Hot towels

2023

Background Meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) reduces quality-of-life and hinders work productivity of millions of patients, with high direct and indirect societal costs. Thickened meibum obstructs the glands and disrupts ocular surface health. Heating the eyelids to soften and express meibum from the glands can be beneficial. The most accessible method for eyelid warming uses heated, wet towels. However, the efficacy of this treatment is reliant on the methodology, and evidence-based best-practice recommendations are needed. Purpose To evaluate the literature on hot towels in MGD treatment and recommend a best-practice protocol for future research and patient treatment. Methods Studies were…

Sex differences in neuromuscular disorders

2023

: The prevalence, onset, pathophysiology, and clinical course of many neuromuscular disorders (NMDs) may significantly differ between males and females. Some NMDs are more frequently observed in females, and characterized to show a higher grade of severity during or after the pregnancy. Meanwhile, others tend to have an earlier onset in males and exhibit a more variable progression. Prevalently, sex differences in NMDs have a familiar character given from genetic inheritance. However, they may also influence clinical presentation and disease severity of acquired NMD forms, and are represented by both hormonal and genetic factors. Consequently, to shed light on the distinctive role of biolog…

On Intrinsic Negative Curves

2023

Proprioceptive response strength in the primary sensorimotor cortex is invariant to the range of finger movement

2023

Available online 13 February 2023 Proprioception is the sense of body position and movement that relies on afference from the proprioceptors in muscles and joints. Proprioceptive responses in the primary sensorimotor (SM1) cortex can be elicited by stim- ulating the proprioceptors using evoked (passive) limb movements. In magnetoencephalography (MEG), propri- oceptive processing can be quantified by recording the movement evoked fields (MEFs) and movement-induced beta power modulations or by computing corticokinematic coherence (CKC) between the limb kinematics and cortical activity. We examined whether cortical proprioceptive processing quantified with MEF peak strength, relative beta supp…

Influence of bed roughness on flow and turbulence structure around a partially-buried, isolated freshwater mussel

2023

The present study uses eddy-resolving numerical simulations to investigate how bed roughness affects flow and turbulence structure around an isolated, partially-buried mussel (Unio elongatulus) aligned with the incoming flow. The rough-bed simulations resolve the flow past the exposed part of a gravel bed, whose surface is obtained from a laboratory experiment that also provides some additional data for validation of the numerical model. Results are also discussed for the limiting case of a horizontal smooth bed. Additionally, the effects of varying the level of burial of the mussel inside the substrate and the discharge through the two mussel siphons are investigated via a set of simulatio…

Paleogenetic analysis and radiocarbon dating on skeletal remains from the Roman necropolis of Contrada Diana (Lipari Island, Sicily)

2023

Lipari, the largest of the Aeolian Islands, is located in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Archeological evidence suggests an early human occupation starting from the Neolithic period. The island, favored by its volcanic history, was an important crossroads of cultures and commerce exchanges during prehistory up to Greek and Roman dominations. In this study, we present multidisciplinary analysis results on four skeletal remains from the necropolis of Contrada Diana attributed to the Roman period. By using Next Generation Sequencing technology we identified the biological sex and reconstructed the complete mitochondrial genome for two individuals. We retrieved the first ancient L3e5a lineage tha…

Luci e ombre delle modifiche alla disciplina della tutela cautelare

2023

La tutela cautelare nel processo tributario e` stata oggetto di ripetuti interventi di riforma, determinati sia dall’opportunita` di disciplinarne l’accesso anche nei giudizi di impugnazione, sia dalla necessita` di meglio bilanciare la posizione del contribuente a fronte della significativa accelerazione impressa dal legislatore all’esecuzione forzata. L’esame del contenuto e dei limiti della nuova disciplina consente di apprezzare la scelta di riservare norme specifiche alla tutela inibitoria nei gradi di giudizio successivi al primo e di ridurre la discrezionalita` del giudice nel concedere la tutela condizionata. Al contempo, l’indagine lascia emergere l’opportunita` di un nuovo ripensa…

AUTOPHAGY AND APOPTOSIS MODULATION BY AQUEOUS EXTRACTS FROM LEAVES AND RHIZOMES OF Posidonia oceanica ON HEPG2 HEPATOCARCINOMA CELLS

2023

Amide functionalized aminobisphenolato MoO2 and WO2 complexes: Synthesis, characterization, and alkene epoxidation catalysis

