Risky Behaviors for Non-Communicable Diseases: Italian Adolescents' Food Habits and Physical Activity.

Background: Driving adolescents to more correct food habits and physical activity is crucial to promoting health and avoiding the increase in morbidity and mortality in adulthood. Literature has focused on these behaviors in the adult population, while studies on adolescents are more limited. This study aims to explore the level of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding nutrition and physical activity to acquire insight into adolescents and identify the associated predictors.

A Possible Correlation Between Auricular Angiomas and Breast Cancer Through Auricular Acupuncture Diagnosis: An Observational Case-Control Study.

Introduction Auricular acupuncture (AA) can be used for both diagnosis and therapy. Diagnosis done with AA has become more prominent, with inspection by evaluating skin alterations considered the most important step. Literature on AA diagnosis in cancer patients is scarce.

Predicting Future Disorders via Temporal Knowledge Graphs and Medical Ontologies.

Despite the vast potential for insights and value present in Electronic Health Records (EHRs), it is challenging to fully leverage all the available information, particularly that contained in the free-text data written by clinicians describing the health status of patients. The utilization of Named Entity Recognition and Linking tools allows not only for the structuring of information contained within free-text data, but also for the integration with medical ontologies, which may prove highly beneficial for the analysis of patient medical histories with the aim of forecasting future medical outcomes, such as the diagnosis of a new disorder. In this paper, we propose MedTKG, a Temporal Knowledge Graph (TKG) framework that incorporates both the dynamic information of patient clinical histories and the static information of medical ontologies.

Analysis of the COVID-19 vaccine willingness and hesitancy among parents of healthy children aged 6 months-4 years: a cross-sectional survey in Italy.

Introduction: In Italy, since December 2022, the COVID-19 vaccination has been extended to children aged 6 months-4 years with conditions of fragility and to those healthy at the request of the parent. The purposes of the cross-sectional survey were to determine the willingness and hesitancy of the parents/guardians to have their healthy children vaccinated against COVID-19.

Methods: The survey was performed among 389 parents/guardians with a child aged 6 months-4 years randomly selected from seven kindergartens and eight nursery schools in the geographic area of Naples, Italy.

Parents' Uptake and Willingness towards Recommended Vaccinations for Their Children with Underlying Chronic Medical Conditions in Italy.

This cross-sectional survey was conducted to investigate the willingness and uptake of recommended vaccinations against influenza, meningococcal B and ACWY, pneumococcal, rotavirus and the influencing factors among 565 parents of children aged 6 months to 5 years with chronic medical conditions in Italy. Only 34.9% of the sample received all vaccinations.

Willingness and hesitancy of parents to vaccinate against COVID-19 their children ages 6 months to 4 years with frail conditions in Italy.

Background: In Italy, on December 2022, COVID-19 vaccination was recommended for children aged 6 months-4 years with frail conditions and for those healthy. The purposes of the survey were to understand parental willingness and hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccination of children with frail conditions in Italy and related influencing factors.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed among 445 parents with a child aged 6 months-4 years with frail conditions who attended a teaching hospital and a public hospital randomly selected in the city of Naples, Italy.

TaughtNet: Learning Multi-Task Biomedical Named Entity Recognition From Single-Task Teachers.

In Biomedical Named Entity Recognition (BioNER), the use of current cutting-edge deep learning-based methods, such as deep bidirectional transformers (e.g. BERT, GPT-3), can be substantially hampered by the absence of publicly accessible annotated datasets.

Needle contact test in auricular acupuncture for shoulder pain and where effective auricular acupoints identified are positioned on the map: A controlled study.

Active Points Test on auricle was renamed Needle Contact Test (or NCT), considered an extremely effective method to select most efficient auricle acupoint for Auricular Acupuncture (or AA) therapy. Our aims were to evaluate NCT efficiency as viable diagnostic option to identify the most appropriate AA acupoints to be selected for SupraSpinatus Tendinopathy (SST) associated shoulder pain treatment and to evaluate which auricle area has greater concentration of NCT positive acupoints in subjects with SST shoulder pain, comparing results with available AA ear maps. 45 subjects with SST diagnosis were enrolled.

