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Among hard X-ray Galactic sources detected with the Swift and INTEGRAL surveys, those discovered as accreting white dwarf binaries have surprisingly boosted in number in the recent years. The majority are identified as magnetic Cataclysmic Variables of the Intermediate Polar type, suggesting this subclass as an important constituent of the Galactic population of X-ray sources. We here review and discuss the X-ray emission properties of newly discovered sources in the framework of an identification programme with the XMM-Newton satellite that increased the sample of this subclass by a factor of two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent evidence suggests that the effects of n-3LCPUFA might be mediated through epigenetic mechanisms, especially DNA-methylation, during pregnancy and early life. A randomized trial was conducted in 133 9-mo-old, infants who received 3.8 g/day of fish oil (FO) or sunflower oil (SO) for 9 mo. In a subset of 12 children, buffy-coat DNA was extracted before and after intervention and analyzed on Illumina-Human-Methylation 450-arrays to explore genome-wide differences between the FO and SO groups. Genome-wide-methylation analysis did not reveal significant differences between groups after adjustment for multiple testing. However, analysis of the top-ranked CpG-sites revealed 43 CpG׳s that appear modified with an absolute difference in methylation of ≥10%. Methylation levels at these sites were associated with phenotypic changes mainly in blood pressure. In conclusion, our analyses suggest potential epigenome effects that might be associated with functional outcomes, yet the effect sizes were small and should be verified by additional investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We submitted two groups of healthy adults either to right or left PPC tDCS. [•] We examined their performance in a suprasecond time reproduction task. [•] Cathodal stimulation upon the right PPC affected temporal accuracy. [•] Cathodal stimulation upon the left PPC affected temporal variability. [•] Results suggest that both left and right PPC play a role in time processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Aim: To report an outbreak of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Acinetobacter baumannii in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of an Italian university hospital. Patient risk profiles for acquisition of A. baumannii and measures used to control the outbreak are described. Methods: Antibiotic susceptibility of strains was evaluated by microdilution. Genotyping was performed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multi-locus sequence typing. Carbapenemase genes were analysed by polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing. A case–control study was designed to identify risk factors for acquisition of A. baumannii. Findings: A. baumannii was isolated from 22 neonates, six of whom were infected. One major PFGE type was identified, assigned to sequence type (ST) 2, corresponding to International Clone II; this was indistinguishable from isolates from the adult ICU in the same hospital. A. baumannii isolates were resistant to aminoglycosides, quinolones and classes of β-lactam antibiotics, but were susceptible to tigecycline and colistin. Carbapenem resistance was associated with the presence of transposon Tn2006 carrying the bla OxA-23 gene. Length of NICU stay, length of exposure to A. baumannii, gestational age, use of invasive devices and length of exposure to invasive devices were significantly associated with acquisition of A. baumannii on univariate analysis, while length of exposure to central venous catheters and assisted ventilation were the only independent risk factors after multi-variate analysis. Conclusions: This XDR A. baumannii outbreak in an NICU was probably caused by intrahospital transfer of bacteria via a colonized neonate whose mother was admitted to the adult ICU. Strengthened infection control measures were necessary to control the outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: The syndrome of fixed dystonia includes both CRPS–dystonia and psychogenic dystonia. The underlying mechanisms are unclear, but a high prevalence of neuropsychiatric illness has previously been reported. Methods: Clinical and neuropsychiatric follow-up study by telephone and self-administered instruments (HADS, SDQ-20, DES II, EQ-5D), on 41 patients with fixed dystonia after a mean of 7.6 (±3.6) years. Results: We obtained information on clinical outcome in 35 (85.4%) patients and neuropsychiatric questionnaire data in 22 (53.7%). Eighty-three percent were women. Thirty-one percent had worsened, 46% were the same and 23% had improved, of whom 6% had major remissions. At follow-up, mean duration of illness was 11.8 (±4.9) years and mean age 43.2 (±14.8) years. Except for 1 patient who was re-diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, the diagnosis remained unchanged in others. Forty-one percent had scores indicating anxiety and 18% indicating depression; 18% scored within the range of dissociative/somatoform disorders on DES II and 19% on SDQ-20. The mean EQ-5D index and VAS scores were 0.34 and 56.1%. Comparison between the 3 outcome groups revealed significant difference only in the EQ-5D (p =0.003). Only baseline CRPS predicted a worse outcome (χ 2 =0.006). Conclusions: Our findings revealed that the prognosis of this syndrome is poor, with improvement in less than 25% of patients, major remission in only 6% and continued worsening in a third. A high rate of neuropsychiatric findings was noted and new neuropsychiatric features had occurred in some. Average health status was poor. Of the baseline parameters, only CRPS predicted poorer outcome. