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We study the Dirac equation coupled to scalar and vector Klein-Gordon fields in the limit of strong coupling and large masses of the fields. We prove convergence of the solutions to those of a cubic non-linear Dirac equation, given that the initial spinors coincide. This shows that in this parameter regime, which is relevant to the relativistic mean-field theory of nuclei, the retarded interaction is well approximated by an instantaneous, local self-interaction. We generalize this result to a many-body Dirac-Fock equation on the space of Hilbert-Schmidt operators.

Background It is now well established that factors (free or in extracellular vesicles) secreted by mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) are important mediators of MSC regenerative actions. Herein we produced the secretome (conditioned medium, CM) from MSC isolated from the amniotic membrane (hAMSC) and CM from the intact amniotic membrane (hAM, no manipulation or enzymatic digestion) in order to potentially identify an effective, easy and less expensive secretome to produce for potential applications in regenerative medicine. Given that immunomodulation is a key mechanism of action through which hAMSC contributes to tissue regeneration, we used a comprehensive panel of in vitro immunomodulatory tests to compare the CMs. Methods Amniotic membranes were either cut into fragments or used for hAMSC isolation. CMs from hAMSC at passages 0 and 2 were collected after a standard 5-day culture while CM from hAM was collected after a 2- and 5-day culture. Immunomodulation was assessed in terms of PBMC and T-cell proliferation, T-cell subset polarization, T-regulatory cell induction, cell cytotoxicity and monocyte differentiation toward antigen-presenting cells. Furthermore, we performed a comparison between CM obtained from single donors and pooled CM. We also assessed the impact of lyophilization on the immunomodulatory properties of CM. Results We demonstrate that CM from hAM has comparable immunomodulatory properties to CM from hAMSC at passages 0 and 2. Furthermore, we demonstrate that pooled CMs have similar effects when compared to CM from single donors used separately. Finally, we demonstrate that lyophilization does not alter the in vitro immunomodulatory properties of CM from hAM and hAMSC. Conclusions The results presented herein support the possibility to produce secretome from intact hAM and open the prospect to highly improve the scalability of the GMP production process while reducing the costs and time related to the process of cell isolation and expansion. Moreover, the possibility of having a lyophilized secretome that maintains its original properties would allow for a ready-to-use product with easier handling, shipping and storage. The use of a lyophilized product will also facilitate clinicians by permitting customized reconstitution volumes and methods according to the most suitable formula required by the clinical application.

Herein, we explored the impact of the lysosome dysfunction during the progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis type-1 (ALS1). We conducted the study in non-neural cells, primary fibroblasts (rFFFs), and bone marrow-mesenchymal stem cells (rBM-MSCs), isolated from the animal model ratG93A for ALS1 at two stages of the disease: Pre-symptomatic-stage (ALS1-PreS) and Terminal-stage (ALS1-EndS). We documented the storage of human mutant Superoxide Dismutase 1, SOD1G93A (SOD1*) in the lysosomes of ALS1-rFFFs and ALS1-rBM-MSCs and demonstrated the hallmarks of the disease in non-neural cells as in ratG93A-ALS1-tissues. We showed that the SOD1* storage is associated with the altered glycohydrolases and proteases levels in tissues and both cell types from ALS1-PreS to ALS1-EndS. Only in ALS1-rFFFs, the lysosomes lost homeostasis, enlarge drastically, and contribute to the cell metabolic damage. Contrariwise, in ALS1-rBM-MSCs, we found a negligible metabolic dysfunction, which makes these cells’ status similar to WT. We addressed this phenomenon to a safety mechanism perhaps associated with an enhanced lysosomal autophagic activity in ALS1-rBM-MSCs compared to ALS1-rFFFs, in which the lysosomal level of LC3-II/LC3I was comparable to that of WT-rFFFs. We suggested that the autophagic machinery could balance the storage of SOD1* aggregates and the lysosomal enzyme dysfunction even in ALS1-EndS-stem cells.

Monitoring animal welfare (AW) in pig farms requires both proper indicators and a feasible approach. Animal-based measures (ABMs) are well-established AW indicators. Furthermore, AW screening at the slaughterhouses could be useful for identifying problems on farm. The aim of this study was to evaluate ABMs at the slaughterhouse and, when possible, to compare these ABMs with those collected on the farm. The study was carried out in northern Italy in a commercial abattoir and in a sample of farms. Animal-based measures were recorded on pigs from 62 batches of 54 farms, during ante-mortem (n=10 085 pigs) and post-mortem (n=7952 pigs) inspections. Sixteen of 54 farms were selected to compare ABMs collected at the slaughterhouse with ABMs collected on the farm. Overall, 2295 pigs (mean pigs examined per farm 119±45) were inspected at the slaughterhouse (group S) and 420 pigs (mean pigs per farm 26±5) on the farm (group F). Non-animal-based measures were also collected at the 16 farms. Differences between groups S and F, at the animal level, were assessed by a two-tailed paired Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney test. Differences at the site of observation level (farm and slaughterhouse) were assessed by Fisher’s exact test using a hierarchical log-linear modelling for contingency tables. The most frequent ABMs at the slaughterhouse were manure on the body (47.7%), followed by dermatitis (28.0%), white spot (25.4%) and bursitis (24.7%). Recording ABMs at the slaughterhouse and on the farm usually yielded similar results; however, there were some exceptions. In particular, significant differences were found for non-uniformity of size (P

We study a 1D nonlinear Schrödinger equation appearing in the description of a particle inside an atomic nucleus. For various nonlinearities, the ground states are discussed and given in explicit form. Their stability is studied numerically via the time evolution of perturbed ground states. In the time evolution of general localized initial data, they are shown to appear in the long time behaviour of certain cases.

