The 2025 Motile Active Matter Roadmap.

Activity and autonomous motion are fundamental aspects of many living and engineering systems. Here, the scale of biological agents covers a wide range, from nanomotors, cytoskeleton, and cells, to insects, fish, birds, and people. Inspired by biological active systems, various types of autonomous synthetic nano- and micromachines have been designed, which provide the basis for multifunctional, highly responsive, intelligent active materials.

From noise on the sites to noise on the links: Discretizing the conserved Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in real space.

Numerical analysis of conserved field dynamics has been generally performed with pseudospectral methods. Finite differences integration, the common procedure for nonconserved field dynamics, indeed struggles to implement a conservative noise in the discrete spatial domain. In this work we present a method to generate a conservative noise in the finite differences framework, which works for any discrete topology and boundary conditions.

Characterization of lab-based swarms of Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes using 3D-video tracking.

Mosquito copulation is a crucial determinant of its capacity to transmit malaria-causing Plasmodium parasites as well as underpinning several highly-anticipated vector control methodologies such as gene drive and sterile insect technique. For the anopheline mosquitoes responsible for African malaria transmission, mating takes place within crepuscular male swarms which females enter solely to mate. However, the mechanisms that regulate swarm structure or that govern mate choice remain opaque.

Collective response to local perturbations: how to evade threats without losing coherence.

Living groups move in complex environments and are constantly subject to external stimuli, predatory attacks and disturbances. An efficient response to such perturbations is vital to maintain the group's coherence and cohesion. Perturbations are often local, i.

Signatures of irreversibility in microscopic models of flocking.

Flocking in d=2 is a genuine nonequilibrium phenomenon for which irreversibility is an essential ingredient. We study a class of minimal flocking models whose only source of irreversibility is self-propulsion and use the entropy production rate (EPR) to quantify the departure from equilibrium across their phase diagrams. The EPR is maximal in the vicinity of the order-disorder transition, where reshuffling of the interaction network is fast.

Renormalization group approach to connect discrete- and continuous-time descriptions of Gaussian processes.

Discretization of continuous stochastic processes is needed to numerically simulate them or to infer models from experimental time series. However, depending on the nature of the process, the same discretization scheme may perform very differently for the two tasks, if it is not accurate enough. Exact discretizations, which work equally well at any scale, are characterized by the property of invariance under coarse-graining.

Marginal speed confinement resolves the conflict between correlation and control in collective behaviour.

Speed fluctuations of individual birds in natural flocks are moderate, due to the aerodynamic and biomechanical constraints of flight. Yet the spatial correlations of such fluctuations are scale-free, namely they have a range as wide as the entire group, a property linked to the capacity of the system to collectively respond to external perturbations. Scale-free correlations and moderate fluctuations set conflicting constraints on the mechanism controlling the speed of each agent, as the factors boosting correlation amplify fluctuations, and vice versa.

Dynamical Renormalization Group for Mode-Coupling Field Theories with Solenoidal Constraint.

The recent inflow of empirical data about the collective behaviour of strongly correlated biological systems has brought field theory and the renormalization group into the biophysical arena. Experiments on bird flocks and insect swarms show that social forces act on the particles' velocity through the generator of its rotations, namely the spin, indicating that mode-coupling field theories are necessary to reproduce the correct dynamical behaviour. Unfortunately, a theory for three coupled fields-density, velocity and spin-has a prohibitive degree of intricacy.

Endometrial receptivity and pregnancy outcome.

Human implantation is a highly complex and multifactorial process. Successful implantation requires the presence of a healthy embryo, a receptive endometrium, and a synchronized molecular dialogue between the two, as well as immune tolerance/protection from the host. The endometrial receptivity refers to a hormonally limited period in which the endometrial tissue acquires a transient functional status allowing blastocyst implantation and pregnancy initiation.

Pre-eclampsia predictive ability of maternal miR-125b: a clinical and experimental study.

Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a systemic maternal syndrome affecting 2-8% of pregnancies worldwide and involving poor placental perfusion and impaired blood supply to the foetus. It manifests after the 20 week of pregnancy as new-onset hypertension and substantial proteinuria and is responsible for severe maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality. Identifying biomarkers that predict PE onset prior to its establishment would critically help treatment and attenuate outcome severity.

Effectiveness and safety of available treatments for COVID-19 during pregnancy: a critical review.

Background: COVID-19 is a pandemic disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 and it spread globally in the last few months. The complete lack of specific treatment forced clinicians to use old drugs, chosen for their efficacy against similar viruses or their activity. Trials on patients are ongoing but the majority of information comes from small case series and single center reports.

Brain 3D-echographic early predictors of neuro-behavioral disorders in infants: a prospective observational study.

Background: Prematurity, low birth weight (LBW), very low birth weight (VLBW), and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) are risk factors of long-term poor neuro-development outcomes and associate with reduction of regional brain volumes.

Objective: To evaluate the possible role of 3D ultrasound sonography (3DUS) regional brain volumes, measured at 30-40 days of postnatal period, as early predictors of long-term risk of neuro-behavioral disorders.

Methods: A highly selected population, which included: full-term, preterm, IUGR, and preterm-IUGR born individuals, was followed longitudinally from 30 to 40 days of postnatal period to the second year of life.

First trimester HtrA1 maternal plasma level and spontaneous preterm birth.

