Membrane and Membrane Bioreactors Applied to Health and Life Sciences.

The interest in membranes and membrane bioreactors for health and life sciences is rapidly growing thanks to their wide applications in advanced therapies and biotechnologies [...

Repeatability and Image Quality of IDEAL-IQ in Human Lumbar Vertebrae for Fat and Iron Quantification across Acquisition Parameters.

Echo asymmetry and least square estimation-IQ (IDEAL-IQ) were used to quantify fat and iron to verify the effects of collection parameters on repeatability and image quality of water and fat in human vertebral body. Six IDEAL-IQ sequences were used to scan 48 healthy adult women. Reproducibility of fat and iron quantification and image quality were assessed for six IDEAL-IQ sequences.

Genome-wide meta-analysis of iron status biomarkers and the effect of iron on all-cause mortality in HUNT.

Iron is essential for many biological processes, but iron levels must be tightly regulated to avoid harmful effects of both iron deficiency and overload. Here, we perform genome-wide association studies on four iron-related biomarkers (serum iron, serum ferritin, transferrin saturation, total iron-binding capacity) in the Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT), the Michigan Genomics Initiative (MGI), and the SardiNIA study, followed by their meta-analysis with publicly available summary statistics, analyzing up to 257,953 individuals. We identify 123 genetic loci associated with iron traits.

Unravelling the structural variation of lizard osteoderms.

Vertebrate skin is a remarkable organ that supports and protects the body. It consists of two layers, the epidermis and the underlying dermis. In some tetrapods, the dermis includes mineralised organs known as osteoderms (OD).

Efficacy and safety of Bacillus clausii (O/C, N/R, SIN, T) probiotic combined with oral rehydration therapy (ORT) and zinc in acute diarrhea in children: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in India.

Background: Childhood diarrhea remains a major disease burden, particularly in developing countries, and is a leading cause of death in children aged < 5 years, worldwide. Treatment of acute diarrhea now includes probiotics to potentially reduce the duration and severity of the illness. This phase 3, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study assessed the efficacy and safety of four strains (O/C, N/R, SIN, T) of Bacillus clausii probiotic (Enterogermina®) plus oral rehydration therapy (ORT) and zinc, versus placebo plus ORT and zinc, in infants and children in India with acute moderate diarrhea.

An expert-curated global database of online newspaper articles on spiders and spider bites.

Mass media plays an important role in the construction and circulation of risk perception associated with animals. Widely feared groups such as spiders frequently end up in the spotlight of traditional and social media. We compiled an expert-curated global database on the online newspaper coverage of human-spider encounters over the past ten years (2010-2020).

Development and quantitative assessment of deep learning-based image enhancement for optical coherence tomography.

Purpose: To develop a deep learning-based framework to improve the image quality of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and evaluate its image enhancement effect with the traditional image averaging method from a clinical perspective.

Methods: 359 normal eyes and 456 eyes with various retinal conditions were included. A deep learning framework with high-resolution representation was developed to achieve image quality enhancement for OCT images.

Design and synthesis of multifunctional microtubule targeting agents endowed with dual pro-apoptotic and anti-autophagic efficacy.

Autophagy is a lysosome dependent cell survival mechanism and is central to the maintenance of organismal homeostasis in both physiological and pathological situations. Targeting autophagy in cancer therapy attracted considerable attention in the past as stress-induced autophagy has been demonstrated to contribute to both drug resistance and malignant progression and recently interest in this area has re-emerged. Unlocking the therapeutic potential of autophagy modulation could be a valuable strategy for designing innovative tools for cancer treatment.

Cancer chemotherapy and beyond: Current status, drug candidates, associated risks and progress in targeted therapeutics.

Cancer is an abnormal state of cells where they undergo uncontrolled proliferation and produce aggressive malignancies that causes millions of deaths every year. With the new understanding of the molecular mechanism(s) of disease progression, our knowledge about the disease is snowballing, leading to the evolution of many new therapeutic regimes and their successive trials. In the past few decades, various combinations of therapies have been proposed and are presently employed in the treatment of diverse cancers.

Hybrid Dirac semimetal-based photodetector with efficient low-energy photon harvesting.

Despite the considerable effort, fast and highly sensitive photodetection is not widely available at the low-photon-energy range (~meV) of the electromagnetic spectrum, owing to the challenging light funneling into small active areas with efficient conversion into an electrical signal. Here, we provide an alternative strategy by efficiently integrating and manipulating at the nanoscale the optoelectronic properties of topological Dirac semimetal PtSe and its van der Waals heterostructures. Explicitly, we realize strong plasmonic antenna coupling to semimetal states near the skin-depth regime (λ/10), featuring colossal photoresponse by in-plane symmetry breaking.

Nanoparticles Surface Chemistry Influence on Protein Corona Composition and Inflammatory Responses.

Nanoparticles are widely used for biomedical applications such as vaccine, drug delivery, diagnostics, and therapeutics. This study aims to reveal the influence of nanoparticle surface functionalization on protein corona formation from blood serum and plasma and the subsequent effects on the innate immune cellular responses. To achieve this goal, the surface chemistry of silica nanoparticles of 20 nm diameter was tailored via plasma polymerization with amine, carboxylic acid, oxazolines, and alkane functionalities.

Cardiac Computed Tomography Radiomics-Based Approach for the Detection of Left Ventricular Remodeling in Patients with Arterial Hypertension.