Acupuncture in the treatment of Dry Eye Syndrome with anxiety symptoms. A case report.

Dry Eye Syndrome (DES) is an eye disorder caused by alteration of production or composition of tear film. Symptoms include dry eye dryness, burning, itching and pain, and often is associated with emotional stress, anxiety and depression. Evidence of the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat DES has recently appeared in literature but not on acupuncture treatment of DES related anxiety or depression symptoms.

The Medial Surface of the Auricle: Historical and Recent Maps. What Are the Possible Expectations of the .

Introduction: The medial surface of the auricle (MSotA), as compared to the lateral, has been less studied and has limited consensus among schools of auricular acupuncture (AA) due to its small size, greater difficulty in carrying out an adequate physical examination on it, and less precise and limited agreement on its anatomical references as compared to the lateral surface. The thumb-index technique TIT is performed using a guiding finger (taking advantage of the anatomical conformation of the lateral surface) to guide the explorer finger (placed on the MSotA) to project the therapeutic areas and land marks on the MSotA. TIT could be considered useful and effective in AA to make the most of diagnostic and therapeutic MSotA potential.

Music Recommendation via Hypergraph Embedding.

In recent years, we have witnessed an ever wider spread of multimedia streaming platforms (e.g., Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon).

An Epidemiological Neural Network Exploiting Dynamic Graph Structured Data Applied to the COVID-19 Outbreak.

With the recent COVID-19 outbreak, we have assisted to the development of new epidemic models or the application of existing methodologies to predict the virus spread and to analyze how the different lock-down strategies can effectively influence the epidemic diffusion. In this paper, we propose a novel machine learning based framework able to estimate the parameters of any epidemiological model, such as contact rates and recovery rates, based on static and dynamic features of places. In particular, we model mobility data through a graph series whose spatial and temporal features are investigated by combining Graph Convolutional Neural Networks (GCNs) and Long short-term memories (LSTMs) in order to infer the parameters of SIR and SIRD models.

Bedside implantation of a new temporary vena cava inferior filter - Safety and efficacy results of the European ANGEL-Registry.

Purpose: Pulmonary embolism (PE) is a frequently occurring complication in critically ill patients. Simultaneous occurrence of PE and life-threatening bleeding, may render medical anticoagulation impossible. For these patients, inferior vena cava filters (IVCF) present a valuable therapeutic alternative.

Mosaic Analysis with Double Markers Reveals Distinct Sequential Functions of Lgl1 in Neural Stem Cells.

The concerted production of neurons and glia by neural stem cells (NSCs) is essential for neural circuit assembly. In the developing cerebral cortex, radial glia progenitors (RGPs) generate nearly all neocortical neurons and certain glia lineages. RGP proliferation behavior shows a high degree of non-stochasticity, thus a deterministic characteristic of neuron and glia production.

The haptoglobin beta subunit sequesters HMGB1 toxicity in sterile and infectious inflammation.

Background: Extra-corpuscular haemoglobin is an endogenous factor enhancing inflammatory tissue damage, a process counteracted by the haemoglobin-binding plasma protein haptoglobin composed of alpha and beta subunits connected by disulfide bridges. Recent studies established that haptoglobin also binds and sequesters another pro-inflammatory mediator, HMGB1, via triggering CD163 receptor-mediated anti-inflammatory responses involving heme oxygenase-1 expression and IL-10 release. The molecular mechanism underlying haptoglobin-HMGB1 interaction remains poorly elucidated.

Time-Specific Effects of Spindle Positioning on Embryonic Progenitor Pool Composition and Adult Neural Stem Cell Seeding.

