Search results for "cala"

Shared language, diverging genetic histories: high-resolution analysis of Y-chromosome variability in Calabrian and Sicilian Arbereshe.

2015

The relationship between genetic and linguistic diversification in human populations has been often explored to interpret some specific issues in human history. The Albanian-speaking minorities of Sicily and Southern Italy (Arbereshe) constitute an important portion of the ethnolinguistic variability of Italy. Their linguistic isolation from neighboring Italian populations and their documented migration history, make such minorities particularly effective for investigating the interplay between cultural, geographic and historical factors. Nevertheless, the extent of Arbereshe genetic relationships with the Balkan homeland and the Italian recipient populations has been only partially investi…

Emerging switchable ultraviolet photoluminescence in dehydrated Zn/Al layered double hydroxide nanoplatelets

2019

AbstractLayered double hydroxides show intriguing physical and chemical properties arising by their intrinsic self-assembled stacking of molecular-thick 2D nanosheets, enhanced active surface area, hosting of guest species by intercalation and anion exchanging capabilities. Here, we report on the unprecedented emerging intense ultraviolet photoluminescence in Zn/Al layered double hydroxide high-aspect-ratio nanoplatelets, which we discovered to be fully activated by drying under vacuum condition and thermal desorption as well. Photoluminescence and its quenching were reproducibly switched by a dehydration–hydration process. Photoluminescence properties were comprehensively evaluated, such a…

Management of febrile neutropenia in the perspective of antimicrobial de-escalation and discontinuation.

2019

Introduction: Infections are among the most frequent complications in patients with hematological and oncological diseases. They might be classified as fever of unknown origin and microbiologically or clinically documented infections. Optimal duration of antimicrobial treatment is still unclear in these patients.Areas covered: We provide an overview on the management of febrile neutropenia in the perspective of antimicrobial de-escalation and discontinuation.Expert opinion: Patients with febrile high-risk neutropenia should be treated empirically with an anti-pseudomonal agent such as piperacillin/tazobactam. Several clinical studies support the assumption that the primary antibiotic regime…

Viability RT-qPCR to Distinguish Between HEV and HAV With Intact and Altered Capsids

2018

The hepatitis E virus (HEV) is an emerging pathogen showing a considerable increase in the number of reported cases in Europe mainly related to the ingestion of contaminated food. As with other relevant viral foodborne pathogens, real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is the gold standard for HEV detection in clinical, food, and environmental samples, but these procedures cannot discriminate between inactivated and potentially infectious viruses. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a viability PCR method to discriminate between native, heat-, and high-pressure processing (HPP)-treated HEV using the hepatitis A virus (HAV) as a cultivable surrogate. To thi…

A phase I dose-escalation of trifluridine/tipiracil in combination with oxaliplatin in metastatic colorectal cancer.

2017

TPS3626 Background: Trifluridine/tipiracil, also known as TAS‐102, is a combination of an antineoplastic thymidine‐based nucleoside analogue (trifluridine) and a thymidine phosphorylase inhibitor (tipiracil hydrochloride). The antitumor activity of combined trifluridine/tipiracil and oxaliplatin has been studied in gastrointestinal tumor xenografts, including a 5‐FU resistant subline, using a nude mouse model. This study demonstrated increased antitumor activity for the combination compared to trifluridine/tipiracil or oxaliplatin alone (p < 0.001) (Nukatsuka et al., Anticancer Res 2015). These data support the rationale for clinical use of the combination. We describe a phase 1, intern…

A phase I study of nintedanib combined with cisplatin/gemcitabine as first-line therapy for advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer (LUME-Lung 3)

2018

Abstract Background There are limited treatment options for squamous non-small cell lung cancer (sqNSCLC) and prognosis remains poor. The safety and pharmacokinetics (PK) of nintedanib, a triple angiokinase inhibitor, plus cisplatin/gemcitabine as first-line treatment for advanced sqNSCLC patients, were evaluated. Materials and methods A phase I, dose-escalation study administering drugs in a 21-day cycle: cisplatin (75 mg/m2, Day 1), gemcitabine (1250 mg/m2, Days 1 and 8) and nintedanib (Days 2–7, 9–21) were given for 4–6 cycles, followed by monotherapy until disease progression or adverse events (AEs). Two nintedanib doses were tested, 150 mg twice daily (bid) and 200 mg bid, to determine…

Optimization of PMAxx pretreatment to distinguish between human norovirus with intact and altered capsids in shellfish and sewage samples

2018

Shellfish contamination by human noroviruses (HuNoVs) is a serious health and economic problem. Recently an ISO procedure based on RT-qPCR for the quantitative detection of HuNoVs in shellfish has been issued, but these procedures cannot discriminate between inactivated and potentially infectious viruses. The aim of the present study was to optimize a pretreatment using PMAxx to better discriminate between intact and heat-treated HuNoVs in shellfish and sewage. To this end, the optimal conditions (30 min incubation with 100 μM of PMAxx and 0.5% of Triton, and double photoactivation) were applied to mussels, oysters and cockles artificially inoculated with thermally-inactivated (99 °C for 5 …

Stochastic sampling effects favor manual over digital contact tracing.

2020

Isolation of symptomatic individuals, tracing and testing of their nonsymptomatic contacts are fundamental strategies for mitigating the current COVID-19 pandemic. The breaking of contagion chains relies on two complementary strategies: manual reconstruction of contacts based on interviews and a digital (app-based) privacy-preserving contact tracing. We compare their effectiveness using model parameters tailored to describe SARS-CoV-2 diffusion within the activity-driven model, a general empirically validated framework for network dynamics. We show that, even for equal probability of tracing a contact, manual tracing robustly performs better than the digital protocol, also taking into accou…

2016

The growth of next-generation sequencing (NGS) datasets poses a challenge to the alignment of reads to reference genomes in terms of alignment quality and execution speed. Some available aligners have been shown to obtain high quality mappings at the expense of long execution times. Finding fast yet accurate software solutions is of high importance to research, since availability and size of NGS datasets continue to increase. In this work we present an efficient parallelization approach for NGS short-read alignment on multi-core clusters. Our approach takes advantage of a distributed shared memory programming model based on the new UPC++ language. Experimental results using the CUSHAW3 alig…

Correlation between work impairment, scores of rhinitis severity and asthma using the MASK-air ® App

2020

Background: In allergic rhinitis, a relevant outcome providing information on the effectiveness of interventions is needed. In MASK-air (Mobile Airways Sentinel Network), a visual analogue scale (VAS) for work is used as a relevant outcome. This study aimed to assess the performance of the work VAS work by comparing VAS work with other VAS measurements and symptom-medication scores obtained concurrently. Methods: All consecutive MASK-air users in 23 countries from 1 June 2016 to 31 October 2018 were included (14 189 users; 205 904 days). Geolocalized users self-assessed daily symptom control using the touchscreen functionality on their smart phone to click on VAS scores (ranging from 0 to 1…