Stem cells are emerging as a therapeutic option for incurable diseases, such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). However, critical issues are related to their origin as well as to the need to deepen our knowledge of the therapeutic actions exerted by these cells. Here, we investigate the therapeutic potential of clinical-grade human neural stem cells (hNSCs) that have been successfully used in a recently concluded phase I clinical trial for ALS patients (NCT01640067). The hNSCs were transplanted bilaterally into the anterior horns of the lumbar spinal cord (four grafts each, segments L3–L4) of superoxide dismutase 1 G93A transgenic rats (SOD1 rats) at the symptomatic stage. Controls included untreated SOD1 rats (CTRL) and those treated with HBSS (HBSS). Motor symptoms and histological hallmarks of the disease were evaluated at three progressive time points: 15 and 40 days after transplant (DAT), and end stage. Animals were treated by transient immunosuppression (for 15 days, starting at time of transplantation). Under these conditions, hNSCs integrated extensively within the cord, differentiated into neural phenotypes and migrated rostro-caudally, up to 3.77 ± 0.63 cm from the injection site. The transplanted cells delayed decreases in body weight and deterioration of motor performance in the SOD1 rats. At 40DAT, the anterior horns at L3–L4 revealed a higher density of motoneurons and fewer activated astroglial and microglial cells. Accordingly, the overall survival of transplanted rats was significantly enhanced with no rejection of hNSCs observed. We demonstrated that the beneficial effects observed after stem cell transplantation arises from multiple events that counteract several aspects of the disease, a crucial feature for multifactorial diseases, such as ALS. The combination of therapeutic approaches that target different pathogenic mechanisms of the disorder, including pharmacology, molecular therapy and cell transplantation, will increase the chances of a clinically successful therapy for ALS.

International audience; We study modulational instability (MI) in optical fibers with random group velocity dispersion (GVD) generated by sharply localized perturbations of a normal GVD fiber that are either randomly or periodically placed along the fiber and that have random strength. This perturbation leads to the appearance of low frequency MI side lobes that grow with the strength of the perturbations, whereas they are faded by randomness in their position. If the random perturbations exhibit a finite average value, they can be compared with periodically perturbed fibers, where Arnold tongues appear. In that case, increased randomness in the strengths of the variations tends to affect the Arnold tongues less than increased randomness in their positions.

The aim of the present pilot study was to determine the allostatic load by analysing the hair cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone‑sulphate (DHEA‑S) of commercial pigs belonging to different farms having good overall animal welfare according to the CREnBA (Centro di Referenza Nazionale per il Benessere Animale – Brescia, Italy) assessment protocol. The study was conducted on 86 pigs belonging to three farms with a grade higher than 8 on the CReNBA welfare evaluation system. Hair samples were taken by shaving on sows 1‑10 days after weaning (Farms 1 and 2) and at the age of 8‑10 months (Farm 3). The hormone concentrations were measured by radioimmunoassay. From the box plots, it is evident that the hair cortisol concentrations of animals were different between farms. Conversely, the variability of the hair DHEA‑S concentration was similar between the F1 and F2 farms but much lower at F3. For all the variables considered (cortisol, DHEA‑S and cortisol/DHEA‑S ratio), F2 showed a higher hair concentration level than F1 (P < 0.05). The study’s results indicate that the measurement of cortisol and DHEA‑S in pig hair shows a different allostatic load between them, although the official welfare evaluation method assessed the farms as having good overall animal welfare.

The present study aimed to investigate whether acute pain associated with castration and tail docking of male piglets may modulate the expression of salivary microRNAs (miRNAs) and to explore their potential use as biomarkers. Thirty-six healthy 4-d-old piglets (Hermitage × Duroc) were randomly assigned to three groups: the first group (12 piglets) has been pretreated with anesthetic and anti-inflammatory drugs (ANA) and then castrated and tail docked; the second one (12 piglets) has been castrated and tail docked without any drugs (CONV); the third one (12 piglets) has been only handled (SHAM). Saliva was collected 10 min before (control group) and 30 to 45 min after the procedures. Salivary cortisol has been quantified. The expression concentrations of seven miRNAs, namely miR-19b, miR-27b-3p, miR-215, miR-22-3p, miR-155-5p, hsa-miR-365-5p, and hsa-miR-204, were measured and assessed as potential biomarkers of pain by quantitative Polimerase Chain Reaction using TaqMan probes. The area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the diagnostic performance of miRNAs. The concentration of salivary cortisol increased after treatment in CONV and ANA, while no significant variation was observed in the SHAM group. The comparative analysis demonstrated that the concentrations of salivary miR-19b (P = 0.001), miR-27b (P = 0.042), and miR-365 (P < 0.0001) were significantly greater in CONV as compared with pretreatment. The AUC of pretreatment vs. CONV and CONV vs. ANA were excellent for miR-19b and miR-365 and fair for miR-27b. Combining two miRNAs, namely miR-19b and miR-365, in a panel increased the efficiency of distinguishing between pre- and post-treatment groups. No differences have been identified between SHAM and ANA groups. mRNA potential targets of differentially expressed-miRNA were investigated, and genes related to pain and inflammation were identified: miR-19b potentially modulates TGF-beta and focal adhesion pathways, miR-365 regulates cytokines expression (i.e., IL-1, Tumor Necross Factor-alpha, and IL-8 cytokine), and miR-27b regulates macrophage inflammatory protein pathways (i.e., MIP1-beta). In conclusion, we demonstrated that the abundance of miR-19b, miR-27b, and miR-365 increases in the saliva of piglets castrated and tail docked without the administration of pain-relieving drugs. Further studies are needed to assess their potential during routine husbandry procedures and to extend their assessment in other stressful events, such as weaning or chronic pain.

