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In the Mediterranean Sea, restoration of marine habitats has mostly focused on the endemic seagrass Posidonia oceanica. Despite several transplanting experiments, large-scale projects are rare, and their success is poorly known. The present work describes a restoration project of a large, degraded area in northern Sardinia (Italy) using cuttings harvested from a donor meadow that was destined for destruction due to harbor expansion. The receiving site was selected through a multidisciplinary study including acoustic mapping, ROV surveys, sediment assessment, and analyses of satellite images across ten years to evaluate the site suitability. Plants were manually uprooted from the donor meadow and cuttings were selected and transplanted within 24 h by environmental engineering techniques. The cuttings were transplanted onto degradable mats of natural coconut nets coupled with a double-twist steel mesh and anchored to the bottom. Overall, 7000 patches, each containing 20 cuttings, were transplanted in three periods: June–July 2022, October–November 2022, and February–March 2023. One year after the restoration, all the patches were in situ, with an overall cutting survival of 59%. The results are comparable to those of previous small-scale projects using the same technique and also endorse its suitability for the restoration of large, degraded areas.

L’articolo ripercorre i principali contributi di argomento lucreziano di Sebastiano Timpanaro, dalle note più brevi dedicate alla discussione di singoli problemi testuali, alla riflessione metodologica sulla stemmatica contenuta ne La genesi del metodo del Lachmann, fino a una più ampia interpretazione del poema a cui Timpanaro giunge nel saggio su Epicuro, Lucrezio e Leopardi, con particolare attenzione al problema del pessimismo lucreziano e della fedeltà di Lucrezio alla dottrina epicurea. In questi contributi l’interesse per Lucrezio si interseca con le principali linee di ricerca di Timpanaro, come la rivalutazione della tradizione indiretta, il rapporto tra critica testuale e interpretazione, l’interesse per Giacomo Leopardi e per il pensiero materialista. The article deals with the main contributions on Lucretius by Sebastiano Timpanaro, starting from the shorter notes dedicated to the discussion of detailed issues of textual criticism, to the reflection on the philological method contained in The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method, and the general interpretation of the poem to which Timpanaro arrives in the essay on Epicurus, Lucretius and Leopardi, with particular attention to the problem of Lucretian pessimism and Lucretius’ loyalty to the Epicurean doctrine. The article shows many connections between the Lucretian papers and Timpanaro’s main lines of investigation, such as the re-evaluation of the indirect tradition, the relation­ship between textual criticism and interpretation, and the interest in Giacomo Leopardi and materialist thought.

Galectin-3 (Gal-3) is a pleiotropic lectin produced by most cell types, which regulates multiple cellular processes in various tissues. In bone, depending on its cellular localization, Gal-3 has a dual and opposite role. If, on the one hand, intracellular Gal-3 promotes bone formation, on the other, its circulating form affects bone remodeling, antagonizing osteoblast differentiation and increasing osteoclast activity. From an analysis of the secretome of cultured differentiating myoblasts, we interestingly found the presence of Gal-3. After that, we confirmed that Gal-3 was expressed and released in the extracellular environment from myoblast cells during their differentiation into myotubes, as well as after mechanical strain. An in vivo analysis revealed that Gal-3 was triggered by trained exercise and was specifically produced by fast muscle fibers. Speculating a role for this peptide in the muscle-to-bone cross talk, a direct co-culture in vitro system, simultaneously combining media that were obtained from differentiated myoblasts and osteoblast cells, confirmed that Gal-3 is a mediator of osteoblast differentiation. Molecular and proteomic analyses revealed that the secreted Gal-3 modulated the biochemical processes occurring in the early phases of bone formation, in particular impairing the activity of the STAT3 and PDK1/Akt signaling pathways and, at the same time, triggering that one of Notch. Circulating Gal-3 also affected the expression of the most common factors involved in osteogenetic processes, including BMP-2, -6, and -7. Intriguingly, Gal-3 was able to interfere with the ability of differentiating osteoblasts to interact with the components of the extracellular bone matrix, a crucial condition required for a proper osteoblast differentiation. All in all, our evidence lays the foundation for further studies to present this lectin as a novel myokine involved in muscle-to-bone crosstalk.

