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Abstract Background Dental services are often overlooked within healthcare systems, despite their critical role in overall health. Socioeconomic barriers and disparities in insurance coverage frequently limit access to oral care, particularly among vulnerable populations like older adults. Objective To examine the impact of different health insurance types on the frequency of dental consultations among Ecuadorian senior citizens, aiming to highlight gaps in access to care. Methods Using the 2009 National Survey of Health, Well-being, and Aging (SABE), which aims to determine the health and living conditions of older individuals, this study analyzed the health insurance status and dental service visits of 4,565 older adults in Ecuador. Binary logistic regression was employed to explore the association between insurance type and dental-care utilization. Results In the sample, 76.50% of older adults had not visited a dentist in the past year. Insurance breakdown revealed 17.04% with general IESS, 9.59% with rural IESS, 2.23% with private insurance, 1.86% with ISSFA/ISSPOL, 1.86% with municipal insurance, and 69.66% were uninsured. Individuals with private insurance or ISSFA/ISSPOL insurance were 32% and 91% more likely, respectively, to seek oral care compared to those without these respective insurances. Conversely, uninsured individuals were 43% less likely to seek dental care than those with any type of insurance. Conclusion Health insurance significantly influences the frequency of dental consultations among Ecuadorian seniors, highlighting the need for policy interventions to ensure equitable access to oral care.

In this work, we use a mathematical model of the property listing task dynamics and test its ability to predict processing time in semantic and lexical decision tasks. The study aims at exploring the temporal dynamics of semantic access in these tasks and showing that the mathematical model captures essential aspects of semantic access, beyond the original task for which it was developed. In two studies using the semantic and lexical decision tasks, we used the mathematical model’s coefficients to predict reaction times. Results showed that the model was able to predict processing time in both tasks, accounting for an independent portion of the total variance, relative to variance predicted by traditional psycholinguistic variables (i.e., frequency, familiarity, concreteness imageability). Overall, this study provides evidence of the mathematical model’s validity and generality, and offers insights regarding the characterization of concrete and abstract words.

An agent-based model for semantic search and retrieval in memory is proposed. The model seeks to generate verbal fluency lists with properties similar to those generated by humans in the semantic fluency task. This model is compared to a random walk in a semantic network in its ability to adjust to the results of 141 undergraduate students in the semantic fluency task in eight different outcomes. We found that the agent-based model fits participants' results better than the random walk model. The results were consistent with optimal foraging theories, and the distributions of the total number of words, similarities, and frequency values were similar to those generated by participants. The potential uses of this model as a virtual environment to experiment with the search and retrieval process in semantic memory are discussed.

Summary: Botrytis cinerea is a phytopathogenic fungus. Traditional control using fungicides has faced challenges, prompting the exploration of sustainable alternatives such as biocontrol. Trichoderma atroviride, a promising biocontroller, is well-known for its mycoparasitism. However, the molecular processes involved in this fungal-fungal interaction, particularly regarding the defense mechanisms of the pathogen, have yet to be deeply studied. Here, we investigated the transcriptional defense responses of B. cinerea to T. atroviride. We focused on four B. cinerea transcription factors (TFs) differentially expressed during interaction with the biocontroller. Mutants lacking these TFs exhibit increased sensitivity to T. atroviride, with the Bcin07g06800 (BcMTF1) loss-of-function mutant being most susceptible. Genes predicted to be regulated by mycoparasitic transcription factor 1 were differentially expressed during this interaction. BcMTF1 influences B. cinerea’s resistance to mycoparasitism by regulating the expression of genes potentially involved in fungal defense against Trichoderma. The findings provide insights into the transcriptional processes underlying fungal-fungal interactions.