Sustainable land management is at the heart of some of the most intractable challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. It is critical for tackling biodiversity loss, land degradation, climate change and the decline of ecosystem services. It underpins food production, livelihoods, dietary health, social equity, climate change adaptation, and many other outcomes. However, interdependencies, trade-offs, time lags, and non-linear responses make it difficult to predict the combined effects of land management decisions. Policy decisions also have to be made in the context of conflicting interests, values and power dynamics of those living on the land and those affected by the consequences of land use decisions. This makes designing and coordinating effective land management policies and programmes highly challenging. The difficulty is exacerbated by the scarcity of reliable data on the impacts of land management on the environment and livelihoods. This poses a challenge for policymakers and practitioners in governments, development banks, non-governmental organisations, and other institutions. It also sets demands for researchers, who are under ever increasing pressure from funders to demonstrate uptake and impact of their work. Relatively few research methods exist that can address such questions in a holistic way. Decision makers and researchers need to work together to help untangle, contextualise and interpret fragmented evidence through systems approaches to make decisions in spite of uncertainty. Individuals and institutions acting as knowledge brokers can support these interactions by facilitating the co-creation and use of scientific and other knowledge. Given the patchy nature of data and evidence, particularly in developing countries, it is important to draw on the full range of available models, tools and evidence. In this paper we review the use of evidence to inform multiple-objective integrated landscape management policies and programmes, focusing on how to simultaneously achieve different sustainable development objectives in diverse landscapes. We set out key success factors for evidence-based decision-making, which are summarised into 10 key principles for integrated landscape management knowledge brokering in integrated landscape management and 12 key skills for knowledge brokers. We finally propose a decision-support framework to organise evidence that can be used to tackle different types of land management policy decision.

For general dimension $d$ we prove the equidistribution of energy at the micro-scale in $\mathbb R^d$, for the optimal point configurations appearing in Coulomb gases at zero temperature. At the microscopic scale, i.e. after blow-up at the scale corresponding to the interparticle distance, in the case of Coulomb gases we show that the energy concentration is precisely determined by the macroscopic density of points, independently of the scale. This uses the "jellium energy'' which was previously shown to control the next-order term in the large particle number asymptotics of the minimum energy. As a corollary, we obtain sharp error bounds on the discrepancy between the number of points and its expected average of optimal point configurations for Coulomb gases, extending previous results valid only for $2$-dimensional log-gases. For Riesz gases with interaction potentials $g(x)=|x|^{-s}, s\in]\min\{0,d-2\},d[$ and one-dimensional log-gases, we prove the same equidistribution result under an extra hypothesis on the decay of the localized energy, which we conjecture to hold for minimizing configurations. In this case we use the Caffarelli-Silvestre description of the non-local fractional Laplacians in $\mathbb R^d$ to localize the problem.

In this paper we first prove a general result about the uniqueness and non-degeneracy of positive radial solutions to equations of the form $$\Delta u+g(u)=0$$ . Our result applies in particular to the double power non-linearity where $$g(u)=u^q-u^p-\mu u$$ for $$p>q>1$$ and $$\mu >0$$ , which we discuss with more details. In this case, the non-degeneracy of the unique solution $$u_\mu $$ allows us to derive its behavior in the two limits $$\mu \rightarrow 0$$ and $$\mu \rightarrow \mu _*$$ where $$\mu _*$$ is the threshold of existence. This gives the uniqueness of energy minimizers at fixed mass in certain regimes. We also make a conjecture about the variations of the $$L^2$$ mass of $$u_\mu $$ in terms of $$\mu $$ , which we illustrate with numerical simulations. If valid, this conjecture would imply the uniqueness of energy minimizers in all cases and also give some important information about the orbital stability of $$u_\mu $$ .

Key Points • A ‘business-as-usual’ approach to food production will continue to cause mass deforestation. This is detrimental for biodiversity, consequently impacting forest-dwelling communities who depend on forests for the direct provision of food. With the loss of forests comes the loss of farreaching ecosystem services, vital for many facets of food production relied on by the wider population. • SDG 2 and five of its targets (Targets 2.1–2.5) are closely related to forests. These five targets underscore the reciprocity between forests and SDG 2. Forest biodiversity is integral for nutrition and the ability to grow and harvest diverse crops. In turn, investing in small-scale farming systems and sustainable farming techniques can help conserve forests. • If we are to achieve SDG 2 sustainably, we need a reimagined food system that does not polarise agricultural production and the conservation of forest resources. This calls for land management that promotes the maintenance of biodiversity and integrated land-use planning. This is especially evident when examining the relationship between SDG 2 and the other SDGs, most of which are concomitantly contingent on each other.