2023

The use of dioxidomolybdenum(vi) and -tungsten(vi) complexes supported by a variety of structurally different tri- and tetradentate aminobisphenolato ligands as pre-catalysts in the epoxidation of alkenes is well established. However, under the widely used standard 1 mol-% catalyst loadings these types of complexes generally show modest activity only. Recently, amide functionalities in the ligand design of various aminomonophenolato MoO2 complexes have been shown to lead to heightened catalytic activity in alkene epoxidation. In this paper we show that similar ligand amide functionalization can lead to significant enhancement in the alkene epoxidation activity of aminobisphenolato MoO2 comp…

L’affresco con la Virgo lactans “in maestà” e la Trinità tricefala: un’opera castigliana?

2023

Nel saggio si approfondisce la lettura iconografica di un affresco tardo-gotico dell'ultimo quarto del XV secolo conservato nella chiesa di Santa Maria la Porta di Geraci Siculo (PA). La Madonna che allatta il Bambino, il tipo di trono architettonico in cui è posta e la presenza della rara iconografia della Trinità tricefala suggeriscono una matrice iberica, probabilmente castigliana The essay explores the iconographic interpretation of a late Gothic fresco from the last quarter of the 15th century preserved in the church of Santa Maria la Porta in Geraci Siculo (PA). The Madonna suckling the Child, the type of architectural throne on which she is placed and the presence of the rare iconogr…

Watersport and juvenile criminal justice: social projects for individual and community well-being

2023

Background:Intervention projects in social and psychological fields envisage actions aimed at creating a network not only among institutions and informal support but also an opportunity for the promotion of well-being, individuals and communities. Methods:This project was based on an active and individual-centered approach that involved in 2020, 6 young people from the Palermo Juvenile Prison, involving their awareness and participation in planned activities that involved the use of a water sport (snorkeling) to offer them an opportunity for change. Results:The adoption of watersport has been a successful methodology, as they are based on sharing standards, individual responsibility and mut…

Business model scaling and growth hacking in digital entrepreneurship

2023

Creating an innovative product and validating an innovative business model may not be enough for digital startups to be competitive. To grow fast and expand globally, digital startups need to innovate their business model during the scaling phase. A pragmatic approach has recently been proposed to support digital entrepreneurs engaging in business-model innovation during the scaling phase (i.e., business-model scaling), a strategy known as growth hacking. However, we know little about its theoretical grounding and how effective growth hacking is, as businesses lack methodologies to assess its effectiveness before committing resources and investments. To fill this gap, we developed a method …

Status indicators in software engineering group projects

2023

A segment of studies on group structure and performance in software engineering (SE) project-based learning (PjBL) have focused on roles, including studies that use Belbin team roles and studies that address problematic roles such as social loafing. The present study focuses on the status, which is basically missing in SE PjBL studies, although relating to roles. The study investigates the aspects that students identified as indicators of rising or declining status in their project groups. The status theory was utilized as the framework that motivated the research and on which the results were reflected. An inductive qualitative content analysis was applied to learning reports in which stud…

The Role of Medical Humanities in Prevention and Treatment of Patients with Chronic Diseases

2023

In the field of prevention and treatment of patients with chronic diseases, biomedicine often shows its inability to be effective on a clinical level, despite its extraordinary scientifical growth. Through the analysis of a clinical vignette, the paper illustrates the skills and the solutions that could be applied to obtain awareness and compliance in chronic patients, using the expertise we can obtain from Medical Humanities.

Marta Cimino e il Comitato dei lenzuoli. Antimafia, cordoglio e mobilitazione nell'Italia degli anni '90

2023

In 1992, the massacres in which judges Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo and Paolo Borsellino lost their lives, along with the women and men who made up their escorts, caused a shock throughout the country. Also for this reason, 1992 is considered a watershed year, a crucial date for the end of the “First Republic”. This essay reconstructs the history of an entirely new attempt at mobilisation, the Committee of the Sheets, which was born spontaneously immediately after the Capaci massacre on the initiative of Marta Cimino, a former militant of the New Left, the daughter of two militants of the Italian Communist Party. For its short life, the Committee was one of the best known expression…

Genotype determining aerobic exercise capacity associates with behavioral plasticity in middle-aged rats

