We report measurements of the thermal conductivity of high-quality crystals of the cubic I-V-VI2 semiconductors AgSbTe2 and AgBiSe2. The thermal conductivity is temperature independent from 80 to 300 ...K at a value of approximately 0.70 W/mK. Heat conduction is dominated by the lattice term, which we show is limited by umklapp and normal phonon-phonon scattering processes to a value that corresponds to the minimum possible, where the phonon mean free path equals the interatomic distance. Minimum thermal conductivity in cubic I-V-VI2 semiconductors is due to an extreme anharmonicity of the lattice vibrational spectrum that gives rise to a high Grüneisen parameter and strong phonon-phonon interactions. Members of this family of compounds are therefore most promising for thermoelectric applications, particularly as p-type materials.
•The utility and validity of existing tasks of cardiac interoception is questionable.•The Phase Adjustment Task (PAT) has been developed to overcome these issues.•Participants adjust the phase ...between tones and heartbeats until they are synchronous.•Results show that the task is not subject to physiological or psychological confounds.•Scores are associated with empathy but associations with mental health are not robust.
Interoception, perception of one’s bodily state, has been associated with mental health and socio-emotional processes. However, several interoception tasks are of questionable validity, meaning associations between interoception and other variables require confirmation with new measures. Here we describe the novel, smartphone-based Phase Adjustment Task (PAT). Tones are presented at the participant’s heart rate, but out of phase with heartbeats. Participants adjust the phase relationship between tones and heartbeats until they are synchronous. Data from 124 participants indicates variance in performance across participants which is not affected by physiological or strategic confounds. Associations between interoception and anxiety, depression and stress were not significant. Weak associations between interoception and mental health variables may be a consequence of testing a non-clinical sample. A second study revealed PAT performance to be moderately stable over one week, consistent with state effects on interoception.
Abstract
Background
Previous studies showed that the epidemic of carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CR-KP) observed in Italy since 2010 was sustained mostly by strains of clonal group (CG) ...258 producing KPC-type carbapenemases. In the framework of the National Antibiotic-Resistance Surveillance (AR-ISS), a countrywide survey was conducted in 2016 to explore the evolution of the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of CR-KP isolates.
Methods
From March to July 2016, hospital laboratories participating in AR-ISS were requested to provide consecutive, non-duplicated CR-KP (meropenem and/or imipenem MIC >1 mg/L) from invasive infections. Antibiotic susceptibility was determined according to EUCAST recommendations. A WGS approach was adopted to characterize the isolates by investigating phylogeny, resistome and virulome.
Results
Twenty-four laboratories provided 157 CR-KP isolates, of which 156 were confirmed as K. pneumoniae sensu stricto by WGS and found to carry at least one carbapenemase-encoding gene, corresponding in most cases (96.1%) to blaKPC. MLST- and SNP-based phylogeny revealed that 87.8% of the isolates clustered in four major lineages: CG258 (47.4%), with ST512 as the most common clone, CG307 (19.9%), ST101 (15.4%) and ST395 (5.1%). A close association was identified between lineages and antibiotic resistance phenotypes and genotypes, virulence traits and capsular types. Colistin resistance, mainly associated with mgrB mutations, was common in all major lineages except ST395.
Conclusions
This WGS-based survey showed that, although CG258 remained the most common CR-KP lineage in Italy, a polyclonal population has emerged with the spread of the new high-risk lineages CG307, ST101 and ST395, while KPC remained the most common carbapenemase.
Previous studies reported controversial results about the efficacy of video-game based therapy (VGT) in improving neurorehabilitation outcomes in children with cerebral palsy (CP).
Primary aim was to ...investigate the effectiveness of VGT with respect to conventional therapy (CT) in improving upper limb motor outcomes in a group of children with CP. Secondary aim was to quantify if VGT leads children to perform a higher number of movements.
A cross-over randomized controlled trial (RCT) for investigating the primary aim and a cross-sectional study for investigating the secondary aim of this study.
Outpatients.
clinical diagnosis of CP, age between 4 and 14 years, level of GMFC between I and IV.
QI<35, severe comorbidities, incapacity to stand even with an external support.
Twenty-two children with CP (6.89±1.91-year old) were enrolled in a cross-over RCT with 16 sessions of VGT (using Xbox with Kinect device) and then 16 of CT or vice versa. Upper limb functioning was assessed using the Quality of Upper Extremities Skills Test (QUEST) and hand abilities using Abilhand-kids score. According to the secondary aim of this study a secondary cross-sectional study has been performed. Eight children with CP (6.50±1.60-year old) were enrolled into a trial in which five wireless triaxial accelerometers were positioned on their forearms, legs and trunk for quantifying the physical activity during VGT vs. CT.