Soil water erosion is one of the challenges that the European Union should deal with in the next years, due to its significant impacts on agriculture and natural hazards. In this work, a RUSLE (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation)-like model has been applied to estimate soil water erosion in a Northern Italian Alpine basin (Val Camonica) by combining meteorological forcing with topography, soil properties and land cover. In the traditional formulation, land cover classes are assigned categorized cover management factor (Cfactor) value retrieved from existing literature (C-Land Cover formulation). However, Earth observation data have been proven effective in tuning the protective effect of vegetation on soil erosion dynamics. Thus, this method has been compared with two approaches (C-Satellite and C-Land Cover+Satellite) based on satellite-derived NDVI values to discretize C-factor values at a pixel scale. The C-Satellite formulation is based on an exponential law for correlating observed NDVI and C-factor values, irrespective of land cover classes. The C-Land Cover+Satellite method is based on the integration of land cover classification with NDVI maps. NDVI values have been retrieved from Landsat-5 TM, Landsat-7 ETM+ and Landsat-8 OLI time series imaged from 2000 to 2017. Results of the application of the RUSLE-like proposed approach to estimate soil water erosion in an Italian alpine basin, have shown that integrating satellite-derived spectral information within the land-cover based C-factor estimate can generate a more reliable soil loss estimate related to seasonal and long-term land cover changes.

This paper describes the potentialities of data integration of high spatial resolution multispectral (MS) and single-polarization X-band radar for object-based image analysis (OBIA) using already available algorithms and techniques. GeoEye-1 (GE1) MS images (0.5/2.0 m) and COSMO-SkyMed (CSK®) stripmap images (3.0 m) were collected over a complex test site in the Venetian Lagoon, made up of an intricate mixture of settlements, cultivations, channels, roads, and marshes. The validation confirmed that the integration of optical and radar data substantially increased the thematic accuracy [about 20%–30% for overall accuracy (OA) and about 25%–35% for k coefficient] of MS data, and unlike the outcomes of some new researches, also confirmed that, with appropriate preprocessing, traditional OBIA could also be applied to X-band radar data without the need of developing ad hoc algorithms.

Here we describe two new species of genus Piper L. from Madagascar: Piper malgassicum and Piper tsarasotrae, the species names referring to the currently known distribution areas. These two species contribute, at least in part, to the production of local voatsiperifery pepper, probably mixed together with P. borbonense, and are therefore economically relevant as spices. We used a selected set of characters (those more easily observable on herbarium samples) for principal component analysis to assess the relative distance between the species, including the analysis of the autochthonous species of Piper known from Africa and Madagascar. In order to check the identity and assess the phylogenetic position of the two species, we also sequenced the chloroplast gene ndhF, the trnL intron, and the nuclear gene G3pdh. On the basis of these results we show here the relationships between these two new Piper taxa and the most closely related species within the genus (excluding P. heimii and P. pachyphyllum, for which only morphological characters were available).

Nepal is one of the poorest nations of the world and the Koshi Basin includes some of the poorest regions of this country. It’s farming system is subsistence agriculture, mainly rainfed, with crop productivity among the lowest in South Asia. Nepal is also severely impacted by climate changes, such as retreat of glaciers, rise in temperature, erratic rainfalls and increase in frequency of extreme weather. This paper describes the spatio-temporal evolution of cultivated land in Dudh Koshi during the last four decades (1970s-2010s), by mapping the farming of its four main cereals in the districts of Solukhumbu, Okhaldunga and Kothang from space. The analysis of satellite time series showed a 10% of increment in farmland from 1970s to 1990s, and about 60% in the following twenty years. With a shift of cropping to higher altitudes. Data belonging to of the second twenty years are strongly correlated with the population growth observed in the same period (0.97

The World Health Organization estimates that 100 thousand people in the world die every year from asbestos-related cancers and more than 300 thousand European citizens are expected to die from asbestos-related mesothelioma by 2030. Both the European and the Italian legislations have banned the manufacture, importation, processing and distribution in commerce of asbestos-containing products and have recommended action plans for the safe removal of asbestos from public and private buildings. This paper describes the quantitative mapping of asbestos-cement covers over a large mountainous region of Italian Western Alps using the Multispectral Infrared and Visible Imaging Spectrometer sensor. A very large data set made up of 61 airborne transect strips covering 3263 km(2) were processed to support the identification of buildings with asbestos-cement roofing, promoted by the Valle d'Aosta Autonomous Region with the support of the Regional Environmental Protection Agency. Results showed an overall mapping accuracy of 80%, in terms of asbestos-cement surface detected. The influence of topography on the classification's accuracy suggested that even in high relief landscapes, the spatial resolution of data is the major source of errors and the smaller asbestos-cement covers were not detected or misclassified.

International audience; In this paper, we consider a stationary model for a nucleon interacting with the $\omega$ and $\sigma$ mesons in the atomic nucleus. The model is relativistic, and we study it in a nuclear physics nonrelativistic limit. By a shooting method, we prove the existence of infinitely many solutions with a given angular momentum. These solutions are ordered by the number of nodes of each component.