The new media technology tools and co-production processes used in the ongoing POR FESR Mobiquity – Shared Solutions for Safe and Inclusive Mobility project aim to increase the complexity of reading the city, identifying those who live the territory the interlocutor to build shared projects and improve the accessibility of urban services. The project investigates the theme of public transport accessible to all as an element of redesigning the city; through the application of transdisciplinary processes in the multicity, the project investigation is constructed through the relationship of quantitative and qualitative, objective and subjective data, in a decision-making ecosystem involving Administrations, the University, public transport companies and citizens, for the transition to the Co(mplex)city. Article info Received: 11/09/2024; Revised: 02/11/2024; Accepted: 04/11/2024

Amphibians are among the most threatened vertebrates globally, and their conservation status continues to decline. In the updated Global Amphibian Assessment (GAA2), the use of IUCN Criterion E, which projects extinction risks through quantitative models, highlighted southern Europe as a hotspot for salamander extinction risk due to the risk of invasion by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal). In particular, for five Italian salamander species, risk categories were elevated significantly based on Criterion E, from Vulnerable or lower to Endangered or Critically Endangered. This increased reliance on Criterion E raises concerns regarding its treatment of uncertainty, as these projections depend heavily on assumptions about Bsal spread, environmental suitability, and host dynamics. Limited exploration of alternative scenarios and reliance on extreme parameter values ​​may result in inflated extinction risk estimates. We emphasize the need for improved documentation of uncertainty and integration of diverse expert opinions in extinction risk assessments, to balance proactive conservation planning with robust scientific methodology.

WordListsAnalytics allows sounder analyses of data collected in Property listing tasks, Semantic fluency tasks (SFT), and other related methods by calculating sample sizes to attain a specified coverage and estimating population parameters that characterize those tasks. Relatedly, WordListsAnalytics calculates agreement probability between pairs of concepts, which gauges how similar are the listed properties and counts the number of clusters and shifts in SFT data.

Visual examination of nails can reflect human health status. Diseases such as nutritive imbalances and skin diseases can be identified by looking at the colors around the plate part of the nails. We present the AI-based NAILS method to detect fingernails through segmentation and labeling. The NAILS leverages a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network model to segment and label fingernail regions from fingernail images, normalizing RGB values to monitor tiny color changes via a GUI and the use of an HD webcam in real time. The use of normalized RGB values combined with AI-based segmentation for real-time health monitoring is novel and innovative. The NAILS algorithm could be used to self-extract and archive primary signs of diseases in humans, especially in rural areas or when other testing may be not available.

Abstract The response of older people to the COVID-19 pandemic has attracted much attention as they are at increased risk of adverse outcomes. A longitudinal study has shown that improvement in global cognitive, executive and language functioning in healthy older adults enrolled at the University of the Third Age appears to play a protective role against emotional dysregulation and mood changes during the pandemic. To date, no study has examined emotional dysregulation through COVID-19-related images using facial electromyographic recordings in healthy older adults. Therefore, we aimed to analyze the relationships between zygomaticus and corrugator reactivity, neuropsychological measures, and the affective dimensions of arousal, dominance, and valence. The results showed an unexpected association between higher zygomaticus activity and higher levels of apathy, depression, and anxiety. In contrast, increased contracture of the corrugator was associated with poorer performance on cognitive tests (global cognition, memory, executive functions) and physical status, i.e., walking speed. These results are consistent with the reappraisal of emotional stimuli in response to the challenges of the pandemic. Interestingly, COVID-19-related stimuli triggered the activation of bottom-up affectivity strategies associated with higher mood levels and interacted with top-down factors that play an important role in the dysregulation of cognitive control.

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km2 resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications.

An analysis of 483 remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives carried out along the Italian coast on hard substrata at mesophotic depths (40–200 m) allowed an overview of the rich sponge diversity (53 taxa) of the deep continental platform to be obtained for the first time. About 40% of the potential actual species diversity was recognisable using ROV, suggesting that this group is among the richest yet underestimated using this technology in contrast to other megabenthic taxa. Additionally, the study allowed us to gather data on the current basin-scale distribution and bathymetric limits of five common and easily identifiable demosponges with up to 55% occurrence in the explored sites: Aplysina cavernicola, the group Axinella damicornis/verrucosa, Chondrosia reniformis, Foraminospongia spp., and Hexadella racovitzai. Four of these latitudinal distributions were characterised by high occurrence in the Ligurian Sea and a progressive decrease towards the south Tyrrhenian Sea, with an occasional second minor peak of occurrence in the Sicily Channel. In contrast, Foraminospongia spp. showed a maximum occurrence on the offshore reliefs and a second one in the North–central Tyrrhenian Sea, while it was almost absent in the Ligurian Sea. Trophic and biogeographic reasons were discussed as possible causes of the double-peak distributions. The vertical distributions support a more consistent occurrence of all considered taxa in deeper waters than previously known. This suggests that they may more typically belong to the mesophotic realm than the shallow waters, owing to a more extensive sampling effort in the deeper depth range. The five target taxa are typical or associated species of seven reference habitats in the recently revised UNEP/SPA-RAC classification. However, they may create such dense aggregations that they should be listed as new facies in the abovementioned classification.