The aim of the study is to verify the feasibility of a radiomics based approach for the detection of LV remodeling in patients with arterial hypertension. Cardiac Computed Tomography (CCT) and clinical data of patients with and without history of arterial hypertension were collected. In one image per patient, on a 4-chamber view, left ventricle (LV) was segmented using a polygonal region of interest by two radiologists in consensus.

Tin Diselenide (SnSe) Van der Waals Semiconductor: Surface Chemical Reactivity, Ambient Stability, Chemical and Optical Sensors.

Tin diselenide (SnSe) is a layered semiconductor with broad application capabilities in the fields of energy storage, photocatalysis, and photodetection. Here, we correlate the physicochemical properties of this van der Waals semiconductor to sensing applications for detecting chemical species (chemosensors) and millimeter waves (terahertz photodetectors) by combining experiments of high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy with density functional theory. The response of the pristine, defective, and oxidized SnSe surface towards H, HO, HS, NH, and NO analytes was investigated.

Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction with Bulk and Nanostructured Mitrofanovite PtTe.

Here, we discuss the key features of electrocatalysis with mitrofanovite (PtTe), a recently discovered mineral with superb performances in hydrogen evolution reaction. Mitrofanovite is a layered topological metal with spin-polarized topological surface states with potential applications for spintronics. However, mitrofanovite is also an exceptional platform for electrocatalysis, with costs of the electrodes suppressed by 47% owing to the partial replacement of Pt with Te.

Issue 1 - "Update on adverse respiratory effects of outdoor air pollution". Part 1): Outdoor air pollution and respiratory diseases: A general update and an Italian perspective.

Objective: to summarize the main updated evidence about the health effects of air pollution and to focus on Italian epidemiological experiences on the respiratory effects.

Results: the recent literature indicates that there is strong evidence for causal relationships between PM air pollution exposure and all-cause mortality as well as mortality from acute lower respiratory infections, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer. A growing body of evidence also suggests causal relationships with type II diabetes and impacts on neonatal mortality from low birth weight and short gestation as well as neurologic effects in both children and adults.

ITCH E3 ubiquitin ligase downregulation compromises hepatic degradation of branched-chain amino acids.

Metabolic syndrome, obesity, and steatosis are characterized by a range of dysregulations including defects in ubiquitin ligase tagging proteins for degradation. The identification of novel hepatic genes associated with fatty liver disease and metabolic dysregulation may be relevant to unravelling new mechanisms involved in liver disease progression METHODS: Through integrative analysis of liver transcriptomic and metabolomic obtained from obese subjects with steatosis, we identified itchy E ubiquitin protein ligase (ITCH) as a gene downregulated in human hepatic tissue in relation to steatosis grade. Wild-type or ITCH knockout mouse models of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and obesity-related hepatocellular carcinoma were analyzed to dissect the causal role of ITCH in steatosis RESULTS: We show that ITCH regulation of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) degradation enzymes is impaired in obese women with grade 3 compared with grade 0 steatosis, and that ITCH acts as a gatekeeper whose loss results in elevation of circulating BCAAs associated with hepatic steatosis.

Lemongrass Essential Oil Components with Antimicrobial and Anticancer Activities.

The prominent cultivation of lemongrass ( spp.) relies on the pharmacological incentives of its essential oil. Lemongrass essential oil (LEO) carries a significant amount of numerous bioactive compounds, such as citral (mixture of geranial and neral), isoneral, isogeranial, geraniol, geranyl acetate, citronellal, citronellol, germacrene-D, and elemol, in addition to other bioactive compounds.

Tailoring interfacial effect in multilayers with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction by helium ion irradiation.

We show a method to control magnetic interfacial effects in multilayers with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) using helium (He[Formula: see text]) ion irradiation. We report results from SQUID magnetometry, ferromagnetic resonance as well as Brillouin light scattering results on multilayers with DMI as a function of irradiation fluence to study the effect of irradiation on the magnetic properties of the multilayers. Our results show clear evidence of the He[Formula: see text] irradiation effects on the magnetic properties which is consistent with interface modification due to the effects of the He[Formula: see text] irradiation.

Standards for the Characterization of Endurance in Resistive Switching Devices.

Resistive switching (RS) devices are emerging electronic components that could have applications in multiple types of integrated circuits, including electronic memories, true random number generators, radiofrequency switches, neuromorphic vision sensors, and artificial neural networks. The main factor hindering the massive employment of RS devices in commercial circuits is related to variability and reliability issues, which are usually evaluated through switching endurance tests. However, we note that most studies that claimed high endurances >10 cycles were based on resistance cycle plots that contain very few data points (in many cases even <20), and which are collected in only one device.

The aquaculture supply chain in the time of covid-19 pandemic: Vulnerability, resilience, solutions and priorities at the global scale.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has had severe, unpredictable and synchronous impacts on all levels of perishable food supply chains (PFSC), across multiple sectors and spatial scales. Aquaculture plays a vital and rapidly expanding role in food security, in some cases overtaking wild caught fisheries in the production of high-quality animal protein in this PFSC. We performed a rapid global assessment to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related emerging control measures on the aquaculture supply chain.

Assessment of Albumin ECM Accumulation and Inflammation as Novel In Vivo Diagnostic Targets for Multi-Target MR Imaging.

Atherosclerosis is a progressive inflammatory vascular disease characterized by endothelial dysfunction and plaque burden. Extracellular matrix (ECM)-associated plasma proteins play an important role in disease development. Our magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study investigates the feasibility of using two different molecular MRI probes for the simultaneous assessment of ECM-associated intraplaque albumin deposits caused by endothelial damage and progressive inflammation in atherosclerosis.