Candida glabrata Ste20 is involved in maintaining cell wall integrity and adaptation to hypertonic stress, and is required for wild-type levels of virulence

The conserved family of fungal Ste20 p21-activated serine-threonine protein kinases regulate several signalling cascades. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ste20 is involved in pheromone signalling, invasive growth, the hypertonic stress response, cell wall integrity and binds Cdc42, a Rho-like small GTP-binding protein required for polarized morphogenesis. We have cloned the STE20 homologue from the fungal pathogen Candida glabrata and have shown that it is present in a single copy in the genome. Translation of the nucleotide sequence predicts that C. glabrata Ste20 contains a highly conserved p21-activated serine-threonine protein kinase domain, a binding site for G-protein beta subunits and a regulatory Rho-binding domain that enables the kinase to interact with Cdc42 and/or Rho-like small GTPases. C. glabrata Ste20 has 53% identity and 58% predicted amino acid similarity to S. cerevisiae Ste20 and can complement both the nitrogen starvation-induced filamentation and mating defects of S. cerevisiae ste20 mutants. Analysis of ste20 null and disrupted strains suggest that in C. glabrata Ste20 is required for a fully functional hypertonic stress response and intact cell wall integrity pathway. C. glabrata Ste20 is not required for nitrogen starvation-induced filamentation. Survival analysis revealed that C. glabrata ste20 mutants, while still able to cause disease, are mildly attenuated for virulence compared to reconstituted STE20 cells.     

Standard output versus standard gross margin,a new paradigm in the EU farm economic typology: what are the implications for wine-grape growers?

A new farm economic typology has recently been introduced in the EU. This study compares the economic performance of wine-grape growers in four important quality wine areas of Sicily taking into account the different EU economic typology standards of standard gross margin (the old method) and standard output (the new method). The objective of this study is to identify the differences between the two methods and to ascertain the potential implications for small wine-grape growers’ profitability and their access to public support. We seek to determine whether restrictions can be identified that limit the potential benefits from rural development policies.

For this purpose, we applied the economic criteria of the EU to a representative sample of Sicilian wine-grape growers in order to compare the economic profitability of wine-grape farms in protected designation of origin areas. This comparative approach has allowed us to categorize the economic size of the sample in accordance with recent EU modifications and discuss the possible impacts that the adoption of the new economic criteria would have on access to the Rural Development Programme measures for wine-grape growers.     

Derivative FTIR spectroscopy for cluster analysis and classification of morocco olive oils

Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra were employed for differentiation and classification of olive oils from several producing regions of Morocco. A preliminary treatment of the FTIR data was done by a derivative elaboration based on the Savitzky–Golay algorithm to reduce the noise and extract a largest number of analytical information from the spectra. A multivariate statistical procedure based on cluster analysis (CA) coupled to partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), was elaborated, providing an effective classification method. On the basis of a hierarchical agglomerative CA and principal component analysis (PCA), four distinctive clusters were recognised. The PLS-DA procedure was then applied to classify samples from the same regions, picked in different times, or unknown olive oil samples. The model was optimised by applying the Martens’ Uncertainty Test that provided to select the wavelength zones giving the most useful analytical information. The proposed method furnished results reliable in classifying olive oils from different lands with the advantages of being rapid, inexpensive and requiring no prior separation procedure.     

Nutritional and sensory characteristics of “early” potato cultivars under organic and conventional cultivation systems

Potato production in several Mediterranean countries is focused on the “early” crop type, and is generally associated with intensive applications of farming inputs. Recently, the enhanced interest for environmentally-sustainable production systems has led to a major expansion in the organic farming sector. Due to the lack of data in the literature about the qualitative traits of organic “early” potato, we studied some nutritional and sensory characteristics of three cultivars (Arinda, Ditta and Nicola) grown either organically or conventionally. Overall, the organic farming allowed to obtain a product with a higher nutritional value due to higher total phenolic and lower nitrate content, and better sensory performance after frying (strong taste and crisp flesh). Moreover, the lower amount of soluble sugars and higher level of dry matter under organic farming is noticeable for the possible use of “early” potato for frying. Our findings also indicate as the cultivar choice is a key aspect determining the overall quality of the organic tuber.     

Oscillations of heart rate and respiration synchronize during affective visual stimulation

The objective of this study is to investigate the synchronization between breathing patterns and heart rate during emotional visual elicitation, that is, using sets of images gathered from the international affective picture system having five levels of arousal and five levels of valence, including a neutral reference level. Thirty-five healthy volunteers were emotionally elicited in agreement with a bidimensional spatial localization of affective states, i.e., arousal/valence plane, while two peripheral physiological signals, ECG and Respiration activity, were acquired simultaneously. The synchronization was then quantified by applying the concept of phase synchronization of chaotic oscillators, i.e., the cardio-respiratory synchrogram. This technique allowed us to estimate the synchronization ratio m:n as the attendance of n heartbeats in each m respiratory cycle, even for noisy and nonstationary data. We found a stronger evidence of cardiorespiratory synchronization during arousal than during neutral states.     

Impact of Oral Microbiome in Periodontal Health and Periodontitis: A Critical Review on Prevention and Treatment

The skin, oral cavity, digestive and reproductive tracts of the human body harbor symbiotic and commensal microorganisms living harmoniously with the host. The oral cavity houses one of the most heterogeneous microbial communities found in the human organism, ranking second in terms of species diversity and complexity only to the gastrointestinal microbiota and including bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses. The accumulation of microbial plaque in the oral cavity may lead, in susceptible individuals, to a complex host-mediated inflammatory and immune response representing the primary etiological factor of periodontal damage that occurs in periodontitis. Periodontal disease is a chronic inflammatory condition affecting about 20–50% of people worldwide and manifesting clinically through the detection of gingival inflammation, clinical attachment loss (CAL), radiographic assessed resorption of alveolar bone, periodontal pockets, gingival bleeding upon probing, teeth mobility and their potential loss in advanced stages. This review will evaluate the changes characterizing the oral microbiota in healthy periodontal tissues and those affected by periodontal disease through the evidence present in the literature. An important focus will be placed on the immediate and future impact of these changes on the modulation of the dysbiotic oral microbiome and clinical management of periodontal disease.     

Infrastructure-level traffic micro-simulation for probabilistic analysis of bridge loads

In state-of-the-art building codes, the traffic loads for the design or assessment of bridges should derive from a probabilistic characterization. However, because traffic depends on the vehicle flow peculiar to the transportation infrastructure of interest, the frequency of exceedance of code-assigned loads is factually unknown. This study presents a methodology to probabilistically characterize the traffic loads on bridges based on network-level traffic micro-simulation and its application to the A56, that is, the urban highway connecting Naples’ (Italy) districts. One year of traffic simulations, in conjunction with structural modeling of the bridges featured in the infrastructure, enabled the probabilistic characterization of the traffic-induced structural demand and the determination of the bridge-specific safety margins along the highway. The results of the study and of the application to A56 ultimately show that: (i) traffic micro-simulation appears to be a suitable approach to bridge-specific structural safety assessment; (ii) structural actions deriving from code-assigned loads tend to be conservative with respect to their traffic-simulation-derived counterparts; and (iii) structural demand induced by traffic loads can vary along the same transportation infrastructure.     

Road geometrical design out of standards: a preliminary study in a simulated context

Cognition, Technology & Work - When a road design solution is quite out of standards for the presence of insurmountable constraints, there is the need for an objective procedure aimed at...