Hydrocarbons are nonrenewable resources but today they are the cheaper and easier energy we have access and will remain the main source of energy for this century. Nevertheless, their exploration is extremely high-risk, very expensive and time consuming. In this context, satellite technologies for Earth observation can play a fundamental role by making hydrocarbon exploration more efficient, economical and much more eco-friendly. Complementary to traditional geophysical methods such as gravity and magnetic (gravmag) surveys, satellite remote sensing can be used to detect onshore long-term biochemical and geochemical alterations on the environment produced by invisible small fluxes of light hydrocarbons migrating from the underground deposits to the surface, known as microseepage effect. This paper describes two case studies: one in South Sudan and another in Mozambique. Results show how remote sensing is a powerful technology for detecting active petroleum systems, thus supporting hydrocarbon exploration in remote or hardly accessible areas and without the need of any exploration license.

International audience; We investigate the nonlinear stage of modulational instability in dispersion oscillating fibers in normal dispersion regime. We unveil a heteroclinic structure leading to the excitability of superbreathers and parametric amplification outside the linear gain bandwidth.

This paper describes the use of a new multi-image co-registration method tuned for SAR multi-temporal data collected with different orbits, viewing angles and polarization. Tests were performed using COSMO-SkyMed (X-band) and Sentinel-1 data (C-band) time series imaged in stripmap and spotlight modes. Results shows an overview sub-pixel accuracy also for the challenging co-registration of dual orbit image stacks (ascending vs. descending), where other methods fail.

International audience; We show that the nonlinear stage of modulational instability induced by parametric driving in the defocusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation can be accurately described by combining mode truncation and averaging methods, valid in the strong driving regime. The resulting integrable oscillator reveals a complex hidden heteroclinic structure of the instability. A remarkable consequence, validated by the numerical integration of the original model, is the existence of breather solutions separating different Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrent regimes. Our theory also shows that optimal parametric amplification unexpectedly occurs outside the bandwidth of the resonance (or Arnold tongues) arising from the linearized Floquet analysis.

International audience; We consider the orbital stability of relative equilibria of Hamiltonian dynamical systems on Banach spaces, in the presence of a multi-dimensional invariance group for the dynamics. We prove a persistence result for such relative equilibria, present a generalization of the Vakhitov-Kolokolov slope condition to this higher dimensional setting, and show how it allows to prove the local coercivity of the Lyapunov function, which in turn implies orbital stability. The method is applied to study the orbital stability of relative equilibria of nonlinear Schrödinger and Manakov equations. We provide a comparison of our approach to the one by Grillakis-Shatah-Strauss.

In 2006 the Italian and the Canadian Space Agencies started a collaboration to evaluate the feasibility of the Joint Hyperspectral Mission (JHM), a new mission for Earth Observation devoted to environmental applications. JHM was designed to operate with a �0 m resolution hyperspectral sensor able to collect 210 narrow spectral bands in the range of 400-2500 nm. This paper presents a study carried on for the Italian Space Agency during Phase A, aimed to suggest an optimal spectral setup for the land-cover key application. Just referring to the mapping of forest species, results on simulated JHM data suggested that an optimal configuration can be obtained using a 50 nm bandwidth.

Optical remote sensing is emerging among non-conventional geophysical methods for oil & gas exploration and mineral prospecting. Complementary to all traditional technologies such as seismic, magnetic, gravity or electric methods, multispectral imaging is able to detect long-term biochemical and geochemical environmental alterations, known as microseepage effect, produced by invisible small fluxes of light hydrocarbons migrating from the underground deposits to the surface. This paper describes a case study where satellite multispectral data were used to detect large-scale microseepage signals nearby Lake Turkana (Republic of Kenya). The satellite analysis highlighted the presence of invisible surface signals on top of several oilfields discovered only many years after the image collection.

We show that the nonlinear stage of modulational instability induced by parametric driving in the {\em defocusing} nonlinear Schr��dinger equation can be accurately described by combining mode truncation and averaging methods, valid in the strong driving regime. The resulting integrable oscillator reveals a complex hidden heteroclinic structure of the instability. A remarkable consequence, validated by the numerical integration of the original model, is the existence of breather solutions separating different Fermi-Pasta-Ulam recurrent regimes. Our theory also shows that optimal parametric amplification unexpectedly occurs outside the bandwidth of the resonance (or Arnold tongues) arising from the linearised Floquet analysis.

International audience; We investigate the nonlinear stage of modulational instability in dispersion oscillating fibers in normal dispersion regime. We unveil a heteroclinic structure leading to the excitability of superbreathers and parametric amplification outside the linear gain bandwidth.

We prove the uniqueness and non-degeneracy of positive solutions to a cubic nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) type equation that describes nucleons. The main difficulty stems from the fact that the mass depends on the solution itself. As an application, we construct solutions to the \({\sigma}\)–\({\omega}\) model, which consists of one Dirac equation coupled to two Klein–Gordon equations (one focusing and one defocusing).

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of transport-related stress on the liver gene expression of four acute phase proteins (APP), namely α1-acid glycoprotein (AGP), C-Reactive Protein (CRP), Serum Amyloid A (SAA) and PIT54, in turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo). A group of seven BUT BIG 6 commercial hens was subjected to a two-hour long road transportation and the quantitative gene expression of APP in the liver was compared to that of a non transported control group. The expression of AGP and CRP mRNA was found to be increased in animals slaughtered after road transport. The presence of AGP protein was also confirmed by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting. The results of this study showed that road-transport may induce the mRNA expression of immune related proteins. The finding that AGP and CRP can be upregulated during transport could suggest their use as for the assessment of turkey welfare during transport.

