Dual-compartment-gate organic transistors for monitoring biogenic amines from food.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) more than 14% of the world's food production is lost every year before reaching retail, and another 17% is lost during the retail stage. The use of the expiration date as the main estimator of the life-end of food products creates unjustified food waste. Sensors capable of quantifying the effective food freshness and quality could substantially reduce food waste and enable more effective management of the food chain.

Charge Carrier Density in Organic Semiconductors Modulates the Effective Capacitance: A Unified View of Electrolyte Gated Organic Transistors.

A framework for electrolyte-gated organic transistors (EGOTs) that unifies the view of interfacial capacitive coupling of electrolyte-gated organic field-effect transistors (EGOFETs) with the volumetric capacitive coupling in organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) is proposed. The EGOT effective capacitance arises from in-series capacitances of the electrolyte/gate electrode and electrolyte/channel interfaces, and the chemical capacitance of the organic semiconductor channel whose weight with respect to the interfacial capacitance is modulated by the charge carrier density, hence by the gate voltage. The expression for chemical capacitance is derived from the DOS of the organic semiconductor, which it is assumed to exhibit exponential energy disorder in the HOMO-LUMO gap.

Delayed loss of stability of periodic travelling waves: Insights from the analysis of essential spectra.

Periodic travelling waves (PTW) are a common solution type of partial differential equations. Such models exhibit multistability of PTWs, typically visualised through the Busse balloon, and parameter changes typically lead to a cascade of wavelength changes through the Busse balloon. In the past, the stability boundaries of the Busse balloon have been used to predict such wavelength changes.

Cognition in Patients with Spinocerebellar Ataxia 1 (SCA1) and 2 (SCA2): A Neurophysiological and Neuropsychological Approach.

: Cognitive impairment in spinocerebellar ataxia patients has been reported since the early-disease stage. We aimed to assess cognitive differences in SCA1 and SCA2 patients. : We performed neuropsychological (NPS) and neurophysiological (auditory event-related potentials, aERPs) assessments in 16 SCA1 and 18 SCA2 consecutive patients.

Thalamic ventral-Oralis complex/rostral zona incerta deep brain stimulation for midline tremor.

Background: Midline Tremor is defined as an isolated or combined tremor that affects the neck, trunk, jaw, tongue, and/or voice and could be part of Essential Tremor (ET), or dystonic tremor. The clinical efficacy of deep brain stimulation for Midline Tremor has been rarely reported. The Ventral Intermediate Nucleus and Globus Pallidus Internus are the preferred targets, but with variable outcomes.

Transition from time-variant to static networks: Timescale separation in N-intertwined mean-field approximation of susceptible-infectious-susceptible epidemics.

We extend the N-intertwined mean-field approximation (NIMFA) for the susceptible-infectious-susceptible (SIS) epidemiological process to time-varying networks. Processes on time-varying networks are often analyzed under the assumption that the process and network evolution happen on different timescales. This approximation is called timescale separation.

A new perspective on positive symptoms: expression of damage or self-defence mechanism of the brain?

Usually, positive neurological symptoms are considered as the consequence of a mere, afinalistic and abnormal increase in function of specific brain areas. However, according to the Theory of Active Inference, which argues that action and perception constitute a loop that updates expectations according to a Bayesian model, the brain is rather an explorer that formulates hypotheses and tests them to assess the correspondence between internal models and reality. Moreover, the cerebral cortex is characterised by a continuous "conflict" between different brain areas, which constantly attempt to expand in order to acquire more of the limited available computational resources, by means of their dopamine-induced neuroplasticity.

Multistep tumor genetic evolution and changes in immunogenicity trigger immune-mediated disease eradication in stage IV melanoma: lessons from a single case.

Durable remissions are observed in 10%-20% of treated patients with advanced metastatic melanoma but the factors associated with long-term complete clinical responses are largely unknown. Here, we report the molecular characteristics of tumor evolution during disease progression along a 9-year clinical course in a patient with advanced disseminated melanoma who received different treatments, including trametinib, ipilimumab, radiation, vemurafenib, surgical tumor debulking and a second ipilimumab course, ultimately achieving complete long-term disease remission.Longitudinal analyses of therapies-resistant metastatic tumors revealed the effects of different treatments on tumor's microenvironment and immunogenicity, ultimately creating a milieu favorable to immunotherapy response.

Genomic and transcriptomic analyses of thyroid cancers identify DICER1 somatic mutations in adult follicular-patterned RAS-like tumors.

Background: Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common type of thyroid cancer (TC). Several genomic and transcriptomic studies explored the molecular landscape of follicular cell-derived TCs, and V600E, mutations, and gene fusions are well-established drivers. mutations were described in specific sets of TC patients but represent a rare event in adult TC patients.

The role of opicapone in the management of Parkinson's disease: an Italian consensus through a combined Nominal Group Technique and Delphi approach.

Objective: Opicapone (OPC) is a third-generation peripheral catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitor (COMT-i) approved as add-on therapy to levodopa/DOPA decarboxylase inhibitors (DDCI) combinations in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with end-of-dose motor fluctuations. While the OPC effectiveness on motor symptoms is well known, there is still uncertainty about the timing of introduction, the management of levodopa dose, and the efficacy on non-motor symptoms (NMS).