The occurrence and abundance of Astrospartus mediterraneus (Risso, 1826) have significantly increased in the last three decades in several areas of the Mediterranean Sea. In the Tavolara–Punta Coda Cavallo Marine Protected Area (NE Sardinia, Tyrrhenian Sea, Mediterranean Sea), 60 specimens were observed mainly on the granitic shoals of the Tavolara Channel, an area characterized by very intense currents and high sedimentation. The basket stars were mainly found living as epibionts of gorgonians (Eunicella verrucosa, Paramuricea clavata and Leptogorgia sarmentosa) and massive sponges (Spongia officinalis, S. lamella, Sarcotragus foetidus). We also documented 21 small specimens (3–20 mm in diameter of the oral disc) observed in June 2024 between 27 and 52 m depth on E. verrucosa and P. clavata colonies. The bimodal size-frequency distribution of these specimens suggested that, probably, specimens belong to two different reproductive events occurring in spring 2023 and 2024.

Background: Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is the primary cause of respiratory infections and hospitalizations in young children globally, leading to substantial disease burden and mortality. The aim of the present study was to review and provide updates on how the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have significantly influenced RSV epidemiology on hospitalized children due to RSV infection. A potential impact of the available preventive strategies on the same population were provided.Methods: All children aged 0–6 years hospitalized at Meyer Children’s Hospital IRCCS for RSV infection from September 2014 to March 2023 were retrospectively recorded. Seasonal trends before and after SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, age distribution, ICU admission and co-infections, comorbidities and prematurity were retrieved. Predictions on the number of hospitalizations avoided by the deployment of different preventive strategies were provided.Results: A total of 1,262 children with RSV infection were included in the study. The 70% of them had less than 1 year-of-age at the moment of hospitalization and almost 50% less than 3 months. In the post-pandemic seasons, a 317% increase in the number of hospitalizations was recorded with a significant increase in older children compared to the pre-pandemic seasons. ICU support was required for 22% of children, the majority of whom were under 3 months of age. Almost 16% of hospitalized children were born preterm and only 27% of hospitalized children had prior comorbidities. The rate of comorbidities among RSV hospitalized children increased with age. Nirsevimab prophylaxis could have prevented more than 46% of hospitalizations in this cohort. A preventive strategy addressing also children aged 7 months to 6 years of age with co-existing comorbidities would increase that rate above 57%.Discussion: The identification of RSV hospitalization-related features is informing the decision-maker for the deployment of the wisest preventive approach on a population scale.

Immersive technology, such as extended reality, holds promise as a tool for educating ophthalmologists about the effects of low vision and for enhancing visual rehabilitation protocols. However, immersive simulators have not been evaluated for their ability to induce changes in the oculomotor system, which is crucial for understanding the visual experiences of visually impaired individuals. This study aimed to assess the REALTER (Wearable Egocentric Altered Reality Simulator) system’s capacity to induce specific alterations in healthy individuals’ oculomotor systems under simulated low-vision conditions. We examined task performance, eye movements, and head movements in healthy participants across various simulated scenarios. Our findings suggest that REALTER can effectively elicit behaviors in healthy individuals resembling those observed in individuals with low vision. Participants with simulated binocular maculopathy demonstrated unstable fixations and a high frequency of wide saccades. Individuals with simulated homonymous hemianopsia showed a tendency to maintain a fixed head position while executing wide saccades to survey their surroundings. Simulation of tubular vision resulted in a significant reduction in saccade amplitudes. REALTER holds promise as both a training tool for ophthalmologists and a research instrument for studying low vision conditions. The simulator has the potential to enhance ophthalmologists’ comprehension of the limitations imposed by visual disabilities, thereby facilitating the development of new rehabilitation protocols.