Multispectral remote sensing is an emerging technology for the oil & gas industry. Since its first application, Earth Observation has seen an enormous breakthrough in a brand-new field such as geosciences for hydrocarbon exploration: both the awareness of the microseepage phenomenon and data processing methods for its detection have greatly improved in the last years. This paper describes a case study of microseepage signals detection in the East Africa Rift System, onshore of Lake Albert, using multi-sensor satellite time series. Results clearly show that the spectral anomalies identified from satellite are closely related to the known oilfields and that the microseepage maps can provide new high-quality data to reduce exploration risk.

International audience; We study, both theoretically and experimentally, modulational instability in optical fibers that have a longitudinal evolution of their dispersion in the form of a Dirac delta comb. By means of Floquet theory, we obtain an exact expression for the position of the gain bands, and we provide simple analytical estimates of the gain and of the bandwidths of those sidebands. An experimental validation of those results has been realized in several microstructured fibers specifically manufactured for that purpose. The dispersion landscape of those fibers is a comb of Gaussian pulses having widths much shorter than the period, which therefore approximate the ideal Dirac comb. Experimental spontaneous MI spectra recorded under quasi continuous wave excitation are in good agreement with the theory and with numerical simulations based on the generalized nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation.

Mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPSII or Hunter Syndrome) is a lysosomal storage disorder caused by the deficit of iduronate 2-sulfatase (IDS) activity and characterized by progressive systemic and neurological impairment. As the early mechanisms leading to neuronal degeneration remain elusive, we chose to examine the properties of neural stem cells (NSCs) isolated from an animal model of the disease in order to evaluate whether their neurogenic potential could be used to recapitulate the early phases of neurogenesis in the brain of Hunter disease patients. Experiments here reported show that NSCs derived from the subventricular zone (SVZ) of early symptomatic IDS-knockout (IDS-ko) mouse retained self-renewal capacity in vitro, but differentiated earlier than wild-type (wt) cells, displaying an evident lysosomal aggregation in oligodendroglial and astroglial cells. Consistently, the SVZ of IDS-ko mice appeared similar to the wt SVZ, whereas the cortex and striatum presented a disorganized neuronal pattern together with a significant increase of glial apoptotic cells, suggesting that glial degeneration likely precedes neuronal demise. Interestingly, a very similar pattern was observed in the brain cortex of a Hunter patient. These observations both in vitro, in our model, and in vivo suggest that IDS deficit seems to affect the late phases of neurogenesis and/or the survival of mature cells rather than NSC self-renewal. In particular, platelet-derived growth factor receptor-a-positive (PDGFR-α+) glial progenitors appeared reduced in both the IDS-ko NSCs and in the IDS-ko mouse and human Hunter brains, compared with the respective healthy controls. Treatment of mutant NSCs with IDS or PDGF throughout differentiation was able to increase the number of PDGFR-α+ cells and to reduce that of apoptotic cells to levels comparable to wt. This evidence supports IDS-ko NSCs as a reliable in vitro model of the disease, and suggests the rescue of PDGFR-α+ glial cells as a therapeutic strategy to prevent neuronal degeneration. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved.

Understanding the physiology of human neural stem cells (hNSCs) in the context of cell therapy for neurodegenerative disorders is of paramount importance, yet large-scale studies are hampered by the slow-expansion rate of these cells. To overcome this issue, we previously established immortal, non-transformed, telencephalic-diencephalic hNSCs (IhNSCs) from the fetal brain. Here, we investigated the fate of these IhNSC's immediate progeny (i.e. neural progenitors; IhNSC-Ps) upon unilateral implantation into the corpus callosum or the hippocampal fissure of adult rat brain, 3 days after global ischemic injury. One month after grafting, approximately one fifth of the IhNSC-Ps had survived and migrated through the corpus callosum, into the cortex or throughout the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. By the fourth month, they had reached the ipsilateral subventricular zone, CA1-3 hippocampal layers and the controlateral hemisphere. Notably, these results could be accomplished using transient immunosuppression, i.e administering cyclosporine for 15 days following the ischemic event. Furthermore, a concomitant reduction of reactive microglia (Iba1+ cells) and of glial, GFAP+ cells was also observed in the ipsilateral hemisphere as compared to the controlateral one. IhNSC-Ps were not tumorigenic and, upon in vivo engraftment, underwent differentiation into GFAP+ astrocytes, and b-tubulinIII+ or MAP2+ neurons, which displayed GABAergic and GLUTAmatergic markers. Electron microscopy analysis pointed to the formation of mature synaptic contacts between host and donor-derived neurons, showing the full maturation of the IhNSC-P-derived neurons and their likely functional integration into the host tissue. Thus, IhNSC-Ps possess long-term survival and engraftment capacity upon transplantation into the globally injured ischemic brain, into which they can integrate and mature into neurons, even under mild, transient immunosuppressive conditions. Most notably, transplanted IhNSC-P can significantly dampen the inflammatory response in the lesioned host brain. This work further supports hNSCs as a reliable and safe source of cells for transplantation therapy in neurodegenerative disorders. © 2010 Rota Nodari et al.

