, able to preserve the food production through a reduced use of pesticides. Current global food sustenance by intensive agriculture is mainly based on economic crop monocultures and drastically reduces the biodiversity, increasing the yield losses due to the presence of biotic and abiotic stresses. A technology based on plasma activated water (PAW), characterized by the presence in liquid of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, was tested to try to ensure yield stability also enhancing the plant resistance responses and to promote an eco-sustainable management of plant diseases.

Statistical learning theory of structured data.

The traditional approach of statistical physics to supervised learning routinely assumes unrealistic generative models for the data: Usually inputs are independent random variables, uncorrelated with their labels. Only recently, statistical physicists started to explore more complex forms of data, such as equally labeled points lying on (possibly low-dimensional) object manifolds. Here we provide a bridge between this recently established research area and the framework of statistical learning theory, a branch of mathematics devoted to inference in machine learning.

IL-12 DNA Displays Efficient Adjuvant Effects Improving Immunogenicity of Ag85A in DNA Prime/MVA Boost Immunizations.

() infection is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vaccine vector expressing the mycobacterial antigen 85A (MVA85A) was demonstrated to be safe, although it did not improve BCG efficacy, denoting the need to search for improved tuberculosis vaccines. In this work, we investigated the effect of IL-12 DNA -as an adjuvant- on an Ag85A DNA prime/MVA85A boost vaccination regimen.

Beyond the Storage Capacity: Data-Driven Satisfiability Transition.

Data structure has a dramatic impact on the properties of neural networks, yet its significance in the established theoretical frameworks is poorly understood. Here we compute the Vapnik-Chervonenkis entropy of a kernel machine operating on data grouped into equally labeled subsets. At variance with the unstructured scenario, entropy is nonmonotonic in the size of the training set, and displays an additional critical point besides the storage capacity.

Direct and Oxidative DNA Damage in a Group of Painters Exposed to VOCs: Dose - Response Relationship.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are present in several working activities. This work is aimed at comparing oxidative stress and DNA damage biomarkers to specific VOCs in the occupational exposure of painters. Dose-response relationships between biomarkers of oxidative stress and of dose were studied.

Cooperative effects on the compaction of DNA fragments by the nucleoid protein H-NS and the crowding agent PEG probed by Magnetic Tweezers.

Background: DNA bridging promoted by the H-NS protein, combined with the compaction induced by cellular crowding, plays a major role in the structuring of the E. coli genome. However, only few studies consider the effects of the physical interplay of these two factors in a controlled environment.