2023

Good aerobic fitness associates positively with cognitive performance and brain health and conversely, low aerobic fitness predisposes to neurodegenerative diseases. To study how genotype together with exercise, started at older age, affects brain and behavior, we utilized rats that differ in inherited aerobic fitness. Rats bred for Low Capacity for Running (LCR) are shown to display less synaptic plasticity and more inflammation in the hippocampus and perform worse than rats bred for a High Capacity for Running (HCR) in tasks requiring flexible cognition. Here we used middle-aged (∼ 16 months) HCR and LCR rats to study how genotype and sex associate with anxiety and neural information filt…

La prescrizione nel rapporto di lavoro prima e dopo la riforma Fornero

2023

Dopo aver ricostruito la giurisprudenza in materia di prescrizione dei crediti da lavoro, a partire dalle più risalenti pronunce della Corte Costituzionale, il contributo fornisce il commento di una pronuncia del Tribunale di Taranto del 5 ottobre 2022, che ha applicato anche ai diritti soggetti a prescrizione decennale derivanti dalla prestazione lavorativa il principio di imprescrittibilità in costanza di rapporto di lavoro, recentemente reintrodotto dalla giurisprudenza della Suprema Corte per i diritti retributivi.

A conceptual model of feedback mechanisms in adjusted affordances – Insights from usage of a mental mobile health application

2023

Affordance theory provides one of the most prominent lenses through which the socio-technical aspects of a system’s use can be investigated and understood. In this context, the literature has proposed that perceived and actualized affordances may be adjusted over time. Yet, how the adjustment of affordances occurs has not been explained in detail. Thus, in this article, we develop a conceptual model of feedback mechanisms that includes a more explicit description of how affordances are perceived by users, whether actualized and adjusted. With the model, we introduce the central concept of a generative base, out of which affordance perceptions emerge and which can be updated through affordan…

Paesaggi urbani a rischio. Sviluppo futuro delle città e Piano delle Acque, un legame imprescindibile

2023

Questo studio analizza il rapporto uomo-acqua-territorio, che nel tempo si è deteriorato fino a risultare quasi illeggibile. Una situazione accentuatasi in modo particolare negli ultimi decenni e senza dubbio ricollegabile all’eccessivo sviluppo delle concentrazioni urbane, ad un uso irrazionale del territorio, alla diffusione pervasiva delle più diverse forme di inquinamento, dalle manipolazioni sostanziali del paesaggio rurale ma, anche, dalla scarsa sensibilità di politici e amministratori che non hanno avuto la vision di saper programmare il futuro delle città. Ciò ha influenzato negativamente il reale ruolo dei corsi d’acqua, alterandone spesso le funzioni. Da qui la necessità di dover…

Animal husbandry in Sicilian prehistory: The zooarchaeological perspective from Vallone Inferno (Scillato, Palermo)

2023

Starting in the mid-6th millennium cal BCE, Neolithic groups occupied the midlands of Sicily. The economy of these groups was based primarily on livestock farming. Archaeological and archaeobotanical data indicate an intensification of livestock practices during the Early Bronze Age, leading to a change in the landscape in the form of more open forests. The Vallone Inferno rockshelter in the Madonie massif is one of the few sites that has been systematically excavated in these midlands, and has yielded evidence of Middle Neolithic and Early Bronze Age occupations. This work focuses on the study of prehistoric husbandry in the Sicilian midlands and highlands through the analysis of the Vallo…

An innovative Blockchain-based model to implement the 2030 Agenda in Italy

2023

One of the most crucial collective efforts in history for improving the lives of billions of people is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The assessment of the implementation of the SDGs in Italy in 2019 demonstrates that, overall, Italian cities have achieved 53% of the implementation of the SDGs from 100 percent full achievement. In addition, in many regions, the investigation verifies the gap between the country's north and south. Given that the use of the transformational power of blockchain to achieve the SDGs looks promising, the goal of this study is to explore how blockchain may improve the implementation of the 2030 Agenda in Italy. In this research, a qualitative approach a…

Phosphorous removal from human urine using lateritic soil

2023

Phosphorous (P) in human urine is among the macronutrients in municipal wastewater that has exacerbated eutrophication of water bodies. Adsorption of P from wastewater using cost effective, environmentally friendly, and efficient adsorbents is considered as an attractive method that can both mitigate the eutrophication problem and augment the already strained P reserves. In the present study the adsorption capacity and structural properties of lateritic soil (LS), the adsorbent for removal of P from human urine, was investigated using XRF, SEM, TGA and FTIR techniques. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted to determine various adsorption parameters such as the sorption rates, the conc…

Highlights on two decades with microbiota and inflammatory bowel disease from etiology to therapy