QUEST scores significantly improved only after VGT (P=0.003), and not after CT (P=0.056). The reverse occurred for Abilhand-kids scores (P=0.165 vs. P=0.013, respectively). Quantity of performed movements was three times higher in VGT than in CT (+198%, P=0.027).
VGT resulted effective in improving the motor functions of upper limb extremities in children with CP, conceivably for the increased quantity of limb movements, but failed in improving the manual abilities for performing activities of daily living which benefited more from CT.
VGT performed using the X-Box with Kinect device could enhance the number of upper limb movements in children with CP during rehabilitation and in turn improving upper limb motor skills, but CT remained superior for improving performances in manual activities of daily living.
An integrated analysis of geomorphologic and structural data, offshore seismic profiles and local network seismicity, is used to shed light on the hitherto poorly known active deformation field that ...affects the Southern Apennines orogen in northern Calabria region. In the Southern Apennines, Middle Pleistocene waning of Miocene–Early Pleistocene thin-skinned frontal thrust belt motion toward the Apulian foreland to the NE was coeval to onset of regional uplift, which is documented by flights of raised marine terraces. Short-wavelength (∼
5–10 km) and amplitude (∼
20–50 m) undulations are superposed to the regional uplift (∼
100 km length and ∼
500 m amplitude scale) profile of Middle–Upper Pleistocene marine terraces on the Ionian Sea coast of northern Calabria stretching along the borders of the Sila and Pollino mountain ranges and across the intervening Sibari coastal plain. The secondary undulations spatially coincide with the last generation of ∼
W- to ∼
WNW-striking folds traced in bedrock and locally within Early to Middle Pleistocene continental to transitional deposits. The very recent activity of these structures is highlighted by a range of fluvial geomorphic anomalies and by involvement in folding and locally transpressional faulting of the Middle Pleistocene and younger depositional sequences submerged beneath the continental shelf. We argue that the local-scale, but pervasive undulations in the deformation profile of marine terraces represent shallow-crustal folds grown within a recent and still active transpressional field. A major structural culmination bound by fore- and retro-verging transpressional shear zones is represented by the Pollino mountain range and its offshore extension in the Amendolara ridge, and a further SW-directed transpressional belt is found in northern Sila and adjacent sea bottom. Epicenter distribution and focal solutions of low- to moderate crustal earthquakes illuminate the two NW-SE trending structural belts beneath the Amendolara ridge and northern Sila, where partitioning between thrust and left strike-slip motion occurs in response to ∼
E to ∼
NE directed shortening. A local ∼
NW-SE extension is recorded by fault-kinematic analysis on NE-SW striking fault segments parallel to the coast on the eastern flank of Pollino. These small-length normal faults do not form a through-going lineament, rather they accommodate the seaward collapse of the uppermost crust above the deeper shortening compartment. Conversely, the active transpression testified by geomorphic, structural and seismicity data is accommodated along deep-seated oblique back-thrusts that involve the Apulian foreland plate underlying the now inactive thin-skinned accretionary wedge down to near-Moho depths. In light of the tight interlacing between regional and local components of deformation affecting the marine terraces, we suggest that the large-scale uplift in this sector of Calabria may reflect whole crustal-scale folding. The novel seismotectonic frame reconstructed for this region is consistent with GPS velocities suggesting that large part of geodetic shortening detected between the Apennines and the Apulian block on the eastern side of southern Italy might be accommodated in northern Calabria.
•An instrumented gait protocol is proposed to assess Down and Prader-Willi children.•Down and Prader-Willi children present less gait stability than healthy controls.•Prader-Willi children display ...less upper-body stability than Down children.•Gait parameters correlate with clinical scales, mainly in Prader-Willi children.•Technology-based assessment can foster the design of personalized treatments.
Down (DS) and Prader-Willi (PWS) syndromes are chromosomal disorders both characterized by obesity, ligament laxity, and hypotonia, the latter associated with gait instability. Although these shared features may justify a common rehabilitation approach, evidence exists that adults with DS and PWS adopt different postural and walking strategies. The development of an instrumented protocol able to describe these strategies and quantify patients’ gait stability in the current clinical routine would be of great benefit for health professionals, allowing them to design personalized rehabilitation programs. This is particularly true for children with DS and PWS, where motor development is dramatically constrained by severe hypotonia and muscle weakness. The aim of this study was, thus, to propose an instrumented protocol, integrated with the clinical routine and based on the use of wearable inertial sensors, to assess gait stability in DS and PWS children.