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Point defects acting as trap levels were investigated on undoped, Ce- and (Ce, Si)-doped Y3Al5O12 (YAG) crystals by TSL measurements performed over a wide temperature range (10–800 K). Below room temperature, a composite glow curve was observed, whose intensity strongly increased after Ce doping. Moreover, Ce doping introduced new trap levels giving rise to glow peaks in the 100–200 K range. On the other hand, Si co-doping did not influence the low T glow curve in a significant way. The spectral emission of the TSL was found to be governed by the Ce3+ 5d–4f radiative transition, while defect related higher energy emission bands were detected only in the undoped crystal. Above RT, the glow curve was found to be much more influenced by Si co-doping since a strong increase of a glow peak at about 250°C was noticed. Scintillation time decays of Ce- and Ce,Si-doped samples are also reported and compared with TSL data. The significance of the results and the potential impact of defect states on the scintillation properties are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose Aim of this study is to find a starting point for gEUD parameters [1] in the Philips Pinnacle3 TPS to reach a comparable dose distribution to Target and saving as much as is possible the OARs irradiation in a prostate RT scheme. Methods and materials For 10 patients who underwent to prostate radiotherapy, two RT plans were optimized using for both a VMAT technique. For the first plan only physical parameter were used, instead for the other the biological gEUD parameter were also used. The TPS was Philips Pinnacle3 v9.10. Results For the Targets the two plans show an equivalent dosimetry in term of Conformity Index (COIN = ((V T,pi) 2 / (V T * V pi) , Homogeneity Index (HI = 100 * (D 2 % - D 98 %) / D pi) and Gradient Index (GI = V 50 % / V 100 %). Instead for the principals OARs, while the bladder and the femoral heads don't put in evidence substantial differences, for the rectum there is a significant decrease of absorbed dose. To optimize a VMAT plan by using the Pinnacle3 radiobiological function and obtain a dose distribution comparable to that based on a physical optimization, the following parameters have been set: When using VMAT optimization based on the gEUD, the following differences emerge: the programmed number of MU increases by over 40%; on average, the side of the equivalent square field decreases by more than 13%; the absorbed dose at the middle and lower levels of the rectum is halved. Conclusions The assumption that a normal tissue responds in serial manner leads to lack of control over the low- and mid-dose range, as the risk of complications is predominantly determined by the high doses. The optimization with cost functions based on the gEUD concept is straightforward and numerically expedient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Short tandem repeats (STRs) or microsatellites have been recognized worldwide as a powerful tool for human identification. They have become widely used in human identification especially in criminal cases and mass disasters. Police departments are often interested in cases where tissues are already decomposed and only do bones remain to let them perform laboratory analyses. Bone is the most resistant tissue in animal body to time depending degradation and putrefaction, but it is often hard to extract DNA from it because of its highly mineralized structure, which makes DNA extraction and/or amplification hard to carry out. We have performed human nuclear DNA extraction and STR typing in three different cases, on bones and bone fragments from long time dead persons found buried, in the sea, almost completely burnt and whose tissues were already decomposed. We report these caseworks as we would like to show how forensic scientists are improving their skill in identifying people whose corps have undergone several kinds of processes, even independently on the time passed and the level of putrefaction of their tissues. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In 1996, Van Oorschot and Jones firstly reported in scientific correspondence that short tandem repeat (STR) profiles could be obtained from cells left on different objects. Since then, forensic scientists have focused their efforts in isolating single cells as it can be extremely helpful in solving caseworks where sexual violence was concerned. Laser microdissection is a micromanipulation procedure allowing to cut off precisely the cells of interest from tissue samples or smears by a laser beam fitted with an optical microscope. We have harvested single sperm cells by laser microdissection using a Leica AS LMD (Leica Microsystems, Germany); laser setting, pulse laser intensity and laser alignment as well as recovery of the specimen have been properly fitted to the samples we were dealing with. Different tissue preservation, fixation, histological staining (Papanicolau, Nuclear Fast Red—Picroindigocarmine) methods and number of harvested cells for each sample have been evaluated as well. Finally, the genotype of sperm cells has been determined by STR typing, evaluating the sensibility of this forensic technique according to instrumental and biological abovementioned variables. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Isolation and identification of single cells from tissue samples or smears assume a great relevance in pathological and forensic applications; in this latter field, the possibility to identify a specific genetic profile can be obtained by short tandem repeat (STR) typing, allowing to achieve a scientific proof important in law courts. It is well known that DNA extraction may be performed from several tissue fragments, blood traces, spermatozoa as well as telogen hair. However, in the last case, few follicle cells are coupled to a great amount of keratin reducing the efficiency of DNA amplification. Recently, the introduction of laser microdissection technique has greatly improved the capability to select single cells without any cross-contamination. In the present report, we have performed a laser microdissection using a Leica AS LMD (Leica Microsystems, Germany), utilized on cutting the telogen hair in order to exclusively collect the lower part of the follicle and reduce keratin contamination. In this way we can accurately extract an adequate amount of DNA, successfully typed by STR profile. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL) properties of cerium and terbium doped SiO2 sol–gel glasses were studied after X-ray irradiation in the temperature range 10–700K. The role of Ce3+ and Tb3+ as recombination centers was shown. The existence of a distribution of trap levels was observed; the activation energies of such a distribution were calculated to extend from about 8×10−3 eV up to 1.8eV for both cerium and terbium doped sol–gel glasses. The effect of a post-densification thermal treatment on TSL properties was also analyzed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Radio-luminescence (RL) and wavelength resolved thermally stimulated luminescence (TSL) measurements have been performed on sol–gel SiO2 glasses, undoped (with high OH- or low OH-content) and rare-earth (Ce, Gd and Tb) doped in the temperature range 10–310K. Moreover, a comparison has been performed between undoped sol–gel and commercial glasses. In undoped samples RL spectra are characterized by emissions at 1.9eV, 2.4eV (only in high OH-content glasses) and 2.7eV at 10K; their nature is discussed and related to different intrinsic defects. Strong emission quenching is observed by temperature increasing. Besides similar intrinsic bands, the doped glasses RL emission spectra display typical emissions related to 5d–4f (Ce3+), 6P–8S (Gd3+) and 5D3–7Fj, 5D4–7Fj (Tb3+) transitions respectively, whose amplitudes increase by increasing the temperature above 150K. TSL measurements show the existence of glow peaks at ≈100K and 220K. The observed increase of RL rare-earth emission amplitudes above 150K can be explained by considering (i) the progressive decrease of competitive host matrix recombination channels and (ii) the free carriers trapping at defect sites during irradiation (monitored by TSL), whose stability strongly depends upon temperature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Sn-doped silica and SnO2:SiO2 glass–ceramics were produced by sol–gel synthesis. Charge trapping and radiative recombinations from ionizing irradiation were investigated in the 8–300K range. Three radioluminescence (RL) emissions were observed at 1.9, 2.3 and 3.2eV. Dose-dependence of RL shows that the 3.2eV emission grows during the irradiation. 2.3eV RL is the main process at low temperature, whereas it is a minor decay at 300K, as well as in phosphorescence and thermoluminescence. Glow curves show peaks at 80 and 200K. The results suggest that radiative decays and trapping processes occur in the silica network. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

CdS nanoparticles have been synthesised by adding tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulphide to water/sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate/n-heptane microemulsions containing CdSO4. Analysis of UV–Vis absorption spectra recorded at various times indicates that an initial rapid formation of CdS nanoparticles is followed by a very slow growth process which can be well described by a power law. The growth process is totally inhibited by the addition of an appropriate amount of bis(2-ethylhexyl)amine (BEA) leading to the formation of stable nanosized CdS particles coated by an oriented monolayer of chemically bonded BEA molecules. Depending on the BEA addition time, the growth inhibition can be achieved at any moment of the process leading to an easy and fine size control. The main advantage of this procedure is that the BEA-coated CdS nanoparticles can be easily separated from the reaction medium and dispersed in nonpolar media such as heptane and in polar media such as an aqueous surfactant solution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Normal incidence infrared (IR) absorption spectroscopy is often employed for the characterization of sol–gel materials. For inorganic SiO2 gel films, the main peak at ∼1070–1080 cm−1, due to the transverse optic component of the oxygen asymmetric stretch, has a shoulder (Sh) positioned around ∼1200 cm−1, associated with the longitudinal optic (LO) component of the same vibration, which appears to be intensified by film porosity. In the present work, the use of oblique incidence IR absorption spectroscopy at 45° and 60° off-normal clearly shows that the Sh band evolves into two separate components of LO character, a high frequency sharp peak at ∼1225–1260 cm−1, characteristic of the non-porous silica skeleton, plus an intermediate weaker band near ∼1140 cm−1, tentatively associated with the gel pore network. In addition, the use of oblique incidence spectroscopy has also revealed that the hybrid SiO2 gel network is structurally different from that of the inorganic gels, such that, even after densification of both SiO2 gels at 900 °C, the two types of networks still differ appreciably. