Publications by authors named "Laura de Santis"

The intrusion of relatively warm water onto the continental shelf is widely recognized as a threat to Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers grounded below sea level, as enhanced ocean heat increases their basal melt. While the circulation of warm water has been documented on the East Antarctic continental shelf, the modes of warm water transport from the deep ocean onto the shelf are still uncertain. This makes predicting the future responses of major East Antarctic marine-grounded glaciers, such as Totten and Ninnis glaciers, particularly challenging.

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Background: The role of intravenous fosfomycin (iv-FOS) as a part of combination therapy for Gram-negative bacteria bloodstream infections (GNB-BSI) needs to be evaluated in clinical practice, as in vitro data show potential efficacy.

Methods: All consecutive patients with a GNB-BSI from 01 January 2021 to 01 April 2023 were included. Primary outcome was 30-day mortality.

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  • * The survey revealed a median knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) score of 14 out of 29 among 1,702 participants, with higher scores linked to attending classical High Schools, being sexually active, and having received the HPV vaccine.
  • * Notably, students who sought information from TikTok had better KAP scores, while being heterosexual was associated with lower scores, indicating a need for urgent school-based interventions to enhance sexual health education among this demographic.
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  • This study investigates the real-life efficacy of sotrovimab, a treatment for COVID-19, particularly in light of concerns about its effectiveness against Omicron variants, by analyzing patient records from three hospitals in Italy.
  • The research evaluated 689 COVID-19 patients in 2022, finding that those treated with sotrovimab had significantly lower rates of disease progression and mortality compared to those who received no treatment, with notable results showing that vaccination also contributed to reduced risk.
  • Key risk factors for disease progression included older age, cardiovascular disease, fever, and dyspnea, while vaccination and sotrovimab treatment were linked to a decreased chance of severe illness, revealing important
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In respiratory infections, anemia is both a consequence of acute inflammation and a predictor of poor clinical outcomes. There are few studies investigating the role of anemia in COVID-19, suggesting a potential role in predicting disease severity. In this study, we aimed to assess the association between the presence of anemia at admission and incidence of severe disease and death in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.

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Introduction: Remdesivir (REM) and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) could alleviate severe COVID-19 in at-risk outpatients. However, data on their use in hospitalized patients, particularly in elderly or immunocompromised hosts, are lacking.

Methods: All consecutive patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at our unit from 1 July 2021 to 15 March 2022 were retrospectively enrolled.

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Antarctica's continental margins pose an unknown submarine landslide-generated tsunami risk to Southern Hemisphere populations and infrastructure. Understanding the factors driving slope failure is essential to assessing future geohazards. Here, we present a multidisciplinary study of a major submarine landslide complex along the eastern Ross Sea continental slope (Antarctica) that identifies preconditioning factors and failure mechanisms.

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Migrant populations are more susceptible to viral hepatitis and HIV due to the epidemiology from their country of origin or their social vulnerability when they arrive in Europe. The aims of the study are to explore the incidence of HIV and HCV in low-wage agricultural migrant workers and their knowledge, attitude, and practice with regard to HIV and HCV, as well as their sexual behaviour and risk factors. As part of the mobile clinic services, we performed a screening campaign for HIV-HCV involving migrants living in three Apulian establishments.

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  • - The monkeypox virus has surged as a public health concern since May 2022, leading to cases in areas where it’s not typically found.
  • - A unique case during this outbreak involved a patient who developed paraphimosis—a painful condition affecting the penis—due to lesions from the monkeypox virus.
  • - The patient was treated successfully with a surgical procedure without needing antiviral medication, highlighting the importance of a collaborative medical approach for managing unusual monkeypox cases.
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  • The study aimed to investigate the presence of viral diseases in wild Macaca maura (moor macaques) in Sulawesi Island, focusing on both enteric and non-enteric viruses that could pose health threats to this endangered species.
  • Researchers collected stool samples non-invasively from two social groups of macaques between 2014 and 2016, utilizing techniques like electron microscopy and PCR to identify potential viral infections.
  • Results showed the presence of parvovirus, picornavirus, and calicivirus in the samples, but most PCR tests were negative for other viruses, highlighting the need for further research on zoonotic viruses affecting macaques in this region.
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The Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica is a region that is key to a range of climatic and oceanographic processes with worldwide effects, and is characterised by high biological productivity and biodiversity. Since 2013, the International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) has represented the most comprehensive compilation of bathymetry for the Southern Ocean south of 60°S. Recently, the IBCSO Project has combined its efforts with the Nippon Foundation - GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project supporting the goal of mapping the world's oceans by 2030.