Subjects And Methods: A group of PD experts participated in a consensus activity composed of the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) and the Delphi method to better define the role of OPC.

Idiopathic cervical dystonia and non-motor symptoms: a pilot case-control study on autonomic nervous system.

Purpose: Non-motor symptoms, such as sleep disturbances, fatigue, neuropsychiatric manifestations, cognitive impairment, and sensory abnormalities, have been widely reported in patients with idiopathic cervical dystonia (ICD). This study aimed to clarify the autonomic nervous system (ANS) involvement in ICD patients, which is still unclear in the literature.

Methods: We conducted a pilot case-control study to investigate ANS in twenty ICD patients and twenty age-sex-matched controls.

A minimal model for adaptive SIS epidemics.

The interplay between disease spreading and personal risk perception is of key importance for modelling the spread of infectious diseases. We propose a planar system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to describe the co-evolution of a spreading phenomenon and the average link density in the personal contact network. Contrary to standard epidemic models, we assume that the contact network changes based on the current prevalence of the disease in the population, i.

A survey on Lyapunov functions for epidemic compartmental models.

In this survey, we propose an overview on Lyapunov functions for a variety of compartmental models in epidemiology. We exhibit the most widely employed functions, and provide a commentary on their use. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive starting point to readers who are attempting to prove global stability of systems of ODEs.

Levodopa Equivalent Dose of Safinamide: A Multicenter, Longitudinal, Case-Control Study.

Background: Effects of dopaminergic medications used to treat Parkinson's disease (PD) may be compared with each other by using conversion factors, calculated as Levodopa equivalent dose (LED). However, current LED proposals on MAO-B inhibitors (iMAO-B) safinamide and rasagiline are still based on empirical approaches.

Objectives: To estimate LED of safinamide 50 and 100 mg.

TeleNEwCARe: An Italian case-control telegenetics study in patients with Hereditary NEuromuscular and CARdiac diseases.

Telemedicine provides healthcare services remotely and represents a fundamental resource for the management of rare and fragile patients. Tele-health implementation is a main objective of the European Reference Networks (ERNs) mission to accelerate diagnosis for rare diseases. TeleNewCARe is a pilot case-control project which evaluates the efficacy and satisfaction of telegenetics for neuromuscular and cardiac adult patients, compared to face-to-face genetic counselling.

Electrophysiological and neuropsychological assessment of cognition in spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 patients: a pilot study.

Background: Event-related potentials (ERPs) reflect cognitive processing: negative early components (N100, N200) are involved in the sensory and perceptual processing of a stimulus, whereas late positive component P300 requires conscious attention. Both neuropsychological and affective disorders are present in patients with spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1), but the underlying mechanisms need further clarification.

Materials And Methods: In this pilot study, we assessed cognitive processing by recording auditory ERPs in 16 consecutive SCA1 patients and 16 healthy controls (HC) matched for age and sex.

AFG3L2 Biallelic Mutation: Clinical Heterogeneity in Two Italian Patients.

AFG3-like matrix AAA peptidase subunit 2 gene (AFG3L2, OMIM * 604,581) biallelic mutations lead to autosomal recessive spastic ataxia-5 SPAX5, OMIM # 614,487), a rare hereditary form of ataxia. The clinical spectrum includes early-onset cerebellar ataxia, spasticity, and progressive myoclonic epilepsy (PME). In Italy, the epidemiology of the disease is probably underestimated.

A Cross-Comparison of High-Throughput Platforms for Circulating MicroRNA Quantification, Agreement in Risk Classification, and Biomarker Discovery in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

Background: Circulating microRNAs (ct-miRs) are promising cancer biomarkers. This study focuses on platform comparison to assess performance variability, agreement in the assignment of a miR signature classifier (MSC), and concordance for the identification of cancer-associated miRs in plasma samples from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.

Methods: A plasma cohort of 10 NSCLC patients and 10 healthy donors matched for clinical features and MSC risk level was profiled for miR expression using two sequencing-based and three quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qPCR)-based platforms.

Genetic Layout of Melanoma Lesions Is Associated with BRAF/MEK-Targeted Therapy Resistance and Transcriptional Profiles.

The genetic landscape of melanoma resistance to targeted therapy with small molecules inhibiting BRAF and MEK kinases is still largely undefined. In this study, we portrayed in detail the somatic alterations of resistant melanoma and explored the associated biological processes and their integration with transcriptional profiles. By targeted next-generation sequencing and whole-exome sequencing analyses, a list of 101 genes showing imbalance in metastatic tumors from patients with a complete/durable response or disease progression during therapy with vemurafenib or with dabrafenib and trametinib was defined.

Beyond canvas: behavioral onset of rfc1-expansion disease in an Italian family-causal or casual?

Introduction: Biallelic intronic AAGGG repeat expansion in the replication factor C subunit 1 (RFC1) gene was recently identified in two/third of patients with cerebellar ataxia, sensory neuropathy, and bilateral vestibular areflexia syndrome (CANVAS). The phenotypic spectrum has expanded since (i.e.