BACKGROUND: Neural stem cells (NSCs) represent an optimal tool for studies and therapy of neurodegenerative diseases. We recently established a v-myc immortalized human NSC (IhNSC) line, which retains stem properties comparable to parental cells. Oxygen concentration is one of the most crucial environmental conditions for cell proliferation and differentiation both in vitro and in vivo. In the central nervous system, physiological concentrations of oxygen range from 0.55 to 8% oxygen. In particular, in the in the subventricular zone niche area, it's estimated to be 2.5 to 3%. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated in vitro the effects of 1, 2.5, 5, and 20% oxygen concentrations on IhNSCs both during proliferation and differentiation. The highest proliferation rate, evaluated through neurosphere formation assay, was obtained at 2.5 and 5% oxygen, while 1% oxygen was most noxious for cell survival. The differentiation assays showed that the percentages of beta-tubIII+ or MAP2+ neuronal cells and of GalC+ oligodendrocytes were significantly higher at 2.5% compared with 1, 5, or 20% oxygen at 17 days in vitro. Mild hypoxia (2.5 to 5% oxygen) promoted differentiation into neuro-oligodendroglial progenitors as revealed by the higher percentage of MAP2+/Ki67+ and GalC+/Ki67+ residual proliferating progenitors, and enhanced the yield of GABAergic and slightly of glutamatergic neurons compared to 1% and 20% oxygen where a significant percentage of GFAP+/nestin+ cells were still present at 17 days of differentiation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings raise the possibility that reduced oxygen levels occurring in neuronal disorders like cerebral ischemia transiently lead to NSC remaining in a state of quiescence. Conversely, mild hypoxia favors NSC proliferation and neuronal and oligodendroglial differentiation, thus providing an important advance and a useful tool for NSC-mediated therapy of ischemic stroke and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease.

International audience; We present an introduction to the orbital stability of relative equilibria of Hamiltonian dynamical systems on (finite and infinite dimensional) Banach spaces. A convenient formulation of the theory of Hamiltonian dynamics with symmetry and the corresponding momentum maps is proposed that allows us to highlight the interplay between (symplectic) geometry and (functional) analysis in the proofs of orbital stability of relative equilibria via the so-called energy-momentum method. The theory is illustrated with examples from finite dimensional systems, as well as from Hamiltonian PDE's, such as solitons, standing and plane waves for the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, for the wave equation, and for the Manakov system.

We report the initial results from a phase I clinical trial for ALS. We transplanted GMP-grade, fetal human neural stem cells from natural in utero death (hNSCs) into the anterior horns of the spinal cord to test for the safety of both cells and neurosurgical procedures in these patients. The trial was approved by the Istituto Superiore di Sanita and the competent Ethics Committees and was monitored by an external Safety Board. Six non-ambulatory patients were treated. Three of them received 3 unilateral hNSCs microinjections into the lumbar cord tract, while the remaining ones received bilateral (n = 3 + 3) microinjections. None manifested severe adverse events related to the treatment, even though nearly 5 times more cells were injected in the patients receiving bilateral implants and a much milder immune-suppression regimen was used as compared to previous trials. No increase of disease progression due to the treatment was observed for up to18 months after surgery. Rather, two patients showed a transitory improvement of the subscore ambulation on the ALS-FRS-R scale (from 1 to 2). A third patient showed improvement of the MRC score for tibialis anterior, which persisted for as long as 7 months. The latter and two additional patients refused PEG and invasive ventilation and died 8 months after surgery due to the progression of respiratory failure. The autopsies confirmed that this was related to the evolution of the disease. We describe a safe cell therapy approach that will allow for the treatment of larger pools of patients for later-phase ALS clinical trials, while warranting good reproducibility. These can now be carried out under more standardized conditions, based on a more homogenous repertoire of clinical grade hNSCs. The use of brain tissue from natural miscarriages eliminates the ethical concerns that may arise from the use of fetal material. EudraCT:2009-014484-39 .

Human neural stem cells (hNSC) represent an essential source of renewable brain cells for both experimental studies and cell replacement therapies. Their relatively slow rate of proliferation and physiological senescence in culture make their use cumbersome under some experimental and pre-clinical settings. The immortalization of hNSC with the v-myc gene (v-IhNSC) has been shown to generate stem cells endowed with enhanced proliferative capacity, which greatly facilitates the study of hNSCs, both in vitro and in vivo. Despite the excellent safety properties displayed by v-IhNSCs – which do not transform in vitro and are not tumorigenic in vivo – the v-myc gene contains several mutations and recombination elements, whose role(s) and effects remains to be elucidated, yielding unresolved safety concerns. To address this issue, we used a c-myc T58A retroviral vector to establish an immortal cell line (T-IhNSC) from the same hNSCs used to generate the original v-IhNSCs and compared their characteristics with the latter, with hNSC and with hNSC immortalized using c-myc wt (c-IhNSC). T-IhNSCs displayed an enhanced self-renewal ability, with their proliferative capacity and clonogenic potential being remarkably comparable to those of v-IhNSC and higher than wild type hNSCs and c-IhNSCs. Upon growth factors removal, T-IhNSC promptly gave rise to well-differentiated neurons, astrocytes and most importantly, to a heretofore undocumented high percentage of human oligodendrocytes (up to 23%). Persistent growth-factor dependence, steady functional properties, lack of ability to generate colonies in soft-agar colony-forming assay and to establish tumors upon orthotopic transplantation, point to the fact that immortalization by c-myc T58A does not bring about tumorigenicity in hNSCs. Hence, this work describes a novel and continuous cell line of immortalized human multipotent neural stem cells, in which the immortalizing agent is represented by a single gene which, in turn, carries a single and well characterized mutation. From a different perspective, these data report on a safe approach to increase human neural stem cells propagation in culture, without altering their basic properties. These T-IhNSC line provides a versatile model for the elucidation of the mechanisms involved in human neural stem cells expansion and for development of high throughput assays for both basic and translational research on human neural cell development. The improved proclivity of T-IhNSC to generate human oligodendrocytes propose T-IhNSC as a feasible candidate for the design of experimental and, perhaps, therapeutic approaches in demyelinating diseases.