The developmental mechanisms regulating the number of adult neural stem cells (aNSCs) are largely unknown. Here we show that the cleavage plane orientation in murine embryonic radial glia cells (RGCs) regulates the number of aNSCs in the lateral ganglionic eminence (LGE). Randomizing spindle orientation in RGCs by overexpression of Insc or a dominant-negative form of Lgn (dnLgn) reduces the frequency of self-renewing asymmetric divisions while favoring symmetric divisions generating two SNPs.

Mammary Stem Cell Self-Renewal Is Regulated by Slit2/Robo1 Signaling through SNAI1 and mINSC.

Tissue homeostasis requires somatic stem cell maintenance; however, mechanisms regulating this process during organogenesis are not well understood. Here, we identify asymmetrically renewing basal and luminal stem cells in the mammary end bud. We demonstrate that SLIT2/ROBO1 signaling regulates the choice between self-renewing asymmetric cell divisions (ACDs) and expansive symmetric cell divisions (SCDs) by governing Inscuteable (mInsc), a key member of the spindle orientation machinery, through the transcription factor Snail (SNAI1).

Deterministic progenitor behavior and unitary production of neurons in the neocortex.

Radial glial progenitors (RGPs) are responsible for producing nearly all neocortical neurons. To gain insight into the patterns of RGP division and neuron production, we quantitatively analyzed excitatory neuron genesis in the mouse neocortex using Mosaic Analysis with Double Markers, which provides single-cell resolution of progenitor division patterns and potential in vivo. We found that RGPs progress through a coherent program in which their proliferative potential diminishes in a predictable manner.

Par3-mInsc and Gαi3 cooperate to promote oriented epidermal cell divisions through LGN.

Asymmetric cell divisions allow stem cells to balance proliferation and differentiation. During embryogenesis, murine epidermis expands rapidly from a single layer of unspecified basal layer progenitors to a stratified, differentiated epithelium. Morphogenesis involves perpendicular (asymmetric) divisions and the spindle orientation protein LGN, but little is known about how the apical localization of LGN is regulated.

Analysis and modeling of mitotic spindle orientations in three dimensions.

The orientation of the mitotic spindle determines the relative size and position of the daughter cells and influences the asymmetric inheritance of localized cell fate determinants. The onset of mammalian neurogenesis, for example, coincides with changes in spindle orientation. To address the functional implications of this and related phenomena, precise methods for determining the orientation of the mitotic spindle in complex tissues are needed.

Mouse inscuteable induces apical-basal spindle orientation to facilitate intermediate progenitor generation in the developing neocortex.

Neurons in the mammalian neocortex arise from asymmetric divisions of progenitors residing in the ventricular zone. While in most progenitor divisions, the mitotic spindle is parallel to the ventricular surface, some progenitors reorient the spindle and divide in oblique orientations. Here, we use conditional deletion and overexpression of mouse Inscuteable (mInsc) to analyze the relevance of spindle reorientation in cortical progenitors.

Evaluation with stabilometric platform of balance disorders in osteoporosis patients. A proposal for a diagnostic protocol.

Osteoporosis is a systemic disease with reduced bone mass and qualitative alterations of the bone, associated to increased risk of fracture. Pathogenesis of osteoporosis fractures is multifactorial. Main risk factor is falls (except for vertebral fragility fractures which occurs often in absence of trauma).

Radial extracorporeal shock-wave therapy in rotator cuff calcific tendinosis.

The objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Radial Extracorporeal Shock-wave Therapy (RESWT) compared with High Power LASER Therapy (HPLT) for the treatment of patients with Rotator Cuff Calcific Tendinosis (RCCT). RCCT is widely diffused, it is painful and invalidating. It is an important public health problem with social and economic implications.

Rehabilitation in peripheral non femoral fractures: a review.

This paper is a short review of the available information on peripheral non femoral fractures (PNFF) which are strictly related to osteoporosis. Particular attention is focused on wrist fractures in view of their frequent occurrence as indicated by world wide statistics. Of special interest is the definition of risk groups (old age), risk areas (developed countries) and risk factors.