2023

Inflammatory Bowel diseases (IBDs) constitute a complex panel of disorders characterized with chronic inflammation affecting the alimentary canal along with extra intestinal manifestations. Its exact etiology is still unknown; however, it seems to be the result of uncharacterized environmental insults in the intestine and their immunological consequences along with dysbiosis, in genetically predisposed individuals. It was the main target of our team since 2002 to explore the etiology of IBD and the related role of bacteria. For almost two decades, our laboratory, among others, has been involved in the reciprocal interaction between the host gastrointestinal lining and the homing microbiota.…

Safety and performance of a suprachoroidal sensor for telemetric measurement of intraocular pressure in the EYEMATE-SC trial

2023

AimTo investigate the safety and performance of a telemetric suprachoroidal intraocular pressure (IOP) sensor (EYEMATE-SC) and the accuracy of its IOP measurements in open angle glaucoma (OAG) patients undergoing simultaneous non-penetrating glaucoma surgery (NPGS).MethodsProspective, multicentre, open-label, single-arm, interventional clinical trial. Twenty-four eyes of 24 patients with OAG regularly scheduled for NPGS (canaloplasty or deep sclerectomy) were simultaneously implanted with an EYEMATE-SC sensor. Six-month follow-up on the sensor’s safety and performance as well as on the level of agreement between the EYEMATE-SC measurements and IOP measurements with Goldmann applanation tono…

UAV-Aided Secure Short-Packet Data Collection and Transmission

2023

Benefiting from the deployment flexibility and the line-of-sight (LoS) channel conditions, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has gained tremendous attention in data collection for wireless sensor networks. However, the high-quality air-ground channels also pose significant threats to the security of UAV aided wireless networks. In this paper, we propose a short-packet secure UAV-aided data collection and transmission scheme to guarantee the freshness and security of the transmission from the sensors to the remote ground base station (BS). First, during the data collection phase, the trajectory, the flight duration, and the user scheduling are jointly optimized with the objective of maximizing t…

A hybrid observer for localization from noisy inertial data and sporadic position measurements

2023

We propose an asymptotic position and speed observer for inertial navigation in the case where the position measurements are sporadic and affected by noise. We cast the problem in a hybrid dynamics framework where the continuous motion is affected by unknown continuous-time disturbances and the sporadic position measurements are affected by discrete-time noise. We show that the peculiar hybrid cascaded structure describing the estimation error dynamics is globally finite-gain exponentially ISS with gains depending intuitively on our tuning parameters. Experimental results, as well as the comparison with an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), confirm the effectiveness of the proposed solution with…

How does disruptive innovation influence the funding decisions of different venture capital investors? An empirical analysis on the role of startups'…

2023

Entrepreneurs present their ideas in a favorable light through compelling communications that may shape the investors' impressions about the value of the startup's technology and its potential to disrupt. Assessing such communications, venture capital (VC) investors get an impression of the startup's technology and shape their willingness to commit resources to it. Since diverse kinds of VC investors pursue alternative investment objectives, they may develop different impressions of the startup's technology and accordingly make different resource commitment decisions. This paper aims to investigate the resource commitment decisions of VC investors when financing startups communicating disru…

Negative emotion reduces visual working memory recall variability: A meta-analytical review.

2023

Negative emotion is often hypothesized to trigger a more deliberate processing mode. This effect can manifest as increased precision of information maintained in working memory (WM) captured by reduced WM recall variability under an induced negative emotional state. However, some recent evidence shows that WM representations are immune to any emotional influences. Here, we meta-analyze existing evidence based on data from 13 experiments across 491 participants who performed a delay-estimation WM task under negative and neutral emotional states. We find that induced negative emotional state modestly reduces WM recall variability and increases recall failures relative to the neutral condition…

Le politiche per l’occupazione nel quadro del Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza: opportunità e rischi di attuazione

2023

Nel corso di questi ultimi decenni in molti paesi del mondo le politiche del lavoro si sono decisamente spostate dalla tutela dai rischi della disoccupazione (politiche passi-ve) allo sviluppo del mercato del lavoro nel suo complesso (politiche attive). Con la Missione 5 - Inclusione e Coesione (M5) - Componente 1- Employment Policies (C1) il Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR) si inserisce pienamente in questo nuovo quadro politico. Scopo del presente studio è mettere in luce le opportunità e i rischi di attuazione delle politiche pubbliche per l’occupazione previste dal PNRR in Italia. Dopo avere ricostruito le linee di tendenza delle politiche del lavoro nella so-cietà contemp…