Fifteen children with DS, 11 children with PWS, and 12 typically developing children (CG) were involved in the study. Participants performed a 10-meter walking test while wearing four inertial sensors located at pelvis, sternum, and both distal tibiae levels. Spatiotemporal parameters (walking speed, stride frequency, and stride length) and a set of indices related to gait symmetry and upper-body stability (Root Mean Square, Attenuation Coefficient and Improved Harmonic Ratio) were estimated from pelvis and sternum accelerations. The Gross Motor Functional Measures (GMFM-88) and Intelligence Quotient (IQ Wechsler) were also assessed for each patient. A correlation analysis among the GMFM-88 and IQ scales and the estimated parameters was then performed.
Children with DS and PWS exhibit reduced gait symmetry and higher accelerations at pelvis level than CG. While these accelerations are attenuated by about 40% at sternum level in CG and DS, PWS children display significant smaller attenuations, thus reporting reduced gait stability, most likely due to their typical “Trendelenburg gait”. Significant correlations were found between the estimated parameters and the GMFM-88 scale when considering the whole PWS and DS group and the PWS group alone.
These results promote the adoption of wearable technology in clinical routines to monitor gait patterns in children with DS and PWS: the proposed protocol allows to markedly characterize patient-specific motor limitations even when clinical assessment scores provide similar results in terms of pathology severity. This protocol could be adopted to support health professionals in designing personalized treatments that, in turn, could help improving patients’ quality of life in terms of both physical and social perspectives.
We present here the first attempt to understand the fast dynamics of an active basaltic volcano, namely Mt. Etna using soil gas radon measured in some sites located in strategic places around the ...volcano. Data were measured continuously from July 2015 to February 2017 and the raw signals were treated in order to filter out all possible periodic components that are normally due to non-volcanic factors, applying a method that does not require acquisition of other parameters, which are not always available. The residual signals highlighted seven anomalous changes, with radon values reaching levels from 2 to 5 times higher than the normal background. In six out of seven cases, anomalies were almost contemporaneous in all or almost all of the sites, indicating a common source for the observed radon variations. The pattern of anomalies suggests a transient wave-like propagation in the space/time domain, compatible with pressure-induced displacement of the gas. The observed patterns are most probably caused by the rapid upward motion of gas-rich magma into the volcano conduits, as almost all anomalies precede or accompany major volcanic events. In some cases, an alternative explanation could be the strong and sudden strain releases through earthquakes swarms, with consequent variations in the permeability of rocks at a large scale, given the apparent correlation between those anomalies and intense seismicity.
•In soil 222Rn activities were measured at four sites on Mt. Etna volcano.•222Rn signals were filtered from periodic components found with FFT analysis.•Residual signals nicely correlated with eruptive activity at Mt. Etna.•Anomalous 222Rn changes were modeled as transient pressure-induced waves.
Currently used CA15–3 and CEA have found their clinical application particularly in the follow-up of patients with advanced disease. Novel biomarkers are urgent, especially for improving early ...diagnosis as well as for discriminating between benign and malignant disease.
In the present study, we used a proteomic approach based on surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization–time of flight–mass spectrometry screening with the aim of identifying differentially expressed 2–30 kDa proteins in plasma of patients with malignant (65 cases) and benign (88 cases) breast lesions with respect to 121 healthy controls.
We found that the most promising SELDI peaks were those corresponding to hepcidin-25 and ferritin light chain. We evaluated the capability of these peaks in predicting malignant and benign breast lesions using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The results showed a good capacity to predict malignant breast lesions for hepcidin-25 AUC: 0.82; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.75–0.90 and ferritin light chain (AUC: 0.86; 95% CI 0.79–0.92). Conversely, a weak and satisfactory capability to predict benign breast lesion was observed for hepcidin-25 (AUC: 0.63; 95% CI 0.41–0.85) and ferritin light chain (AUC: 0.73; 95% CI 0.49–0.97). A significant association between HER2 status and hepcidin-25 was observed and the distribution of transferrin and ferritin were found significantly different in patients with breast cancer when compared with that of controls.
This study provides evidence that hepcidin and ferritin light chain level in plasma may be of clinical usefulness to predict malignant and benign disease with respect to healthy controls.
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