Swine enzootic pneumonia is caused by a complex interaction between Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae (Mh), the primary infectious agent, environmental factors, and other infectious agents. In the last few years, the efficacy of numerous vaccines has been demonstrated in reducing losses deriving from enzootic pneumonia. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the field efficacy of a new vaccine (Myco-Suivax®, Fatro) administered at a single or double dose in the presence of disease, in an Italian farrow-to-finishing farm, where the long fattening cycle causes slaughter of swine at 160–170 kg of live body weight (LBW) and 9–10 months of age. The experimental trial was conducted in a farrow-tofinishing farm of 730 sows situated in Northern Italy, where problems of enzootic pneumonia had been identified in growing pigs. Three consecutive homogeneous groups of 300 piglets each were included in the study; these were assigned at random to one of the following treatment groups: - Group A (double shot): vaccinated twice at 7 days of age and at weaning (25 days of age) at a dose of 1 ml; - Group B (one shot): vaccinated once at a dose of 2 ml on the day of the end of the weaning period (60 days of age); - Group C: control (no Mh vaccination). The efficacy of the vaccine was based primarily on the pulmonary lesions associated with respiratory disease, using the method described by Madec and Kobisch. The overall weights at the end of weaning and at slaughter were also recorded, together with feed consumption in the interval between end of weaning and slaughter, to calculate Average Daily Weight Gains (ADWG) and Feed Conversion Rate (FCR). Slaughter was performed, for pig movement restriction reasons (outbreaks of MVS in the Lombardia region in 2006-2007), between 10 and 11 months of age. The animals which died during the trial were subjected to necroscopic examination and laboratory investigations (PCR) to highlight the presence of Mh. All statistical analyses were performed using the software SPSS 12.0.0 (SPSS, 2003). Necroscopic findings and laboratory investigations highlighted the presence of M. hyopneumoniae in swine of all the treatment groups. Myco-Suivax® was able to reduce pulmonary lesions, decrease the number of animals which died and improve weight gain and the FCR in both groups subjected to vaccination. The results appear particularly significant taking into account the late slaughter age (160–170 kg of LBW) and 9–10 months of age), in which pulmonary lesions due to M. hyopneumoniae have mainly regressed and where growth tends to at slow down. In the specific field situation in which the trial was conducted, the one shot vaccination, performed at 60 days of age, was the one able to supply the best zootechnical results.

This paper presents the results obtained from the analysis of one recent Landsat TM image for the study of the status of some glaciers on Eastern Italian Alps. Then these results are compared with a set of multitemporal Landsat images from the Eighties. A fuzzy set based classification technique permitted to quantify snow and exposed ice extents in glaciated areas. Integration with topographic information allowed to derive the elevation of glacier terminus, although the result is overestimated due to some problems with digital elevation data and frontal debris coverage. A comparison of front altitude changes data derived from satellite image processing with elevation measured during field surveys supports the knowledge of the size of glacier reduction of the last decades. On Aurine and Pusteresi Alps glaciers, the changes in the last twenty years result to be a reduction corresponding to the 40% of the glaciated surface in the '80s, but a lot of the glaciers are now characterized by a new extent debris coverage in the frontal zones.

Satellite remote sensing is the process of collecting information about the Earth surface from the space through the measure of electromagnetic radiation. Nowadays, remote sensing is a mature technology used to extract, analyze, and detect changes of geographic and thematic information over large areas, inaccessible sites, or where only limited knowledge is available. In this chapter, we describe how satellite’s data collected over Multan (Pakistan) have been used for mapping and monitoring the dynamics of the urban area. A multi-scale approach allowed to evaluate the urban growth of the municipality area occurred in the last 2 decades with medium-resolution Landsat-5/TM time series. Urban green plots and infrastructures (buildings and roads) have been mapped at the local scale of the historic Walled City with the state-of-the-art GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2 very high-resolution multispectral imagery.

Satellite remote sensing is the process of collecting information about the Earth surface from the space through the measure of electromagnetic radiation. Nowadays, remote sensing is a mature technology used to extract, analyze, and detect changes of geographic and thematic information over large areas, inaccessible sites, or where only limited knowledge is available. In this chapter, we describe how satellite's data collected over Multan (Pakistan) have been used for mapping and monitoring the dynamics of the urban area. A multi-scale approach allowed to evaluate the urban growth of the municipality area occurred in the last 2 decades with medium-resolution Landsat-5/TM time series. Urban green plots and infrastructures (buildings and roads) have been mapped at the local scale of the historic Walled City with the state-of-the-art GeoEye-1 and WorldView-2 very high-resolution multispectral imagery.