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Parameter estimation of Fast Field Cycling NMR with quadrupolar enhancement region • Fast Field Cycling NMR model-free approach • Constrained nonlinear least-squares problems • L1-based regularization • Nonlinear Gauss-Seidel method • Automatic rule Fast Field-Cycling Nuclear Magnetic Resonance relaxometry is a non-destructive technique to investigate molecular dynamics and structure of systems having a wide range of applications such as environment, biology, and food. Besides a considerable amount of literature about modeling and application of such technique in specific areas, an algorithmic approach to the related parameter identification problem is still lacking. We believe that a robust algorithmic approach will allow a unified treatment of different samples in several application areas. In this paper, we model the parameters identification problem as a constrained L 1 -regularized non-linear least squares problem. Following the approach proposed in [ Analytical Chemistry 2021 93 (24)], the non-linear least squares term imposes data consistency by decomposing the acquired relaxation profiles into relaxation contributions associated with 1 H − 1 H and 1 H − 14 N dipole-dipole interactions. The data fitting and the L 1 -based regularization terms are balanced by the so-called regularization parameter. For the parameters identification, we propose an algorithm that computes, at each iteration, both the regularization parameter and the model parameters. In particular, the regularization parameter value is updated according to a Balancing Principle and the model parameters values are obtained by solving the corresponding L 1 -regularized non-linear least squares problem by means of the non-linear Gauss-Seidel method. We analyse the convergence properties of the proposed algorithm and run extensive testing on synthetic and real data. A Matlab software, implementing the presented algorithm, is available upon request to the authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore maternal cardiac deceleration capacity (DC), a marker of autonomic function derived from electrocardiographic (ECG) signals, in pregnancies complicated by intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) associated to IUGR (HDP-IUGR) or to appropriate for gestational age fetal growth (HDP-AGAf).Methods: Prospective single center case-control study conducted at Buzzi Children's Hospital, Milan. Maternal ECGs were analyzed by Phase Rectified Signal Averaging (PRSA) method to obtain cardiac DC in women with: HDP-IUGR, HDP-AGAf, severe-IUGR, mild-IUGR and uncomplicated pregnancies. IUGR was defined as abdominal circumference <5th centile; severe-IUGR was associated with umbilical artery Doppler pulsatility index >2 standard deviations. Non-parametric tests were adopted.Results: 269 women were recruited. Women with HDP-IUGR (n=35) showed significantly higher cardiac DC compared both to controls (n=141) (p=0.003) and women with HDP-AGAf (n=18) (p=0.01). Women with severe-IUGR (n=14) showed significantly higher DC than controls (p=0.01). Women with mild-IUGR (n=61) as well as women with HDP-AGAf showed no differences in DC compared to controls (both p=0.3).Conclusions: Women with pregnancy complicated by severe placental failure, such as HDP-IUGR and severe IUGR, show significant autonomic alterations, as indicated by elevated cardiac DC. On the contrary, pregnancy complications such as HDP-AGAf and mild IUGR show no impact on maternal autonomic balance. We present a new approach to explore maternal autonomic cardiovascular regulation that might reflect the severity of placental vascular insufficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphene/ionic liquids nanocomposite gels were synthesized by an electrochemical etching approach and fully characterized under a morphological and structural point of view. For this purpose, several analytical techniques were applied, as HR-TEM/EDX (High Resolution-Transmission Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis); FE-SEM/EDX (Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy/Energy Dispersive X-Ray Analysis); XPS (X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy); FT-IR (Fourier Transform-Infrared Spectroscopy) and electrochemical techniques. After the characterization study, nanocomposite-gel paste electrodes were assembled, exhibiting a selective and specific detection toward the caffeic acid oxidation. Better performances in terms of linear range of concentration (from 0.025 to 2.00 M), reproducibility (intra-; 1.40% and inter-electrode reproducibility-3.20%), sensitivity (3389/μA mM −1 cm −2 ), fast response time (2 s) and detection limit (0.005 mM) were obtained, in comparison with other chemically modified electrodes, described in literature for the caffeic acid detection. This nanocoposite-gel could represent a new prototype of miniaturized nanostructured sensors useful for the “ in situ ” quantification of an important molecule, having pharmacological properties, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, immunomodulatory and antioxidant effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]