Cystinuria is a complex autosomal recessive inherited disorder found in approximately one out of 7000 births. The disease affects the renal tubular reabsorption of certain filtered amino acids, i.e., cystine, lysine, arginine and ornithine. Owing to the defective intestinal transport of these amino acids, three types of cystinuria may occur. The disease occurs equally in both sexes, but males are severely affected and have a higher mortality rate. […]

Predicting electricity production from renewable energy sources, such as solar photovoltaic installations, is crucial for effective grid management and energy planning in the transition towards a sustainable future. This study proposes machine learning approaches for predicting electricity production from solar photovoltaic installations at a regional level in Italy, not using data on individual installations. Addressing the challenge of diverse data availability between pinpoint meteorological inputs and aggregated power data for entire regions, we propose leveraging meteorological data from the centroid of each Italian province within each region. Particular attention is given to the selection of the best input features, which leads to augmenting the input with 1-hour-lagged meteorological data and previous-hour power data. Several ML approaches were compared and examined, optimizing the hyperparameters through five-fold cross-validation. The hourly predictions encompass a time horizon ranging from 1 to 24 h. Among tested methods, Kernel Ridge Regression and Random Forest Regression emerge as the most effective models for our specific application. We also performed experiments to assess how frequently the models should be retrained and how frequently the hyperparameters should be optimized in order to comprise between accuracy and computational costs. Our results indicate that once trained, the model can provide accurate predictions for extended periods without frequent retraining, highlighting its long-term reliability.

L’allentamento delle restrizioni dovute alla pandemia da Covid-19 hanno portato, negli ultimi mesi, ad un significativo incremento dei dati relativi agli accessi al gioco. Un accesso precoce al gioco, specialmente durante la minore età, potrebbe portare ad una prematura insorgenza di disturbi da gioco d’azzardo, i cui effetti potrebbero protrarsi fino all’età adulta. L’adolescenza rappresenta l’età a cui viene associata la maggiore probabilità di insorgenza di dipendenze, perciò azioni di tipo preventivo sono fondamentali per affrontare questi potenziali disturbi. L’articolo si basa sull’analisi delle percezioni, comportamenti e abitudini di gioco di giovani rispondenti rispetto al fenomeno del gioco d’azzardo, con l’obiettivo di indagare il livello di conoscenza ed informazione rispetto al fenomeno e la consapevolezza rispetto ai rischi correlati. La scuola deve diventare in modo sempre maggiore un mezzo di divulgazione, sulla base del ruolo che ricopre nella società, fungendo da strumento di prevenzione all’insorgenza del fenomeno o da punto di riferimento per il fronteggiamento quando essi insorgessero, attraverso la loro intercettazione e l’indirizzamento verso un supporto professionale. - - - Parole chiave: gioco d’azzardo, ludopatia, prevenzione, dipendenza - - - - Gambling: a young people sample’s perceptions and behaviors - - - Abstract Last month’s Covid-19 pandemic restriction easing leads to a significant increase in gambling access rates in Italy. Early access to gambling, especially for minors, could lead to a premature emergence of gambling disorders, which effects could be protracted until adult age. Given adolescence is characterized by a major probability of addiction disorders, preventive actions are fundamental in order to face these potential disorders. The article is based on the analysis of perceptions, behaviors, and gaming and gambling habits of young respondents. It aims to assess the level of knowledge and information about gambling and the awareness about the correlated risks. The school system has to increase dissemination actions about the risks of gambling, as a preventive strategy and to be a reference point once addiction occurred, able to detect the occurrence and provide professional support to the youngsters. - - - Keywords: gambling, gaming, preventive actions, addictions

Coralligenous reefs are calcareous structures edified mostly by coralline algae that characterize the circalittoral zone of the Mediterranean Sea. However, in some cases coralline algae can constitute peculiar infralittoral biogenic reefs which have been studied less than the circalittoral ones. This study aims to contribute to the knowledge of infralittoral coralligenous reefs by describing their macroalgal assemblages on a large rocky platform off the Tuscany coasts, northwestern Mediterranean Sea. To this end, a multifactorial sampling design was used to describe the structure of the assemblages and to evaluate the variability of the system at multiple spatial scales. A total of 71 macroalgal taxa were found on the coralline algae. Macroalgal assemblages were well structured, with high biodiversity values. The dominant taxa included both photophilous and sciaphilous species, guaranteeing peculiar characteristics in these assemblages, above all if compared with the typical infralittoral and circalittoral macroalgal communities of the same geographic area. The assemblages showed greater variability at a small and intermediate spatial scale than at a large scale. Although infralittoral coralligenous outcrops constitute a peculiar system, they are still poorly understood and should not only be the object of specific studies but also be included in monitoring programmes.