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  • - The study assessed the prevalence of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) in fresh beef across 13 regions in Italy during 2017, analyzing 239 samples and finding 9 positive for STEC.
  • - The positive samples were detected in various regions, with a total of 20 strains isolated, primarily identified as serogroups O91, O113, and O157 using Real-Time PCR.
  • - The findings highlight the potential health risks associated with STEC in beef and emphasize the need for improved contamination prevention measures during the meat harvest process.
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Over the past 34 Million years, the Antarctic continental shelf has gradually deepened due to ice sheet loading, thermal subsidence, and erosion from repeated glaciations. The deepening that is recorded in the sedimentary deposits around the Antarctic margin indicates that after the mid-Miocene Climate Optimum (≈15 Ma), Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) dynamical response to climate conditions changed. We explore end-members for maximum AIS extent, based on ice-sheet simulations of a late-Pleistocene and a mid-Miocene glaciation.

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The original version of this Article contained an error in the spelling of the author Florence Colleoni, which was incorrectly given as Florence Colloni. This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

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  • Understanding the Antarctic ice sheet's response to global warming is based on its historical behavior, but there are limitations in current topographic data and knowledge of subsurface processes.
  • Numerical models, which are essential for predicting future changes, are challenged by the complexity of these interacting oceanic, glaciological, and hydrological processes.
  • To improve modeling accuracy, future research must incorporate observations from various disciplines and address the complexities across multiple spatial and temporal scales.
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Objective: To determine the effect of nurse-led multidisciplinary rounds on reducing the unnecessary use of urinary catheters (UCs).

Design: Quasi-experimental study with a control group, in 3 phases: preintervention, intervention, and postintervention.

Setting: Twelve medical-surgical units within a 608-bed teaching hospital, from May 2006 through April 2007.

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Switching from one functional or cognitive operation to another is thought to rely on executive/control processes. The efficacy of these processes may depend on the extent of overlap between neural circuitry mediating the different tasks; more effective task preparation (and by extension smaller switch costs) is achieved when this overlap is small. We investigated the performance costs associated with switching tasks and/or switching sensory modalities.

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Whether the somatosensory system, like its visual and auditory counterparts, is comprised of parallel functional pathways for processing identity and spatial attributes (so-called what and where pathways, respectively) has hitherto been studied in humans using neuropsychological and hemodynamic methods. Here, electrical neuroimaging of somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) identified the spatio-temporal mechanisms subserving vibrotactile processing during two types of blocks of trials. What blocks varied stimuli in their frequency (22.

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In this paper, we report the identification of genes from pine (PpAAT), Arabidopsis (AtAAT) and rice (OsAAT) encoding a novel class of aspartate aminotransferase (AAT, EC 2.6.1.

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The auditory system includes 2 parallel functional pathways-one for treating sounds' identities and another for their spatial attributes (so-called "what" and "where" pathways). We examined the spatiotemporal mechanisms along auditory "what" and "where" pathways and whether they are automatically engaged in differentially processing spatial and pitch information of identical stimuli. Electrical neuroimaging of auditory evoked potentials (i.

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  • Understanding how cadmium (Cd) is distributed within leaves is crucial for studying how Thlaspi caerulescens, a plant that can accumulate Cd, does so effectively.
  • Two ecotypes, Ganges and Prayon, were tested in various Cd concentrations, revealing that Cd concentrated mainly at the leaf edges and in spots associated with leaf damage in Prayon.
  • Multiple methods, including autoradiography and cryo-SEM-EDXMA, confirmed that Cd is stored in different parts of leaf cells, primarily in less active areas, indicating a complex storage mechanism in these plants.
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