Objectives: High temperature requirement A1 (HtrA1) is a serine protease detected in maternal plasma and in placental tissues during normal gestation and in various pathological conditions. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the maternal plasma concentration of HtrA1 in first trimester, alone or combined with other maternal factors, can be used to identify women at risk for spontaneous preterm birth (SPTB).

Study Design: This is a cohort study on pregnant women at 12 weeks of gestation recruited between 2014 and 2016 and prospectively followed until delivery.

Renormalization group crossover in the critical dynamics of field theories with mode coupling terms.

Motivated by the collective behavior of biological swarms, we study the critical dynamics of field theories with coupling between order parameter and conjugate momentum in the presence of dissipation. Under a fixed-network approximation, we perform a dynamical renormalization group calculation at one loop in the near-critical disordered region, and we show that the violation of momentum conservation generates a crossover between an unstable fixed point, characterized by a dynamic critical exponent z=d/2, and a stable fixed point with z=2. Interestingly, the two fixed points have different upper critical dimensions.

Dynamical Renormalization Group Approach to the Collective Behavior of Swarms.

We study the critical behavior of a model with nondissipative couplings aimed at describing the collective behavior of natural swarms, using the dynamical renormalization group under a fixed-network approximation. At one loop, we find a crossover between an unstable fixed point, characterized by a dynamical critical exponent z=d/2, and a stable fixed point with z=2, a result we confirm through numerical simulations. The crossover is regulated by a length scale given by the ratio between the transport coefficient and the effective friction, so that in finite-size biological systems with low dissipation, dynamics is ruled by the unstable fixed point.

Maternal tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) and influenza immunization: an overview.

Background: Maternal tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis (Tdap) and influenza immunization for women during pregnancy (the so-called "maternal immunization") has been introduced in several countries, and recently also in Italy, to protect mother and fetus during pregnancy, infant in his first months of life and mother during postpartum period. However, very low vaccination coverage rates have been reached due to several variables.

Methods: A literature search was conducted on PubMed and Embase, including any experimental or observational studies, to assesses existing evidence on the effectiveness, efficacy, safety and optimal timing of administration of Tdap and influenza immunization in pregnancy for mothers and their infants.

The effect of prenatal exposure to music on fetal movements and fetal heart rate: a pilot study.

Objective: To assess and compare fetal cardiac parameters of fetuses listening to music before and during nonstress test, only during the test or never.

Study Design: Thirty healthy mother-fetus dyads were randomized in a 1:1:1 ratio to one of three groups: group A in which fetuses were submitted to (33rd + 0 to 36th + 3 week) and during 4 nonstress tests, group B in which fetuses were submitted to during 4 nonstress tests, and group C receiving 4 nonstress tests without any listening. We assessed mean fetal heart rate, fetal heart rate accelerations, fetal heart rate decelerations, fetal movements and uterine contractility.

Obstetric and psychosocial risk factors associated with maternity blues.

Aim: To identify risk factors for maternity blues (MB) and to evaluate the impact of obstetric factors on MB prevalence.

Materials And Methods: 194 mothers have completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) 2 days after delivery. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to identify the predictors of MB.

Induction of the apoptotic pathway by oxidative stress in spontaneous preterm birth: Single nucleotide polymorphisms, maternal lifestyle factors and health status.

The purpose of the present study was to search for associations between spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB), single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with the apoptotic pathway as triggered by oxidative stress, maternal lifestyle and health status. SNP genotyping [rs7560 for c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), rs9517320 for mammalian STE20-like protein kinase 3 (MST3), rs1049216 for caspase 3 (CASP3)] in the placenta and maternal blood of 300 controls with at-term birth and 43 cases of sPTB was performed. No association was identified in genotype frequencies or combinations of foetal/maternal genotypes between single SNPs and sPTB.

[New methods for preterm birth prediction: the PAMG-1 test].

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of PAMG-1 test (placental alpha microglobulin-1) in cervicovaginal secretions collected immediately following transvaginal ultrasound (TVUS) of women with signs and symptoms of preterm labor (PTL), clinically intact membranes and cervical length between 15 and 30 mm for the prediction of imminent spontaneous delivery (within 7 days of testing), as well as delivery <34 weeks of gestation.

Methods: Performing PAMG-1 test in 79 women with singleton pregnancy (240/7 -336/7 weeks' gestation) reporting signs and symptoms indicative of PTL and cervical length <30 mm.

Results: For PTB prediction risk within 7 days of testing in pregnant women with cervicale length between 15-30 mm sensitivity is 100% and specificity is 94%.

The biological basis and prevention of preterm birth.

The time of birth is a critical determinant of perinatal and long-term outcomes. Preterm birth is still the first cause of infant mortality and morbidity; unfortunately, rates of preterm birth remain high in both high- and low-resource countries, ranging from 5% to 18%. Preterm parturition is a syndrome, which can be induced by various factors such as infection, cervical pathology, uterine overdistension, progesterone deficiency, vascular alterations (utero-placental ischemia, decidual hemorrhage), maternal and fetal stress, allograft reaction, allergic phenomena, and probably other several unknown factors.

Intrapartum test for detection of Group B Streptococcus colonization during labor.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the potential improvement of introducing an intrapartum test for the detection of Group B Streptococcus (GBS) during labor and to estimate its cost-effectiveness versus antepartum GBS screening culture.

Materials And Methods: Three hundred and thirteen women at beginning of labor, with unknown GBS status or with antepartum GBS screening culture were enrolled. A vaginal-rectal specimen was collected from each woman for GBS detection by real-time PCR.