Impact of age and gender on glioblastoma onset, progression, and management

2023

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults, while its frequency in pe-diatric patients is 10-15%. For this reason, age is considered one of the major risk factors for the development of GBM, as it correlates with cellular aging phenomena involving glial cells and favoring the process of tumor transformation. Gender differences have been also identified, as the incidence of GBM is higher in males than in females, coupled with a worse outcome. In this review, we analyze age-and gender-dependent differences in GBM onset, mutational landscape, clinical manifestations, and survival, according to the literature of the last 20 years, focusing on the major risk fa…

Optimization of the sheet hydroforming process parameters to improve the quality of reshaped EoL components

2023

Abstract. The reshaping of End-of-Life (EoL) components by means of sheet metal forming process has been considered largely attractive, even from the social and economic point of view. At the same time, EoL parts can be often characterized by non-uniform thicknesses or alternation of work-hardened/undeformed zones as the results of the manufacturing process. Such heterogeneity can hinder a proper reshaping of the EoL part and residual marks on the re-formed blanks can be still present at the end of the reshaping step. In a previous analysis, the authors evaluated the effectiveness of reshaping a blank with a deep drawn feature by means of the Sheet Hydroforming (SHF) process: it was demonst…

Non-invasive investigation on pigments of the Aeolian Islands Neolithic pottery

2023

The Neolithic painted pottery, spread all over southern Italy, is considered as an important chronological indicator for the development of VI-V millennium BC prehistoric settlements and cultural traditions. The goal of this work is to contribute to the study of this ceramic class through the chemical characterization of some samples coming from the Aeolian Islands. 16 different sherds have been selected and the pigments preserved in their decorations analyzed via non-invasive techniques: Fiber Optical Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Raman Spectroscopy and Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). The different pigments, some of which no longer clearly visible to the naked e…

Uno studio sulla “dissenting opinion” con particolare riguardo all’esperienza del diritto inglese

2023

The essay explores the many means through which judicial dissent has traditionally made its way into the English legal system in order to be finally accepted as an ineliminable instrument that the minority has availed itself of to air its differing opinion, mostly in matters of general, public importance. So, the research is in the first place directed towards the identification of the different types of dissent and of the forms (even concurring) in which it may be shaped. Furthermore, the study involves the attempt to find out what reasons may underlie the expression of dissent and whether they may conceal some kind of idyiosincratic state of mind on the part of the dissenters. A view is a…

The structure of the moduli spaces of toric dynamical systems

2023

We consider complex-balanced mass-action systems, or toric dynamical systems. They are remarkably stable polynomial dynamical systems arising from reaction networks seen as Euclidean embedded graphs. We study the moduli spaces of toric dynamical systems, called the toric locus: given a reaction network, we are interested in the topological structure of the set of parameters giving rise to toric dynamical systems. First we show that the complex-balanced equilibria depend continuously on the parameter values. Using this result, we prove that the toric locus of any toric dynamical system is connected. In particular, we emphasize its product structure: it is homeomorphic to the product of the s…

Spatially resolved multimarker evaluation of CD274 (PD-L1)/PDCD1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint expression and macrophage polarisation in colorectal cancer

2023

Abstract Background The CD274 (PD-L1)/PDCD1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint interaction may promote cancer progression, but the expression patterns and prognostic significance of PD-L1 and PD-1 in the colorectal cancer microenvironment are inadequately characterised. Methods We used a custom 9-plex immunohistochemistry assay to quantify the expression patterns of PD-L1 and PD-1 in macrophages, T cells, and tumour cells in 910 colorectal cancer patients. We evaluated cancer-specific mortality according to immune cell subset densities using multivariable Cox regression models. Results Compared to PD-L1– macrophages, PD-L1+ macrophages were more likely M1-polarised than M2-polarised and located close…

Action-oriented knowledge for sustainable management of organic soils in Finnish agriculture

2023

Agriculture is a contributing force to climate change due to unsustainable changes in land use with the usage of peatlands for food production in Finland. The use of organic soils in food production is a complex and politically driven issue, thus multistakeholder and participatory approaches to policy development, implementation and evaluation are essential. This study is integrating qualitative and quantitative methods in an iterative process to produce action-oriented knowledge for supporting actions to sustainably manage peatlands and reduce the enormous greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural peatlands. This study has engaged inter-disciplinary researchers and transdisciplinary actor…